F R E E A N D C O M P L E TE I N P A R T S I T O I I I “Make your bed on a Delphic tripod and tripod and you will lead a nobler life. Everyone, woman or man, can do it, because it, because sleep is the most readily available oracle of all.” (Synesius, De Insomniis 144B)
The following chapters are the results of my personal explorations into dream magic over the last decades. Many techniques described can also be found in the well-established literature on dreams and lucid dreaming. Surprisingly the most illuminating work I found so far is still the small German booklet „Träume Erinnern‟ by Christoph Gassmann. I am deeply thankful to the author for his wonderful work. However, what I couldn‟t find in books when I picked up my own experiments with the subconscious side of our lives was a concise instruction that brought together all necessary steps in a single place. That is why I created the following instructions - for my own and personal use first and foremost. Since then I spoke to many people about their experiences in dreams; many of them found the advise brought together on these pages helpful (originally this used to be a PDF document in German language). Yet, it took me another half decade to understand that the conscious engagement with our dreams actually is the best preparation for thorough ritual work and spirit contact. The skills of actively engaging with our subconscious, being non-judgmental in face of intense emotions, remain objective to our own experiences and - ultimately - find a place for every living creature in our worlds, may they be destructive or constructive, appalling or dulcet, have proven invaluable for my magical works. It took some time to translate, revise and update the original content, yet it is now all available online, a new Circle coming to live. I also expanded it by a Third Part. This additional section will share more advanced techniques to engage constructively with dominant or aggressive dream beings. May this work be brought to live by experience. LVX, Frater Acher
CONTENT:
Dream Magic Part 1 Dream Magic Part 2 Dream Magic Part 3
1) INCREASING DREAM CONSCIOUSNESS “Remember yourself always and everywhere.” (George Gurdijeff) Dream consciousness is not a single solid state but a fluid continuum of a million slightly different states. On one end of this continuum we find complete unconsciousness of our dreams - while we experience them as well as once we drift back to day consciousness. At the other end we find what is often called lucid dreaming combined with coherent dream recollection when we come back to day consciousness consciousness in the morning.
In between those two rather extreme states we can find all sorts of passages, thresholds and transitions. We find moments of clarity following immediate darkness of consciousness, we find recollection of dream images images more vivid than many day experiences experiences yet completely stripped bare of any context by the silent censor that guards trespassing between conscious and subconscious. We also find nights of lucid dream experience followed by months or even years of unsuccessful attempts to achieve the same state again. Before we start I feel it‟s helpful to set expectations: Our normal orientation towards action, results and competition is as useful for dream workings as throwing chalk against a wall t o make our own shadow disappear. It simply s imply won‟t work. The following article is written to t o support anyone who wants to practice magic in their dreams. The few essential preconditions to do so are t he following:
to be able to remember your dreams, to be able to understand the basics of dream language, to successfully conduct dream incubations and to be patient - i.e. not to force but to allow things to emerge in their own time.
Before you embark on this journey - or continue the one that you started already - let‟s remember that nature does everything for a reason. If we have never remembered our dreams thus far we need to consider the option that this might be a good thing? If the censor between conscious and subconscious locks something into oblivion it normally does this for a reason. In order to become able to remember dreams and develop a clearer form of dream consciousness we need to take a holistic approach. We first need to understand what keeps us from remembering our dreams today: Which of our actions during daytime foster a dull and dark dream consciousness, which of our daily habits require our subconscious to work undisturbed from our waking mind at night? Developing a new skill is as much about unlearning an existing one as it is about acquiring a new one. In cases when we struggle to develop a new skill it is i s often because it is a complementary skill to a behavior that we are currently overusing. I.e. if we struggle to remember our dreams it might be because during daytimes we are feeding habits that are disadvantageous to it. To give you a better idea of such potentially harmful habits during daytime, here is a short and certainly incomplete list:
In order to become successful at dream magic i t is not uncommon to spend more time on daytime habits than on nighttime exercises in the beginning. The outcome once we are able to consciously work magic in our dreams is certainly worth the effort. Moreover, the therapeutic effect of building bridges between our nighttime and daytime daytime experiences is incredibly rewarding and charged with healing and power in its own right.
1.1 BASICS FOR REMEMBERING DREAMS While we are at sleep phases of Deep Sleep (or slow-wave sleep) and REM sleep (rapid eye movement) alternate. During phases of REM sleep our muscles are relaxed and cannot be used to move; exempt are the muscles supporting our heart, lungs and eyes only. Dream during REM phases which last between 10 and 30 minutes are easier to remember as they occur „closer‟ to our conscious. Due to it s relative proximity to consciousness this type of dreaming dreamin g is also called „paradox sleep‟.
