{"id":5592,"date":"2013-04-03T11:11:54","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=5592"},"modified":"2013-04-03T11:13:08","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T15:13:08","slug":"if-it-were-my-dream-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2013\/04\/if-it-were-my-dream-3.html","title":{"rendered":"If it were my dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Dream sharing at one of my workshops in Colorado<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don\u2019t let anyone tell you what your dreams mean. And\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>do that to anyone else. This is the golden rule of dream-sharing.<\/p>\n

One of the great contributions of the American dreamwork movement has been to insist that dreams belong to the dreamers. As Henry Reed, a PhD in psychology and one of the founders of the movement, likes to say, \u201cdreaming is too important to be left to psychologists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montague (\u201cMonte\u201d) Ullman, a clinical psychiatrist, made a giant contribution when he declared that none of us have the right to tell another person what his or her dream means, based on any certification or presumed authority. \u00a0We don\u2019t need to be doctors or shrinks, gurus or experts to offer helpful comments on someone else\u2019s dreams.In commenting on each other\u2019s dreams, we should begin by saying, \u201cIf it were my dream,\u201d making it clear that we are offering our personal associations and projections, not presuming to tell the dreamer the definitive meaning of his or her dream.The “if it were my dream” protocol is a vital part of my own Lightning Dreamwork<\/a> process, now used by Active Dreamers all over the world. .<\/p>\n

If you are commenting on someone else\u2019s dream, you can do little wrong as long as you follow the simple rule that you will preface your opinions and associations by saying \u201cif it were my dream.\u201d You will\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0presume to interpret another person\u2019s dream. You are absolutely free to give your own ideas on the meaning of the dream, but you will do that by pretending that the dream is your own. You will own your own projections instead of foisting them on the other person. You will not only help to guide the dreamer towards grasping the meaning of a dream; you will help her to claim her power to determine the meaning of her dreams, and her life, for herself.<\/p>\n

You listen to a dream, you ask for the dreamer\u2019s feelings on waking (which are always the first and best clues to what is going on in the dream) and you run a quick reality check, asking the dreamer what she recognizes from the dream in the rest of her life and whether any of it could manifest in the future, literally or symbolically.<\/p>\n

Then you offer your comments, starting with the phrase, \u201cif it were my dream\u201d. As long as you follow this protocol, you are\u00a0free to bring in any associations, feelings or memories the dream arouses in you, including dreams of your own that may come to mind. Often we understand other people\u2019s dreams best when we can relate them to our own dream experiences.<\/p>\n

For example: If the dreamer has told you a dream in which he\/she is running away from a bear, you may recall a dream of your own in which you hid from a bear \u2013 before you discovered that the bear was an ally. Your own experience may lead you to say, \u201cIf it were my dream, I would like to go back into the dream and meet the bear again and see whether it might be an ally\u201d. You are now doing something more useful than merely interpreting the dream; you are gently guiding the dreamer to\u00a0take action\u00a0<\/em>on the dream.<\/p>\n

It is very rewarding to receive a totally different perspective on a dream, so sharing in this way with strangers can be amazingly rewarding \u2013 as long as the rules of the game are respected.<\/p>\n

The fact that we may be highly intuitive, and highly skilled as dream interpreters, does not give us the right to take people\u2019s power away by telling them what their dreams mean \u2013 even (and perhaps especially) when we are convinced we are \u201cright\u201d in our reading of what is going on in the dream.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a fuller discussion on how to \u201ctalk and walk\u201d dreams, please see my books\u00a0The Three \u201cOnly\u201d Things<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Active Dreaming<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>both published by New World Library.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t let anyone tell you what your dreams mean. And\u00a0never\u00a0do that to anyone else. This is the golden rule of dream-sharing. One of the great contributions of the American dreamwork movement has been to insist that dreams belong to the dreamers. As Henry Reed, a PhD in psychology and one of the founders of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10,24,5,2],"tags":[742,743,1620,494],"class_list":["post-5592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-conscious-dreaming","category-dream-interpretation","category-dreams","category-dreamwork","tag-dreamwork-movement","tag-henry-reed","tag-if-it-were-my-dream","tag-montague-ullman"],"yoast_head":"\nIf it were my dream - 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\/2013\/04\/if-it-were-my-dream-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If it were my dream - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Don\u2019t let anyone tell you what your dreams mean. And\u00a0never\u00a0do that to anyone else. This is the golden rule of dream-sharing. One of the great contributions of the American dreamwork movement has been to insist that dreams belong to the dreamers. 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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\/5592","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=5592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5597,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5592\/revisions\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}