| What your unconscious wants you to know is not | | | | consciously before, always beating myself up a little |
| often discovered from the perspective of the | | | | in a helpless situation. During the process, I felt an |
| personal ego. The entire dream is our creation but | | | | expansion in my heart almost literally. It bathed my |
| often we don't relate to the "bad guy" or the | | | | whole body in warmth. |
| "monster" or the "beautiful tree" from deep inside | | | | When we began fitting the hairpieces, I felt how |
| these figures. Through a slowly evoked visualization, I | | | | much I am juggling and changing roles in my present |
| lead dreamers into discovering an "Ah Ha!" moment, | | | | life. I am marketing my book, writing another book, |
| which has not been available to their conscious mind. | | | | growing my small business and rather passively |
| Some people write their dreams in shorthand, think | | | | looking for a life partner. Switching hats feels a lot like |
| about them for a time, look up references in symbol | | | | choices I have to make each day and hair and head |
| dictionaries and make uncertain guesses about | | | | often have to do with intellect and the thinking |
| meaning. This can be a valuable method but it works | | | | process. As a writer I can easily go bodiless, living |
| intellectually rather than intuitively. Since dreams come | | | | entirely in my head. When I moved to my head, I |
| from the unconscious, we need to use the right side | | | | actually felt my hair growing, which in turn felt like |
| of the brain, where reverie and dreams occur. With | | | | thinking. Hair has been associated with power as in |
| Image Work, we access the unconscious easily in a | | | | the story of Samson and Delilah. But too many |
| Theta brain state. By closing our eyes and moving | | | | choices, too many roles to fill out leaves me feeling |
| gradually, we revisit the dream imaginatively, embody | | | | uncertain and insecure as I think myself around in |
| and explore the feelings of the other people, strange | | | | circles. |
| objects, varying emotional atmospheres and | | | | My head felt confused and my thoughts, scattered. I |
| landscapes. This process takes the better part of an | | | | needed to make this feeling conscious so that I could |
| hour. | | | | accept it and forgive myself for self-judging. I am |
| It's important to move slowly and make conscious all | | | | doing a lot and so now I can consciously slow myself |
| the emotions that the ego has projected onto the | | | | down when I am overwhelmed. |
| other figures. We are multi-dimensional creatures and | | | | Finally, I embodied the doves, feeling their |
| have many subjective selves our ego doesn't make | | | | comfortable postures, their fluttering wings, their |
| available for us to know. As we move in the | | | | utter whiteness against the backdrop of a very blue |
| imaginative action, memories surface and associations | | | | sky, a sky I hadn't even seen in the dream where |
| may come in. Often the dreamer will want to tell his | | | | we were indoors. But during the dream work the sky |
| or her "story" and as a guide, I have to carefully | | | | was now glowing numinously behind the doves. |
| move them out of their heads deeper into the image. | | | | Suddenly I was able to feel reassured of my |
| The ego naturally resists losing control but by climbing | | | | connections to Spirit. I felt my way into roundness, |
| out of the ego and into the figures that the ego | | | | wholesomeness and the wholeness of these lovely |
| finds alien, the whole point of view shifts. In a | | | | birds. |
| question and answer format, the dream becomes a | | | | This dream was what Jung might have called a |
| conversation that allows the meaning to unravel in a | | | | "compensating" dream because outwardly, ego-wise, |
| non-intellectual, non-analytical manner through the | | | | I had been feeling disconnected and alone. Doves do |
| ego-alien aspects of the unconscious images. | | | | come in pairs and are symbolic of a loving process, a |
| Often we are able to recognize, own and integrate | | | | marriage, as well as Spirit writ large, as in The Holy |
| the image that a moment before was totally other. | | | | Spirit of my Catholic upbringing. In A Course in |
| This allows us to release the energy that was | | | | Miracles, of which I am a fan and follower, The Holy |
| trapped in the complex of that projection. | | | | Spirit is the messenger of miracles and it is to that |
| Whether it is a negative or positive image, these | | | | spirit that we are instructed to appeal for help in |