The moments that favor dream recollection are the moments of awakening in the morning as well as during nighttime which often happens subsequently to a completed REM phase. Both phases awakening in the morning and at night - should be used to recapitulate the dream mentally and to take brief notes. An important pre-condition for successful recollection of past dreams is not to move one‟s body during awakening. Remaining relaxed yet motionless in the position of awakening highly supports recollection and often allows to „catch„ dreams in the net of our awakening mind before they re-emerge into our subconscious. It is desirable yet not necessary to remember a whole sequence of one or multiple dreams during the phase of awakening. Remaining calm and relaxed in your bodily position will allow your mind to drift back to where it came from without disruption. Often snatchings of dreams which remained close to our consciousness will drift back into memory first. If we continue to stay calm and without intention, following their lead, we can often trace back more pieces and ultimately rediscover whole dream sequences from our subconscious. The trick is to find the right balance between silent attentiveness attentiveness and focussed concentration concentration to follow the lead of any snatching that re-emerges from the dark. In other words: on awakening we need to ward off the old habit of projecting our thoughts into the instant future (e.g. the way to the toilette or the jobs of the day). Instead we need to allow them to return to the immediate past and let them rest there patiently waiting for the impressions i mpressions of our dreams to re-emerge.
1.2 DREAM INCUBATION To break through this deep habit of mental future orientation we suggest ourselves the following while falling asleep at night: “I will be remembering my dreams tomorrow morning.” (Note: From personal experience I found found it particularly effective effective to do this type of dream incubation incubation in the following way: While lying in bed with all lights switched off in my m y sleeping position I allow my mind to drift away. Before my mind completely sinks into dream-sphere, however, I pull it back for a short moment, open my eyes as wide as possible in the dark and saturate my entire body with the sentence of my dream incubation: incubatio n: “I will be remembering my dreams tomorrow morning.”) Then I close my eyes again and while still feeling the echo of the words in my body I allow my mind to drown in sleep.) In addition to this mental dream incubation we can also image ourselves as we aw aken in the morning, see ourselves as we recapitulate our dreams mentally while still in bed and take notes before we get up. Working with dreams basically requires a certain lead time. Your raised awareness towards dreams will take some time until it sinks into your subconsciousness and starts to take effect on it. Once initial dullness is overcome many dreams will stay in your conscious almost effortless. Only once your awareness towards your dreams starts to decrease again - as they might be taken for granted or because your dream exercises have become a pure habit without focus and i ntent recollection of dreams might decrease rapidly. In order to raise quantity and quality of dream
memory at this point again you need to shift back into constant awareness on your dreaming or waking consciousness until memory starts to return. Ground rules for successful dream incubation:
t he Autosuggestion of dream memory is done for a few minutes (or seconds) only during the
final moments before we are falling asleep. In addition it can be done subsequent to each reality test (see below). Concentration on the precise topic of dream incubation i ncubation is required. Too much
concentration, however, will result in strain and prevent the necessary relaxed muscle tone and ease of mind. The wording of the autosuggestion needs to be simple, positive and precise. If you are familiar with Austin Osman Spare‟s sigil-magic sigil-magic you can apply the same approach for creating the sigil‟s initial statements of intent to dream incubation. The autosuggestion should be connected to a pleasant feeling of success and gratification. The more positive and gratified you feel during activating the dream incubation the more successful your work will be. The autosuggestion should be connected to a visual image . While activating the dream incubation imagine visually how the goal of your operation is achieved (e.g. remembering dreams in the morning, achieving health while sleeping, etc.) Patience is essential. Just like with all elements of dream-works an initial inertia has to be overcome with patience. The system of your mind-body-subconscious needs time to runup and your subconscious will need at least a couple of nights to take up the t he message of the dream incubation. Repeating the same dream incubation operation over several nights can be crucial for success - especially when you are only starting to work wit h this
method. In case your dream incubation contains a specific question attention has to be paid to the potentially symbolic answers of your dreams. Evaluate the experience of your dreams carefully during these nights. If you do not recognize an immediate connection between your question and the answer of your dream events Free Association (see Second Part) might be of further help.
1.3 REALITY TESTS “It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.” (George Gurdijeff) The simple goal of reality tests is to raise our level of consciousness by deliberately challenging our common everyday life perceptions of reality. If performed over a continuous period our subconsciousness will adopt this new formed habit in our dreams - and raise the level of dreamtime consciousness.
