{"id":6068,"date":"2014-08-17T23:32:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T03:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?p=6068"},"modified":"2014-08-17T23:34:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T03:34:15","slug":"walking-your-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2014\/08\/walking-your-dreams.html","title":{"rendered":"Walking Your Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"-<\/a>Janice likes to walk dreams, as you or I might walk the dog. Sometimes she walks her own dreams. As a teacher of Active Dreaming who plays guide for others, she often walks other people\u2019s dreams, like one of those professional dog-walkers you see with half a dozen canines of all sizes on a fistful of leashes. As she strolls around, she finds that fresh insights come to her easily and naturally. Sometimes an incident gives her a second opinion on a dream. This might be the sigh of the wind in the trees, or the flight of a bird, or a snatch of overheard conversation.<\/p>\n

I love this approach, which has something in common with Jung\u2019s preferred mode of \u201ccircumambulation\u201d in approaching the meaning of a dream. Jung felt that he came closer to the heart of a dream when he wandered around it, looking at it from different angles, rather than trying to mount a direct assault on its inner keep.<\/p>\n

So walking a dream can be just what the phrase suggests. Janice \u2013 a shrewd and stylish New Yorker who worked in sales for many years \u2013 adds a further twist to her dream walking. \u201cI like to wear <\/em>my dreams the day after,\u201d she says. This might mean dressing in the style or dominant color of a dream or carrying accessories that evoke something of the dream.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s review some other options for walking our dreams.<\/p>\n

Make a dream amulet<\/strong>
\nOne of the most ancient is to create or obtain an object that can serve as a dream amulet, holding and focusing the energy and guidance of a powerful dream.<\/p>\n

Research assignments<\/strong>
\nResearch is often an action required by a dream. Dreams can prompt us to do detailed research on content, ranging from an obscure word to the natural habits of an animal that appeared or a way of fixing a fuse box. This can go far beyond simply clarifying the initial information. Dream clues can put us on the trail of very important discoveries, ranging from our connection to a spiritual tradition that is calling us, to a new book idea, to what’s going on behind closed doors in Washington.<\/p>\n

Jung said that his dreams spurred all his important study. \u201cAll day long I have exciting ideas and thoughts. But I take up in my work only those to which my dreams direct me.\u201d My own studies are similarly guided, but I would expand the word \u201cdreams\u201d to include waking experiences of meaningful coincidence when we feel we are receiving a secret handshake or a nudge or a wink from the universe.<\/p>\n

Feed your dream animals<\/strong>
\nWhen you dream of a certain animal, you want to research its natural habits and habitat to understand its relevance to you and the way you relate to the natural path of your energies. This means doing something better than just consulting some guide to animal totems; it means studying it in the way of a naturalist, in nature if possible \u2013 perhaps on the way to feeding and nourishing it in your body, and in the way you use that body.<\/p>\n

Apply navigational guidance from dreams<\/strong>
\nThe action a dream requires may be to carry and apply its navigational guidance. It\u2019s my impression that the dream self is forever traveling ahead of the waking, scouting the roads we have not yet taken. By studying closely where our dream self has traveled into the possible future, we can decide whether we want to follow in its tracks, or take a different way. We may see a future event we cannot change but can handle better \u2013 and help others to handle better \u2013 because we remember and apply what showed up on or dream radar.<\/p>\n

Create from dreams<\/strong>
\nMany dreams invite us to create from them and with them, through our favorite media and also through media with which we may be less familiar or less confident. Write, sculpt, draw, dance, paint, move with the dream, and if you have friends or family who’ll play, turn it into performance or theater. Some dreams want to explode into paint on canvas. Others flow effortlessly into poetry. Some make us pick up our feet and move or dance. Some get us down on the floor with crayons or cutting up old magazines with scissors for a collage. Some dreams want to be baked or stirred.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"ActiveDreaming2_cvr.indd\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Text adapted from Active Dreaming: Journeying beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom<\/em><\/a> by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Path in Grandmother’s Valley” photo (c) Robert Moss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janice likes to walk dreams, as you or I might walk the dog. Sometimes she walks her own dreams. As a teacher of Active Dreaming who plays guide for others, she often walks other people\u2019s dreams, like one of those professional dog-walkers you see with half a dozen canines of all sizes on a fistful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10,5,2,37,26,7],"tags":[1774,1772,1773],"class_list":["post-6068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-conscious-dreaming","category-dreams","category-dreamwork","category-jung","category-life-direction","category-lucid-dreaming","tag-circumambulation","tag-honoring-dreams","tag-walking-dreams"],"yoast_head":"\nWalking Your Dreams - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walking Your Dreams - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Janice likes to walk dreams, as you or I might walk the dog. 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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\/6068","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=6068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6074,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions\/6074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}