1. Everyone dreams, every night of their life. Whoever makes us, makes our dreams. They come from the factory; where we all return each night to be “re-tuned” to the vibrations of our essential self.

2. Dreams are filmed live and in person within us. They reveal objective facts of our subjective (inner) life; and they do not know how to lie.

3. “Dreamer’s choice” means the dreamer is always in charge of what to believe, how much personal material to share, and when to stop.

4. Please respect each dreamer’s anonymity and privacy outside the group.

5. “All dreams speak a universal language and come in the service of health and wholeness,” writes Jeremy Taylor. They always have healing opportunities in them and confirm that you are ready for that growth!

6. Don’t believe a thing we say! Believe your own “felt validity.” Dreams are a message from your inner self to your outer (or mildly-conscious) self. When your head gets the message that your heart already knows, you will feel it intuitively, emotionally and physically: Believe that evidence. The dream doesn’t want you to believe us; it wants you to believe you.

7. Exploratory Dreamwork invites the group to study and wonder about each symbol in a receptive, curious manner until we begin to hear the voice of our own soul. When dreams are marinated in curiosity, they come to life, remind us of things, and reveal riddles, insights and humor. They can adjust our point of view, predict the future, link people in the group together, comment on the discussion itself, and bring our deepest truths into everyday life.

8. Explanatory Dreamwork is when someone outside your skin tells you what your dream means; beware. In Exploratory Dreamwork each person is the final expert on the meaning of his or her own dream.

9. “If this were my dream…” avoids projecting our meanings onto the dreamer and softens frank feedback.

10. “What this dream is saying to me…” acknowledges that Universal symbols speak to everyone who hears them, often in completely personal ways. The universal and the personal meet in dreamwork. Everybody’s dream is everybody’s dream. Any dream we work on, can teach you.

11. Dreams come from the timeless side of the psyche and are always on time. They will synchronize with everyone in the group, with other dreams discussed at the same time, and with events that have not yet happened. Emerson said, “Every man is a doorway through which the Infinite passes into the finite;” Dreams are the Doorknob.

12. There are no trivial dreams. “There is no great and small to Him who makes it all” (Blake). We have repeatedly seen one tiny dream fragment, deeply understood, change an entire life direction or self-definition.

13. Dreams always bring information you do not already know. They come from our “unconscious” side, so others can often see implications hidden from us. If you’re the dreamer, learn something you don’t already know. Dreams invite community.

14. Dreams are like diamonds; from every different point of view they reveal a new facet of light. Symbols have many meanings that are simultaneously true. E.g., every symbol has a light and a dark meaning; an inner and an outer meaning; a physical, a spiritual, an emotional, a mental, a cultural, and an archetypal meaning, etc. It’s not that A or B is true, it’s that A and B are true, and C… Group dream-work provides a valuable diversity of viewpoints.

15. Dreams are stories that store meaning and energy. They link our conscious mind with the Great Mystery, the invisible source of being. As Muriel Rukeyser put it: “The world is not made of molecules, the world is made of stories.” (“Molecules” is just a creation story.)

16. We generally work with a few dreams in great depth and apply the results to everyone. Many dreams don’t open before 30+ minutes of effort; afterwards, dream symbols re-congeal that layer of opaque incomprehensibility, to seal in otherworldly meaning and energy. Sometimes you must un-peel the oniony complexity all over, while other symbols will never be forgotten.

Dreams are a royal road to our interior, well worth befriending. Many dreamers find profound direction in their lives, discover new parts of themselves, and live more fully from exploring their dreams. But, before you can work with your dreams, you must remember them. One of the most frequent questions in dream workshops is, “How can I remember my dreams?”

Remembering a dream involves the transfer of information from our unconscious to our conscious self. We all dream every night, but many things can diminish our recall of these interior dramas. Being too tired affects us, as can stress and anxiety, or fear of the unknown could be blocking our access to dreams. Some people have simply never learned how to welcome dream information.

The first thing to consider is your attitude toward your own dreams. One client never remembered dreams, because they were “too irrational: Heck, anythingcan happen in a dream.” I suggested he offer a “deal” to the maker of dreams: “No crazy content, and I will record the dream and work with it.” The very next night, he remembered his first dream with great clarity: he was making eggs for breakfast and washing the dishes, yet many important insights were encoded in this very down-to-earth dream imagery.