Therefore the goal of any reality test has to be to unsettle our consciousness for a short period of time. The way we do this is to question perception of ourselves and of the reality around us in multiple situations - as nothing should be taken for granted for the waking mind. One single form of reality test might not be sufficient to break the existing habits of unconsciousness - but multiple forms will work hand in hand to change and break apart what has probably been a well functioning functioning part of our mind-machine mind-machine for many years. Here Here is how we do it:
Reading Test: Read something in your environment, e.g. the digital display of a clock, an
advertisement or your mobile screen. Look away and imagine something that will replace whatever you saw before. Then look back. Did the text or image change? If not, it‟s likely you are awake and not dreaming. Sensation Test: Pause for a moment and become fully aware of what‟s here and now. Are there any unexpected sensations? Any sort of dream sensation, an exciting yet alarming feeling in your chest? Are you fully present, can you remember who you are, who are your family and friends? Do you know where you are on your way to and where you came
from? Do you reckon any breaks or gaps in time elapse? Person Test: Is the person in front of you actually real or is it a character made up of fragments of other people you know? Is this person actually capable of living in the way you perceive it, does its body and stature make logical sense? sense? In essence - is it a real person or could it be made made up your own imagination? imagination? Color Test: In dreams we experience colors that do not exist in daytime reality. Consciously observe your environment. Are all colors realistic? Do you perceive any selfluminous bodies or shapes? Are any colors changing? Are the shadows of objects aligned to the angle of the light source? Perspective Test: Are objects further away from you smaller than the ones closer to you?
Are sounds coming from far away in the right relation to sounds closer to you? Is the perspective distorted in a strange strange way? Pay attention to any possible aberration. aberration. i f you are on your own. Spin around your own axis once with Spinning Test: A good test if eyes open. In dreams it often occurs that the environment either remains stable while you turn around or keeps on spinning once you finished the move. Once you achieved a state of lucid dreaming you‟ll realize the full benefits of this test. Other Tests: The common cliche of scratching or pinching yourself doesn‟t seem to work well as a reality test. Our dream bodies are perfectly able to t o sense pain, sexual arousal as well as all other sensual impression. We can only challenge and test our perception, not our bodies. However, we do have plenty of additional skills, abilities and choices in dream-reality than we tend to have in our daytime reality. Why not trying to fly over the market square today instead of walking? Why not trying to pierce slowly and consciously through a wall with your fingers? In dream-reality this should be simple.
1.4 SUMMARY In order to get started with Dream Magic here is a helpful overview on the basic facts to observe. The goal of this first phase is to 1) achieve reliable dream memory on a daily basis, 2) to gather
first experiences with the technique of dream i ncubations and 3) to understand what types of images, characters and stories our dream consciousness uses to answer our incubations.
DURING DAYTIME Read about dream and dream interpretation Conduct at least ten reality tests a day Over the course of a day affirm repeatedly your conscious intent to remember your dreams Completely stop using the words „sleep„ and „sleeping„, Instead replace them with „dream and dreaming‟. Create space for the topic of dreaming in your daily live. Express your dream experiences creatively e.g. in painting pictures, writing short stories, blogging about your progress, etc. There are no limits to creative expression.
WHILE GOING TO BED:
Together with a pen place your dream diary next to your bed Lie down on your back, arms and legs stret ched out and not touching each other or your body. Relax your your body and remind yourself yourself that you won‟t spend the the hours to come unconscious, but in an altered state of conscious. Conduct a dream incubation to remember your dreams Then let go of all thoughts and allow yourself to sink into sleep as you normally would
ON AWAKENING:
Remain in the position in which you happened to wake up Allow your conscious to return to the t he last dream fragment in reach. In a concentrated yet relaxed state follow this dream fragment backwards and piece together as much memory of your night‟s dreams as possible. Write down all memories - irrespective if it is an isolated fragment or a full story - in your dream diary before getting up. End of First Part :: Continue with the Second Part
SELECTED RESOURCES Aeppli, E.: Der Traum und seine Deutung; Knaur-Verlag Becker, U.; Lexikon der Symbole; Herder Taschenbuch Jung, C.G.: Traum und Traumdeutung; dtv Gassmann, Ch.: Träume erinnern; Walter Tholey, P.: Schöpferisch Träumen; Klotz, Eschborn Verlag Faraday, A.: Deine Träume - Schlüssel zur Selbsterkenntnis; Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1978, original "The dream game", 1975 Gackenbach, Bosveld: Herrscher im Reich der Träume; orig. "Control your dreams", New York, übersetzt von Christian Stephan, Aurum-Verlag, Braunschweig, 1991
Garfield, P.: Kreativ träumen; München, Knaur-Verlag, 1980
