Soft Attention

"Soft attention" is the approach I take to remembering my dreams. When I cross back from sleeping to waking, I try to linger in dreaming consciousness as long as possible and replay the dream in my mind as I'm waking. Whether I get an image, a person, an action or a complete dream story, I write it in my journal.

It helps not to be startled awake by an alarm, etc. Soft attention is easiest to practice on those mornings when you don't have to set the alarm and can claim some personal time.

Soft attention is right brained, image oriented. Instead of asking myself the left brain, analytical question, "What did I dream?" I ask myself, "Where was I? Who was I with? What was I doing?" - questions that recapture dream experiences in images with feelings attached.

My advice on dream recall is stay as long as you can in that "in-between" state, between sleeping and waking. Open yourself to the adventures you've just had and write their story in your journal, honestly, unselfconsciously, just for yourself, the dream as you experienced it.

Here's a beautiful love poem I found in my favorite calendar, "We'Moon 2011", (a women produced calendar/journal filled with beautiful art, poetry and prose, all by contemporary women artists); it evokes for me soft attention on waking in an intimate, shared way.

"Forgotten Seeds"

the dark shape of your body in this bed
adds substance to the fast approaching dawn.
while planets tread their courses overhead,
my hands make out the landscape of your form.

there's something pure about this time of day.
dreamspoken, truths pass lips and settle deep.
molded tight, our bodies bend and sway,
following the orbit of our sleep.

fresh from your underwater wanderings,
you wake at once both sleepy and surprised,
and slowly slipping, disentangling
you turn to kiss the valleys of my eyes.

the night uncloaks a pure thing in the mind
dark curtains of forget that have been parted,
and close to morning, in the dark I find
you've been revealed to me as dolphin-hearted.

as long as we can lie here the whole unniverse is ours.
I'm unfolding all my secrets, once encoded in the stars.
it's too early for pretending that there's nothing that we need,
your dreams and mine are mending all of my forgotten seeds.

by Danielle Rainville, quoted here with her permission.

Dream Warnings

Yesterday, while leading a dream workshop for a group, a young woman spoke of how she had dreamed about a tsunami devastation just before Japan was brutalized by one this week. She cried telling it.

It's such a weight on one's shoulders to prevision a great disaster, but we do dream outside of our own concerns and personal psyche. Maybe we all are one soul after all, maybe that's what the collective unconscious is.

Robert Moss writes and teaches that we dream the future all the time; I recommend his book, "Dreaming True", as well as his DVD series, "The Way of the Dreamer". I've posted the youtube clip from the program "Dreaming the Future" before; you can find it on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrlrxMuH1o

I know I dream the future all the time and hundreds of people have shared their dreams of the future with me. What does it mean to dream something that later manifests in waking? That my dreaming soul took a peek up the road and thought I might be interested in what soul saw? Why? A head's up? Just a report about it?

My experience is that dreams of the future run a huge gamut. I dream of having a ring and see it the next day in waking life and buy it. I dream of a person I later meet or I dream of a disaster that befalls many, many people and breaks my heart to see it happen in waking. The gamut of what to do about it is just as vast. It depends on the dreamer and the dream.

My husband woke up one morning and told me this dream: (I have his permission to use it.) Here's my journal account of it:

When I asked Jim if he remembered a dream this am, he hesitated and said – yeah, but I didn’t like it.

I’m up in a NYC bldg. 89th floor. I get in the elevator, like a freight elevator, (someone’s with me, not you) and there’s a woman elevator operator. The gates close and she presses the button and we begin to drop at an unnerving speed. I tell her to stop the elevator, I want to get off. She pushes buttons, but nothing happens. I tell myself, I don’t want to be here for this, and wake up.

Then Jim goes for the morning paper and brings back the Sunday NY Post with the front page head lines: “DROP DEAD, Elevators on killing spree” The story is about the violations in the city’s elevator inspections and the number of fatal and serious incidents of elevator malfunctions.

There are some things we dream that are peeks at waking life ahead; yet, it has nothing to do with us. This is not news. Governments like ours and Russia's have experimented with this talent in people for many years; they call it Remote Viewing. They've tested people to find those who are good at it so they can be trained to spy, etc. A very hysterical example is the movie; "Men Who Stare at Goats."

But, to dream of pending disaster is tough and many people dream such dreams, all the time. I've mentioned in another post Jung's dream or vision presaging the war in Europe. Dreaming of mass disaster can feel overwhelming and confusing; it can make you feel guilty that this is happening and you did nothing or there was nothing you could do. Dreaming life is like waking life in this way; there are tough moments. In the realm of dreaming seeing ahead occurs regularly; sometimes it's not something we want to see.

