Over the past two decades a design revolution has been transforming town plazas, hospital courtyards, public parks, schoolyards and churches all across the country. Equal parts public art, spiritual heritage and stress reliever, the ancient patterns of the labyrinth are making a comeback in public places, and may be starting a whole new pattern of contemplative tourism.

The most famous labyrinth is the one built into the stone floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France. Built around 1220 CE, the Chartres labyrinth hearkens back to an early tradition in the Christian church of walking meditation. Worn smooth by the slow passage of generations of pilgrims, the Chartres pattern (known as an 11-circuit labyrinth) is thought to mirror the soul’s journey through life, and bring spiritual insight to the walker.

In addition to the Chartres 11-circult labyrinth, there is an even more ancient pattern known as the Cretan or 7-circuit labyrinth, which was found in Neolithic rock carvings. This pattern is easy to construct by sprinkling corn meal on the ground, or by dragging a stick through the beach sand. There is something timeless about walking this prehistoric pattern, regardless of the crowds and traffic that may be nearby. Read on…

That dreams have been influential in many pivotal episodes in history is accepted as fact in some circles; in other circles it is considered nonsense. Yet for anyone bothering to dig into the archives, it becomes indisputable that many important figures over time and across disciplines have been guided by their nighttime dreams—and have changed the course of history in the process.

If you have ever wondered where to find a worthy compendium of these stories, with footnotes and resources for further investigation, look no further than Robert Moss’s new book The Secret History of Dreaming. Not only is this a fascinating book of historical treasures, it is also a great read. Moss is a consummate storyteller, and once you’ve read his version of Joan of Arc as a tree seer, you will soon want to hurry forward and learn more about the incredibly detailed, accurate dreams that guided Harriet Tubman on her rescue missions. Read on…

In the beginning of any relationship there are habits to adjust to, personality quirks to discover, and systems to be worked out. One of you may prefer to share the covers at night, for instance, while the other may want them all to himself. It is important to talk about these sorts of things, because they can lead to a deeper understanding of the person now sharing your bed and your life, and they help us realize just what we have gotten into.

I am not a big fan of relationship advice columns, but I do have a suggestion for everyone who is currently in a relationship or thinking of having one in the future. If you share a bed with someone at night, try sharing your dreams with each other in the morning, too. Read on…

Some friends and I started a dream group on a lark one summer. 16 years later, we are still meeting every week to discuss our dreams. Somewhere along the way we stopped thinking of dreams as our mind’s idle chatter, and began to be deeply affected by what we found in these nighttime visions.

None of us were experts. We had read one book about starting dream groups, Jeremy Taylor’s excellent Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill. Some of us had knowledge of myths and symbols, a couple of us had a strong spiritual orientation, none of us knew much about psychology. What we did in the beginning could be described as hunt-and-peck dreamwork: every so often we had an insight into a dream, but mostly it took a very long time to find any meaning at all in our dreams. Read on…

I have been interviewed on three different radio shows recently, talking about dreams, spirituality, psychology and especially my new book, What To Do When Dreams Go Bad: A Practical Guide to Nightmares. Here is a rundown on each appearance, with links to the podcasts (audio files) for each.

Back in October I was interviewed by my friend, author Thorn Coyle on her show, Elemental Castings. We talked about dreams, water, the dark, rhythm, and Aikido, among other things. It was a great conversation, and the complete hour-long show can be downloaded here.

In April, I was interviewed by Dr. David Van Nuys of Shrink Rap Radio. Our wide-ranging conversation about nightmares—and, toward the end, children’s nightmares specifically—makes for fascinating listening. Listen online or download the podcast here.

This past weekend an interview with me was aired on Paradigms, a new show about visions of a viable future. The entire show, featuring live music as well as the interview, is available for listening here. I will also post an edited version of just my conversation with the show’s host Baruch, very soon in my Audio Clips.

Finally, an article about me appeared in the SF Martial Arts Examiner, written by Paul Rest. Being a student of aikido, the martial art of non-violence gives me a unique outlook on the work of dreams. Read the profile here.

Normally when we have a scary or troubling dream we try to push it out of our minds as quickly as possible. There it stays, for months and sometimes years, gathering dust in a corner of our psyche. Whenever we happen by chance to think of it again, it feels just as strange and unnerving as it did the night we had it, though the intensity does fade with time. But the image imprinted on our memory never really goes away, it stays with us unchanged for life.

There is another way of dealing with bad dreams, one that has a much happier ending. With just a little effort, we can transform those frightening scenes into ones of power and strength. As we learn to tap into the hidden ally within every nightmare image, we discover that many things once fearful to us can become sources of joy and freedom.