2. DREAM OBJECTIFICATION “Don‟t look at yourself, look at the world around you.” (Martin Buber)
With the newly gained ability to remember and transcribe our dreams we have made a huge leap forward. However, the pure transcription of our dreams only presents the surface of our dream reality. In this chapter we will delve deeper into the language, story scripts and images of our dreams. The goal is to decipher the basic grammar of our personal dream language and to start engaging in more interactive dialogues between our dream and daytime consciousness. The first step in understanding the grammar of our dreams is to enhance our ability to observe without judgement. Over-interpretation of our dream experiences certainly is the most common trap at this stage. Rather than interpreting, doing a thorough and non-biased inventory of of the dream is the secret to success. This is also why this chapter is called „dream objectification‟ and not interpretation. The first step in dream objectification is to understand the fact that the first person perspective through which we experience our dreams is not the same as our personality or daytime conscious. Your dream-ego is different from your daytime ego; they represent two aspects of consciousness of your individuality. Here is how we can delve below the surface surfac e of our dreams in four simple steps: st eps: DREAM SCRIPT
Summarize the main plot of the dream in a few short s hort sentences. In doing so identify the basic script that underlies the dream experience. However, you‟ll need to change to an objective perspective on capturing your dream: instead of „I‟ or „myself‟ when talking about the dreamdreamego use the third person singular (he/she). I.e. instead of „I am taking flight from the burglar.‟ you will note: „The dreamdream -ego or s/he takes flight of the burglar‟. DREAM ACTS
Ascertain if the dream follows the sequence of dream acts as suggested by C.G. Jung. You will find that this is the case for most coherent dream stories: First Act: description of starting point. Which characters are part of the plot, where and when does it occur? Second Act: presentation of central conflict. Conflict s and tensions become apparent. Third Act: accentuation. The climax of the script is reached and leads to a positive posit ive or negative turn of events. Fourth Act: description of end point. DREAM HEADING
Chose a fitting heading for your dream. If your dream was a short story in a book, which title would it bear? Feel free to get inspired by b y todays newspaper headings. However, rather than
being overly imaginative or romantic the heading should should give a first impression of the dream‟s central plot or conflict. DREAM CONFLICT
As a last step take time to answer the following questions:
Which main symbols are present in the dream (characters, natural or artificial objects, animals, etc.)? Which emotions do these symbols trigger in you? Which forces are working against or in each others favor in the dream? Where is conflict, where is harmony, where is paradox? Does the dream present any solutions? If yes, which ones? If not, what are the obstacles? What is the dream-ego doing, what is it not doing? What are other dream characters doing, what are they not doing? (In considering what isn‟t done we may find unnoticed opportunities or potential, equally the actual choices and deeds of t he dream characters are accentuated.)
3. DREAM-SELF OBSERVATION Dream-Self observation is an extension to dream objectification and was first introduced by Strephon Kaplan. The goals of this method are twofold: 1) to gain more insights on the motivation and grounds based on which the Dream-Self is acting and 2) to increas e consciousness about the difference between our daytime and Dream-Self. Just like we have spent years of our daytime da ytime life to discover our own personalities, our likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses this method allows us to discover our Dream-Selves and compare these to our daytime personalities. Generally we have to assume that our Dream-Self acts more spontaneously and emotionally driven than our daytime Self. At the same time it is also less considerate and farsighted as it is less conscious. In its deeds our Dream-Self will act out all the attitudes, desires and needs which we forbid ourselves during daytime and which sink into our subconscious if suppressed over long periods. Often this can explain why our experiences during daytime and in dreams seem to be mirror-images. At the same time the actions of our Dream-Self can be understood as rehearsals: we are given the chance to experiment and rehearse attitudes and actions that we aren‟t ready to practice during during daytime. This opens up new possibilities for our daytime Self. In order to better understand our Dream-Selves the following questions present helpful starting points:
What is our Dream-Self doing and what is it not doing? Is it involved or detached from the actions of the dream? Which dream situation triggers the actions of our Dream-Self? How is our Dream-Self characterized by b y its emotions, its desires, believes and prejudices? What does this tell us about our Dream-Self personalities? How is our Dream-Self behaving in the situation - proactively or reactively, passive or active?
Which role is our Dream-Self taking in the plot of the dream? With what or whom does our Dream-Self identify? Do we react in similar ways wa ys during daytime? If yes, on which occasions; if not how do our daytime deeds differ?
