I
gathered
myself
among the trees
today
cross-legged
holding
my Breath
listening
for their message.
“Nothing Urgent,”
they laughed.
We
just wanted
to see your
brown hair. ~Valerie Kameroff
In the poem above Alaska Native American, Valerie Kameroff, a poet of Yupik descent, offers us an ancient view of a world that is alive and conscious, a world view that most cultures have at their very core. The modern world cast off this view, but individuals often experience the wisdom of nature speaking to their souls.
A SIX MONTH LISTENING PROJECT
We
live in a time of imbalance when listening to the stars, the earth,
its elements and creatures is imperative. This site is an attempt to
collect and collate dreams of the communicating world, to collate the
data and give voice to the communicating world through written works and
through multi-media art. That voice may well be essential in surviving
the current ecological and spiritual crisis.
This site is dedicated to listening to the communicating World's Dream, and giving its voice to the human world. Sometimes just in listening we are transformed.
Our method is simple. Ask people to offer their dreams, collate them, and look for the patterns and themes. We are looking for a specific type of dream: dreams with images of the natural world that have strong feeling and resonance, that are radiant, peculiar, odd, out of place, even terrifying or horrid. We also looking for those dreams that have images in the human world that are artistic, handmade, beautiful and alive. We are listening for the World’s Dream.
If you have had such a dream, we might all benefit from hearing it. This is after all a communal process of listening. We, all species, are in an ecological crisis.
We want to make the communication from your dreams and art responses available in several forms, a website dedicated to the Communicating World, and a book. We hope that we all might be transformed in listening.
We have specific guidelines for posting dreams and responding to dreams designed to help us bring this project to fruition.
Before you post or offer a response to a posting please read How It Works below.
Thank you all for participating,
Barbara Flaherty
· Associating: The dreamer associates the dream contents with the ordinary circumstance of his/her life. The story the dream illuminates is the underlying content of life experience with its patterns and conflicts. This allows the dreamer to resolve life issues on a deeper level. Association is personal, unique to the individual.
· Amplifying illuminates the archetypal, spiritual, and transcendent aspects of the dream. It is open not only to the inner life of the individual dreamer, but also to the greater world of myth, archetypes of the unconsciousness, and religious traditions.
· Tending the Living Indigenous Image. This is the primary focus of this site. In the two previous approaches to the dream we explored the personal and collective. Here we look at the World’s Dream. We do this by tending to a dream’s images of the natural world that have strong feeling and resonance, that are radiant, peculiar, odd, out of place, even terrifying or horrid. We also look at those at those images in the human world that are artistic, handmade, beautiful and alive. We are listening for the World’s Dream.
_______________
HOW IT WORKS
General discussion of dreams is for the home page. Check out all page categories to respond to new dreams.
The Dreamer’s Post and Response
- Include the approximate date of dream, the general area in which you live, the landscape (woodlands, seaside, mountains, desert, city, etc. at the bottom of the dream post. You may have difficulty deciding the category; if so, flip a coin. Yes, we are serious about that.
- Also include your cultural origin (s) if you know it (them) for the purposes of the study tracking indigenous dreaming responses.
- On the site there are general pages for posting according to the image in your dream. Please post on the page appropriate to that image.
- The dreamer may post his/her dream initial responses to the dream (feelings, meaning, questions to self, poem, art, media etc, or an actual response in the world) in the same post. After that you may post in reply to any of the responses from readers.
The Reader’s Response
- Due to the nature of the site the only reader responses permitted are creative responses upon reading the dream. You may post a poem (yours or one you are reminded of, visual art work, media. You may also leave a link to something that reminds you of the dream. In doing so the symbolic mind amplifies the meaning of the dream for the reader and gives feedback to the dreamer as well.
Posting Agreement
By posting on this blog you agree to grant Barbara Flaherty free of all cost the use of your dream or dream response, and your first name and last initial for identifying the source of the dream in her projects (written or in media) associated with the goal of this blog to give voice to the communicating world in this age of ecological crisis.
Three IMPORTANT Guidelines
ALL DREAMS COME IN THE SERVICE OF HEALTH AND WHOLENESS.
A DREAM IMAGE EVOLVES FOR THE DREAMER, SOMETIMES OVER A SPAN OF YEARS.
RESPONSES OF THE READER OF THE DREAM ARE MORE ABOUT THE READER’S INTERACTION WITH THE SYMBOLS OF THE DREAM THAN THE ACTUAL MEANING OF THE DREAM FOR THE DREAMER, ALTHOUGH THEY “MAY” AMPLIFY THE DREAM IN A WAY THAT IS USEFUL FOR THE DREAMER.
Basic Dream Theory
(very basic, but important for our purposes)
Many indigenous cultures and religious traditions have understood the importance of the dream; that importance modern man has for the most part lost, forgotten, or cast aside. However there are those in modern western culture who have attempted to understand the mystery of dreams, primarily in the field of psychology.
Dreams tell a story that assists the unconscious material to become conscious. Symbolism is the language of the unconscious, and understanding symbolic language is the process of dream interpretation – the process of becoming conscious.
Three systems of dream interpretation have emerged. Used alone or in conjunction with one another, they help illuminate the yet to be conscious material, helping the individual in his/her growth process. These three manners of interpreting are all based on the understanding that the language of dreams is symbolic in content. They are
· Associating: The dreamer associates the dream contents with the ordinary circumstance of his/her life. The story the dream illuminates is the underlying content of life experience with its patterns and conflicts. This allows the dreamer to resolve life issues on a deeper level. Association is personal, unique to the individual.
· Amplifying illuminates the archetypal, spiritual, and transcendent aspects of the dream. It is open not only to the inner life of the individual dreamer, but also to the greater world of myth, archetypes of the unconsciousness, and religious traditions.
· Tending the Living Indigenous Image. This is the primary focus of this site. In the two previous approaches to the dream we explored the personal and collective. Here we look at the World’s Dream. We do this by tending to a dream’s images of the natural world that have strong feeling and resonance, that are radiant, peculiar, odd, out of place, even terrifying or horrid. We also look at those at those images in the human world that are artistic, handmade, beautiful and alive. We are listening for the World’s Dream.
I dreamed I was a butterfly,
flitting around in the sky; then I awoke and wondered
Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly,
or am I a butterfly dreaming a man?”
or am I a butterfly dreaming a man?”
~Chuang-Tzu
About Barbara Flaherty
Barbara Flaherty has studied dream work since 1983. She was a co-founder of the Jung Institute of Alaska. She studied for 20 years under indigenous medicine people, and in the West under Jeremy Taylor and Stephen Aizenstat. She has been a mental health clinician for twenty years.
Cultivating the Indigenous Mind
The book links to the right of this page are for books that cultivate the indigenous mind - dream books and books from which original page postings on this site were drawn.
Homepages for Authors of Suggested Dream Books
Manifestations: the Literary Journal has designated space for submitters to this project who respond to dreams with visual art, poetry, or multimedia. Check the Submissions page at Manifestations.
