By Amanda Moreno
We have once again entered what I fondly refer to as Pisces Dream Season. Usually, about a week before the Sun shifts into the sign of dreams and the abyss, my dreams kick it up a notch, becoming more vivid and intricate. I also tend to remember them more. This is not to say it’s the only time of year when dream activity increases, but it is the most predictable. So, let’s talk about dreams.
Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day
My background is in depth psychology, which at this point predominantly refers to forms of psychology that orient themselves around the ways the unconscious speaks to us, including the study of dreams.
In the depth psychological approach, we’re looking to understand the ways the unconscious speaks to us so that we can learn about the parts of ourselves that are hidden from view. We can learn how to heal the soul, that ambiguous and mysterious connector between the world of the mind and the realities of the body that gives heart and meaning to experience.
I find this approach to be significant for many reasons. Among them, depth psychology is a genuine science of the soul. The word ‘psychology’ actually means “logos (knowledge or account of) the soul.” Unfortunately, much of our psychologies have been stripped of soul and dried up into a science of the brain. I believe that as we transition worldviews during this time of monumental change, we are also being tasked with healing the soul — and how do we heal the soul in a world seen as soulless, one that refuses in so many ways to acknowledge the mystery of human experience as well as our innate thirst for meaning and connection?
Depth psychology and astrology go hand in hand, really. They both speak the language of the soul, using archetypes as the basic structure. Depth psychology needs astrology to give it cosmological context, and astrology can access depth psychology to stay relevant and personal, and to avoid being strictly a mental exercise.
One of those methods of personalization is dream work, be that by observing and potentially acting on correlations between astrological transits and shifts in dream activity, or seeking to understand the ways the archetypes come alive through each of us in the images our psyches — our souls — offer in the dream time. Heck, a few times in life I’ve been fumbling through the dream time only to have my psyche throw up a big ol’ astrological chart as if to say, “Here! Can I make it more clear for you?!” Unfortunately, much of the time my response is “Well, that doesn’t make it that much clearer — now I have to decipher the chart!” Ah, the longing for absolute, direct and concise communication that the psyche rarely provides.
There are some fairly easy, although at times time-intensive, things you can do to get more out of your own dreams. I do not recommend cookbook definitions of dream images, although sometimes they can be a good place to look if you get stuck or are curious. The reason is that each dream image is intensely personal. It is a robust attempt by your unconscious mind to deliver a whole universe of information.
This is why I refer to it as dream tending or dream work rather than interpretation. The psyche is multi-dimensional and dreams are alive! Water in my dream last night might have been clear, blue, calm and viewed from a precipice off of which I was about to jump. For you, it might have been rolling waves on a moonlit night viewed just as they were covering up your head. The images and intent of the element are quite different in each.
So, what are some ideas for making the most of Pisces Dream Season? Here are a few, although I highly recommend Stephen Aizenstat’s book, Robert Moss, or Robert Johnson’s Inner Work, which can be found at your local bookseller or online.
First, having a dream journal by your bed is the most important step. It should be at minimum a journal that is dedicated solely to recording dreams, set with a pen used only for that purpose as well. If you’re into it, have fun with it! Spend an evening decorating the outside of the journal with images you’re drawn to. This lets your unconscious know you’re ready and paying attention. It’s definitely best to write the dreams down as soon as you wake up, even if it’s in the middle of the night, as they tend to be quite slippery. Some people find a voice recorder more useful.
When you write the dream down, write it in present time as an invitation for the dream to come alive again, and refrain from adding in extra details or thoughts about what has happened. After doing this, you can reflect on emotional states upon waking or tangential thoughts.
As you keep a dream journal, over time you will notice repetition of images, recurring themes, and just generally get a feel for the way your psyche communicates, opening the door for more fluid understanding.
Free association can be a really easy tool for connecting the dots. Take an image from your dream, write it down and circle it, and then free associate out to other images or ideas. Always go back to the original image after each association. When you have 10-12, see which two or three (or just one!) have the most zing, and then free associate from them outward. See what memories, thoughts and realizations arise. It can also be helpful to then amplify the dream some way, perhaps through diving into myths that seem to connect or old photo albums from the time of the associated memories.
Interacting with dream images from a waking state can be a really insightful tool. In a quiet space, bring your attention to your breathing and then bring the dream back to life from start to finish. Imagine re-running it. Notice the landscape, textures, images and emotions.
After you have re-animated a dream, you can do several things. Perhaps you’d like to talk to a specific character or image. Perhaps you’d like to re-run it with a different ending. Perhaps you’d like to see where it goes after its official ‘stopping’ point. The imaginal realms are quite endless!
Join Eric and Planet Waves in the beautiful world that is Vision Quest. Here are samples of your incredible written and audio readings.
Finally, it can be really helpful and meaningful to bring the dream into waking life by honoring it through artistic expression or meaningful acts of service.
This can mean drawing, painting or otherwise creating an image and then keeping it somewhere with your other dream creations. It could mean purchasing a tiny fetish of a dream-time animal. It could mean making a commitment to walking around the block thinking about the dream once a day for a week.
