What 30 plus years has taught me:

Sage of an Olive Tree

If one can come to a point in their experience of life where their dreams are significant to them and they come to know that these dreams hold truths for them about the world and their circumstances then the dream state will deepen. It becomes a tool of awareness and perception. Their point of view of life and love and suffering broadens and deepens into compassion and understanding. Pain separates from Suffering. That seems to be The Way of Things and that much I know is true.

I have been active with this stuff since my days at Twin Valleys School (1979/1980) in one form or another ... I have been influenced by the work of Jung, Freud, Erickson, Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, (Cosmic Consciousness published in 1901) Harman & Rheingold and many others but my all time favourite is Rass Dass, (Richard Alpert) together with a huge cast of contemporaries that runs the gambit of my experience of just over 3 decades ... and the list goes on.

One thing most of us have in common is the understanding that dreams hold truths. They do speak in metaphors to the beholder. And sometimes the beholder is frightened off by the depth of the message and the initial perception of the dream.

I borrow from Huge Prather:

Self: I have a Problem

Dream: Here let me show you

Dreams are like canvasses of the mind. There is meaning in there but so much is left to interpretation ... rule of thumb never interpret your own ... you’re too close to it. Write about it. Share it with others ... actually someone who has spent some time and effort working on this area and you will be surprised at what comes jumping out of the bushes at you.

Things I’ve noticed about dreams and dreamers and how the truth is revealed or accepted. If the beholder shows strong resistance then the dream is striking at some core issue. If the message is blatantly obvious to the observer but the beholder can’t or won’t see it, then the dream is striking at a deep and often painful core issue. Once the issue is revealed then time is the magic elixir and given time now the unconscious mind can begin the process of releasing the past in the present – in the dream - then the deeper healing from the pains of their past can begin in the present and that gives us back our future.

I always suggested to my clients to record their dreams; have a dream journal. It makes it so much easier to deal with them and the problems they bring to my door step. There also seems to be a universal problem that they bring to me in some form. It is always centered on love. What I have discovered in the process of working those themes of love and abandonment is that love is always the answer ... it really is a matter of where and how one looks. Similarly, with the business of pain and suffering the same fact is true ... it is how you are looking not what you are seeing that prompts or promotes the suffering: For Suffering Is a State Mind Not a Condition of Existence.