The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams (35 page)

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Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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BOOK: The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams
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Herbal Dream Blends
For centuries, herbal remedies have helped heal the sick. But they are also used to stimulate brain activity such as creative thinking and even better dreaming.
Earthwares, an herb shop in Carmel, California, offers Dream Tea, an herbal tea intended to help "nondreamers" remember the many dreams they have each night, and to cause dreamers to recall their dreams more vividly.
The tea is an equal blend of the following herbs: mugwort, a Native American and generally well-known dream amplifier; rosemary; kava kava, a Polynesian herb used in preparation for vision quests; lemon grass; red raspberry leaf; alfalfa; and spearmint.
Contact an herbalist or natural foods store to obtain the concoction, or get in touch with Judith Bean, proprietor of Earthwares, 122 Crossroads, Carmel, CA 93923, 1-800-455-HERB; the tea costs two dollars an ounce.
If you are interested in "sleeping on it," you might try a dream pillow filled with herbs that are said to encourage dream recall and induce clarity in the dream state. A combination of the legendary mugwort and lavender, rose petals, white sage, yerba santa, and lilac flowers is the mix preferred by Native Scents in Taos, New Mexico, which markets sachet-sized dream pillows. If you like, you can buy these herbs yourself and mix them into the stuffing of your favorite pillow. Sweet dreams!
 
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Incubating a Healing Dream
Sometimes healing dreams can occur spontaneously. After working on her dreams for quite a while after becoming diagnosed with leukemia, for example, the young woman Ann had a dream one night in which a huge pack of wolfhounds destroy the wolf that represented her disease. It was shortly after having that dream that she went into remission. If healing dreams do not occur naturally, however, you do not have to wait idly for them to happen to you. You can make it happen. Dream incubation allows you to prompt your dreams to offer you advice and guidance about your physical health.
To incubate a healing dream regarding your general health, concentrate on your physical body as you fall asleep, focusing on your overall well-being. Give yourself the suggestion that you will dream about a way to improve your well-being. When you wake up, follow your usual dream interpretation practice. When you have a specific health concern, state your ''request" as concisely as possible (for example, "What is causing my backache?"). Your dreams will listen very carefully, giving you the answer to the exact question you asked. If you do not get results with one question, try rephrasing it a different way.
It is also possible to have a healing dream about another person. This is not surprising, because family and friends often appear in the dreamworld, representing parts of ourselves or perhaps themselves as they appear to be. When someone we care about is taken ill in a dream, the emotions that arise can be unsettling. Given everything our waking minds take in, it is certainly possible to have a healing dream about someone else. Perhaps we have observed symptoms characteristic of a particular condition, or heard the person talk about feeling under the weather. The question is, When is a dream about someone else's health condition worth sharing, and when should we simply do
 
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our dreamwork and keep the dream to ourselves? Here are some simple guidelines to help you make that decision:
First, interpret the dream from your own perspective, using dream language to connect with each character as a part of yourself. What aspects of you does this person represent? What might the health condition signify in your own life?
Next, consider the character as him- or herself, with the condition in question. Could the scenario be symbolic of something currently happening in your waking life? You might then choose to share the dream with the other person, using it as a starting point for discussion. For example, a woman who was going through a difficult period in her marriage dreamed her husband had cancer. Using dream interpretation techniques, she discovered that the cancer was a metaphor for what was eating away at her marriage. Rather than rush her husband off to the oncologist, she chose to talk about her concerns, and the couple gained new understanding of their relationship. (Even when the condition is symbolic, however, there may be some health-related symptom worth looking into, so do not discount your dreaming intuition.)
Finally, think about the other person's current health status, and what bearing the dream might in fact have. Generally, there is no great risk in sharing a healing dream with another; take care, however, not to scare someone with a dire diagnosis that may turn out to be a mere metaphor for something else entirely. In the end, the decision is yours to make. Perhaps you want to consider whether recounting the dream will offer real assistance and the possibility of a cure.
 
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You can also try incubating a dream to help another person. If you like, you might ask to borrow a personal item that will help you focus on the person. You can then take it to bed with you, concentrating on it as you give yourself the suggestion that you will dream for your friend's benefit. Often, the dream will not seem relevant to you, only to become crystal clear when you share it with the person you dreamed it for, who may have a better knowledge of his or her own circumstances and health.
On a larger scale, you can incubate a dream to heal a group of people or the environment. Even if you don't share the dream with anyone, it can help give you ideas and inspiration for healing. Several groups and publications like
Dream Network Journal
, for example, have suggested joint incubation of dreams for healing the planet on propitious days, such as the summer and winter solstices. You might want to join in on this collective effort to create a synergistic healing effect for the world through dreamwork. It can't hurt!
Your Spirituality and Dreams
''In some dreams, a spiritual otherness is undeniable," writes David Engle in
Divine Dreams
, "in others, the presence of spirits is moot because we are trained to avoid seeing or even imagining this. Rather, we learn to psychologize all dream content as being 'of ourselves.'" Or worse yet, we ignore the value of the dream content, and miss out on a valuable avenue for communicating with our inner spiritual and mystic nature.
Writing in
Electric Dreams
, an on-line magazine, Taylor Esta Kingsley explores the way a spiritual context enhances a dream's impact:
A man dreams of being in a cave . . . . In the cave appears a bear. The bear says, "I am here to guide
 
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you. Come here whenever you wish to find me. I am always with you and within you." Psychoanalytic-symbolic dream analysis would say the cave represents his subconscious. The bear . . . represents his actual parent. . . . Possibly it would be seen as wish fulfillment that the man's mother or father is always with him. (They are actually both deceased.) Freudian analysis might even add some sexual aspect, like, the cave is a vagina [and] the bear is a symbol of virility. He needs to resolve his issues with his parents to improve his sex life. Spiritual onalysis would be much simpler: The bear is a totem for the dreamer. The message was literal. When he goes in his mind back to that cave, he can contact Bear again for guidance. He should heed those messages.
Unlike ancient civilizations, the pragmatic nature of our society and that of other industrialized countries downplays the significance of dreams in general and the spiritual nature of dreams in particular. If we look to other contemporary cultures, however, we find more people recognizing and following the spiritual messages of their dreams. For example, an American woman with chronic stomach pain had several sessions with a "psychic surgeon" in the Philippines who reportedly healed the condition. She asked the healer how she had come to do this work, and she gave this report of a powerful spiritual dream:
I had been studying to become a computer programmer, but then I would become ill every time I attempted to go to school. During this time, while sleeping, I would experience a sensation of pressure all over my body. On the night I received the power to heal, I dreamed an apparition of Christ came to my room. I was frightened at first and could only look at his feet. Then I allowed my eyes to move slowly up his body. When I looked at his face, light was streaming out of his eyes and

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