The Art of Dream Sharing

There are few activities more pleasurable to me than teaching anyone who wants to learn about creating a dream dialogue in their lives and taking it to the level of a spiritual practice. Often a student raises an issue that I want to write about here.

One aspect of Active Dreaming is honoring the dream. Robert's work with indigenous American cultures led him to incorporate this practice in his teaching. It means doing something actively, perhaps creatively, to manifest the energy of the dream in waking reality, thereby respecting the dream dialogue the way one might respects a wise friend's advice.

An obvious thought might be that if I dream of a person I know, I might share that dream with them as a way to honor my dream, right? Yes, but not without a caveat or two.

The art of dream sharing is a delicate matter that needs discernment; I believe it shouldn't be done as a matter of course, for several reasons:

Dreams need digestion. Writing them down paints a picture that evolves as I contemplate it. Unless the dream is uber funny and I know my friend will enjoy the laugh, I don't share it right away.

I want to know what it means to me first. I start, as Robert suggests, with the emotional tone of the dream; how do I feel waking up and how does my dream self feel?

I ask myself when I dream of another,is this the actual person or some aspect or idea about that person that applies to me at the moment? I might want to re-enter the dream, consciously, like a daydream, and talk to that person I recognize and see what they have to say to me. This might help me determine whether I share the dream with the person in waking.

Some dreams can have a negative transference effect when shared, even unintentionally. If in your dream, I'm upset about my hair falling out and you tell me this dream, I might think that cancer treatments cause your hair to fall out. I might worry that I have cancer, unless I'm in touch with my dreams and already have a good handle on what I need to know about my health. If this didn't occur to you before sharing your dream, you really didn't ponder it enough.

It's so easy to project ideas on to others, especially when conveyed in the language of dreams, images. Images stick with you (just ask Madison Ave) and unexplored negative images tend to be icky-sticky, the stuff of icky dreams. I've written a couple of times about how to work with these, so suffice it to say that images of this nature require exploration by the dreamer.

Dreams are in the service of health and healing. Any dream I do consider after pondering may convey a warning about another person's well-being requires me to use great judgment. Is my sharing this with them going to prove helpful to them or cause them anxiety? How can I best help if I feel I should? I may decide to incubate another dream for clarification of what I can do. Perhaps I'll be watchful for an opportunity to present to the person, not necessarily the dream imagery, but some support or suggestions that can be useful and positive. (There's another tool in Active Dreaming called Dream Transference; it's a powerful way to help people deal with difficulties using dream images. I'll save a more detailed description for another post.)

If I don't feel a dream will be immediately helpful, I record it so I have the fresh account, but I don't share it until I feel it can help. And, if I am sharing a dream health warning with another person or if a person shares a dream I suspect may carry one, I'm extremely delicate about probing this possible meaning. I might gently suggest, "If it's my dream, I'd wonder why I'm losing hair. Is this a transition I'm going through? I think I'd like to re-enter my dream and speak with my dream self about what's going on." I would not necessarily bring up cancer and hair loss. I trust a person's intuition to arrive at the conclusion they need from their own consideration of the dream.

Another possibility when I dream of a person I know is that this dream character presages a person I'm going to meet in future waking reality that reminds me of the person I'm dreaming about. Or, perhaps as I've been pondering with you in previous posts, it's an experience I'm having with this person on another level of reality or in the dream reality. In that case, I may want to pursue the relationship on that plane and not necessarily seek to manifest it on this one, unless synchronicity makes it so.

There is nothing wrong with sharing dreams with someone. My husband and I star in each other's dreams regularly and share our dreams often; I choose which dreams I'll share and to what extent, as I'm sure he does, too. I know of dreamers who have shared a dream that meant nothing to them with a colleague or acquaintance they've dreamed about and the dream has carried great meaning for that person in waking. Some message may indeed come through in a timely and beneficial way; we often know through our own intuition when to tell someone a dream. Still, there is a dream diplomacy, an art to sharing and co-working with dreams. That's why I teach and write about Active Dreaming; it has some of the most valuable tools for playing with and honoring dreams individually or with others that I know. I'm blessed to have the opportunity to do this and lucky when a student helps me teach.

(This beautiful photograph was taken by my dear friend, Nancy Hammett, on her visit to the Grand Canyon recently and used with her permission. It's an amazing waking dream scape and I couldn't wait to share it on my blog. Here's a link to her NIA studio:
http://www.soundmindandbodyct.com/)

Expect An Answer

Dream "incubation" means that the dreamer went to sleep focused in an open hearted way on a question or a request to the Dream Source. In both the ancient cultures of Egypt and of Greece, dream incubation was a sacred practice that anyone who needed spiritual help and physical healing could access by going to the temples as a pilgrim in search of a dream cure. Gods and goddesses spoke to the dreamer and intervened on her or his behalf through dreams.

