Friday, October 22, 2010

Community Dreaming

 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them
Matthew 18:20 

See Mom, 12 years of Catholic ed. DID pay off!  Yes, I just quoted the Bible.  So, y'all might wanna take your hands off the keyboard just in case there is some kind of heavenly electrical retribution.  Nope?  Looks like we dodged another one kiddies.  

The reason I used that quote is because....well...it's true.  I have noticed in my spiritual practice that when we operate as a group, experiences are more experiencier, events are more eventier, visions are.....you get my point.....  Visions are clearer, painted in bold strokes.  Less effort is involved.  Plus it's a bodacious amount of fun with so much laughter my belly hurts the next day.  Don't get me wrong, group activities can be fraught with all kinds of egoic crapola.  A small shamanic circle I was in once years ago imploded under the weight of so many egos - OUCH!  But I learned alot about circle dynamics in the failing.  My best teacher about how to do a great circle has been Women Writing for a Change.  They so get it.  In a functioning circle, it's all about the people that you choose.  Get the right combo of people together and it's like magic.  Stuff happens that might never happen as a solo practitioner.  Pretty sure we collectively make and hold a bigger container for bigger things to come in than I can hold solo. I think even business recognizes that something happens to us as we move from an individual way of thinking to a group way of thinking.  That's why there are buzz words like brainstorming and think tank.  

What's this got to do with dreaming?  Dream analysis has been around forever.  Joseph made quite a name for himself in Egypt (yes that is Bible ref #2).  Carl Jung made an entire career out of it.  Pretty sure that a Neanderthal man somewhere in Europe turned to his friend during the wooly mammoth hung and said *UGH* (translation: I had this weird dream last night).  His friend probably recommended that he talk to the village shaman/priest/holy person about it.  So shamanic work and dreaming have been linked for a long time.  

In our sleep, we are unguarded.  We don't always remember to pick up our egos, our junk, our invisibility cloaks etc - all the things we use to shield ourselves in the waking world.  We are OPEN.  We are much more connected in our dreaming to our true selves and each other - just like my group of woowoo loving friends who do that while they are awake and on purpose.   This connection in dreams is organic and requires no effort on our part.  We do it automatically!  You are all magicians of your own dreamtime.  

Enter my friend Patricia.  She is a huuuuuuuge dream advocate and has been part of a Jungian group for-ev-er!  She presented me with the idea of more formal community dreaming.  That the group would designate a time and theme and ask for a dream around that subject.  I like this thought.  (I'm not real sure that the other side peeps remember that time and space here are not perceived to be as flowy as over there.  Sending me a dream at 3 o'clock in the afternoon is not quite the same as 3AM.  So I remind them in my request).  But I also like tapping into what people are dreaming about who are allowing that process in more naturally.  

Can those unguarded moments as we traverse time and space in our dreams tell us anything?  Can the sum of individual dreams experienced by a variety of people tell us something about the collective that would be much more difficult to tease out of an individual dream?  Interesting thought eh?  For instance - I noticed a couple weeks ago around the time of the new moon, many of my FB friends were spontaneously posting about their weird dreams.  When asked many of them centered around being in the woods, wayfinding, signs.  I have no idea what that means.  Mebbe we are all that lost.  I know I certainly have been feeling that way.  Or maybe it's about leaving signs for those who come after so that they feel less lost.  Dunno.  

Add in a powerful social network like FB and I realize I can do exactly that.  I can see what you are dreaming about out there wherever you are, whenever you are.  So I'm gonna ask from time to time what you dreamt about.  Share or not.  Public or private.  Up to you.  

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