{"id":4677,"date":"2012-05-26T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4677"},"modified":"2012-05-03T11:40:36","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T15:40:36","slug":"perform-your-vision-or-something-bad-will-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/05\/perform-your-vision-or-something-bad-will-happen.html","title":{"rendered":"Perform your vision, or something bad will happen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Chief of the West by Standing Bear in SUNY Press\/Excelsior edition of "Black Elk Speaks"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dreams require action. As I observed in Conscious Dreaming<\/a><\/em>, in indigenous dreaming traditions, dreamwork is always oriented toward action. The principal task of the shaman, as a dream specialist, is to confirm the meaning of the dream and clarify the steps the dreamer should now take to honor the dream.<\/p>\n

Take the case of a childhood vision that Black Elk, the Lakota holy man, had left unhonored. He was initially afraid to tell anyone about what he had seen. At last he confided in a wichasa wakon<\/em>, a holy man, who told him: “You must do what the bay horse in your vision told you to do. You must perform this vision for your people. You must make the horse dance for the people to see. If you do not do this something very bad will happen to you.”<\/p>\n

They proceeded to enact Black Elk’s vision. This became a major community undertaking. Scenes from the vision were painted on tepees. Black Elk was required to fast and cleanse himself in the sweat lodge. He taught chosen singers the songs from the vision so that they could perform them during the enactment. Others in the tribe were cast as characters from the dream, human, spirit or animal, and painted and costumed accordingly.<\/p>\n

In Black Elk Speaks<\/em>, John G. Neihardt observed that “even the horses seemed to be healthier and happier after the dance.”<\/p>\n

Black Elk’s big<\/em> dream wasn’t reduced by analysis or assimilated into the familiar structures of everyday life. As Mary Watkins noted in her wonderful book Waking Dreams,\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0“the attempt was made to bring the daily life into relation with the vision”.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Related post: Black Elk, the poet and the dream passport<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dreams require action. As I observed in Conscious Dreaming, in indigenous dreaming traditions, dreamwork is always oriented toward action. The principal task of the shaman, as a dream specialist, is to confirm the meaning of the dream and clarify the steps the dreamer should now take to honor the dream. Take the case of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,78,10,3,22],"tags":[704,1275,1220,706,707,1276],"class_list":["post-4677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-ancestral-traditions","category-conscious-dreaming","category-imagination","category-shamanic-dreaming","tag-black-elk","tag-dream-enactment","tag-dream-songs","tag-john-g-neihardt","tag-lakota","tag-mary-watkins"],"yoast_head":"\nPerform your vision, or something bad will happen - 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\/2012\/05\/perform-your-vision-or-something-bad-will-happen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perform your vision, or something bad will happen - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dreams require action. As I observed in Conscious Dreaming, in indigenous dreaming traditions, dreamwork is always oriented toward action. The principal task of the shaman, as a dream specialist, is to confirm the meaning of the dream and clarify the steps the dreamer should now take to honor the dream. 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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\/4677","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=4677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4680,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4677\/revisions\/4680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}