So what can we do when we experience such a tough dream? Be gentle with yourself; you can share it with a trusted friend or not, you can write it in your journal or you can just hold it in your heart and offer your prayers. I'm not responsible for mass tragedy, but how can I not ache about it? Aching is part of life. I can help in some way. Donate to the rescue missions; hold the Japanese in my heart and pray daily for relief for them. Many people will do different things to help; I'm not responsible, but I can be responsive.

Here's a prayer posted on her facebook page by the wonderful Dr. Pinkola Estes, author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves." I don't think she'd mind me sharing it with dreamers who have witnessed this event in the dreaming and the waking.

Dear Brave Souls: Prayericito for Sudden Upheaval
by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 6:50am

May all pathways to safety be opened,

seen, and safely taken.

May all who are lost be found

and lifted to safe ground.

May all without shelter be given refuge

May all who are naked and cold

be covered with warmth

May all who are frightened be calmed

by Mind greater

May all who are injured, receive timely aid

May all who are trapped, hold on,

sensing strength of the ancestors near.

May all who are alone and frightened

be comforted by invisible Hands

This we ask, in the name of all that is Holy,

each in her own way, each in his own way...

that all imperiled and saddened be

sealed into vitality with the light of the angels and the saints;

sealed into animating spark with the light of the Bodhisatvas;

sealed into holy and fullest life by the sound of the breath'

sealed into repair by the sound of the stars overhead chanting

life

life

life...

and Aymen

and Aymen

and Aymen

and,

so be it,

so be it,

so be it.

and with love.

From us all:

Tribe of the Sacred Heart, many of us, Scar Clan...

from us all.

and with love too, from dr.e

Erotic Dreams

Once, in a dreaming workshop I presented at a Unitarian Church, an older, very attractive woman, widowed for awhile, came up to me after my talk. She spoke about her loneliness and then about occasional wonderful erotic dreams she has. I shared with her how much I value those wonderful erotic gifts from the dreaming and suggested that since dreaming is another existence to be experienced, we have free rein to do as we will and enjoy. Waking life's physical constraints and moral sanctions don't apply in erotic dreams anymore than they do in any dreams.

I love Dorothy Sayer's quote: "The only sin that passion can commit is to be joyless."

Our dreams befriend us sexually just as they do in every other aspect of our life. They give us an outlet that we can use regardless of whether our dance card is full or whether we are in a committed relationship.

When dream lovers show up, especially strangers with no waking life strings attached, it can make for some fun fantasizing in days and months ahead - IF you write the dream down, that is.

Here's an example from my dream collection that might illustrate several good things to know about erotic dreams:

June 25, 2010
Panties on a Platter

I’m in a place, bigger than an average room, where women, all very attractive in a typical model way, in various stages of undress, all wearing attractive bikini panties, are sitting around a counter, like at a diner.

I place a lovely pair of pink bikini panties on a plate and serve it to a guy sitting at the counter, as well. I’m very flirtatious and confident about my overture.

He’s 40’s, white, plain shirt and trousers. Not really sexy – but I’m attracted to him.

I wake up

When I first wrote this dream down it had a slightly icky energy; probably the panties. What I love is that in a random search through my dream journals for the best of my dream erotica (a practice I recommend to anyone), I find this dream from a year ago and recognize it's erotic potential in a way that had escaped me before.

I decide to reenter the dream and dream it forward:

Panties on a Platter Re-entry 3-6-11

In our conversation, I learn my dream lover's name and what he likes to be called. He's very responsive to anything I say or do; we're very turned on by each other. We have fun... Some dreams make for great erotica.

Personal dream erotica is accessible for personal sexual fantasies to anyone who dreams and records dreams. The brainless, emotionally bloodless garbage that passes for erotica in waking culture can't hold a candle to the customized work of your dream cupid.

Many times culture has tried to convince us that sex is the forbidden fruit; bite in before God gives the okay and you're in for a world of pain, no more Eden for you.

But, among the many things we experience at night in our sleep, we experience opportunities for sexual healing that come in the form of dreams that turn us on and perhaps even give us sexual release. Talk about safe sex!

Hello, dream lover.

Thanks to my dear friend, fine artist, Mally DeSomma, for letting me use one of her spectacular nude paintings for this post. Here's a link to her website:
http://www.mdesomma.com/

Simple Synchronicity

Once again, my dear friend Antoinette Martignoni, posted in her email newsletter, as she did on Christmas eve, a post that drew my dream content to the fore. (http://litadreaming.blogspot.com/2010/12/dream-synchronicity-fireflies.html

You'll remember she loves poetry and many of her daily contemplations are poems she shares along with some of her own reflections. Here's the poem that was part of the email she sent today:


M O R N I N G

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small,
kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason
across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

..........................MARY OLIVER, 1991-1992

Here's the dream I recorded when I woke up today:

I have company, a dear woman friend, so I place a plate of chicken and other goodies on the glass table in front of the couch. Sunny, (my cat) comes up to me while I'm upstairs, away from the guests and the hors d'oeuvres that I've served, and says while stretching his front legs up on my shoulders; "You know that plate of chicken?" I say; "Yes, did you eat it?" He says; "Yes, dammed straight." I love him dearly and think it's very funny. Wake up delighted.

