Here are some helpful tools for beginning dreamwork on your own.  At the end of the page you’ll find a bibliography on dreams and spirituality.

I. Dreamcatching: Ten Suggestions for Remembering and Recording Your Dreams
(most of these are from Jeremy Taylor)

1. Decide, clearly and wholeheartedly, that you really want to remember your dreams.
2. Imagine yourself recalling and writing down your dreams.
3. Equip yourself: place pen and paper beside your bed or under your pillow. (You might try a tape recorder instead.)
4. Making brief notes is better than trying to write out the whole dream upon waking. You’ll be able to fill in the details later in the day. Also, use titles that recall the experience of the dream, rather than those that state the insight the dream offered.
5. Fragments are valuable! Think of them as the “poems” that summarize the “novel” of the dream. Anything counts in dream recall – an image, feeling, color, sound, etc. Whatever breaks into consciousness is ripe for knowing.
6. To catch a long dream, try reciting or imagining it backwards, last scene first.
7. Try to recall your dream while maintaining the position in which you awoke: don’t roll over, much less get up, talk, make coffee, etc.
8. Some experts claim the B vitamins help. Take one before sleeping if you want to try this.
9. Alcohol generally impedes dream recall.
10. Don’t worry if you don’t remember dreams often. They are doing their work, even if you never know it. And many people find that waking life offers interesting situations that can be “worked” using dreamwork methods. This waking practice may lead to more remembered dreams

II. Jeremy Taylor’s Ten Basic Assumptions About Dreams
I find these to be helpful, reliable points to consider when working with dreams

1. All dreams come in the service of health and wholeness.
2. No dream comes just to tell the dreamer what he or she already knows.
3. Only the dreamer can say with any certainty what meanings his or her dreams may hold.
4. The dreamer’s “aha” of recognition is a function of memory and is the only reliable touchstone of dreamwork.
5. There is no such thing as a dream with only one meaning.
6. All dreams speak a universal language of metaphor and symbol.
7. All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life’s problems.
8. All dreams reflect society as a whole, as well as the dreamer’s relationship to it.
9. Working with dreams regularly improves relationships with friends, lovers, partners, parents, children, and others.
10. Working with dreams in groups builds community, intimacy, and support, and begins to impact on society as a whole.

III. THREE SIMPLE TOOLS FOR BEGINNING DREAMWORK
Working with your dreams on your own can be both fulfilling and frustrating! Try these three methods of solo dreamwork as first steps in unfolding a dream for yourself or with a friend.

DreamWeaver’s Method

1. Name it (write or tell the dream)
2. Name the key feeling(s) in the dream
3. Underline (or name) the key images/characters/actions/settings in the dream
4. Do five associations with each key image
5. Retell the dream, using the strongest association in the place of each key element
6. Consider the new story/dream in the context of your waking life

“Part of Me”

1. Write the dream.
2. Underline each image
3. Read the dream aloud, inserting the phrase “part of me” after each underlined image. Ex: The stalking cat part of me plunges into the deep pool part of me and finds the underwater world part of me.
4. Feel for “ahas,” noting which “part of me” images seem to hold the most energy (+ or -) for you.
5. Where am I experiencing either the presence or the absence of these parts of me in my waking life? What seems to be the significance?

Writing a Dream Prayer
- Tallulah Lyons
Writing a dream prayer is a way of heightening one’s awareness that dream work is a sacred dialogue. It is a way of summarizing both the insights and confusions of the dream, for expressing gratitude, and for declaring the intention of staying in the dialogue.

1. The dream prayer addresses the source of the dream with gratitude.
2. The dream prayer acknowledges how the dreamer is responding in the dream and acknowledges the dreamer’s feelings and attitudes in the dream.
3. The dream prayer describes the issue that the dream seems to be spotlighting. Usually the spotlight is on a conflict of opposing perspectives or attitudes.
4. The dream prayer expresses the dreamer’s desire for help in becoming more open, trusting, inclusive, accepting and courageous – the desire to engage with increased insight, humor, and creativity in the face of this issue and conflict.
5. The dream prayer acknowledges the gifts of the dream.
6. The dream prayer closes with an expression of reverence and gratitude for the dialogue and makes a statement of intention to bring the new energies of the dream into everyday life.

 

Dreamwork and Spirituality: A Short Bibliography

Berne, Patricia, Louis Savary, and S.K. Williams.  Dreams and Spiritual Growth.

Bulkeley, Kelly.  Spiritual Dreaming: A Cross-Cultural and Historical Journey.

Hudson, Joyce Rockwood.  Natural Spirituality.

Johnson, Robert.   Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth.

Jung, Carl G.  Memories, Dreams, Reflections (memoir).

        ”     “            The Portable Jung.

Kelsey, Morton.  Dreams: A Way to Listen for God.

    ”   “                         God, Dreams, and Revelation.

Lyons, Tallulah.  Dream Prayers: Dreamwork as a Spiritual Path.

Norberg, Tilda.  The Chocolate-Covered Umbrella: Discovering Your Dreamcode.

Sanford, John.  Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language.

      ”   “                     Dreams and Healing.

Stevens, Anthony.  Private Myths: Dreams and Dreaming.

Taylor, Jeremy.  Dream Work: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams.

        ”    “                     Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill.

von Franz, Marie-Louise.  The Way of the Dream.

Website: www.seedwork.org is a project of the Espiscopal Diocese of Arkansas.  It includes some excellent resources on dreams and spirituality, including lectures from The Haden Institute’s annual Summer Dream Conference and all back issues of The Rose, a biannual journal about dreams and spirituality.