4. DREAM SYMBOLS 4.1 Context
The intent of the first chapter was to gain access to the material of our dreams and to realize and understand it from different perspectives. The previous chapters provided techniques to reduce the common over-identification between our daytime Selves and Dream-Selves, between dreamer and dream - and thus introduce the required distance for a rather objective objective analysis and understanding of our dreams. The following chapter will introduce us to the actual material of our dreams - especially to the symbols we encounter in dreams. The word „symbol‟ is based on the greek verb „symballein‟ which means „throwing together‟ or „assembling‟. Originally it was used in sayings sa yings that referr ed ed to compiling, concealing or veiling. The sign that becomes a symbol encrypts, it masks t he meaning of an act or expression. The uninitiated spectator isn‟t able to understand the encrypted message any longer. Understanding the symbols in our dreams is the essential element of dream interpretation: The meaning of most of our dreams is concealed to our daytime conscious, to our intellectual mind and understanding. As long as our conscious doesn‟t thrive to penetrate the surface of our dreams our dreamworld is a world that is completely dependent on our emotional (unconscious) experiences. This is because the s ymbols of our dreams are well accessible to our emotional lives, yet they are arcane to our intel lectual minds. The goal of this chapter is to support your conscious in gaining access to the concealed meaning of your dream symbols. To illustrate this process let‟s take a look at the following model. It depicts the way of perceiving reality realit y that most people would call „common‟ or „normal‟ and suppresses our dream reality, i.e. experiences of our Dream-Selves:
Once we have opened the gates of our dream reality to our conscious and started to connect daytime experiences and experiences of our Dream-Selves the model will change. What used to be a unidimensional unidimens ional and reactive model explaining our Ego‟s reactions to the impressions of the world becomes multidimensional and interactive. We start to realize the interconnectedness of ourselves and the world around us, of our experiences during daytime and in dreams:
4.2 Free Association
In order to unveil the individual meaning of our dream symbols we can turn to the most classical technique of dream interpretation and Psychoanalysis, Free Association (FA). The power of this method that was derived from early approaches approaches to hypnosis lies in the fact that rather than confining us in a pre-set framework or codex of interpretations it sets us free to
discover and learn the unique language of our dream symbols. It is the dreamer that speaks, not the analyst. Once we have used it for the first time successfully applying FA becomes incredibly easy. We can simply note down one or more dream symbols we encountered during our dreams on a piece of paper. Then - without trying trying to control - we write down all catchwords and prompts prompts that spring to our mind spontaneously. The only important thing during this process is maintaining a completely open state of mind and not to start filtering words that come up as associations. Each idea, each term is of equal value until we feel we have noted down all important associations this symbol evokes in our minds. What has happened at this point is that the symbol has opened up, it has expanded and revealed its individual meaning to us. This meaning doesn‟t need to be stable but can change from dream to drea m. Often it involves it involves puns and play of words words that make us blush or smile and allow to further uncover the meaning of our dream. In addition to the results of our FA we can also draw on resources shared in classic books on dream interpretation. (For all German speakers I can recommend Didymos‟ Traumlexikon which is available for free online.) The content of these books, however, should never weigh more than our own findings. In case we encounter unrelated or even contradictory explanations of dream symbols we should always follow our own guidance first - and not allow for the words of a book to speak louder than the words of our unconscious. Probably the most central pillar of successful dream interpretation is that the interpretation has to be evident and illuminative for the dreamer first and foremost. In cases of contradictions between personal and traditional dream symbol interpretations the authentic and personal interpretation always has to be favored. Once we discovered the meaning of our dream symbols we should revisit the dream plot identified at an earlier stage. How do these new insights change, enrich or accentuate the experiences of our dreams? The following guiding questions can be helpful to re-integrate the meaning of our dream symbols into the broader dream plot:
Let‟s replace the symbols s ymbols in our dreams with their actual meaning. Where do these meanings oppose each other, where do they harmonize? How does the headline of your dream change if you replace the dream s ymbols with their meaning? Which secret motives of action of your Dream-Self become apparent once the symbolic meaning is laid open? Which differences do you see in how you deal with the meaning of your symbols during daytime and in dreams? Which commonalities are apparent? Which role do the meaning of your dream symbols play in your everyday life? Are they easy to discover or rare and only seldom to be encountered? End of Second Part. - Return to the First Part. Part. - Continue with the Third Part. Part.
