Celestial Fire

Throughout human history, the dreaming process has often left us in awe, as we have tried to make sense of the mysterious and often confusing phenomenon.  Individuals such as, Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and Lucrecia de Leon are only a sample of historical figures who gained a great deal of insight by paying attention to their dreams (Moss, 2009, pp.145-233).  Additionally, a lot of effort was spent in ancient civilizations such as Egypt and Greece trying to decipher the hidden messages of the dream world (Moss, 2009, pp.3 -123).  However, as the western world has continued to become increasingly fast paced and full of distractions, the significance of our inner worlds run the risk of being lost to history.

The dream experience in general, has largely been dismissed by psychotherapists, especially therapists who completed their training in the last quarter of the 20^th century (Doweiko, 2002, p.29).  As a species that spends a significant percentage of its life dreaming, an argument can be made for more effort to be spent focusing on our inner experiences.  For example, an individual who lives to age 70, will spend roughly 50,000 hours dreaming, which is roughly a twelfth of his or her life (Doweiko, 2002, p.31).

Dreams have been a meaningful part of my life for the better part of twenty years, and have led me down a long road of personal discovery.  During which, I have used dreams to induce out of body experiences, enhance my meditative practice, and experiment with different forms of ESP.  However, I’m always amazed how often dream experiences are dismissed by the dreamer. 

I have always felt, that if we all started sharing our dreams more often, then we would quickly discover that we are connected in a much more intricate way than expected.  A number of times in my life, I have experienced sharing a dream with another person.  However, if I had never told the other person about the dream, we would of never discovered that we had in fact been sharing the experience.  If such things are possible, then it is yet another indication that there is a collective conscious at play.  

Other questions that I have had over the years, have been, “Where are we when we are dreaming?”, and “Is there a personal creative place we go when we dream, and also a larger collective area that exists when we become lucid?”.  Also, one of my favorite questions has been, “Does the real world exist someplace being awake and asleep?”

One of my favorite books of all time is 2150 A.D. by Thea Alexander.  In the book, the main character Jon lives in 1976, but when he sleeps ends up traveling to the year 2150.  Jon quickly discovers he is not dreaming, and his consciousness is actually traveling to another point in time as his body sleeps.  Throughout the book, Jon takes the concepts he learns in 2150 AD and  introduces them to the world of 1976.  

How wonderful would it be, if we were all doing things like this all the time.  The difficult part is, learning to become aware of such an activity.  That being said, I’d be curious to know how many people have practiced some form of dreamwork.  It could of been an official dreamwork study, or simply keeping a dream journal for personal growth.  Also, if anyone is comfortable sharing some of their most profound dreams, please feel free to do so :).

References:

Doweiko, H.E. (2002). Dreams as an unappreciated therapeutic avenue for cognitive-behavioral therapists. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 16(1), 29-38

Moss, R. (2009). The secret history of dreaming. Novato, California: New World Library.