"Dreams are a powerful alternative state of consciousness that gives us access to realms of being and imagination available in no other way.  If we fail to integrate them into our lives, we are neglecting what may be our most potent natural resource for personal and collective change."
                                                                                                                          — Robert Van de Castle
                                                                                                           Author of:  Our Dreaming Mind
 

ABOUT RADICAL DREAMING

"Dreams have a poetic integrity and truth. . . . 
These whimsical pictures, in as much as they originate from us,
may well have an analogy with our whole life and fate."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In my own life and over many years as a psychotherapist, I have found dreamwork to be a remarkable tool to help eliminate obstacles and free our creative potential, particularly the process of creating a meaningful life. I noticed that the more I removed my preconceived theories and popular systems of dream interpretation — as I found ways to get out of the way and let dream images speak for themselves — dreams took on much more depth, and transformative healing power in peoples' lives. I realized that dreams are always nudging us into our creative life — into our passion and into new possibilities. Dreams want each life to become a creative participation in the world. This remarkable bridge to a deeper, more genuine part of who we are means that dreaming is one of our most undervalued and unused natural resources.

My experience has also convinced me that our dreams function like a psychological immune system. Dreams are adept at showing us the consequences of a particular self-destructive belief, or wounding, negative comments from our own self-criticisms or from a parent or a friend, from something we were taught in school, or from societal pressures to conform. Dreams show us—often with graphic images—how self-destructive ideas dramatically influence our thinking, reasoning, feelings and behavior. Over time, these silent invaders distort our personality, impacting our outlook on life, our self-image, and even our basic sense of who we are and why we are here.

Why most dream interpretation doesn't work: 
Even with modern psychotherapists' sincere intent to understand their clients’ dreams, whether in individual therapy or in a group setting, dreams are usually “shrink”-wrapped in some theory. Freudians will tell patients that most images are simply disguised, repressed symbols of sexuality. Unfortunately most "Jungians" ignore Jung's insistence to "leave your theories behind" when you work on a dream. You alone are the expert on your dreams and each dream must be put in the context of your life. Dream symbol dictionaries, while entertaining, claim to know what each image in your dream means, which completely eliminates any possibility of understanding what your dreams are really about.

After more than two decades of researching and experimenting with many different techniques of dream interpretation, I developed an image-centered approach to working with dreams that I call Radical Dreaming. From working with over twenty thousand individual dreams (making plenty of mistakes along the way), I realized that our dreams do indeed have a profound intent and purpose: they stand as guardians at the gates of the human spirit, defending us from all manner of nefarious influences. In fact—if we are paying attention—our dreams focus, with laser-like precision, on our hidden talents and potential, and they are relentless in their attempts to free us from anything that is self-negating and self-defeating.

Dreams are indeed like a master sculptor removing everything from the block of marble that is not “elephant,” not really "you." This natural process slowly but surely brings one’s Authentic Self and particular genius into clear definition. Like a fog lifting and the sunlight emerging, we begin to see and to know what it is that we must do with our life. We begin to feel more connected with ourselves and our world, and our life begins moving in the right direction.

"This dream work utterly transformed the way
I experience my life and my place in the world!"
                                                     — Greg H.

Here’s a fascinating example  of a dream that appears
to be a literal memory of dying:

 The Artist and the Tidal Wave

Terri, a beautiful, exuberant eighteen-year-old rebel, had a frightening dream immediately after joining a spiritual group. She had the dream just as she was in the process of moving across the country so that she could be near the minister, a commanding, charismatic woman in her early sixties who she described as “my spiritual teacher.” Unfortunately, over time, the group evolved into a very destructive cult. Many years later, after finally leaving the group, we worked on that old dream that still puzzled her. Back then, her spiritual teacher told her the dream was a memory of dying in a past life in Pompeii and that was the end of that. The dream had always haunted her and just would not go away. Here’s her dream:

I am on a beach at the ocean painting with an easel. There is a woman with me also painting. I then look out and see a gigantic tidal wave nearly on top us! Then I look back at my painting and my friend and I realize everything has been swept away and I am under the water and will drown. I repeat a prayer but I feel the water filling my lungs and I am surprised there is no pain.

Terri’s dream was to be an artist. Art was her passion in life. She told me, “I always dreamt I wanted to be a great painter.” And her dream begins with her “painting” at the ocean. She described her friend as, “someone I had known for a couple of years. She’s an eccentric genius, a writer, but also somewhat self-destructive.” Terri felt she accurately represented a part of herself—eccentric and talented as an artist but with a self-destructive side. I asked Terri to imagine being that tidal wave. “I’m going to overwhelm everything—wipe it out,” she said, adding, “I was amazed I was dying and there was no burning, no pain.”

"All the time I was in the group," she explained, "my guru said art was not my right work, that you couldn't make any money with art. I accepted this without a fight, I just let go, exactly like dying in that tidal wave, without a struggle,” Now Terri realized the tidal wave was the group’s ideology that had killed her authentic life, her passion, her art; it was the artist, her creative passion that drowned under that wave so long ago. Now the dream resonated powerfully; it made perfect sense. She told me, “After all these years outside the group, I am struggling to find and uncover that artist, that painter that I let die.” Finally understanding her dream gave her the resolve and renewed determination to resurrect her art and her creative life.

Our dreams carry the awesome potential to help us to see clearly who we really are—our natural, inborn potential and unique character without anything “put on” us. When understood, they become our passport into a life that has meaning, passion, and purpose. Our dreams want our lives to make a difference. We need only remove all the isms and complex psychological systems that would like to tell us what our dreams mean and instead learn how to give our dreams the respect and the freedom to speak for themselves.

And he turned his mind to an unknown art.
- James Joyce

"Thanks again so much, John, for the amazing dreamwork.
You helped me tremendously during the most difficult time I have ever experienced."
— Michelle R.

"I propose we give up the simplistic opposition between body and soul,
and instead imagine a unique character encapsulated in images."
 — James Hillman,
Author of:  The Soul's Code, & A Terrible Love of War

 

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