The Heart of Dreaming
There’s a sense of knowing you’re dreaming when you’re dreaming, and then there’s the bliss of simply dreaming. The two aren’t necessarily at odds, but they can be if we try to inject techniques to control the process. Workshops, seminars, classes, and teachings abound on how to dream, control your dreams, and be awake while you’re dreaming. When these dream attitudes and practices are mentioned, a gritty anxiety crawls up my spine and goes into my torso.
Dreams are among nature’s most wondrous forces. As a teenager, I first encountered the deep realms of the unconscious mind. It was through a dream that I was prompted to become a depth psychologist. Exploring the profound depths of the mind, both in therapy and writing, has since felt as natural as breathing. In fact, the thought of not practicing therapy and stopping my writing causes my breath to catch. Therapy and writing originate from the realm of images and symbols at work in both waking and dreaming states, and theirs is a life-giving force.
Yes, we dream while awake as well as when we sleep. Waking dreams are what mystics and sages have referred to as visions. With our eyes open, images drift through our consciousness. As you pay attention to them, you’ll notice that they occur more frequently. The unconscious, when given time and devotion, offers a steady stream of insights and visions. Whether our eyes are open during the day or closed while sleeping, images flow, and their significance addresses daily realities and ongoing potentials. What we need to see and what would benefit us to see is revealed through images and symbols from the unconscious surfacing to the conscious mind.
The unconscious evades control as it dwells in the deep realms of the soul and lofty planes of spirit. The prophet from Nazareth taught that the spirit moves as it wishes. We dream far more than we consciously remember, and it is enough sustenance for the day to know the dreams we can easily recall. There is no need for force, contrivance, or control. Dream images and symbols emerge in their own time and manner, bringing their own wisdom.
We dwell in the heart of dreaming when openness guides our way, and trust illuminates our path. There is no need for prescribed steps to achieve “effective dreaming” or methods for becoming lucid while dreaming and controlling outcomes. Techniques do not represent the spirit that flows freely, as it wills and how it wills. The heart of dreaming resides naturally within a dreamer who nurtures an attitude of openness and devotion to the unconscious mind. It is a realm of creative spirits and meaningful encounters with guiding energies and transformative powers from personal and transpersonal dimensions.
When I write, practice therapy, and live life, images flow. I can be in the midst of a conversation with colleagues, friends, family, or patients, and spontaneous images flow along the white screen of my mind. I write about it in my metaphysical novels. You’ll discover that the images relate to the person you’re with, the nature of the interaction, and the situation at that moment. Meaningful insights are birthed from sleeping dreams and waking visions. They’re nature’s way of guiding us along the path of life.
You know you’ve hit on the meaning of a dream or waking vision when things “click.” There’s an emotional resonance. American psychologist William James’ work has always resonated with me regarding the nature of genuine mystic experiences as helpful and practical. This holds true for understanding dreams and waking visions as well. It is both helpful and practical. There’s no room for demeaning others or oneself; instead, there’s life-giving insight and practical assistance. As spontaneous understanding occurs, things come together, and we feel lighter and set free. It reflects the generative nature of the unconscious mind and its symbols and images, which are always beneficial and practical.
Paying attention in waking life to the images that float through your mind’s eye, reading novels filled with the metaphysical dimensions of images and symbols, and conversing, whether in therapy or daily exchanges, with like-minded individuals stimulates the heart of dreaming. The wondrous reality of this experience is that it is within this realm, as the Western mystic text suggests, that we live, move, and have our being. Becoming attuned to the inner world of images and symbols enlivens that which resides within you and hungers for psychic nutrients and attunement to what I refer to, vis a vis William James, as the Great Unseen, that within which we live, move, and have our being—the heart of dreaming.
Live Deeply . . . Read Daily!
