Session Five-Part Two Dream interpretation-listening, noticing, integrating

 

During the following nights after the last session, my dreams became unbelievably vivid and easy to remember. I often woke in the middle of night or early morning and jotted down little details that could jog my memory later in the day. Then later in the morning with a cup of coffee, I’d journal using the Three Great Ways for understanding the messages from All knowledge is Within.

One dream was so evocative that I woke upright in my bed in a state of total panic. In the dream, I was holding a child in my arms, and two more children followed me as I attempted to escape some dreaded catastrophe by climbing up inside a tower. I was full of sorrow and unbearable fear and suffering. I knew we wouldn’t escape the impending death waiting for us, but I had to try.

Was this a warning of something dangerous in my life? If so-what? And how could I escape this terrible disaster?

How could I save the children who were trying to escape with me?

Was this a past life memory, or someone else’s dream? How did it echo with my present life and circumstances? I brought my questions to the next session with the River.

 

 

Julia: I had a dream where people were telling me how to escape or fly away in a spaceship. I was running up a tower with a child in my arms.

River: That is a dream from a long past lifetime, a dream of a city descending into the water. A dream of a time in the world when there were cities along the edges of the continents, three cities very advanced in their technology. These people were isolated from the rest of humanity and built into their systems there was also destruction.

As a people it was agreed upon that before the war, they submerged their cities and technology works. The sorrow- you felt motherly feelings for your children and the sorrow was morning their deaths. However, as a people, you choose wisely.

It was not wise to dwell upon such long past times, for though they are mirrors of now, to be caught in such emotional concentration, is not dealing with now. Remembering what is in the dream is then workable into now. This world is in an ending, and that is the mirror that you face now. It is a repetition.

However, it is also happening then and now. The resonances from the past again and again.

Julia: Were those three cities what we refer to as Atlantis?

River: It is referred to as Atlantis. It was a time of great flowering of one kind of people. This earth is far older and more complex as an entity than humanity knows in the outer mind now. It is as if the window shades have gone up, have gone down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down... hundreds of times. And not only that, but each individual keeps glancing out of the window with each opening. The Great Net has been dreamed in timelessness.

Dream work is important on many levels. It is a way of identifying strengths, for what is happening in the dream is strength. It is also a way of identifying where the individual is blocking herself. Within the dream- the strong emotions, the negative emotions, are strengths and possibilities that are held in bond. Therefore, they are great signals of the individual’s journey.

Julia: Do you recommend writing down dreams and keeping a dream diary?

River: This is certainly an interesting practice. It is an area that one can develop for finding symbols of their own practice, daily practice. For example, if within the dream there was always a sense, a repetitive sense of approaching a house, or a tree or the same colour repeats itself. These symbols can be used within daily practice. Keeping in mind that the symbols can evolve, especially dream symbols. There are personal symbols, they are not the symbols of plant, animal and inanimate powers, they are personal symbols. Therefore, they are in a constant state of change.

So, if you are looking out of window within a dream, and the window appears again and again, it may be wise in some symbolic way within a shrine area, to construct a window and dwell on it. “What is this window that I look through?” Question it, question it, follow at home, follow it home! Symbols are to be followed home, what is it, what is it! Until you are at the very core place. If there is a sense of a shoreline of water- follow it home, follow it home!

As one becomes more accomplished in dreams, you will see some symbols over and over again, it is these that should be worked.

And equally useful practice with dream work is to tell the dream out loud, from a personal perspective recording it and playing it back. When playing it back, listen to the tone of the voice, and note whenever you feel, listening to the voice in the tape recorder, where there is an excess of emotion, or a stress in some way. For example, the line, “I was looking out of window.” Notice where there is emphasis. It is not the “I” or the looking, but the window. Ah, right “window” write down “window” and explore an explanation. Or “She looked over at me.” emphasis on the word she. It's this she that is important, not the looking towards. Copy these words down and you will see what is important.

Without you really knowing it, as you told the story, you cannot hide what is important when you hear it out loud. Do not listen to the words but listen to your voice and pick out where the emphasis and stress is. You cannot lie with your voice as easily as you can lie to yourself. That is why we have said that lies are just other veils of truth.