1. Our receptivity to hearing dream guidance improves dream recall,welcome them.
2. You can sometimes make deals, specify what you do or don’t want.
3. You can ask questions before bedtime, (in writing if you wish–some even put it under the pillow), and then dream the answer to your “dream request.”
4. Reading about dreams can be a good stimulus to dream recall. Jung said that the unconscious takes toward us roughly the attitude we take toward it. When we show an interest in dreams, they often make themselves more accessible to us.
5. Set your intention before bed to remember, honor and record any images that you recall. Having a pen and paper furthers the intent.
6. At night imagine remembering a dream the next morning, and don’t wait for a “complete” dream, capture any detail.
7. Lie very still in bed when you first awaken to allow any images to return. Often we catch a dream by the tail, recalling the end of the dream first, and then tracing the story backwards.
8. Create or purchase a dream journal and keep it by your bed. This demonstrates to the unconscious your serious intention to remember dreams.
9. You can use a tape recorder to capture your dreams, though you may need to transcribe them (or listen back in segments) to work with them.
10. Studies show that adding B-complex vitamins to one’s diet may improve both daytime memory and the recall of night-time dreams.
11. Using the snooze alarm or taking naps can invite dreaming when you are less deeply asleep, making it easier to recall them.
12. Be aware: alcohol and many drugs decrease dream recall.
13. Many people recall dreams prolifically on vacations, maybe you need a break.

Be curious about the workings of your psyche; it is guiding, rehearsing and retuning your attitudes each night. Even nightmares guide us toward health and wholeness; they just employ a story-form that is designed to command our attention.

Select the dream-recall techniques that appeal to you, and set your intention to remember and record your dreams in the next few days. If you want to explore the dream work process before recalling your dreams: you can analyze anywaking-life experience as if it were a dream, using all the same techniques. Symbolic wisdom is hidden all around us!

Even those dreams we do not remember help us perform better the next day. However, as Jung’s star student, Dr. Von Franz wrote: “Every understood dream is like a slight electrical shock into higher consciousness.” You will dream tonight. Will you remember it this time?

Every single night, everybody dreams. One of the more frequently appearing dream symbols is the house. Every dream symbol includes powerful, personal meanings and generic, archetypal levels as well. Each dream symbol contains much condensed wisdom seeking to become conscious; knowledge which can guide and enrich our lives, but only if we listen.

First, our body “houses” us in one sense. A dream house with many unexplored rooms suggests that there is great undiscovered potential within us. A house’s condition may also comment on the state of our mental and emotional well-being. A run-down house suggests we need rest and physical self-care.

Our house is a refuge and place of identity, so houses often tell us about our place in the world and how we identify ourselves. If you exaggerate the pronunciation of the letters in the word “house” it sounds like “How-You-See” and, indeed, our “point of view” may be examined and shown to us. Nothing is more invisible to us than our own assumptions or point of view. Don’t expect a fish to notice the water he takes for granted.

When we dream we are back in a childhood house, this gives us a frame of reference for the phase of our personal history the dream is addressing. This may also address child parts of the psyche which are still present in us.

In a given house, we lived with certain people and we dealt with particular issues; these influences may also be addressed. It helps to ask, during what years of my life did I live in that particular house? In retrospect, could you find a theme or two that described that portion of your life? How does that issue apply to today? These will get you started unraveling the many layers of meaning in the house in your dream.

There are many symbols of the interior of houses. The dream house may have higher levels (like a second floor or attic) that connote spiritual values, or less positively, ungrounded intellect or “living in one’s head.” A basement could evoke the unconscious or perhaps sexuality, while hallways indicate a passage or transition of some sort.

The favorite room of many dreams is the bathroom! This may be because such universal processes are hidden there… just as our interior life is hidden from our waking self. Also, the release of toxins and the process of cleansing are very important to having a healthy mind and heart. Plus, all that plumbing connects toinvisible, hidden resourceson which visible life depends, just as the invisible realm of dreams underlies and supports our daily life.

Dreams offer a kind of cosmic feng shui, altering our interior homes as a way to nudge us toward health and wholeness. Poet Mary Oliver wrote in “Winter Hours”:

“The condition of our true and private self is what dreams are about. If you rise refreshed from a dream–a night’s settlement inside some house that has filled you with pleasure–you are doing okay. If you wake to the memory of squeezing confinement, rooms without air or light, a door difficult or impossible to open, a troubling disorganization or even wreckage inside, you are in trouble–with yourself…”

How at home are you with body and spirit? Your next dream of a house may let you know. Happy Homey Dreaming!

