| Dreams: Bridging the Unconscious to Everyday Life |
by Nora Archambeau, M.A.
Recently, I have noticed how useful and elegantly simple it is to study a metaphor literally. Bridges, for example. In connecting us from point A to point B, from one city or landscape to the next, they are very purposeful. Their structures allow us to defy gravity, they support our vehicles along with our beings, and, stretching the imagination, they are really like big swings.
My musings have since turned into a wonderful problem-solving technique.
• Close your eyes and choose a bridge of any size, structure and location you feel familiar and safe with.
• Consider something in your life where you sense there is a disconnect: e.g., a goal that you have and don't know how to reach; or a relationship problem where you don't know how to communicate your concern.
• Once you have this scenario in mind, imagine stepping onto the bridge or slowly driving onto it.
• As you move along the bridge, visualize and trust that not only is it taking you closer to an answer, it is also incredibly wide, expansive, safe, highly supportive, and beautiful in structure.
• Pause. Allow yourself to receive an answer to how you can cross the bridge, and to know what the goal or situation calls for.
• In closing, thank yourself, your imagination, your intuition, and anyone who helped you across.
• Open your eyes.
Dreams are very similar to bridges. They are purposeful, taking us from one dreamscape to another. They can serve as spiritual teachers. And isn't one of our goals to become more God/dess-like? I believe the reason for my own existence is to clear out the past, hone the development of my intuitive, psychic and pragmatic skills, and become an instrument of and for the Divine's work. A dream is like a tool, helping us act from a place of "divine humanness." From our unconscious, mysterious psyche to the mundane, paradoxical decisions of everyday life, we have the capacity to become more aware, which brings with it an easiness and joyfulness over time.
Delineating the world of dreams, their own innate structure and raison d'etre, may provide a springboard for further understanding and inquiry.
"Once seen as a blank screen, a metaphor for death, it [the sleeping brain] has emerged as an active, purposeful machine, a secretive intelligence that comes out at night to play - and to work - during periods of dreaming and during the netherworld chasms known as deep sleep.
Some scientists argue it is likely that during REM the brain proceeds to mix, match, and juggle the memory traces it has preserved, looking for hidden connections that help make sense of the world. Life experience is cut up and reordered, sifted and shuffled again. This process could account for the cockeyed, disjointed scenes that occur during dreams: the kaleidoscope of distilled experience is being turned. It also might account for that golden gift often attributed to a night's sleep: inspiration." – Benedict Carey
There is a route for dreams that, in fact, does exist and can take us from point A – the unconscious – to point B – everyday life – on a regular, nightly basis, albeit not necessarily in a straight line.
1. Set the right intention.
2. Involve yourself in discussions, readings and dreamlike movies that might stir up your nightly escapades.
3. Write down or record your dreams, which will provide more likelihood for them to manifest (only the good ones, we hope!)
4. Learn the language of dream interpretation. (For this, you'll have to consult me!)
Over time, this route becomes a map. Mapping our dreams results in a matrix: i.e. "a situation or set of circumstances that allows or encourages the origin, development or growth of something." A second definition is "the womb." One matrix of dreams to consider is the following:
1. Set-up: storylines, places, themes/dramas, dream characters, feelings/emotions.
2. Benefits: purging ordinary day's residue; inspiration or idea generator; affirmation/confirmation of one's own or someone else’s status; shifting perceptions; health barometer; problem-solver; releaser; etc.
3. Classifications: health and healing, family, nightmares, sexuality, career-right livelihood, spirituality, etc.
Working with a matrix of dreams aids in categorizing which ones may be spiritual in nature. Spirituality is both the umbrella and the foundation – “as above, so below" – that supports and funnels my own dreams, inspirations, direction, and action steps. Integral Yoga is the primary catalyst, and dreams are a main vehicle to drive me closer and closer to "divine humanness."
Dream reenactment exercises are an easy, and hopefully enjoyable, way to enter into dreams, experience the different roads they offer, and the possibility for potential shifts. Shifts made within the dream-state allow for new perspectives and perceptions, new inspirations, and thus new action steps to take place in your waking life. I therefore invite you to "cross over" the bridge of your dreams and explore the infinite roads on which they may take you!
Learning the language of dream interpretation is a viable, enjoyable, practical and wonderfully adventurous tool. Over time, applying sincere positivism to dreamwork releases negativity, replacing it with Love. And with Love, all kinds of shifts happen.