| designations are subjective-dreams just are what | | | | changing our mind from the way we have been |
| they are-and we're better off not judging them. We | | | | educated to believe in dark powers and a punishing |
| have dreams where our power, our hidden talents, | | | | godhead. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is feminine in the |
| our numinous potential are all projected onto other | | | | Gnostic tradition, and in several recent novels she has |
| figures and objects. When we realize they are part | | | | been portrayed that way. It is by the feminine |
| of us, we can move in and claim them, make them | | | | powers of intuition that we are invited at this time in |
| conscious elements of our lives and make choices | | | | history to restore balance to the last 2000 years of |
| and changes for the better. More often we have | | | | our over-patriarchal culture. The 21st century is |
| dreams that show the sadder, less empowered, | | | | known to astrologers to be the beginning of a |
| unsavory sides of ourselves because we easily | | | | millennium of the feminine way of knowing. |
| repress these. Yet by making these conscious, we | | | | Predictions indicate that men will grow into balance |
| release the stuck energy that is holding us back. | | | | with their feminine side and the feminine principle will |
| Taking several different points of view in several | | | | be at work in the powers ruling the world. These |
| directions we find deeper layers of meaning. We | | | | changes will come slowly but like the Woman Clothed |
| need only one fragment of a memory of a dream | | | | By The Sun in St. John's Revelation, we are pregnant |
| and yet that may be the repressed piece our | | | | with the new earth and the new heaven on earth. |
| consciousness has been missing. | | | | The idea that Cookie is about to wed could mean |
| Although I haven't seen her in over 30 years, | | | | that I am closer to balancing my male and female |
| recently I dreamed of a high school friend nick-named | | | | energy and I felt the anticipation of a becoming |
| Cookie. She was a magnanimous soul, always | | | | worthy bride about to turn a corner in her life. The |
| generous, loving and giving. In the dream it was her | | | | tangential meaning of being pregnant with myself is |
| wedding day, and we were preparing for the | | | | also relevant. (Moreover, the thought I might meet |
| wedding. I stood next to her in a bedroom as she | | | | someone new was hopeful, sweet as a cookie is.) |
| tried on various hats and veils. The funny thing was | | | | Dream images don't just translate to one meaning. |
| each of the headpieces was topped with a live dove! | | | | When we amplify them with associations and |
| We laughed and chattered together as we fitted | | | | collective meaning we see the many levels of the |
| them on her. | | | | dream. |
| I called a colleague who also trained with me in | | | | By keeping my eyes closed and staying close to the |
| Dream Image Work and asked her to lead me | | | | images, locating them in my body, I inhabited all the |
| through the dream in the question/answer format. | | | | layers of the dream. The indecisions of the hat/hair |
| Though she is 1000 miles away, we are able to work | | | | choices gave me pains in my head, but I could find |
| by phone. I lay down and shut my eyes, breathing | | | | self-forgiveness. I have been thinking too much. In |
| slowly into relaxation. I knew by describing Cookie's | | | | contrast, the jovial conversation with Cookie, our |
| personality that inside myself was an internalized | | | | laughing and joking, lightened up my head and moved |
| Cookie, a person capable of her best characteristics. | | | | my energy deeper down into my body, into my |
| This is what Jungian psychologists call a positive | | | | heart and belly. The bodies of the doves felt full and |
| shadow. | | | | balanced, sure of themselves, their wings about to |
| When I embodied Cookie and focused on my heart, | | | | take flight. I felt a kind of promise, a potential for joy |
| I could feel the depth of her love. It so happens I | | | | there and this had been a missing element in my life |
| am in a living situation with an ill mother and there are | | | | of late. |
| days I feel guilty that I am not doing enough for her. | | | | And, of course, the dove is a symbol of peace, as |
| When I embodied Cookie, I could make the | | | | opposed to the hawk of war. I'm hoping peace of |
| association and recognized the place in my life where | | | | mind is coming to the scatterbrained aspect of |
| I am truly giving my best. I hadn't acknowledged that | | | | myself. |