Many people, and certainly many scientists, think dreams are trivial and meaningless fantasies. Probably the side effect of late night pizza-eating. Let us examine the “pizza hypothesis.” Consider, first, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev. He was a professor at Saint Petersburg in the 1860’s where he was struggling, without much success, to find some order in the chemical elements according to their atomic weights.

Having intensely focused his waking efforts on this task, he fell asleep only todream an answer to his waking question. He “saw in a dream, a table where all the elements fell into place as required.” From the notes he made upon waking, and with only one minor change, Mendeleyev published the Periodic Table of Elements which graces the wall of so many hard-science classrooms today; rooms in which dreaming is rarely given any credibility (or credit) whatsoever. (This seems a little ungrateful.) It may be disturbing to some rationalists that the “hard sciences” rest, in part, upon the ethereal imagery of our dreams.

And there’s more to the story: If Mendeleyev’s dream had merely outperformed Mendeleyev’s waking ability to reorganize the known facts it would already be an impressive performance (for a pizza). However, based on his dream table, our “scientific dreamer” predicted the existence of three non–existent elements! Three new mystery elements were announced along with their properties. How brash can one be with only a dream to go on?

All three of the elements which Dmitri designated were discovered within fifteen years and can now be found on our modern day wall charts. Stop by your nearest physics, science, or chemistry lab to see a dream that came true.

Then there was that dreamy adolescent, doing so poorly in school, and so resentful of authority, who dreamed he was on a sled, far away from school, riding merrily along. Soon, the sled began accelerating almost beyond belief until the stars in the heavens around him were transformed in dazzling fashion as he approached the speed of light! What power and beauty he saw that night! This adolescent fantasy-of-the-night was credited later in life, by Albert Einstein, as the earliest source he could recall for the Theory of Relativity.

Einstein’s famous “gedunken” or “thought experiments,” which he used to explore and to explain new theoretical principles all follow the same pattern as this early dream drama. Here’s the equation: Albert’s dream + Albert’s brilliance and hard work = A New World View for all of us. Later Einstein wrote, “To punish me for my contempt for authority, Fate made me authority, too.” It’s all in a night’s work.

A well known story of the “sleepy scientists” is that of Friedrich von Kekule. The benzene molecule was the puzzle which obsessed him. How was it structured? How to conceive of it? You guessed it: start with diligent conscious effort, then fall asleep. Since the source of dreams is so superior to our waking mind, we seem to get much smarter when they knock us out, cold.

In his dream, Kekule saw strings of atoms performing before him like a chorus line of chemical clog-dancers. Finally, long rows began to twist in a snake-like fashion until one “snake” seized its own tail in its mouth and whirled around and around: Ouroboros on a merry go round. With much further work (while he wasawake, mind you!) this dream image became the Benzene Ring, a concept which revolutionized organic chemistry.

The ancient image of a snake eating its own tail is an archetypal symbol of life living on life, and of wholeness and circularity which has appeared in waking art and dreaming life all around the globe.

We have,ourselves, come full circle from the myth of “meaningless fantasies” and the “indigestion theory” of dreams. To be fair, nocturnal physical discomfort might awaken one enough to improve dream recall, but let’s not give it full credit. Consider Kekule’s advice to a convention of his fellow scientists in 1890: “Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then we may perhaps find the truth.” In that case: “Gentlemen, make mine, pepperoni!”

1. Everyone dreams… every single night of their life. Whoever makes us, makes our dreams. They come from the factory… where we all return each night for a ‘retuning’ to the vibrations of our essential self.

2. Dreams are filmed live and in person within us. They reveal the objective facts of our subjective (or inner) life; and they do not know how to lie. Dreams are the ‘answer sheet’ for the ‘Know Thyself’ exam.

3. Dreamer’s choice means the dreamer is always in charge of what to believe, how much personal material to share, and when to stop if they have had enough.