It is also good to do the same with a group for other people while you are telling your dreams with instructions that the other person is not to listen so much to the story but to notice where the emphasis is. But of course, there are other interesting exercises- drawing the dream, giving it colour, singing the dream, dancing the dream. Whatever it is that from your very centre is a way of expressing who you are without judgment. Are there further questions?

Julia: It seems difficult to follow dreams back. For example, the dream about the tower, without your help I don't think I would have understood that information.

River: The information that we offered is unnecessary for your understanding. What is necessary was the tower, the tower was important within that dream. Not the dying, not the saving, but the tower. Taking that tower and drawing that tower, finding the symbolism of the tower is following it home for you. The dream tower- where is that tower within you? The tower is you. Ask -what is this tower that you are? Do you understand now the significance of following at home? New life is not so much following it home into the past and past behavior as following home into the past within you, in your becoming. They are symbols of you of course, it is a real event from past lives, but you have held on to the tower for a very important reason. The tower is a powerful symbol, very rich, an energizing single symbol. It is a great strength. Take that tower and own it as part of who you are. In each moment, the tower. Do you sense the power that the tower is for you?

Julia: Is it a backbone with chakras?

River: It is that but more, close your eyes and feel the tower, feel your whole body, the tower! There is a tower and there is you on the tower. Now make them one. The tower, the climbing, the strength, the dream, it is all you. Which direction do you feel yourself moving?

Julia: I'm moving up the tower.

River: Yes, now the tower is moving upwards, and you are the tower. Every place where you are is you, the tower. In other words, it is not you going to an end destination, from wherever you have been. The great journey is you, in the tower, the tower in you, the movement upwards is the same thing. That is the strength and glory of the tower.

Julia: Looking at dreams in that way you get a more immediate sense.

River: Exactly and a more positive statement from that, what would it be for you?

Julia: The movement of the tower is always moving upwards.

River: Yes, now make yourself that- rephrase that into you myself.

Julia: I am always moving upwards.

River: Yes! Can you sense with your body when you become that? When you become that tower moving upwards so that you and the power are one. That is the positive affirmation of that dream. And you have done the dream work for that dream.

Julia: I have a question about my dreams; they are filled with large houses.

River: Large houses, large futures, large everything! Large mansions are an expression of large desires and the need and the coming together on a large scale. It is certainly not unusual for a Water Way person to have dreams of large mansions, the largest mansion of all is the Great Net. The larger the mansion the more you are finding yourself and who you are.

It is a good sign to dream of large mansions. Of course, at any stage of growth, the individual can dream of large houses and mansions. That is for the other Ways, a learning to understand the Water Way. That is all, it is not a negative symbol, it's an affirmation symbol. Now that you know this, what is in the mansions? Can easily be summarized also as part of the great net, and how you view yourself and all action and behavior as no place to end and no place to begin.

Julia: In dreams, it's hard to see what is in the mansions.

River: Of course, you can't sit still so that you can view them.

Julia: The mansion seems to have few things in them, perhaps as a symbol of simplicity?

River: There is that, and also having few things, grounding you as an individual, and as a community member. For each individual has to live in body and in the Three Great Ways, it is part of being alive on the journey to more awareness, that we are working at any one time to be more aware, of Earth, Aire, Water, the individual, the community, the cosmic. At any day, at any moment, you are perhaps more one than the Other.

 

I continued to ponder the meaning of the tower dream in the next weeks, months and years. It is a dream with stays with me even today vividly, forty years after it was dreamed.

The River drew my attention to what was most important in the dream and using the Three Great Ways as a structure for interpretation, I discovered that the most important part of the dream was the tower. Climbing upwards, looking upwards and the light that we were running towards. When questioned further, I realized that the dream was about a past life of a civilization ending itself, also about how our civilization is choosing to end itself, and the tower represents evolution, cycles of life, death, destruction, re birth, always evolving upwards into greater freedom, complexity and knowingness.

I had further questions about the eight dream people, archetypes and the meaning of dreams in general but the channel was tiring, and we ended the session for that day. The River returned to this theme, much later, years after the book dictation was delivered. Dream interpretations using four paradigms of reference can be found in my blog https://longboatcounselling.blogspot.com/.