SELECTED RESOURCES Aeppli, E.: Der Traum und seine Deutung; Knaur-Verlag Becker, U.; Lexikon der Symbole; Herder Taschenbuch Jung, C.G.: Traum und Traumdeutung; dtv Gassmann, Ch.: Träume erinnern; Walter
Tholey, P.: Schöpferisch Träumen; Klotz, Eschborn Verlag Faraday, A.: Deine Träume - Schlüssel zur Selbsterkenntnis; Sel bsterkenntnis; Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1978, original "The dream game", 1975 Gackenbach, Bosveld: Herrscher im Reich der Träume; orig. "Control your dreams", New York, übersetzt von Christian Stephan, Aurum-Verlag, Aurum-Verlag, Braunschweig, 1991 Garfield, P.: Kreativ träumen; München, Knaur-Verlag, 1980
5. DIALOGUE WITH DREAM BEINGS 5.1 Basic Technique The dialogue with dream beings is a more advanced form of unveiling the meaning of dream symbols. To do this it uses an active and open dialogue between our conscious and a being we encountered in our dreams. Where dream symbols remained passive previously a dream being takes an active stance in helping us to understand its nature and meaning in context of our dreams. Generally it makes a lot of sense starting to practice FA before proceeding to this technique. FA helps us in gaining a more conscious access to our associations and unconscious usage of symbols. It also presents an important step in becoming more objective and less biased about emotionally charged encounters and experiences in our dreams. These are essential skills before starting to engage with dream beings in active dialogues. As only then are we prepared to acknowledge every being in our dreams - whether pleasant and sympathetic or aggressive and daunting - as a living creature in its own right. Here are the four steps to t o conduct successful dialogues with dream beings: 1. Deep Relaxiation
Sit or lay down comfortably. Ensure you are taking a position that will be comfortable over a longer time and you don‟t need to change position later in the process. The more relaxed your physical body, your your muscle tone and senses will will be the better the quality of your your dream conversation. Personally, I strongly recommend to learn and practice a professional relaxation technique - such as Pranayama, Autogenic Training or Deep Muscle Relaxation - before advancing to this step of dream work. Once your mind and body are fully relaxed return to t he specific dream being you want to talk to. t o. 2. Initiating Dialogue
Think of the dream being and allow it to fill with life li fe again. Once you can sense the same emotions you felt when encountering this being during your dream you have sufficiently revived the dream being. Now you can start a dialogue with the creature. Great questions to kick off t he conversation are: “Who are you?”, “What do you want?” or “Why did you do tha t?”. Then try to understand the response of the dream being. Normally we realize i ts reply intuitively. This happens when we wait for an answer and suddenly find a thought or statement in our mind that appeared out of nowhere. Such a reply can consist of a single word or an elaborate explanation. It
can be mundane, meaningless or surprising. Whatever it is, it is important to trust the answer of the dream being. In case the reply is contradictory to your own thoughts or believes it is a sign that you are certainly on the right path. The conscious of our dream beings springs from deep and often autonomous wells in our subconscious. 3. Continuing Dialogue
In case the dream being‟s reply was obscure or unsatisfactory you can now continue to engage in a conversation with it. Our most important skill in dialogues likes this is to react openly and spontaneously to unforeseen and surprising turns in the conversation. Dream beings will often be extremely unpretentious and straight forward about their intent, desires or motives. This requires us to be equally prepared to spontaneously react to such open and sometimes crass statements. 4. Existing Dialogue
When you feel you received the desired information from the dream being you can say goodbye and slowly return to your daytime conscious. Even if at this point the entire content of your conversation is still present in your mind, thi s is the time to take specific notes about everything you have said and heard. The ability of our mi nds to allow thoughts and insights that th at emerged from our subconscious to slip back to where they came from is just amazing. Thoughts that appear to be crystal clear and of life-changing force can disappear over a visit to the bathroom. We need to support our conscious in getting ready to digest and integrate these new found and often surprising informations. Capturing every perl of insight and seemingly meaningless detail in writing and revisiting our notes at a later point is just what it takes to do so. Note: It is completely up to you you if you want to follow this traditional instruction to dialogues dialogues with dream beings. You can also think of and experiment with many alternatives, such as returning to your dream and conversing conversing with your own Dream-Self rather than another another dream being. Similarly you should feel free to talk talk to all sort of dream beings beings - may they be humans, animals, plants, crystals, elements, angels or demons, inanimate objects or spheres of light and darkness. Everything in our dream landscapes can gain consciousness if we we allow it to. Once you are more experienced in this technique you will be able to conduct it sitting at your desk, a blank paper in front of you and a pen in your hand. Write down your questions on the left side and note the dream being‟s replies on the right. Begin with the first question on the left and listen to the answer of the dream being, allow it to come back to life and fill your mind with its voice. Don‟t interfere or push for an answer. At this point your experience with this technique will allow you to commune with dream beings without going through a full muscle relaxation exercise before. If you feel the voice voice of the dream being is muffled or less clear, however, however, feel free to return to the approach outlined above. Try to be aware of how this technique changes your experiences during your actual dreams over time? It is quite common that once such dialogues with dream beings have become a habit and recurring practice they are adopted by our subconscious and applied while we are dreaming... We often find ourselves engaging more directly with dream creatures, widening our spectrum of
possible actions and encounters encounters and reducing our our previous limitations in emotionally emotionally charged situations. Even though these techniques are concerned with what happens during our dream time, they are still powerful techniques of personal freedom. Finally, let‟s clarify a few laws l aws of dream nature that differ from our daytime reality:
A dreamer cannot die. Whenever our Dream-Self is about to die we are approaching a state of transition transition or transformation; it shouldn‟t stop the plot or narration of our dream experience. Dream objects only exists for as long as we pay attention to them. This is not only true for dream beings and objects but also for emotions, physical feelings or pai n. Everything imagined in a dream will materialize or take place instantly. Fear creates attackers, affection creates friendly encounters, etc. There is no border between phantasy and experience in dreams. Events are connected by associations rather than logic. Associations can be created by similarities, differences, emotions and/or memories.
