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The Path of She: To Wake, Perchance to Dream — Communing With Your Dreambody

The Path of She: To Wake, Perchance to Dream — Communing With Your Dreambody

Last updated on: July 9, 2016 at 4:00 pm by Karen Clark

The Path of She: To Wake, Perchance to Dream — Communing With Your Dreambody 2016-07-08T22:02:29+00:00 Karen Clark

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Dreaming has been diminished in our modern Western society, relegated to a flat, limited version of its true, vast potential. We have been taught that dreaming is an activity reserved for the dark of night and the oblivion of sleep. Sometimes we remember snippets of our dreams, but even these we barely pay attention to in the rush of our demanding lives.

Half of our humanity — the part that connects us to our soul and the spiritual mysteries that underlie everyday reality — is lost in this truncated conception of dreaming.

Yet dreaming is what it is, no matter how we conceive or engage it. What is lost can be refound. It is as simple, and as difficult, as replacing one way of understanding dreaming with another.

Let me offer you a different conception of dreaming: there is no separation between your dreams and your waking life; awake or asleep, it is all one dream that can guide your personal growth and life journey.

By Martin Sattler / Unsplash

The Wide, Wild World of Dreaming

You dream at night where the laws of physical reality slip away and open you to the unbound adventures of the realm of spirit.

You dream when you meditate, work magic or engage in other practices that shift you into an altered state of consciousness.

You dream when you go about the business of your daily life, drawing events and situations to you, especially those that are unusual, significant or emotionally charged.

This wider, wilder conception of dreaming invites you to broaden your awareness to include the workings of your soul and the spiritual mysteries that infuse and inform your life.

It teaches you that your life is not random. The things that come your way from your waking and sleep-time dreams, be they profound or profane, joyful or painful, spiritual or mundane, are the stuff of your personal growth and evolution.

The Dreambody

Dreaming is literally second nature. We have a physical body for engaging the material world and a dreambody for the wide, wild world of dreaming.

In our sleep-time dreams, where our mind and the laws of physical reality are turned off, our dreambody reigns supreme. In our waking-world dreams, our dreambody is a guiding presence that helps us engage the soul-based energies and spiritual mysteries that direct our outer life.

These powerful dreaming capacities reside within us all, but for many they have atrophied through lack of attention and use.

At the beginning of my spiritual journey, I didn’t remember my sleep-time dreams nor understand the importance of dreaming in my waking life. Now my dreambody connection is as natural and ever present to me as breathing. How did I make this profound shift? First, and most essential, I fell in love with my dreambody.

The foundation of becoming a masterful dreamer is to establish and cultivate a deep, respectful and passionate relationship with your dreambody. Like all good relationships, it takes strong desire and focused attention to court and cultivate a bond of love, communion and trust with your dreambody.

Communing With Your Dreambody

Here is an exercise for reaching out to your dreambody with the intention of starting or deepening your relationship.

1. Set aside time to connect with your dreambody.

Your dreambody is most present and accessible in those initial moments between sleeping and waking when the tendrils of your dream still hover in your conscious awareness. So set your alarm a bit earlier to give yourself time to be with your dream energy and images before you need to get out of bed to start your day.

2. Work with your dream upon waking.

When you wake up, don’t let your thinking mind kick into gear. Stay with the movements and sensations of your breath, and open to the images and energy of your dream.

Imagine breathing the dream into your body and letting it fill and infuse you.

Say yes to the dream, yes to its guidance.

Don’t worry about intellectually understanding or analyzing the dream. Your intention is to connect and commune with your dreambody and its gifts of dream images and energy. Understanding will come.

If you don’t wake up with dream images, still stay soft and open in the hazy, delicious space between waking and dreaming, and know that your dreambody is present in this space. Keep practicing this exercise and dreams will come.

3. Record your dream.

When you get out of bed, write down a few key images and insights from your dream, and your emotional responses. Note any themes or issues that are present in the dream that speak to your healing and personal growth.

If you have time, record the whole dream because often it’s the subtle, background aspects of a dream that hold the treasures of insights and inspiration.

4. Bring your awareness of your dream into the rest of your day.

Whatever you were dreaming when you woke this morning is also present as you go about your daily activities. Remember that there is no separation between sleeping and waking; it is all one dream.

Pay close attention to the events and situations of your waking life, and see if they reflect and further inform the images, energies and insights that came to you from your dream.

Look for unusual, significant or emotionally charged situations. Think of these things as offerings from your dreambody that can further your understanding of the soul-based energies and spiritual mysteries that are directing your outer life at this time.

Set aside time to journal these events and situations, noting the details of what happened, the insights and emotional reactions that come to you, and the links to your dream.

5. Be changed by the dream.

Your dreams are not random. Your dreambody wants you to learn, heal and grow. The dream that came to you in this exercise, both from your sleep-time and the events of your day, is a gift from your dreambody.

Take in the images, energies and insights that have come to you from this dream. Let them change you, and commit to continue to follow where they lead.

This exercise offers a foundational practice for communing with your dreambody. With time, quality attention, and your willingness to be changed by your dreams, your love relationship with your dreambody will naturally blossom and help you become a masterful dreamer.

But don’t take my word for it. The dreaming is unfolding at this very moment, just waiting for you to wake up within the dream that is your life.

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