What if I never remember my dreams? This is a frequent frustration! Know that it has been proven repeatedly that we all dream every night. So the dreams do their work whether we are conscious of them or not. See the pdf file on Dreamcatching for help recalling dreams. Meanwhile, you can do dreamwork with anything that moves you: scenes or images from waking-life events, from movies or literature, from Scripture, art, or from other peoples’ dreams.

Aren’t dreams just downloaded images from my day, or reactions to what I ate or saw on TV? Yes, events of the preceding day often figure into a dream. But why, of all the experiences in a day, did those particular images show up in the dream? Asking yourself about the associations and feelings of those particular images will help you open up to their deeper significance for your life.

Can I really interpret my own dreams? Yes, many people come to significant insights on their own. Dreams are yours; they are about you: and you have what you need to see a dream’s import. However it’s helpful to have another person or a dream group because we all have blind spots. Usually these block us because we are being asked to change in ways that the ego resists. Other dreamers will offer ideas that will give us some “aha’s” that we miss on our own.

What about nightmares?  Nightmares are profound experiences: in them we are visited by terrible images, situations, and characters; and when we wake, we are filled with terror, dread, and anxiety.  It is very hard to believe that they are helping us in any way. 

To respond to a nightmare, first emerge from it and distance yourself:  remember that it is a dream, and dreams are very rarely literally true.  Remember to pray: give the dream to God, asking for help in dealing with the feelings it evokes and asking for wisdom to see what is so valuable and urgent.  Finally, as you work with the dream, remember that the intensity of the nightmarish elements is designed to get your attention.  When you turn toward those terrible elements of your nightmare and bless it with your attention, confident that it has a gift for you, you will usually find that the feeling-tone around it changes.  There’s a gradual gentling of its energy. And while the subject of the nightmare is still challenging, you’ve begun a dialogue with the Giver of dreams through the imagery of the nightmare.  It’s not easy, and it takes time.  But it is necessary, and you will benefit immeasurably from the work you give your nightmares.

The wisdom on nightmares from Jeremy Taylor is this: if you can dream it, you can deal with it.  In fact, your dreams themselves provide the creativity and courage and insight you need to explore the issue at hand.

One note: if you are on medications or have experienced serious trauma, you may find that your nightmares are more than you can handle.  It’s possible that your “dream filter” isn’t working, and truly unmanageable things come into consciousness.  If this is the case, don’t hesitate to find a professional psychotherapist or psychiatrist who can help you with both the nightmare issues and sleep deprivation.

Note about death imagery: Death in a dream is rarely suggestive of the dream figure’s actual physical death. It is often a picture of a personal transformation that may feel like death – perhaps you are leaving behind an outgrown attitude, value, habit, or persona that needs to fall away so that something true can emerge.   Or perhaps a dream depicts a situation that  is “killing” you, and therefore needs your conscious attention.

Is dreamwork Christian? The Bible clearly shows dreams and visions (waking dreams) as being some of the most reliable ways God communicates important truths to people. The Covenant, the Exodus, calls to various prophets, and the Incarnation are all revealed by dreams and visions. Not only do dreams play a crucial role in the Biblical narrative; they were also valued by many church fathers and mothers such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Aquinas. Saints and theologians through the ages have relied on dream wisdom too: Meister Eckhart, Hildegaard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius, Teresa of Avila, and more recently, Thomas Merton, John Sanford, and Morton Kelsey.

Do I have to be a Christian to do this work with you? No. I honor whatever way you are moved to look for truth in your life, and welcome whatever language you use to describe what you experience.

Sometimes my dreams “come true” – this feels scary and strange. What is happening? We don’t often talk about experiences that seem “supernatural,” and our silence reinforces the strangeness of these events. However, they happen all the time; they are quite “natural.” As for what is happening, I find it most helpful to think about the concept of time as one eternal moment. The idea is that time is simply a context for life as we know it: reality isn’t really chronological; everything exists at once in the unity that is God. So knowing or sensing things that seem to be past or future is just a breakthrough to this wider reality.

Dreams sometimes open us up to that perspective.

And yes, however natural it is, I’m with you; it does feel strange.

What are some applications for dreamwork?

• Discernment around questions, relationships, and crises of any kind
• Working through life transitions – in work, calling, identity, becoming a parent, aging, midlife upheavals
• Coming to terms with endings, disappointments, and sudden shifts
• Moving through illness
• Journeying toward death
• Healing of old emotional wounds and discovering their gifts for you now
• Deepening relationships in small groups
• Exploring insights for community awareness and action
• Enhancing therapy
• Family dream sharing to build closeness between members and to deepen and encourage the natural spirituality of children
• Building intimacy between friends, lovers, partners
• Resource for spiritual formation
• Deepening personal or group experiences during travels