What struck me in the synchronicity of her poem and my dream was the "wild words" Oliver refers to as the cat's (or perhaps poetry's or dream's) language. In my dream, my beloved Sunny spoke to me in a very curious cat/human dialect that I could understand. I've heard my cats speak to me before in dreams, but this was a wild and wonderful way he spoke; half cat/half human.

Wild words indeed.

The Magical Mind of Dreaming

Trish and Rob MacGregor host a stirring blog, Synchronicity. Here's their link: http://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=2362#comment-13829

In yesterday's post, "Synchronicity and Magical Thinking", they address the conventional belief, based on some branches of science, that anything but left brain, rational thought is unfounded in "fact" or "reality".

As usual, their post got me thinking about how this prejudice applies to dreaming.

There are people who dismiss dreaming, as they dismiss intuition and imagination, in the service of a left brain only existence. All I can say is, "How's that working for you?"

Remember the yin and the yang of Chinese philosophy? The idea is that all life's many opposites are in a constant harmonic dance that keeps life in balance.

Rational thinking, presumed conscious thinking, presumed sane and ordered and predictable is one mode of our brain function. The other is where the dream mind takes us constantly, into the realm where nothing is predictable, or ordered, but somewhat insane. "I had the weirdest dream" is a common preamble I hear when someone tells me a dream.

The "magical" dream mind doesn't play by the rational mind's rules, nor does it have to; experience shows dreaming to be incredibly effective at delivering personal benefits to the conscious dreamer. Right brain thinking is a different stretch for the old neurons, but to get the most out of our underused noggins, and scientists tell us our brains are under-employed, we need to think outside the left brain box.

As Trish points out, many great inventions, many innovations in thinking that have benefited humankind were the direct result of the magical thinking of amazing people, like Einstein and Jung. I highly recommend Robert Moss's book, The Secret History of Dreaming, for one wonderful example after another.

My point is, it's not, either we're rational, conscious, productive beings or ninnies. We're rational, waking, conscious AND intuitive, creative, dreaming beings. We're both; our mind, when used as a whole, provides both avenues, both experiences. It's up to us to balance that flow of information for personal and communal gain.

Opposites aren't mutually exclusive. We don't need to deny that men are valuable to esteem women just as much. We don't have to have one skin color to know what it means to be human, and we don't have to live just one aspect of our lives on this planet. The waking, conscious life is great; but so is the dreaming life with it's windows on the unconscious, or as Ursula LeGuin would call it, inner space.

Now given all the information and all the images out there, it's my personal soul mission to judge for myself what I think, feel and do; I don't need an authority to tell me what to think. Science is a wonderful profession full of great practitioners, but come on, it is no final authority. In order for it to be successful, it has to be in flux, in discovery mode. We can assume that what they proved yesterday will prove different tomorrow. It's up to each of us to make choices about truths based on what we know from our own experience and what we believe from others. So who died and left anyone in charge?

I write this blog to offer others what I've learned by playing in the magical thinking realms of dreams for so long. This type of thinking may come easier to me than to someone stuck in a rational paradigm, but that doesn't mean that I can abdicate my need to exercise left brain judgment. It's both, we can do both. Isn't that wonderful?

Animal Buddies and Spirit Guides

Thoughts live in the brain, images live in the heart. Much of waking language is left brained, rational; most of dreaming language is image, right brain stuff in waking.

This is why dream totems, animal spirits, can be such a tremendous psychic help to a dreamer, regardless of their age. I have many wonderful animal visitors in my dreams; I'm sure I'll share more about others in the future. Number one on my dream totem pole is Elephant. Elephant was first introduced to me in a dream my first husband had of me. I grew up with the image but his dream sealed the deal for me; Elephant became my totem. I often wear Elephant as jewelry and have images of her everywhere in my house.

Elephant has visited me in dreams for many years. My banner on this blog is one beautiful example. In that dream: I'm watching these wonderful mother and baby elephants dance on the beach. I hear the music. I wake up filled with joy.

Here's an Elephant synchronicity I love. In the 70's, when I lived in Rochester, NY, I met a young man at a community event who loved to draw. We sat down at a table to talk and as we spoke, he drew on a small piece of paper. I wasn't wearing anything to give away my totem and we hadn't touched on that subject at all. At the end of our chat, he handed it to me. I've posted it for your delight and mine. (Just don't call me Addie, not a nickname I prefer.)

Totems are like rock star body guards you carry in your heart. They jump out and protect you by giving you of their spirit; who's going to mess with an elephant; yet, most people like them. I think they're wise and kind and beautiful.

Many Animal Spirits have manifested in my dreams; each has given me an energy I've used in waking life.

So who are you're totems?

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.