There are a thousand different ways to explore your dreams.

But all you need is one way.

One way, that helps you get started in your dream process. One way that helps answer the question we focused on in the last post:

“What is the one step my dream is guiding me to take?”

[Read that post first – click here]

 

We all need perspective

 

If you are going to understand your dream.

If you are going to truly answer the above question, then you need perspective.

One of the challenges that we all face in our inner work is that we tend to be attached to our own position.

To learn, we all need to get out of our usual way of looking at things.

Our usual way of looking at ourselves.

 

Switching roles

 

The easiest, simplest way to do this is to switch roles in your dream.

Instead of looking at the dream from your perspective, give yourself a chance to look at yourself from the dream’s perspective.

Make space for your dream, to teach you.

This way, your dream can show you, what it is that unconsciously blocks you. It can show you, how to move through these unconscious blocks – toward whatever deeper, clearer place inside yourself that you seek.

Start by picking a person or being ie an animal, in your dream, that feels benevolent or neutral toward you.

You can learn a lot by stepping into darker places but we are going to have you start in an easier place, if you can.

So feel into this.

“Is there a person or being in my dream that could help me to see the dream, see myself differently?”

Trust what comes up for you here. We are just exploring without a definitive expectation.

Then take a breath into being that person or being.

 

Experience the dream from this perspective.

 

Notice how your view of the dream is different from this place. Take a breath and pay particular attention to the feeling state of this new place versus where you originally were in the dream.

Don’t place any judgments on this new place or on yourself – this is just an exploration.

Try to just be curious.

Is the “story” of the dream different from where you are now? Be inquisitive if you can, without judgment on this new perspective.

 

A new frame of reference

 

Take another breath.

Is this other place, showing you a different way of looking at things, than you normally would?

We tend to look at things in our dreams in the same way we look at things in the world. Is your dream showing you something about how you might look at things differently?

 

Looking at yourself

 

Take a look at yourself from this perspective too.

Do you see yourself differently from here? Can you learn anything about yourself from this new place. Is there something here that reflects a pattern in your life?

How would things be different in your life, if you looked at things from this perspective?

 

A dream “case study” to illustrate the process

 

I am going to use an early dream (somewhat condensed) of my own, as a way to clarify what we are speaking of here.

Dream:

“It is a chilly fall day and I am walking on a floating boardwalk through a wetlands/waterway. Then I see two boys under the water and I spring into action, to try to save them.

I grab one boy and give him to a couple next to me.

I cannot reach the other boy with my arm so I extend my leg in the water and he grabs it. But I am unable to pull him in. In the midst of my panic frustration I make eye contact with the boy and I can see that he is okay.

I am so shocked by seeing the boy is okay – somehow not drowning, that I awake with a start.”

 

Switching roles

 

In this case, I was working with a dream practitioner at the time, and the very first thing they had me do was switch roles and be the boy in the water.

[Click Here to read more about working your own dreams versus working them with a dreamwork practitioner]

I immediately felt peaceful.

A kind of peace that was pretty foreign to me, in my life at the time. I felt like I was in another world – closing my eyes and being in the water.

I remembered this feeling from somewhere in the past.

I also knew that it was a feeling that had long been lost to me in my day to day life.

 

Looking at myself

 

I then looked at myself from the eyes of the boy in the water and I was shocked to see the level of panic that I was in. From his perspective, I could see myself, a young man who had still never processed the death of his closest brother many years before.

A young man who had never gotten over the terror of this loss.

A young man who had avoided his own loss by trying to save others, by trying to save the world.

 

My experience

 

This experience profoundly changed me for the rest of my life.

For me the one step I needed was a big one.

I had to stop projecting my inner turmoil, associated with the loss of my brother, on to what I was doing in the world. I had to learn to go back to the place in myself where I could remember this  place of peace, I felt as the boy in the water.

A feeling that I can happily say, is no longer foreign to me in my current life.

 

 

What if my dream is not like yours?

 

Your dream may not be this intense. I was in a place in my life where I needed dramatic change – and my dreams met me in that place.

Your dream might also be different.

In the case of my dream, what the boy said really resonated for me. What if what comes up for you from this other place does not feel true?

This is important too.

 

Negative energies in your psyche

 

If the place that you give voice to, feels wrong or untrue in some way, then there is still very important material here for you.

There is just a different set of questions to explore.

Where did this untrue voice come from? How does it affect you in your life?

Finding these voices can be as powerful as finding a new perspective in a dream. We all carry these voices around far more than we realize.

 

Your dream is still guiding you

 

Here, you have the opportunity to see how this untrue voice is affecting you.

Pay attention to what this voice is doing in the dream and see if you can make the connection to where it affects you in your life.

 

 

Applying what you have learned to your life

 

We don’t work our dreams every day.

We write them down. Then we work them intensively once every week or so. In between, we apply what we have learned in our day to day life.

This way we are in relationship with our dreams all the time.

We practice noticing where the familiar places from our dreams come up and we feel into what would be possible if we looked at things, felt into things from the new perspective that we learned in our dreams.

 

Dreams want to teach you about your life

 

Your dreams want to teach you more than just about understanding dreams.

They want to teach you about your life.

They want to teach you, really how you could have a better life – a life that is not limited by your unconscious patterns.

They want to teach you how to live from the deeper consciousness that they come from, where you are not split off in any way – from the heart and soul of who you are.

If you are willing to listen, they will show you step by step how to see your unconscious patterns and how to move through those patterns and toward a place where you can live the promise of your inner and outer world dreams.

With much excitement and respect,

Bill St.Cyr