4. Please respect each dreamer’s anonymity and privacy outside the group. We need every participant’s promise to do so.

5. “All dreams speak a universal language and come in the service of health and wholeness,” in Jeremy Taylor’s phrase. They always have healing opportunities in them and they also confirm that you are ready for that growth! Jeremy Taylor’s work with dreams is the closest style to our own. We highly recommend all of his books. (Dreamwork, Where People fly…, Labyrinths)

6. Don’t believe a thing we say! Believe your own “felt validity.” Dreams are a message from your inner self to your outer (or mildly-conscious) self. When your head gets the message that your heart already knows, you will feel it …intuitively, emotionally and physically. Believe that evidence. Dreams convey both meaning and energy between the worlds: “Every understood dream is like a slight electrical shock into higher consciousness” (von Franz). The dream doesn’t want you to believe us; it wants you to believe you.

7. Exploratory Dreamwork invites the entire group to study and wonder about each symbol in a receptive, curious manner until we begin to hear the voice of our own soul . . . This crucial, intuitive link brings up our own personal meaning and insights. Dream symbols are the stimulus for exploration and discovery; they are a starting point. When dreams are marinated in curiosity, they come to life, remind us of things, reveal riddles and insights and memories and humor… they help us adjust our point of view, predict the future, link people in the group together, comment on the dream discussion itself, and bring our deepest truths into everyday life.

8. Explanatory Dreamwork is when someone outside your skin tells you what your dream means. This has its place, but not in our work. Here, each person is the final expert on the meaning of his or her own dream.

9. “If this were my dream…” is Taylor’s preface to comments, that politely avoids projecting our meanings onto the dreamer and softens the frankness of feedback. “You” is an accusatory form!

10. “What this dream is saying to me,” acknowledges that Universal symbols speak to everyone who hears them… often in completely personal ways. The universal and the personal meet in dreamwork. EVERBODY’S DREAM IS EVERYBODY’S DREAM. All group insights may apply to you. In one sense, no matter whose dream we work on . . . it is also your dream. You can get your own insights and guidance while you help the dreamer find theirmeanings.

11. Dreams come from the timeless side of the psyche and are always on time. They will synchronize with everyone in the group, with all other dreams discussed at the same time, and even with events that have not yet happened. Emerson said, “Every man is a doorway through which the Infinite passes into the finite . . .” Dreams are the Doorknob.

12. There are no trivial dreams. Well there was that one in 1956 – No, None. The source of dreams does not know how to be trivial (that’s a talent of our ego). “There is no great and small to Him who makes it all” (Blake). We have repeatedly seen one tiny dream fragment, deeply understood, change an entire life direction or self-definition.

13. Dreams always bring new information. They never just repeat what you already know, and since they come from our “unconscious” side, others can usually see many implications hidden from us. So get and give outside help. Dreams invite community. And if you’re the Dreamer, after sharing your insights, be sure to listen to others. Try to hear something you don’t already know.

14. Dreams are like diamonds. From every different point of view they reveal a new facet of the light. Each symbol has many meanings that are simultaneously true. E.g., every symbol has a light and a dark meaning; an inner and an outer meaning; a physical, a spiritual, an emotional, a mental, a cultural, and an archetypal meaning, etc. (Bet you can’t eat just one.) One reason we love group work with dreams is because of the rich diversity of points of view we bring together. So it’s not that A or B is true, it’s that A and B are true, and C…

15. Dreams are stories from our source. What dream-stories store is meaning, and energy. Dreams arrive like emails from our interior, hyper-linking our conscious mind with the Great Mystery, the invisible source of being. As Muriel Rukeyser put it: “The world is not made of molecules, the world is made of stories.” (‘Molecules’ is just a creation story.)

16. We get the best results from working with one or two dreams in great depth and applying the results to everyone. Many dreams don’t open before 30+ minutes of effort; the attempt to briefly discuss several different dreams during each dream group usually means missing the Magic, entirely. After a session, dream symbols re-congeal an outer layer of opacity and incomprehensibility . . . to seal in those otherworldly flavors (of meaning and energy) that they contain. A day later you may have to patiently unpeel the oniony complexity all over, but some symbols will continue to talk to you and show up for quite some time, if you are open to it.

Here is the last dream JT recorded before her heart attack:

The Dream:

Approaching a stop sign… I see… a small deer. Unsure if it has been hit, I decide to stop and see. Pulling over on the narrow shoulder I find a place to park, hopefully out of danger. We are no more than 6 feet from the highway. The fawn… is laying down, heaving breaths. I have to choose whether to leave him in this dangerous place or take him. I choose to take him to a clinic just a short drive from here…

One of the surprising secrets of professional dream interpretation is how often dreams predict life challenges and prepare us to meet them. This dream foreshadowed JT’s upcoming heart attack, without spelling it out, and it prepared her to survive it.

