For me,
it's akin to being stranded in a semi-dark magic labyrinth with Sherlock
Holmes, his cleaning lady and a thick guide book left by a Jungian
elf.
The process
cajoles me to clean up my act and unravel a mystery or two, then voila!
I see the light. Again and again this cycle repeats over the four
weeks of intensive spiraling towards greater understanding. This is
filled with the sweat of hard work and the fun of the quest.
Dreams
Realizations is not for namby-pamby dreamers or those who want instant
results to their question. You have to work persistently and keep
applying what you learn, but that's the secret of its success.
I should
know. I've done six of them in the last few years. Each was unique
in what it gave me and helpful in a way that sparked me to USE the
insights.
A typical
session has me plunked down in front of my trusty word processor,
geared up for the four hour session I know to be necessary. My previous
week's dreams are eagerly waiting to be entered and creatively played
with...following the directions in the workbook.
I find
it best to come to each session with no preconceptions and a sense
of innocence about where all this may take me. This is especially
true of the "Inspirational Writing," where you just let
it all hang out and fly with your fantasies.
Each
session usually goes great till about the third hour, by which time
I'm bone-weary. I want to go to bed. I ask myself, "Isn't it
time to clean out the dog bowl?" or "Better go to the bathroom
(again)" and ultimately, "Gadzooks, why am I doing this
to myself when I could be watching Johnny Carson?"
But like
a good dream-trooper, I take a stretch break then doggedly persist,
with the knowledge that somewhere in that last hour I will have some
of the most helpful breakthroughs. And no wonder! My defenses have
already brushed their teeth and gone to bed, leaving the rest of me
open to what I really need to hear. I suspect this is part of the
plan of how the workbook is set up to do its magic.
Now about
this workbook...how does it work and why does it work? I see it as
a remarkable method for enticing my "intuitive knowing"
to the surface where I can DO something with it, and therefore feel
better about myself.
Each
of the four weekly sessions is an adventure unto itself, although
obviously connected with what came before. Initially, the most potent,
image-exciting dream aspects are drawn out and experienced from various
perspectives, in order to see the uppermost concerns of the dream
and how this might coincide with waking-life concerns and questions.
From
this, I come up with my "Best Guess" solution to my quest
and take some ACTION every day till the next session, based on what
I've just learned.
I find
this action part a bit tough to follow sometimes, and have been known
to say such rationalizing things as, "Henry's full of it...he's
an action-nut...I've got better things to do." Then I pull myself
up by the old bootstraps again and do enough of it apparently, because
I DO get results.
The second
session is geared at flushing out mistaken notions, if there are any,
from the first session. One of my favorite techniques is called "Personal
Symbol Translation," where I write out spontaneous thoughts on
what each symbol means to me, then rewrite the dream by inserting
these sentences in place of the original symbols.
This
technique always astounds me. The final version is as if written by
another person (or at least my Higher Self) and has layers of insights
not visible to me at the start. This process, which incorporates Inspirational
Writing, manages to bypass the logical mind and zoom right into the
intuitive mind where our truest answers lie.
Now these
latest threads of understanding are woven in with the previous thoughts
and a new "Best Guess" on how to solve the quest (although
the initial quest may have also changed by this point) is born and
hopefully acted upon during the coming week.
The third
week's session is what I consider the climax. My favorite week! This
is where things start coming together for me and I see the light at
the end of the tunnel. This is the "Searching with New Eyes"
week, and there's lots of dialogue with enticing dream images. Yes,
you talk to people and things in your dream as if they were real (aren't
they?!) and let them give you some answers.
It's
also time to relive a peak experience--a time where I felt wonderful--
and see what relevancy this has now. I contemplate on how others will
be affected by the fulfillment of my quest, then I put all this together
and see if it suggests new ways to deal with my problem. It usually
does, and up comes the Best Guess for the final week.
The end
is in sight (insight). "Taking Stock" is the key for the
fourth week. After reviewing and evaluating everything so far, I have
a chat with a "Wisdom Source" within me who is now quite
eager to be known. This is the final zinger for me and the last pieces
of the present puzzle fall beautifully into place.
It's
fun to celebrate all this good stuff by writing a poem or doing a
painting (or something else tangible) based on the essence of what
has been discovered. Stick this on the fridge or someplace where you
can see it often. It has power. It shows me just how much creative
intelligence I have inside myself, just waiting to be recognized and
used. That's the best part of the Dream Realizations experience and
why I have gone on this 28-day Dream Quest so many times. I hope you
too enjoy your quest and realize your dreams!
A decade
or so has passed since writing up my Dream
Quest experiences for Henry and from this
perspective it's easier than ever to see how my dreams have inspired
and profoundly guided my life. They remain my very best Inner Friends.
The dream
work/play I have enjoyed and sweated through with Henry lo those many
years is paying off big time now. Dream Questing vigorously primed
my dream pump and the results excite me no end.
For example,
a couple of years ago I designed and self-published my own Dream Treasure Cards (DTC).
A dream which I titled, Gearing Up,
prompted this adventure. My friend, Joanne, from our Juicy
Dreamers group asked me, with a glint in
her eye, “OK, Noreen, what are you gearing up for? Before I could
stop myself, I blurted out, “To write my own dream book of course.”
Let it
be known that Henry has taught me well to take some action on important
dreams, to honor them. Excitement coursed through me as I planned
a week retreat to work on my dream book, only to find by the second
day that I bogged down and felt overwhelmed by the continued prospect
of digging through my 18 voluminous journals of recorded dreams for
ideas. So I stopped everything. I meditated and soon an inner voice
quietly suggested, “Make dream cards from your favorite dream art.”
WOW! I felt energy surge through my body with every cell singing,
“Yes, yes, yes!”
By the
end of that retreat week I had finished 10 colorful dream cards. By
the end of the summer I'd completed the whole deck of 50 cards. This
was such a labor of love that I hardly remember the immense amount
of work it took to do this. From the beginning, my intention was solely
to create these cards for myself … after all, I reasoned, who else
would give a rat's pitootie about my dream images. Surprise! As I
showed these cards to a few of my friends and students, it became
obvious something in these dream card images resonated with some other
people. This delighted me.
Sparked
by this interest, the latent entrepreneur in me eagerly sprang into
action. Dream
Treasure Cards were now for sale. I hand-sewed
little pouches for each set of cards and included a little Traveler's
Guide booklet. The most fulfilling aspect
of this whole adventure is the continued feedback I receive from ‘happy
customers,' telling me of the value, fun and guidance they experience
from their cards. Nothing could please me more.
If
you would like to know more about the making of DTC, the stories
behind some of these dream cards, and receive encouragement
towards making your own cards, visit my website at
Dream
Network
|
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In the wake
of the success of DTC and requests from people about how they could
make their own cards, I self-published another book in 2000, The
Tao of Card-Making … Creative Ways of Sharing Inner Visions”
This book spotlights the unique card-making experiences of 8 people
and how this experience enhanced their lives.
Lest
you think I gave up on the idea of writing my dream book the
initial suggestion from my Gearing
Up dream. Not so! The first draft
is nearly completed on my next self-published book, Drawing
Out Your Dreaming Soul … The Dreams from Whence Came the Dream Treasure
Cards.
Now I
understand why I was guided to create the cards first to give
me a focus for this forth-coming dream book. I have the photo for
the book cover all ready. It's one of my favorite dream cards, The
Magician of Dreams. So, I say, let the magic
continue.
