The Dreammaker's Apprentice: Using Heightened States of Consciousness to Interpret Dreams [ハードカバー]

Some dreams seem beyond our own personal creativity. Meditating on such dreams gave me my first taste of a "higher power," presence, a being, an intelligence or consciousness-take your pick-that knows me better than I know myself, that is worldly wise yet spiritually adept, and who seems very close at hand, if invisible. Is it possible to empathize with such a cosmic perspective?

Dreams are real experiences, real because they make a difference. They change us, understood or not. Edgar Cayce considered dreams to be experiences--experiences of soul. His story of what happens in the dream state is that while the body-mind sleeps, the soul compares the activities and experiences of the conscious personality with the soul's larger awareness and idealistic intentions for that life. What we remember in the morning is an echo of the soul's evaluation.

To appreciate the soul's action in a dream relative to the ego's awareness of that activity, imagine this scene: A child plays with a ball outside, hypnotized by its experience and lost in the moment. The parent sits up on the porch, with an all inclusive perspective and ageless wisdom. The ball suddenly surges out into the street. The child automatically runs wildly behind it, aware of nothing but the joy of pursuit. The parent sees, in an eternal moment, not just the child's joy, but the immanent danger of the road, a life possibly cut short, and exclaims involuntarily, as any parent would do, "Oh, my goodness!" From somewhere above and behind the child, there comes the startling sound, the emotion in the parent's voice causing the child to hesitate and pay attention, but now aware only of the echo of that feeling laden sound. Even though the child wasn't aware of what the parent was experiencing, the child was instinctively responsive to the parent's outburst. The soul's perspective is wider than the waking awareness. We are affected by our soul's dreams, remembered or not, understood or not.

What then of the interpretation of dreams? We usually interpret a dream using the truths we see in the dream story, as focused on the dreamer, the waking personality. In the book The Dreammaker's Apprentice: Using Heightened States of Consciousness to Interpret Dreams (Hampton Roads Publishing). Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., demonstrates that, rather than viewing the dream ego-centrically, focusing instead upon the maker of the dream leads to a more profoundly spiritual awareness. The author is a maverick Jungian analyst who has developed an influential mode of therapy he sometimes calls "process work," an approach more concerned with feeling energies than with examining concepts, favoring verbs over nouns. Comparing a dream with a book, he uses the title "Dreammaker" to refer to the author of the dream. He equates psychological dream interpretation to the analysis of the contents of a book. He finds this approach useful and gives good pointers on making connections between the dream elements and aspects of the dreamer's life. Yet the main thrust of his book is to describe how to develop empathy with the Dreammaker.

To do so requires a heightened consciousness akin to mindfulness. Intention to become aware of where the dreammaker wants to take you, simply sit still and pay attention to your thoughts, little urges and subliminal images that tease the surface of the mind. Mindell calls these subtle tendencies "flirts," implying they would like your attention. In this way, we can become aware of multi-levels of imagery and meanings. Even with his many examples, it's hard to learn this process from a book, but here's an image that helped me: Following flirts is somewhat like exploring the intent of the composer by imagining dancing to the music to see where it takes you. Practicing his approach I find myself watching my feelings and reactions after I revisit a dream, to see if I can detect the trend of how it may be influencing me. In doing so, I am reminded of Cayce's suggestion on how to establish some connection with soul: "watch self go by." The result, Mindell says, is an expansion of awareness, an attunement to the "thoughts of God." In contrast to a psychological interpretation of the dream contents, which provides the ego personality with a task, the focus on the dreammaker releases the ego personality from having any "homework" attached to the dream. The dream is sufficient unto itself, makes the necessary adjustments to the dreamer.

Here we have a familiar paradox of spirituality. On the one hand, we can work with our dreams to perfect ourselves in the image of our ideals. On the other hand, we can surrender our life into God's hands, trusting that higher will and allowing its expression, through our dreams, as well as through our own actions and experiences. To be the dreammaker's apprentice asks that we balance these positions. Our dreams teach us that like the sparrow, we are known and grown by the Creator. We need also apply the insights we ourselves create from dreams to insure our sails are kept trim and that we are ready to move as the Spirit wills us. www.henryreed.com/publications/bookreviews

One often wonders "Who is painting this dream world I find myself experiencing in dreams?" "Who is the Director of this movie?" In The Dreammaker's Apprentice, Mindell explores those questions and gives us a map to find the answers. He moves us beyond the personality & identity of the dreamer and the images & landscapes that intrigue us. He shows us how mindfulness can bring us to the subtle voice speaking through the dream in what he calls "flirts". As with any flirt, we can respond or shy away from it. To respond is to be the Dreammaker's Apprentice, to surrender our own perceptions to a much deeper Source and to benefit from the guidance of that Source.