So if you need the answer to a problem or a question; just ask. But expect an answer. Not always that night and very often not the answer you might have anticipated. The pact I make with my dream guides is that no matter what comes through, icky or not, I'll write it down.

This has proved over and over again to me that my dream guides love me and have a superb sense of ironic humor. On the surface, the dream may seem distasteful, irrelevant or embarrassing; but when I sit down with a dear dream friend and play with it, light bulbs go off. I love the sheepish joy I feel; "Oh, I get it." That "aha" always floods me with gratitude for the unconditional, loving guidance of dreams.

I love telling my friend my dream as dramatically as possible. The theater of it, speaking the dream out loud, begins to release some of the emotional charges of particular images and characters in a first wave of enlightenment.

I also love to hear my friend describe to me her experience of my dream; whether it applies to me, or to her, I gain insight. She emphasizes different things; I hear another perspective. She uses only the personal pronoun, shares with me her feelings, associations and intuitions and opens wonderful new vistas in my dream for me to explore.

Re-entering the dream through my imagination in a dream journey, alone or in the good company of a dream friend, is my favorite form of dream exploration.

In a dream I recently explored, re-entering allowed me to find a close, unexpected ally in a Shadow figure (in the Jungian sense) whom I referred to in my dream as "the buxom blonde" but after an exciting re-entry conversation, she became my dear friend, Jezebelle.

The answer to the dream questions we incubate may appear in many unexpected ways. Perhaps a waking feeling, perhaps a synchronicity. They'll appear in an unlikely dream that I faithfully wrote and pursued, and continue over a series of subsequent dreams until I get it.

I'm fond of Jung's point of view that dreams don't come to tell us what we already know. They don't call it the unconscious for nothing. So when someone prefaces their dream narrative with, I know what this is about, I always keep an open mind and suggest a little further play.

You asked, an answer will come. Focused intention and attention to dream material regardless of seeming insignificance pays off big time in dream exploration. Do you knock on a door, knowing your friend is home, and not expect her to open it for you?

Dreams, Friends and Fun Times

Some people think dreaming is a solitary activity. To the extent that we plunge from our conscious mind into the unconscious, it is; although, we meet people and have experiences in dreaming, as we do in waking. One way I experience dreaming as a social activity in my waking life is playing dream buddy to a friend. In my experience, playing with shared dreams is fun and deepens friendships.

(Maybe some of my friends who've shared this experience with me or others will leave a comment.)

Recently, a dear friend shared an "icky" dream with me; I won't be posting details of the dream but I'd like to use the experience of our dream buddy session to present the "Lightning Dreamplay" process developed by Robert Moss, as I practice it, with the hopes it helps you and your buddies add dream games to your friend-time repertoire.

Since I enjoy conversations about dreams and dreaming, I've encouraged many friends to keep records of their dream journeys. I'd recently encouraged this friend to, so I asked her, "Have you had any dreams lately?" She gave me a wry smile and told me how she'd just had a really icky dream and when she woke up from it she said, "Oh no, sorry, Adelita, I'm not writing this one down."

I had to smile, I've woken from dreams with exactly that feeling; I asked her if she wanted to talk about it and she did.

Active Dreaming teaches a dream sharing etiquette that's highly respectful of the dream and the dreamer, so you ask first, before assuming someone wants to talk about a dream. With permission granted, the next step is, one buddy tells a dream story, the other listens. The listener can ask the dreamer to give the dream a title before they start the story, but I find that when a dream carries a strong negative charge for a person, as most icky ones do, the dreamer is more comfortable titling the dream after relating it's story, or even later in the sharing process. All rules of dream play require sensitivity to the particular dream and dreamer.

It's the listener's job to practice active listening. As I'm listening to my friend tell her dream, I'm not sitting there asking myself "What does this dream mean?" I'm imagining myself in her dream landscape. I'm entering that dream space, seeing it, feeling it, living it, letting it evoke whatever feelings or memories enter my consciousness. I'm not leaping ahead of the dreamer's story. I'm paying attention to every detail and asking for clarification if I need it. Focused listening also allows me to let my associations flow, yet, not jump ahead of the story. The rush to interpret that is so common to the ego personality in most of us is a major block to understanding dreams. As a dream story unfolds, it's subject to unexpected twists; my presumptions can make me miss the real message.

After telling me her dream, my friend asked me, "Now, have you ever had an icky dream like that?" I could honestly say; "Yes, almost exactly like that." She laughed and noted the irony of looking forward to a dream to record and having it be so horrendously icky.

