Dreams are a mystery.
Scientists still cannot explain with any certainty why we dream. Dreams are
magical, linking us to another world full of wisdom and symbolism. Our dreams
reconnect us to our true wild self. They reveal to us the wisdom of our intuition,
not easily accessible by the conscious mind. Dreams play with our fears,
testing our limits. They link us back to our ancestors through the shared
collective knowledge of all humankind.
Different
cultures have widely varied interpretations of dreams and the importance of
dreaming. The dreamtime of
Aboriginal Australians, for example, is “A kind of time out of time … That time
before the world itself was entirely awake.” During that time, the Ancestors
emerged and made their marks upon the land, forming mountains and valleys,
rivers and forests. When a baby is born in their culture, she inherits a particular
stretch of the Dreamtime song—a stretch of the Earth—as her own personal
property, which belongs to no one else. The child is one with the Ancestor who
shaped that tract of land. No matter how far away she ventures over the years,
at the end of her life she will return to the place of her conception, “to sing
[her]self back into the land.”
Another
culture, the Sng'oi people of
Malaysia, believe that the dream world is real and the waking world is an
illusion. They believe that they travel to the real world each night in order
to bring back experiences that will help them to know what to do in the shadow
world, the waking world. They gather together at dusk in small huts, softly
touching, leaning against each other, arms draped over one another as they fall
asleep. In the morning light, those who slept near each other form a small
circle and, while still drowsy, share their dreams with one another. Often it
occurs that several of them have the same dream, or similar dreams. What they
dreamed about will frequently come true in some way during the following day,
or provide needed guidance to the community.
The Achuar people of Ecuador, are a true "dream culture" like the Sng’oi. They
wake every morning at 3 or 4 a.m., several hours before sunrise, to share a
herbal infusion made from the wayusa plant and begin a ceremony
to share their dreams and plan their day communally. Dream sharing is
considered a social responsibility, as one person’s dream may have an impact on
another person or even on the entire community. The Achuar believe that the two
realities—waking and dreaming—are one continuous existence, and that dreaming
and sharing the dreams with each other help to reveal underlying layers of
meaning in their world. If a dream is negative, the dreamer has a chance to
re-dream as many times as needed until they receive a dream that is acceptable
to them or to the community. It is key to the Achuar belief system that we can
all re-write our lives if we choose to do so.
In
all of these cultural beliefs about dreaming, there is a softening of the edges
of what we in modern society consider “reality.” There is an opening to
powerful magic, a trusting in the collective wisdom shared by people and the
Earth. There is less resistance; more acceptance of what the heart knows. The
dream interpretations are layered and woven into a story of hope for the days
and years ahead, with guidance for the people coming from an ever-present
source of wisdom.
There
is tremendous beauty in living this way. How can we incorporate this trust, this opening, into our own lives?
PERHAPS THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS WILL HELP YOU TO FIND MEANING AND GUIDANCE IN YOUR OWN DREAMS:
What
kind of dreamer are you? Are your dreams infused with symbols or metaphors, or
do they contain more mundane images such as a replay of the prior day’s events?
Do you visit your fears? Do your dreams feel loving, playful, or stressful?
Some theories state that
dreaming helps to refresh our memory and aids in storing new learning. There is
also evidence of touching another world in dreams, or having wisdom revealed to
us. This occurs in the case of the indigenous dream cultures, and as many
people have experienced when they dream something and then a very similar event
occurs in their waking life.
Do
you remember your dreams? Or do you forget them in the rush of the morning as
you wake up to your alarm clock and your mind races for the day ahead? If you
want to remember your dreams, place a notebook and pen near your bed, easy to reach when you are half-asleep,
and try to jot down just a few words about a dream if you awaken in the middle
of the night. These words will trigger your memory to recall more details about
the dream later that day.
Have
you ever experienced a marked increase in the frequency of your dreams? During
times such as pregnancy, many
people report an increase in the number and intensity of dreams. Some of the
dreams may be linked to changes in the body, such as dreaming of water or fish
when the womb is filling with life-giving fluids. Some pregnant women have had
dreams that revealed the name or predicted the sex of their baby.
Do
you ever feel that the dream of the modern world is headed in the wrong
direction, darkened by materialism and environmental destruction?
If
you believe in the possibility of a new dream for our world, a dream in which
love and gratitude take precedence over profit and greed; where all life is
honored; where true environmental sustainability is possible when we join hands
and work together, then hold those energies and desires close to your heart the next time you drift into peaceful slumber.