I myself have been incredibly lax with my dream work over the past few years, but can say that diving into them is richly rewarding — and totally fascinating — work. My psyche has been speaking up in some very loud ways through the dream time lately, even giving me a few rarely acquired but much appreciated phrases to work with.
There are so many ways to work with dreams, and there is something magical about unraveling the mystery of their language. I’ve found a lot of usefulness in simply telling my dreams (in present tense) to a willing listener who will then project onto my dream by saying “If it were my dream…”
So, Happy Dreaming Season! Please feel free to share resources, ideas, questions or dreams themselves in this space if you so desire.
I had a dream early this morning that I was driving a car with two of my friends in the backseat, on the way to the train station. That we were laughing and joking all the way. When we were close to the station, I couldn’t find parking and had to go a long way, away from the area. And then we lost our way through the labyrinth of small lanes. I stopped by to ask someone the way. They pointed to a narrow dark lane further ahead.
We moved on. Suddenly I realised that the lane was a sort of dead end and ended in a queer building with a kind of archway. I got off the car to ask again. I was told that that was a crematorium and that I had to go through it and come out the other end, which would take me closer to where I had to go to find parking.
The building ahead was dark and had some queer black statues lined up in a sitting posture against one wall. The floor was wet. The place had a strange smell and was absolutely silent. For some strange reason, we all walked through instead of going in the car! I don’t know why. And then quite magically, we were on the other side, back in the car, with one of my friends in the front seat beside me this time.
I remember leaning over to this friend and putting my arm around, our bodies touched as I adjusted my seat, and I felt very warm and sensual. And we laughed again and drove on. Suddenly I find that we are driving through a passage which had an exhibition of sorts with many stalls along one side. I wondered where we were again and before I knew it, we were back near the station and also found parking! And they got off, waved goodbye and went off to catch their train.
It was such a weird dream and so vivid in its details – the smells, the sounds, the visuals, the colours…..but I have no clue what more to read into this…..any insights anyone? 🙂
The symbolism in this dream appears to relate to the archetype of passing through the Underworld (or the Valley of the Shadow), which suggests that in order to embrace a certain part of yourself or your life, you are having to process some difficult, intense and/or deep material. I’d start by asking yourself what (or whom) your friends represent, especially the one who ends up in the front seat.
Oh my. There’s so much there!
If it were my dream, I’d think about what I’m carrying with me that I no longer need or am being asked to leave behind. If it were my dream I’d run through the sensual part again and slow it down…what does that sensuality feel like? I’d examine what the person who moves to the front seat represents for me — if they’re the same sex, I’d specifically look at what shadow elements they might be reflecting for me – time to cozy up with those, perhaps?
I’m really drawn to the archway, so I might draw that or paint it or collage it and stick it on my altar for a while, and look into arch symbolism.
I might also walk through the place with the statues again, too, to see if any of them have anything to say.
Writing this on the fly, so I’ll try to come back later and see if there’s anything else. Thanks so much for putting that dream out for us to wonder through.
Priya, what a rich dream. First thing that struck me is you are in a car, and you are driving. A teacher once informed me that the Car is a metaphor for Soul. You and your friends (aspects of your self) had to leave the car to get through the crematorium, and then you were magically back in the car. I’d dive into that passage through the archway– part where you were out of the car — and see what emotions, images, and sensations tell you. Were you ever anxious about the parking, missing the train, or feeling lost? Or was it all an adventure with no worries?
Amanda mentions some books in her article. I have a book called Women’s Book of Dreams by Carol… I’ll get back to you with the author. She writes about her years in a women’s dream circle, where dreamers would commit to being in the circle and sharing dreams and offering insights in a structured way. Over time they began to dream for each other. Many times our dreams are for us and for the collective simultaneously, especially if we share a bed or other kinds of close relationships with dreamers.
Has anyone here been in a dream circle?
Priya, forgot to mention the importance of other oracles in dream work. Have you had a recent Tarot reading, or do you need to get one to help illuminate this dream? Do any of the images speak to you of current, natal or transiting astrology? Everything is a resource for our dreams!
This website is a great resource — all articles written by Stephen AIzenstat — and he talks a lot about the ways the world dreams through us… http://www.dreamtending.com/articles.html
I believe his book is the one where they discuss using dreams to come up with solutions to community issues — for example, how to build a bridge over a stream in a way that respects the needs of the community, the land, and the water.
I’ve been in dream circles before, and intend to start hosting them at some point in the not too distant future. They’re pretty incredible. In grad school, I spent a quarter focused on dream work and the changes that came out of that period of my life are still rippling out six years later. It gave me my first glimpse (actually, it was a pretty horrific plunge but that’s a story for a non-internet forum) into the power of ritual. At the end of the class, I did a dream incubation with a dream council, which meant that in preparation I made ritual objects based on images from dreams I’d had that quarter, set up an altar with figures from dreams represented, did some ritual fasting, [I was supposed to make a mask of a figure and wear it to bed, but I didn’t] and then woke every 90 minute to record dreams throughout the night.
Something else that comes to mind — my mentor in grad school lived in Hiroshima for a few years and discovered all kinds of commonalities in the dreams of survivors of the bomb and citizens of the city — including the common theme of having the bomb drop, and then hit, and then in the dreamtime people would drop whatever they were doing, and come together in a circle holding hands.
