The Magic of Community Dreamwork
What have you been dreaming lately?
Last week, my friend and co-author Minna and I facilitated a dreamwork session for the Education Transformation Jam and it was magic. We talk about the basics of dreamwork in the article we wrote. Toko-pa Turner describes dreamwork as “the practice of reciprocity between the seen and unseen,” which is a definition that I love.
But what do we do in dreamwork? It is really quite simple:
We arrive, center, and ground.
We check in and do introductions about what brings us to this work.
We share dreams!
After someone shares a dream, they can invite reflections from the group, clarifying questions, and meanderings. This is a process of tending, holding, turning over, receiving, and dwelling with the mystery of the dream.
We close with gratitude to ourselves, each other, and the wider whole of which we are a part, including our dreams.
Some things I am blown away by in the collective sharing of dreams:
It can open up a space for vulnerability that would be hard to access going into directly. And yet, a dream can take you there. They are portals, pathways to vulnerability. I am constantly amazed how dreams lead us to share the deepest parts of ourselves, sometimes things we haven’t shared with anyone else, and how profoundly healing this can be when held in community.
Relatedly, I am astonished by the vast emotional spectrum we can access through dreamwork, which unfolds quite organically and emergently. In any given session, there are likely to be tears and laughter and everything in between. It is deeply touching, profound, hilarious, heavy, light, all at the same time, or in waves.
Dreams tap into another intelligence. I don’t quite know how to name this intelligence - perhaps it is just dream intelligence - but they provide us access to a deeper knowing that, when surfaced, and shared, can be deeply healing.
Working with dreams in community allows for myriad meanings to unfold. On the surface, I might receive a fairly straightforward meaning from a dream when left to hold the dream on my own. But when shared in the presence of others, with their deep listening and reflective questions, new things in me can be touched and new meanings might open up. With many views of the dream woven together, it becomes a tapestry of meaning that is so much richer than reflecting on it alone, and just the act of speaking a dream out loud can be profoundly moving and healing.
Dreamwork is a space to dwell in mystery together. The way we are practicing dreamwork, we are not trying to extract a meaning from a dream. We are not trying to arrive at a conclusion. It is not a transaction - it is a relationship of reciprocity with the dream. To write it down and remember it one way to honor it. To share it is another. Then we might do other things to honor it, like draw a picture of an image, or other invitations it might be asking us to do (WRITE THE BOOK! :). And see what unfolds when we do.
Dreams, to me, are ultimately about mystery. They are inherently mysterious and magical. I am always amazed by where I have gone in my sleep, who I have been with and what has unfolded, even when it is fairly mundane on the surface. Last night, I went to see Barbie, and was snowboarding, ate delicious Indian comfort food, and was meditating. From my dream journal:
I’m with a group of students and we all see Barbie and love it. It’s special to share it together. Later they are out and they find tank tops that and black with white writing on it and a simple phrase (HA?), and they all buy them. I want one and want to know where they got them.
Later we are in this area where there’s snowboarding. We stayed close to the house/lodge but I’m playing around in this slushy snow and I wish I’d done a longer trail. I’m sliding back and forth in this little half pipe trail. I am wishing I had taught daphne. I’m having fun. There’s a rhythmic feeling to it.
We are all in this store area. There is an Indian comfort food restaurant that specializes in this one kind of food that is hard to find. It’s very delicious. At one point the owner/chef is telling me how they got started, and it’s a good story. The food is brownish and cooked in a big pot.
We are going to meditate or have a discussion and need quiet and I’m looking for a space. I go into one store that has lots of chairs and cushions snd think it’ll be a good place, but you can hear the other groups but I think it’s about as good as it gets.
What dreams have you had lately?
Happy Leo New Moon! May we plant seeds of magic, thriving, abundance, and joy for our communities.