... observe your dreams. What other laws of dream nature can you discover?
5.2 DOMINANT DREAM BEINGS All of us have encountered dominant dream beings in their dreams. These types of beings besiege our Dream-Selves, Dream-Selves, they harm us or force decisions or actions upon us which we hadn‟t chosen voluntarily. The crucial attribute of all dominant dream beings is that they take an aggressive stance at limiting our freedom of action act ion and development. Their presence and influence constrain our Dream-Selves‟ Dream-Selves‟ ability to act, develop, unfold and discover new possibilities. It‟s through their influence that our dreamworld becomes less rich and diverse... and often they r epresent inner forces that have a similar effect on our waking selves. Roughly we can categorize dominant dream beings into two different types: on the one hand we will find archaic dream beings. These tend to be mighty, wild and unconstrained beings, e.g. forces of nature, monsters or murderers. On the other hand we find authoritarian dream beings such as parents, teachers, priests or bosses. The former category express inner needs, feelings, desires und drives which the dreamer suppresses during daytime. The former category tends to represent ethical, moral or social attitudes which often correspond to the current zeitgeist. The former will be overwhelming in their appearance; the later seem to be always right in their judgments.
5.3 AUTHORITARIAN DREAM BEINGS Irrespective if during our actual dream or in a subsequent dialogue with an authoritarian dream being - the basic ground rule remains the same: our first and foremost goal is to engage the being into a conversation. We will not let up until the dialogues has ended in mutual agreement, an acceptable compromise or - in some cases - in physical victory over the dominant dream being.
Sometimes this can lead to rather tedious conversations as our adversary will most definitely try to play tricks on us and will might proof to be incredibly stubborn. Forcing our Dream-Selves to give up self-assertion and to bow to the judgment or will of the authoritarian dream being will be their central goal. Often the crucial turning point in these conversation takes place when we can convince the dominant dream being of the simple fact that they are not flawed. This means that first and foremost we need to be ready to accept the dream being for what it is - and find a place and mean for it in our dreamworld. Once we achieve this and we prove prove to the dream being that we don‟t intend to change or subjugate it they will be ready to give up their radical point of views. It weakens their authority immensely if they realize that reality is more diverse than they thought and doesn‟t allow a black -or-white -or-white choice only. In order for an authoritarian dream being to give up some of its authority we need to understand its weaknesses and possible fears. And in many cases we won‟t be able to spot these if we play fair. The nature of the dream being might force us to play as dirty as they do on us - and take the same ruthless steps against it they would against our Dream-Selves. Ultimately this can even lead to physical conflict - the most raw version of proving the authoritarian dream being that all its authority will not suffice to rule r ule over our dreamworld. Contrariwise the situation might demand an incredible amount of patience from us: if the dream being is deliberately slow in giving answers to our questions or evades we might face a dogged verbal fight over dominance and submission.
5.4. ARCHAIC DREAM BEINGS Let‟s come back to the other category of dominant dream beings. Here our approach will be slightly different. Rather than focusing to engage in a dialogue and negotiate a compromise these types of raw powers first and foremost need to be constrained and stopped in their attacks. Thus initiation of a dialogue with an archaic dream being counts as our first victory already. It represents the willingness of the dream being to engage with - rather than destroy - our DreamSelves and face the actual problem. In dialogues with archaic dream beings our primary goal is to understand its motivation and desire. Once we spot and understand their drive we can explore alternative ways to satisfy the needs of the dream being as well as our Dream-Selves. Skills in creating win-win situations will be hugely helpful helpful at this stage. However, whatever form and shape our discussion with the dream being might take, we need to make sure that we don‟t subject to t o it under any circumstances. any circumstances. In case our dialogue should come to a complete halt or the tension in our conversation raises too high a physical confrontation as the last resort is still preferable to a complete submission of our Dream -Selves.
