{"id":2318,"date":"2011-04-30T06:08:21","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T10:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=2318"},"modified":"2011-04-29T11:19:19","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T15:19:19","slug":"how-to-break-a-dream-drought-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/how-to-break-a-dream-drought-2.html","title":{"rendered":"How to break a dream drought"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I embark on a new round of media interviews, lectures and bookstore events associated with the launch of my new book, Active Dreaming<\/a><\/em>, I am being asked again and again:<\/p>\n

Why don’t I remember my dreams?<\/em><\/p>\n

In our society, many people are suffering from a protracted dream drought. This is a serious condition, because our dreams offer essential guidance, energy, connection with meaning and purpose – and fun – that is essential to being fully human.<\/p>\n

I see that it’s time to re-post the basic guidance on breaking a dream drought that I presented in this space in June 2010:<\/p>\n

Here are some fun and easy ways to\u00a0renew and refresh your relationship with your dreams:<\/p>\n

1.Set an intention for the night<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before sleep,\u00a0write down an intention for the hours of dream and twilight that lie\u00a0ahead.\u00a0This can be a travel plan (\u201cI would like to go to Hawaii\u201d or \u201cI would like to visit my\u00a0girlfriend\/boyfriend\u201d). It might be a specific request for guidance (\u201cI\u00a0want to\u00a0know what will happen if I change my job\u201d).<\/p>\n

It could be a more general\u00a0setting\u00a0of direction (\u201cI ask for healing\u201d or \u201cI open myself to my creative
\nsource\u201d).<\/p>\n

You might simply say, \u201cI want to have fun in my dreams and remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Make sure your\u00a0intention has some\u00a0juice.<\/em> Don\u2019t make\u00a0dream recall one more chore to fit in with all the others.<\/p>\n

If you like, you can make a little ritual of dream incubation, a simple version of what ancient seekers did when they traveled to temples of dream healing like those of Asklepios in hopes of a night encounter with a sacred guide. You can take a special bath or shower, play a recording of the sounds of nature or running water, and meditate for a while on an object or picture that relates to your intention.You might want to avoid eating heavily or drinking alcohol within a couple of hours of sleep. You could get yourself a little mugwort pillow \u2013 in folk tradition, mugwort is an excellent dreambringer \u2013 and place it under or near your regular pillow.<\/p>\n

2. Be ready to receive<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having set your\u00a0intention, make sure you have the means to honor it. Keep pen and paper\u00a0(or a voice recorder) next to your bed so you are ready to record when you\u00a0wake up.\u00a0Record\u00a0something <\/em>whenever\u00a0you wake up, even if\u00a0it\u2019s at 3 a.m. If you\u00a0have\u00a0to go to the bathroom, take your notebook with you and practice doing\u00a0two\u00a0things at once. Sometimes the dreams we most need to hear come visiting\u00a0at\u00a0rather anti-social hours, from the viewpoint of the little everyday\u00a0mind.<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Be kind to fragments<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t give up on fragments from your night dreams. The wispiest trace of\u00a0a\u00a0dream can be exciting to play with, and as you play with it you may find\u00a0you\u00a0are pulling back more of the previously forgotten dream.The odd word or phrase left over from a dream may be an intriguing clue, if you are willing to do a little detective work.<\/p>\n

Suppose you wake with nothing more than the sense of a certain color. It could be quite interesting to notice that today is a Red Day, or\u00a0 a Green Day, to dress accordingly, to allow the energy of that color to travel with you, and to meditate on the qualities of red or green and see what life memories that evokes..<\/p>\n

4. Still no dream recall? No worries. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t\u00a0remember a dream when you first wake up, laze in bed for a few minutes\u00a0and see\u00a0if something comes back. Wiggle around in the bed. Sometimes returning\u00a0to the\u00a0body posture we were in earlier in the night helps to bring back what we\u00a0were\u00a0dreaming when our bodies were arranged that way.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0you still\u00a0don\u2019t have a dream, write something down anyway: whatever is in your\u00a0awareness,
\nincluding feelings and physical sensations. You are catching the residue\u00a0of a\u00a0dream even if the dream itself is gone. As you do this, you are\u00a0saying to\u00a0the source of your dreams, \u201cI\u2019m listening. Talk to me.\u201d
\nYou may find that, though your dreams have flown, you have a sense of clarity and direction that is the legacy of the night. We solve problems in our sleep even when we don\u2019t remember the problem-solving process that went on in our dreaming minds.<\/p>\n

5, Remember you don\u2019t need to go to sleep in order to dream.
\n<\/strong>
\nThe incidents of everyday life will speak to us like dream symbols if we will are willing to pay attention. Keep a lookout for the first unusual or striking thing that enters your field of perception in the course of the day and ask whether there could be a message there. Sometimes it\u2019s in your face, as happened to a woman I know who was mourning the end of a romance but had to laugh when she noticed that the bumper sticker of the red convertible in front of her said, \u201cI use ex-lovers as speed bumps.\u201d<\/p>\n

When we make it our game to pay attention to coincidence and symbolic pop-ups in everyday life, we oil the dream gates so they let more through from the night.
\nWaterfall photo by Don Dimock<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I embark on a new round of media interviews, lectures and bookstore events associated with the launch of my new book, Active Dreaming, I am being asked again and again: Why don’t I remember my dreams? In our society, many people are suffering from a protracted dream drought. This is a serious condition, because…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,5],"tags":[145,146],"class_list":["post-2318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dream-incubation","category-dream-recall","category-dreams","tag-dream-drought","tag-dream-fragments"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to break a dream drought - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2011\/04\/how-to-break-a-dream-drought-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to break a dream drought - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I embark on a new round of media interviews, lectures and bookstore events associated with the launch of my new book, Active Dreaming, I am being asked again and again: Why don’t I remember my dreams? 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2321,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318\/revisions\/2321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}