Research shows that if you were to practice making free throws in your imagination you could improve your scoring average just as much as you could by actually shooting free throws! Rehearsals in imagination are powerful.

Within this dream she practiced 1) interrupting her plans while driving near where her heart attack was going to occur, 2) pulling the car over and 3) seeking medical help. Since the dream’s victim is a fawn and not the dreamershe need not panic but can calmly seek medical care: precisely the attitude JT exhibited in her upcoming crisis. It worked.

The dream demonstrated how ready and able she was to stop and take someone (soon to be herself!) for medical help in a crisis after she approached a stop sign. Is there any more effective “stop sign” than a heart attack?

Our dreamer, JT, is a kind hearted animal lover who takes animal rescue workshops to heal and care for animals in danger. In this dream, the animal kingdom repays her efforts. I suspect that the best way to motivate JT to take care of her physical self, would be to elicit her response to a vulnerable animal.

Dream Exploration:

• The dream’s phrase: Unsure if it has been hit, now seems a reference to her own heart. When the “unusual sensations” began she was not convinced that her heart had been hit and her first thought was “I don’t have time for a heart attack, I promised to meet a co-worker’s client soon.” This dream greased the skids of neurological probability and made it easier for her to do the right thing.

• We are no more than 6 feet from the highway might allude to being 6 feet under, as a reminder of the serious stakes involved. Or is it being 6 feet from the “High Way” in the sense of going to heaven?

• The fawn… is laying down, heaving breaths, which anticipated her first symptom of the heart attack and paired it with the need to lay down and rest.

• After JT decided she should stop and see what was going on, she realized that I have to choose whether to leave him in this dangerous place or take him. So in the dream JT is forced to deal with a medical emergency and practices the right choice. Fortunately, she did choose to get help and not to leave her body in the dangerous place of being in seizure! Instead, she assumed the role of the fawn and asked her daughter to take her to receive medical help.

• I choose to take him to a clinic just a short drive from here which is exactly what happened and when she arrived at the nearest clinic she was immediately hospitalized! JT was rescued by one of nature’s training films: our dreams.

• JT’s heart is now healthy and she is doing well, just as in her dream the fawn got a clean bill of health!

The last sentence in JT’s dream read: I am torn between keeping him in captivity, but safe, and letting him go face his destiny, taking with himonly my heart.

This case includes a life saving dream that offered guidance for the heart both psychologically and physically! Dreams are visionary dramas that help us master our lessons in advance. Every night our dreams improve our lives and sometimes even save them.

“We need dreams the shape of lakes,
with mornings in them thick as fish.”
(Naomi Shihab Nye)

• Dreams are filmed “live and in person” inside us. They reveal the facts of our interior life; profound insights about every aspect of our existence. And they do not know how to lie.

• Every night our dreams cast us in strange surrealist screenplays which make us ask: “How am I secretly this person?” There are no trivial dreams: Every dream is filled with fresh beginnings, “thick as fish.”

• Dreamwork is a safari into our own interior, where guidance, healing and mystery reside. Our reward is direct access to our own inner truth and Self-direction. Dreams are your answer sheet for the “Know Thyself” exam.

• The dreamer chooses which dreams to investigate and is the final judge of what to believe they mean. By working with dreams, we transcend mere opinion about how to live and find our own interior wisdom.

• When we work with dreams, they outrank us. To understand them, we must invest enough effort for our human (pea) brain to decipher layer after layer of multi-dimensional content. It is reassuring that “Someone” so enormously wise and complex looks out for us, and speaks to us each night. A dream is “too big for the net. It loves you more than you love it.” (-Nye)

• The same force that makes our body and heals our cuts makes our dreams. Call it Nature/God/the Unconscious/Buddha mind… however you conceive the source of your being, that is the source of your dreams. They come from whatever factory made us. They reveal hard facts of our inner life.

• Everyone dreams every single night during five or six REM cycles. If dreaming is interrupted, the next day we frustrate easily, solve problems worse, etc. So, dreams are continuously helping us even if we never remember a single one. When deprived of dreaming, our next sleep will be crammed with dreams, until we catch up, so essential is dreaming to living.

• The choice to record and to learn from your dreams is the establishment of a communication link with your higher self. Accepting the gift is the other half of love. It is one way to hear higher wisdom; your own higher wisdom.