6. FEEDING AGGRESSIVE DREAM BEINGS
Let‟s pause and reflect for a moment. The above approach to engaging with dominant dream beings is clearly working and has been part of dream magic tradition for a long long period. The risk, however, is that we over-protect our Dream-Selves in an environment where it is simply one element of many... Should we fail to get the balance right between empathy and guidance to these aggressive subconscious beings we might simply treat their desire for dominance with our own. And at the end we might not get anywhere - as we are repeating the same male-chauvinistic patterns of self-assertion and pride that keep our daytime daytime reality from becoming a better place already... So maybe it‟s time to explore an alternative way of dealing with aggressive dream beings? And An d rather than trying to understand them but to dominate them in case of conflict - why not try to understand them and then give them what they desire selflessly? Now t his might sound strange, but follow me - there is an ancient ancient shamanic practice from Tibet from which we might be able able to learn. :: Contrary to the above approach of dominating your dream beings in case of conflict and controversy there is a different, more creative approach we can chose. I haven‟t found this process being described in any lit literature erature on dreams, yet in Tsultrim Allione‟s book „Feeding your Demons - Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict‟ Conflict‟. Allione is a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who - after a long and enduring personal journey of striving to combine western living with the power of ancient Tibetan and Tantric meditation techniques created a simple five step process to resolve inner conflict. This process draws heavily from t he tantric practice of Chöd. Chöd often is translated as „cutting through the ego‟ as its practice revolves around the self-sacrifice of the practitioner to t he demons he evoked. Milarepa described the inner and outer aspects of Chöd as follows: “External chod is to wander in fearful places where t here are deities and demons. Internal chod is to offer one's own body as food to the deities and demons. Ultimate chod is to realize the true nature of the mind and cut through t hrough the fine strand of hair of subtle ignorance.” Milarepa (c. 1052 — c. c. 1135 CE) While the traditional practice of Chöd is an advanced shamanic technique Allione simplified and adjusted the approach. She basically kept the essence of the teaching alive but made it accessible to non-Tibetan practitioners. The goal of the practice is not at all to realize the illusion of the demons or gods that torment us. Actually my advise i s to not worry about ab out the question of reality or illusion of our demons at all. Just like anything we have worked on before in these chapters, our dream demons represent beings we can encounter, talk to and engage with. They might transform more rapidly and fundamentally than our waking selves ever will. Yet what matters is that we are able to learn from and work with them. t hem. And that we ultimately transform them from adversaries to allies.
Four our purpose we will slightly adopt the Chöd inspired five step process of feeding your demons as created by Allione. Instead of working generally with inner demons we wi ll apply it to dominant dream beings specifically. Moreover, we will label and structure the experience according to a magical ritual. As you can see the process follows a similar structure. However, instead of binding and subjugating the demon at the climax of the rite we will feed it. Our goal is to satisfy the deep rooted desire of the aggressive dream being; to put to rest the very force that allowed it to come to life and remained unrelieved and unsatisfied for a very long time. Once the inner fire and desire of the dream being subsides it is likely to change i ts form, to transform and give way to a powerful ally that used to be hidden from us. Note: If you intent to work with this practice in more depth there is no way around reading Allione‟s book. It provides many real-life real -life examples and testimonial stories of people who successfully worked with inner demons and will bring the process to life in a very plain and simple light. If you can‟t afford the book, you will find the adjusted skeleton of the exercise below. In addition I still recommend recommend this series of articles at Tricycle as a great starting to create a deeper understanding of the practice. The first three steps of the process will allow you to evoke the aggressive dream being you want to work with, to bring it back to life - and to take it s place. At the end of these first three steps you will know exactly how it feels to be this dream being and what its underlying - and often hidden need is. Here is how it works:
The following three steps allow you to feed the aggressive aggressive dream being. Rather than resisting or even fighting it we will feed it to complete satisfaction. Our unlimited source of food will be ourselves. So this is the moment of self-sacrifice, of giving up and letting go in the spirit of stilling the deep rooted desires that we used to hide from ourselves. Here is i s how it continues:
7. END Okay, if you have made it to this point you either had a long online read - or you changed your dream-life. It is your choice. All the techniques described above will work once brought to live in your own and personal way. None of them need to be followed by the letter: We should feel as explorers discovering blank spots on our consciousness and reality maps - not as slaves following the draconic orders of traditional dream magic i nstructions. There is so much more literature out there on this topic obviously, so many different exercises and approaches still to be shared and explored. The intention of these pages, however, is to be a first starting point, a launch pad into your own world and magic of the dreams. If you are happy to share your own experience and explorations I would be delighted to hear back. Traveling in a community is always nicer than on your own. Here is to all the night-time adventures waiting to be discovered by our conscious minds. Here is to all the dream beings waiting for us to engage with them... LVX, Frater Acher May the serpent bite its tail. tail.
End of Third Part. - Return to Overivew Overivew..
SELECTED RESOURCES Aeppli, E.: Der Traum und seine Deutung; Knaur-Verlag Becker, U.; Lexikon der Symbole; Herder Taschenbuch Jung, C.G.: Traum und Traumdeutung; dtv Gassmann, Ch.: Träume erinnern; Walter Tholey, P.: Schöpferisch Träumen; Klotz, Eschborn Verlag Faraday, A.: Deine Träume - Schlüssel zur Selbsterkenntnis; Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1978, original "The dream game", 1975 Gackenbach, Bosveld: Herrscher im Reich der Träume; orig. "Control your dreams", New York, übersetzt von Christian Stephan, Aurum-Verlag, Braunschweig, 1991 Garfield, P.: Kreativ träumen; München, Knaur-Verlag, 1980
