I don’t know about you, but this is the time of year when my dream-life gets hopping. I make sure to have a journal and pen by my bedside, because my dreams increasingly have something to say that I want to absorb and recall and guide by.
Not that they don’t at other times of the year. But I find that as we plunge into the Crone time of the year, that my dreams increasingly speak directly to my deepest yearnings and questions, offering some pretty obvious insights and advice. At other times of year, my dream-life is often far my subtle, and exasperatingly mundane (or seemingly so).
Here’s how I tend my dreams.
At any time of year, when, in a dream I have a physical sensation that pulls me awake, I take time to enter the dream, recall the feel and details, and then I write it down. These dreams are my medicine dreams, the most potent and direct that come to me. The “pay attention! if you want soul-direction, or messages, or teachings, here they are!” dreams’. I’m not sure if I made an agreement with my subconcious to wake me in this fashion or not, but it’s only been in the past five years or so — during the time that I’ve seriously tended my dreams as ‘beings’ — that these dreams have taken place. These are the dreams that speak so eloquently to my heart, that when I wake up I sometimes feel like crying (and do) because I’m not there anymore, or feel so much excitement and gratitude and awe because I really have received something profound. Something that changes my understanding of my self or reality.
At various times over the past decade I have been earnest about recording my dreams (because, really, so much more reveals to you when you do–I often find puns and riddles in plain sight when I reread what I wrote about the dream, and reenter different parts of it). At one point I was waking up and recording dreams whenever I had them during the night. That was starting to make me crazy :-), so I made a deal with my subconscious: “I’m going to pay special attention to the dreams I have just before waking in the morning, so if you want to give me a particular message, put it there, or else make it really clear to me in some other way that I ought to take note of another dream!” That’s probably when I also started having my medicine dreams: if I had a particularly message-laden and potent dream in the Northeast of the night (the vision hours around 1:30 to 3:30am) — especially one that physically pulled me awake, then I’d write that one down too (well, usually I’m so wowed by the dream that of course I’d do that!).
I’ll write dreams down any time of the year, but here in October through early December I am far more attentive to doing so. When I’ve participated in Dream Circles it has always been at this time of year, so I think that has helped instill this rhythm. But there is also the natural rhythm encoded in this stretch of year. As we approach the cross-quarter celebrations of Samhain, Halloween, Day Of The Dead, All Saints and All Soul’s Days, we enter the mythic time when the veil between the realms is thin. It is the time, the old tales say, when we can speak to our ancestors, or to the spirits, or to the Soul of the World, or to the hidden realms of the self in far more direct ways.
Wandering with your dreams is like peeling away layers of reality. There is much to discover, and sometime it stings, and sometimes it’s not what you expected from the surface of it. You have to hold the “messages” lightly (don’t start taking yourself overly seriously as the result of dreams and visions!), but I always try to take some action during the day based on what I think the dream is telling me. As a way to honor the Dream and its visit, and to demonstrate that I am trying to listen–to it, to my deepest self.
I have at times felt deep longings and yearnings to have grown up in another place and time where messages from the natural world, and teachings from spirits would guide me in my medicine path. I realize in a “duhhh” moment that inner wisdom and teachings to my heart are available to me in dreams (as well as many other places). Taking an action, no matter how small, because of the richness and symbolism of a dream is my way of saying to dreams: I am listening. I want to learn, to deepen. I know I can deepen my medicine ways through dreams. I believe in the alive resonance that lies within our own souls. My treasure lies at my heart, and dreams can help me bring them forth in service to others, to the earth, perhaps even to the archetypes themselves. Who knows. (another question I’ll ask when I meet God after I die, I’ve got a whole list of ‘em!).
Sometimes I take a scene from a dream and detail it, imagining that it is a divination/inspiration card, from my own personal wisdom deck. I note the setting, the objects, the main character, the feel. Everything I can discern. Then I set about decoding the symbolism of each aspect of myself. I’ve thought that I could indeed create a personal wisdom deck based on scenes extracted from dreams.
What are dreams telling you these nights? Are they muttering or sighing to your soul? What might happen if you unpacked one of your dreams, spread out the images and symbols and words and let them soak into your waking heart?
It’s easy to start tending your dreams. You can do as I do, and just write down the last one of the night. Even if it’s just a snippet, or a feeling, evaporating as you try to grasp it, do so anyway. You are signaling to your dreams that you are ready to listen. Tomorrow night or the next it will become easier to recall a little more.
Write your dream down as if it’s happening right now. It is. If you start going somewhere else with the dream, into a landscape that you know didn’t just happen, just fly with it. Your dream is still conversing, singing a little into your waking-dreaming being.
When you’re done, reread what you’ve written. Regard the dream as a being, someone you’ve just met. Be curious. Be receptive. Ask some questions perhaps, and journal some responses. Or just be with the landscape of your dream and let the images work into your heart in their own way.
You might ask: what might I pay special attention to at this time?
Let the image float into you. Explore it. Unpack it’s own personal symbolism to you, or its more universal meanings. Literary references, even. Or a play on words.
You might ask: what simple action might I take because of this dream that will shape my life in a good way, in a direction I need or yearn to go? Then during the day, take that action.
My post today is one way I am taking action based on a dream!
In The Spirit Of The Dream
Diane Hillaire and Liz Brenneman–two wise women indeed from my village–lead dream circles. Read this article by Liz to find out more about dream tending, especially in a dream circle: In The Spirit Of Dream
I am visiting a friend at a well known wilderness awareness program. A gathering of students of all ages is taking place, and the founder of the program is present. Spontaneous groups of children and adults go up to this naturalist and he intuits an animal name for each person. I decide to join one of these groups and see what name emerges at this time. I’ve had several different nature names over the years from participating and assisting in these nature awareness programs–Northern Flicker, Raccoon, Great Blue Heron …. Each name was like making a new bird or animal friend. And of course I have my own true name, one that the forest gave me. What name will emerge now?