• In every growth path and religion, there comes a point when the individual must consciously choose to participate in his own development.

• My basic rule of dreamwork is “Don’t believe anything I say.” From politics to used car sales, the message is always “trust me.” Dreamwork helps you learn to trust yourself. Dreams are a communique from inner you to outer you. When an interpretation works, you’ll be the first to know!

• When your head hears the messages of your heart, there’s an electrical charge; the energy circuits to our interior light up with each intuition or insight. Jung’s brilliant student, Marie-Louise Von Franz, wrote: “Every understood dream is like a slight electrical shock into higher consciousness.” This is a direct connection to the invisible world.

• If you explore a symbol long enough, physical, psychic, and emotional energies are released into waking life. You can feel it. This felt validity is your ability to know truth directly.

• An “insight” is an inner-sight: a view from within. We don’t create insights. We receive them when we “Hear the Guide Inside.”

• Everybody’s dream is Everybody’s dream. Part of the magic of a dream group is that the universal wisdom in every dream speaks to everyone who works with the dream!

• The dreamworker is essentially a translator. We are hired by the dream-owner. We devote ourselves to his or her growth, awareness and freedom. But ultimately, we work for the dream. The dreams systematically train us and guide us.

• The process of working with dreams changes the dreamworker too. Dreams guide all who explore them toward a more whole and soulful self.

• Von Franz calls dreams our “nightly letters from God.” Have you been reading your mail?

No one knows where dreams come from, but remember this: No one knows where we come from either! I believe the answer to both is the same: Whoever makes us also makes our dreams.

Dreams are a meeting ground for the visible and invisible worlds that we simultaneously inhabit.  Carl Jung wrote that a career of studying dreams had altered his beliefs about–well, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. I used to believe that, without exception, all glimpses of the future were probability guesses. However, hard facts (eventually) changed my mind: one dream after another has disproved my theory by “knowing” and predicting way too much, way too accurately, about the future. I will tell you one of them in a moment.

Decades of work with dreams have shown me that every dream includes predictive elements, often including events that will occur during the dreamwork session itself! This is of course, “impossible” and it occurs very frequently. Here’s an example.

I used to have an office with a large, comfy couch that dream group members always flocked to before choosing the portable plastic chairs. One particular night we were working on a dream in which some dream character kept repeating “What’s wrong with the couch? What’s the problem with it?” After many minutes exploring the possible meanings of this symbol, it dawned on us that for the first time in several years, no one at all was sitting on the couch. The dream that playfully predicted this rare event had been dreamed and recorded several months earlier and no one had seen it except the dreamer, who thought nothing of the comment. We all felt that “chill of truth” when the magic of this mini-miracle dawned on us.

There are future references in every dream because dreams come from theeternal side of the psyche. Where dreams originate, unity and onenesssupercede all distinctions between self and other, and what we perceive as the past, the present and the future co-exist in an eternal Now. We all visit and directly experience this reality that the mystics write about in every dream we have and we do so every night of our lives!

Futurist dreams come in two flavors: predictive and prophetic. Most future references in our dreams are predictive and are based on probability. If we continue drinking, (or eating, overworking, arguing with our spouse, etc) the dream’s scenario shows us where we will (probably) end up after a time. It shows us our trajectory and anticipates our probable outcome.

A compelling look at where we are headed can be the best motivation for a change in direction. Remember the dreams of Ebenezer Scrooge and the many benefits to him (not to mention to Tiny Tim!) of warning dreams and visions. Such dreams are morality plays which threaten us with our own future! They stimulate our free will to avoid precisely the undesirable outcome that is shownand felt. Like a ship’s radar that “predicts” a future encounter with an iceberg, these are outcomes which can be avoided specifically because they have been foreseen.

Notice how this second type of futurist dream differs from the predictive dream. Here is an example of what is called a prophetic dream: In the fall of 1997, I was approached by a young woman who worked at my health club. She had heard that I worked with dreams and said that she had “dreamed something really disturbing” and needed my help. She reported the following:

I sometimes have very vivid dreams and I always write them in my journal. Well, I had one last Saturday August, 30th that is blowing my mind. In my dream, it’s night time and I see Princess Diana surrounded by a crowd of photographers. To escape them, she climbs into a car whose driver speeds away and carloads of rowdy paparazzi chase after her. The princess’ car races across town and enters a tunnel.