Relating to the dream personally, I recognize a familiar dream trickster at work. After all, the first dream for her new journal turns out to be completely obnoxious, a turn-off, a neon sign blaring, "WE'RE NOT GOING THERE". In my experience, despite the dream's icky factor, it's vividness and the emotional charge it carries encourages me to pay attention; it's got juice. I recognize that for my friend, a dream she couldn't write, yet could share with a friend, became less off-putting; she decided she didn't mind talking more about it.

The next step in Lightning Dreamplay is to note the dreamer's feelings; both on waking and in the dream. Feelings are powerful clues to the gifts a dream may be bringing and on what door of the psyche it's knocking. I ask how my friend felt when she woke up; it's important not to assume you know because an image that might evoke one feeling in you, may evoke something entirely different in the dreamer. Symbols are personal and symbols are universal, or as Jung would have it, personal and collective. A friend may freak out if there's a snake in her dreams, but for me, that's a goddess symbol; I'd feel blessed.

Asking questions to avoid presumptions is an important part of the Active dreaming process. To avoid projecting my views, I ask questions like, "How did you feel when you woke up?" When I asked my friend, I didn't expect what she said, which just goes to prove that listening is the foremost talent of a good dream friend. In my friend's case, her feelings gave another nuance to the dream's message for both of us.

Next, we did some reality checking, which is when the dreamer takes a bit of time to compare the details of the dream with the details in her/his waking life and see if there are parallels to consider. If there are, then this dream may be referring to that aspect of the dreamer's waking life. I think it's important that the dreamer not share too much personal history. A good precept of Active Dreaming is "don't get lost in personal history", whether the dreamer's or the listener's. A lot of back story is unnecessary and can hamper getting the dream's true message. The point of dream play is not to rehash our waking lives, but to open the door to what's possible through the dream; dreams seldom tell you what you already know. Dwelling on the waking life personal stuff detours the dream and overwhelms the dream play process.


As a close friend, I may be very familiar with the context of my friend's waking life, but that familiarity can lead to more projection; as a dream buddy, I need to watch out for that. A dream buddy's primary job is to act like an visiting alien who needs to have everything explained and takes nothing for granted.

The next Lightning Dreamplay step is really fun for the listening dream buddy. The listener gets to make believe this is her or his own dream and share their experience of entering it with the dreamer, always prefacing whatever they offer with "If this is my dream..."

So, I might say; "If this is my dream, I recognize that it's similar to other icky dreams I've had that have revealed very helpful messages to me, so I'm going to get past the icky and look at it closely. I'm going to go beneath the obvious turn-off and see if there are other perspectives; and I'm going to pay attention to details, emotions and dream characters' attitudes so I see where the dream is pointing. If I need to take an ally in with me to feel safe in re-entering the dream, which I'd want to do, I would find the right ally and re-enter the dream to dream it forward, see where it takes me."

I keep in mind with icky dreams or nightmares that often dream guides don't coddle us. When they think we're ready, wham, they get our attention with icky dreams or nightmares. But just let the dreamer brave up and look at the dream as an interactive learning opportunity and perhaps even take it to a dream buddy - look at it from different perspectives, and usually the emotional charge changes, icky becomes interesting, intriguing, sometimes beautiful, sometimes funny.

By offering observations that are totally predicated on my experience in the dream, I, the listening buddy, acknowledge that perhaps none of what I'm saying has any relevance to the dreamer at all. My thoughts are offered just in case they help; the dreamer is free to take them or leave them. I don't play dream psychologist or give my dream buddy interpretations of her or his dream or her or his psyche. Beginning with "If this is my dream..." I share experiences, thoughts and emotions gathered while listening to the dream and relating to it personally, as if it were mine. I don't presume that I'm solving any mystery for my friend or that I have any valid interpretation of my friend's dream.

In my experience, both the dreamer and the listener benefit immensely from this approach to dream play.

The last step in the Lightning Dreamplay process is honor the dream. Whatever the lesson is, the dreamer commits to doing something in waking life that manifests the dream somehow. For instance: the image for this post is a dream drawing of the waking dream I'm talking about; so, drawing or painting, or creating a song, or writing a poem or a story, or wearing a color from the dream, or calling that person in the dream, or having a dream dialogue, or re-entering and journeying in a dream, or making up a bumper sticker with the dreams loudest message, or any other way the dreamer wishes to honor the dream. This honoring step is a big thank you to the universe, the Dream Source, and it opens the door to more valuable dreams.

Of course, the first way to honor a dream is to record it for future explorations.

I truly enjoy helping people trust their dream wisdom and enjoy their dreaming life, so playing dream buddy is something I do often. It's just nice to know that dreaming offers us a wonderful opportunity to be there for those we love.