…incidentally, I find that keeping a single journal that contains both my dreams and anything else I might need to write about works best for me. Amanda M and I talked yesterday bout this; she’s coming from the perspective of ritual in stating that a dream journal must only be used for dreams. But the one time I tried to have a separate dream journal, it just did not work for me. I barely used it. I realized that I need an integrated journal, where everything in it has shared context and integration.
I do keep it beside my bed, and it has its own pen, though! 😉
Years ago, when I was working through “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron, I reallllllllly struggled with the morning pages and also keeping my regular journal and writing down dreams. I did not really want to put my dreams in the Morning Pages notebook, because that felt like a separate thing/activity from my normal journal, and I was not sure I’d necessarily want to keep the Morning Pages for future reference the way I keep my journals.
But in the end, dreams ended up getting written in the Morning Pages notebook. Mainly because they were in my head first thing in the morning and desperately needed to come out through my pen onto the page (If that was where my stream of consciousness went, that was where I had to go). But also because I just did not have time in the morning to write three whole notebook pages for “TAW” and *then* go write down my dreams in my journal. So part of my process of overcoming resistance to the Morning Pages was to let it all kind of merge together for a while.
Sometimes I rather miss the Morning Pages practice. Lately, I just miss writing down my dreams. It feels like it’s been far too many weeks or months since I’ve felt like I can take that luxury of journaling in the morning before work (I have not been getting up as early as I sometimes can in the summer), despite vivid and odd dreams trying to get my attention…
In the end I think whatever works best for you is what works best for you. I think my Virgo comes out in this piece, though — give it some structure and ritual to balance out all that Pisces dreamyness 🙂
Thank you so much everyone! I really didn’t know that this one dream I had could have so much symbolism…..and yes, those were the exact things that I was drawn to as well – the archway, the statues and the friend in the front seat 🙂 Could any of you share any website/books/other resources which could help me delve deeper into dreams? That would be of great help to me……thanks a ton!
Every morning over our first cup of coffee my partner and I tell our dreams. I find that in telling I HEAR the patterns connections, and the words I choose and feelings I notice. Often the feelings I am having in the dream are important clues to what the visual symbols and actions are about. Sometimes if the dream has resonance beyond the hygienic discharge of my unconscious I will also write it in my journal. About a fourth of my dreams call for action, as in the dream requires me to think, decide, and change something in my life. Rare and unforgettable, dreams are lucid messages from Divine. Message dreams I call them. It can take me months or years to decipher the message, or more likely, to be willing to accept the message.
In Amanda Painter’s Sun Neptune article I share my Neptunian dream, and Amanda made a comment that took me right to the point. (Thanks Amanda). Decide where the boat is taking me. It might be good to review other boat dreams from the past, and see what is up with the boat!
Last week I had a dream about a magical bonfire and an underground river. Since that dream I burned my hair in a fire, sweated out some old stuff in a sacred sweat lodge, and burned with fever for two days following. Time to revisit that dream!
“About a fourth of my dreams call for action, as in the dream requires me to think, decide, and change something in my life.”
I can’t say I’ve charted a percentage, but I definitely have experienced dreams that called for action (and the *decision* to take that action, a necessary step…). One in particular about nine and a half years ago was so clear in its unusual (yet totally legible, to me) symbolism, I can still recall thinking about it as I walked through my apartment and realizing *exactly* what I needed to do in that moment: to make an appointment for a transformational breathwork session, rather than put it off or wish it cost less, or what-have-you.
That dream, the realization of what I needed, and immediately taking that action put me on a road to sexual and emotional healing that I had needed for far too many years, but did not know how to address until that moment.
I can still remember the dream, and I will always be grateful for its appearance, and for my own willingness to listen to it.
Wow Amanda! How good that you didn’t stew over it for years like I did the dream that presaged my divorce! Willingness is key.
One quarter is a guestimate, though the frequency of those get er done dreams is increasing over the past couple of years.
For sure, Carla. But since I had “stewed” in pain, confusion, depression and fear/loss for about 11 years at that point, and had experienced the first step of movement (which involved a lot of upheaval and heartbreak and the first instance of healing/functionality/sexual ressurance) a good 6-7 months (or more?) before the dream, it was TIME TO ACT, period.
And I’d had the good fortune of a gifted breathwork session a few months prior to the dream also, so I had a specific, effective experience with a new healing modality that I could direct myself toward.
So… I guess it’s all relative!
😉
Wow. That’s inspiring! I guess part of my “get a structured plan for life together” time this weekend needs to include a commitment to dream work! I’ve had some big ones coming in lately and haven’t been doing them justice at all. And I want to!
Hope you’re feeling better 🙂
I really feel blessed to have been able to share my childhood dream with you.
It’s amazing what our souls know, and how that energy can connect with others.
Amanda – off piste by a couple of weeks (with apologies): in case you don’t know Ursula le Guin’s Dancing at the Edge of the World. Such a pleasure to read. Wider than gender – just ‘true’ (a true note)?
Thanks! I’ll put it on my library list 🙂