 As she comes out of the tunnel her car crashes into the base of a clock tower, and the princess is killed! I feel stunned and horrified in the dream. I look up the clock tower to see the clock hands pointing to the time: 12:24.

Well, the very next night, 24 hours after I had this dream, Princess Diana was actually killed in real life just about like I had dreamed it and it happenedat exactly that time–to the minute! How could that possibly happen? What does this mean?

Seeing her distress, I gently replied, “Well, to me this dream communicates two things for starters. One: The world clearly does not work the way most people believe it does. And two: You have been chosen to experience this fact in a way which you will never forget. This kind of a dream is always a wakeup call and it may also have imprinted some life questions you are called to investigate and come to terms with. That part is up to you.”

…It landed in your lap,
you asked for it,
secretly you had been reeling it in for months
like a trapped fish.

 Most serious adults believe that it is impossible to know the future. And most serious adults are dead wrong. Our waking self might know little about the future, but the part of us which dreams all night is chock full of information about it.

So, do dreams support predestination or free will? The correct answer appears to be: both. The facts of prophetic dreams and visions suggest that certain events are fated, fixed and unchanging. These events our dreams can specify like the predictions of Nostradamus. With these events, our freedom of choice seems to be in how we deal with them, not whether.

The many dreams that my clients had that predicted the attacks of Sept 11 (up to a year in advance!) suggests it was a very high probability or, perhaps, afated event… while the majority of events in our lives are open to our free will and choice. Many negative or even positive events are only possible or even probable, but they can be encouraged or prevented by our actions.

Dreams exhibit these two, paradoxical, views of our future, since they come from the heart of the Mystery we inhabit, from the source of life and death, of night and day of yin and yang. Dreams originate in a greater consciousness than we who receive them where apparent “opposites” form a complementary whole, inviting us to make room in our lives for the profound dream wisdom that reaches us in sleep.

Too big for the net—
It loves you more than you love it.
It wants to stay here forever,
Smiling and cuddling
In the bosom of your days.

(The Dream, Naomi Shihab Nye)

I, who was trained as a scientist, would like to tell you a true story about “dream magic.” Some prophetic dreams anticipate precise details of our future and are not probability predictions, as you will see.

In the 1980’s, I was training Hollis, a talented intern, to interpret dreams, when we explored this dream which foretold her future in a way my scientific training declared impossible:

“I am driving along in my car through ever-deeper mud. Soon I can’t progress at all. I’m stuck. I get out and slog along through the deep mud. When I look up, a beautiful African woman reaches out and helps pull me up out of the mud. I go to a house to get cleaned up and in the entryway there is a magnificent, ornate vase.”

Dream symbols are like diamonds: from every different point of view, some new facet of light is revealed. We viewed each symbol from many angles: intra-psychic, inter-personal, physical, spiritual, archetypal, cultural, etc. to show her the power of dreams.

The dream reminded Hollis about the “beautiful African (American) woman,” who was her nanny, and whose love was truly uplifting. This child of white employers, had a second mother–who was very beautifully, very black! This dream rekindled Hollis’ love and gratitude for this special woman, giving credit that was long overdue.

Anyone who truly sees and loves us helps to birth us and becomes part of our “spiritual family.” Hollis embodies the brotherhood of two races. This and many other insights arose from her dream.

Finally, Hollis drew a detailed image of the impressive, ornate vase in her dream. It spoke to her of esthetic treasures, some new vessel–or capacity–for flowering, for elegance, for feminine receptivity, for life!

The essence of our analysis was this: Some inner gifts and capacities… of great beauty can be discovered, but only after trudging through her own stuckness. We must sometimes leave whatever vehicle/attitude/identity we have been relying upon to travel through life. And after serious efforts of our own, a helping hand may be offered… often by a scapegoated and under-appreciated part of us! Some beauty we have denied and have hidden in our shadows comes to our rescue us creating a new vessel.

Years later Hollis phoned me saying, “I found that vase from my dream, I found it!”

Recalling this training dream, I asked, “Wasn’t your vehicle stuck in the mud?

“Yes, that was my marriage which went downhill for years, going nowhere. We even lived on a rutted country road where people would literally get stuck in the mud trying to visit us.

Even the road to her house–which mirrored her life experience–was foreshadowed in the dream! Outer challenges mirror our interior life: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

“That very dream helped me realize I had to get out. Out of that house, that marriage…” she continued. “I was depressed, stagnating; I was stuck in the mud!””What about the African woman who helped you out?” I asked.

