What Does it Mean to be a Student of Your Dreams?

 

We very consciously chose to call this site “students of the dream” – because we believe there is something for us all to learn from our dreams.

But, what does it mean to be a “student of our dreams”?

The answer lies in how dreams “teach”.

 

HOW DREAMS TEACH

 

We have often been asked why dreams don’t speak more plainly – if they are here to guide us?

Why don’t they just tell us what we need to know?

Our understanding now, more than ever, is that our dreams in no way want to be in the role of “telling” us what to do.

There is enough information out there, enough ideas, ideals and ways, there is enough of others telling us what we should do.

For the most part, we don’t need someone else telling us something more or telling us what to do.

Dreams give us something entirely different.

They come to us in a way that makes it possible for us to find our own discernment. They teach us, not what they think we should do, but instead they teach us how to find what is true for each of us – through the visceral experience of being in the dream.

A New Model

 

There are more than a few of us that have negative associations with being a student – both as children and as adults.

But dreams offer a radically different model of the “student – teacher relationship”, than what most of us grew up with.

They come with generosity and tenderness.

They come in a way, that with practice, allows us to grow our own discernment.

The dream as teacher does not give you the answers.

They open possibilities for you, they offer guidance, and they open the space for you to feel into those possibilities. They help you to fully feel and understand what you face, through even the deepest blindspots, so that you can find that discernment within.

 

Doing it Yourself versus Having a Practitioner

 

There will be a lot of  content here on this site that is geared toward working with your own dreams.

That is a conscious choice we made – to allow you the freedom to work with your dreams in the way that you choose.

We are consciously offering what we have learned from almost 20 years of dreamwork – mostly with a practitioner and through our own experiences as practitioners and teachers – to open it up for a new model to evolve.

 

Our Own Practice

 

Sue and I explore our dreams on our own sometimes and we each have our own dreamwork practitioner that we see. We feel a particular responsibility as practitioners, to have somebody else helping keep us on track, in our inner work.

We know that we have our own unconscious blindspots, both about what is negative in us and about what wants to blossom inside of us.

We have our own places that we are still learning about the things that we are unconscious of.

And of course, it just plain helps sometimes, to have someone else hold space for us to see the unconscious patterns that our dreams are pointing out to us.

 

The “Student of the Dream” Experiment

 

So for us, all of this is an experiment – an experiment in relationship to our dreams and to each other.

We don’t have a “right answer”.

We are here, learning alongside you, our dreamwork colleagues and the ever growing community of dreamers that are learning to be students of their dreams.

 

The Role of Teachers

 

At the same time, we don’t want to downplay the role of the teachers in our lives nor do we want to deny our own experience as teachers.

We are instead exploring how to pass on what we know as students and teachers, with as much generosity and grace as we can.

We prefer the teaching model where the teacher works with students knowing that he/she is also always a student as well.

Where the teacher strives to create the space for the student to discover her/his own path.

Because for us, that is the ultimate teaching of the dream.

They come to us each night and they charge us nothing and they demand nothing.

Yet, they offer us the most important resource on the planet – the help to find the heart and soul of who each of us is.

With much excitement and respect,

Bill St.Cyr and Sue Scavo