“I’ve been studying African drumming and dance and they are bringing out a whole buried part of me! They’re helping me feel in touch with my body, to feel like me again. They really get my energy moving, getting me unstuck from the inside. When I found the courage to leave my husband, friends offered me a place to stay. And in their entryway–there it was: the vase from my dream!”

“How similar?” I inquired.

“It isn’t similar,” Hollis clarified, “It’s exactly the same vase that I drew years ago!”I was stunned by my first encounter with this “everyday miracle” of dreams. I said: “Wow, it’s like a ‘You are Here’ sign from the Cosmos!”

Her difficult choice to leave an unhappy marriage was facilitated, prior to the marriage! Apparently, some divorces are made in heaven. Seeing that familiar dream vase in the “real world” she knew she was on the right path.

Hollis’ discovery of African dance and drumming marked a “coming out” for a young black woman inside her white skin. Hollis is a vessel of a double heritage. Both mothers should be proud of her. She now rescues children at risk… as once was done for her! Her dream vase runneth over.

Dreams come from wherever we do. They regularly predict the future and they link people together in the world of dreams. In the following case one dream even arrived to interpret another dream! And just in time to predict the outcome of yesterday’s mid-term U.S. elections (November 7, 2006).

DreamTalk is a membership email dream group to which people submit dreams to be interpreted by the group. On November 6, we received the following dream:

“Hi DreamTalkers, Dreamed this last night. It’s a bit long, but I would appreciate any insights.”

‘The Pre-Fab House‘ (excerpts) I go for a weekend getaway to this house in the country… a beautiful wilderness area… when something unlatches… and the house goes rolling… down a hill… and turns on its side… I am surprised in no time the house is back in its spot… the place is some sort of pre-fab home. I can tell by the floors and other materials, although I really like everything in it. The types of things I’d choose…. and then a huge room attached with a different color carpet-–blue… Some woman tells me a college built it… “It’s an amazing house.” The only downfall, I think, is that some of the materials might off-gas for awhile… there is a neighborhood across the way. I can see houses and electric lines.”

Next morning (November 7, 2006) we received this remarkable email from Dr Marjorie Miles, a co-moderator of the group. The first dream is interpreted in this dream on the morning of the elections. The email speaks for itself:

Dear DreamTalkers, Fab-ulous dream! Well, your dream stimulated a dream for me this A.M. that offered a social-political commentary on your dream. How appropriate since today is Election Day! In my dream, I am told that the House in your dream represents the House of Representatives, and that it needs to be turned on it side so we can change direction to a time (pre-fab) prior to the fabrication of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction that eventually has led us to war. In my dream, I am encouraged by the fact that something is unhooked that has been keeping the current political agenda in place, and that we are entering a beautiful wilderness area—new territory which includes a new vision for preservation of wilderness areas, and addressing issues like global warming, health care, and the economy. Even though we may have enduring a sick house that requires us to get off gas (and look for alternative fuels), and, though, it may take a while, there are new neighborhoods we can inhabit—with electric lines (perhaps for electric cars) and, other sources of fuel. If this were my dream, it would say loudly: Be Sure to Vote Today!…so we can have a new House in the Country (first line in your dream) Blessings on the journey, Marjorie”

Dreamers who practice interpretation do occasionally have dreams which encourage their progress by interpreting bits of dreams within a dream. It is unusual for a dream to interpret another person’s dream. As the election results are tallied we hear the word “landslide” which is what occurred literally in the dream. The house leadership moved from one “side” of the aisle to the other, changing from red to “blue” as in the dream. Is the “hill,” Capitol Hill? Is the marvel of it being “back in its spot” the miracle of peaceful elections? Is the “floor” that of the House? This political outcome is definitely what the dreamer “likes” and would “choose.” Is this “amazing House” of Representatives the one the “college” of electors helped build? And will the “downfall” of oil-affiliated Republicans actually get America “off gas for a while?” Who knew the makers of dream were so political? One final question is how the second dream’s interpretation strikes the original dreamer. Here is her response to Dr Marjorie’s dream’s analysis:

Dr. Marjorie, How wild! It’s funny because I am soooooooo political. And when I do build a house it will be off the grid and solar powered. I also want an electric car! Ha! Amazing. Thank you. And I already voted in early voting last Friday. Yeah!”