Read on…

I pay particular attention to the dreams I have when I am away from home. Particularly on overseas or extended journeys, it seems to me that our dreams take on a different character. As our lives are unmoored from habit and routine, our dreams are likewise free to roam, and often show us startling pictures of life back home. I call this the “View of the Earth from Space” phenomenon. Sometimes we can only identify patterns and see larger truths from a distance.

Read on…

Everyone has anxiety dreams. Even fabulous cable and radio show hosts like Rachel Maddow have their share of dreams where things go wrong in major ways. I just came across this video from Maddow’s recent appearance at a Mother Jones fundraiser in San Francisco where she gives a great description of her recent anxiety dream.

Read on…

Midway through a sound sleep you suddenly wake up, heart pounding and head filled with horrible nightmare images. Instantly wide awake, you replay the bad dream over and over, wondering what it means and why it had to happen to you. While everyone else is asleep, rest eludes you as a thousand fears ricochet through your mind. What do you do next?

Welcome to the world of nightmares. Everyone has them, though they usually become less frequent as we age. But no matter how old we are, we can still experience that feeling of helplessness when something happens in a dream that is just so wrong. And we wonder, is it us? Did we do something wrong? Could we prevent something bad from happening in the future if only we understood the dream?

Read on…

I think everyone who practices yoga should also work with their dreams. As spiritual practices go, the two are very complimentary — one emphasizes body and breath, while the other emphasizes psyche and emotions. And something that is not widely talked about in spiritual circles is that cross-training in more than one discipline really does help your focus and progress in each.

As a dreamworker and yoga student myself, I have developed a couple different methods to merge the two disciplines. The main one I use came about during a restorative yoga session four years ago. I’d recently had a very powerful dream in which there was a strange spinning object in the sky — almost a planet, maybe a moon or a satellite, but in the end I had no idea what it was. It was a pivotal piece of the dream, yet try as I might I couldn’t arrive at its meaning using symbolic associations.

Read on…

Winter is a natural time to have big dreams. As the old year winds down and we make plans for the new one soon to begin, our dreams also go through a process of introspection. On these long winter nights, we dream about all that we have been through in the past year and what turns we are likely to see in the road ahead.

Tuning into this natural process lets us make conscious use of these dream insights. We can even ask our dreams for clarification and guidance on the big issues we face. And because this period of big dreaming comes at a time when we are already gathering with family and friends, there is the added opportunity to share this winter gift with those we love. Whether you are a lone wolf or a party animal this holiday season, here are some great ways to dream big this winter.
Read on…

Most people know when their dreams hand them a big helping of insight to chew on. A 32 year-old woman has a recurring dream of being lost and hungry at summer camp. A 54 year-old man dreams that he rides into work on a white horse, but nobody sees him because they’re all watching movies.

Both of these can be seen as crossroads dreams: each dreamer is in an untenable situation, and something must change in order for them to move ahead. Which path will they choose? Will the woman reaffirm her goals in spite of her fear, or will she decide she really is lost and look for new life direction? Will the man keep plugging away with a difficult work situation, or will he decide that his superior attitude is the real problem?

Read on…

This was a great election cycle for dreamworkers. For the first time that I am aware of, dreams were part of the public conversation about who each of the candidates were and what they stood for. Sheila Heti from Toronto set up blogs for people to share their dreams about the candidates, and contributions came in from all over the world. The resulting blog compilations garnered press attention, and also the attention of many dream researchers.

I read from the dream reports on my radio show more than once, because there was something fascinating about viewing the election, and the cultural mood, in terms of what ordinary people all over were dreaming about the candidates. They begged the question: What do dreams reveal? Do they reveal truths about people and events, or do they ultimately reveal more about ourselves?

Read on…

Everyone dreams, whether we remember them or not. Many of us do remember our dreams, and think about them until they slowly fade away like a radio signal as we drive out of range. Sometimes a vivid dream comes like a bolt of lightning, and we reverberate from the shock of it for days, weeks, even years. Sometimes the same dream comes so frequently that we learn to anticipate it as we fall asleep, and the dream itself becomes an invitation for us to explore its meaning.

Why do some dreams fade into obscurity while others stay lit with neon in our minds for ages? Is one kind more important than the other? Are dreams friend or foe? And what could any of them possibly mean?
Read on…

Last week, Slate writer David Plotz offered to collect people’s dreams about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. Today, Plotz and co-writer Abby Callard published 20 of the 500 dreams they collected. These are very interesting to read, particularly in light of Sheila Heti’s earlier collections of dreams about McCain, Clinton, and Obama.

What do these dreams say about Palin as a potential vice president or (heavens forbid) president? What do they say about the dreamers? On a personal level, we know that only the dreamer knows for sure what his or her dream truly means. On a national level, perhaps this is a game best played in hindsight, after a candidate has won or lost and we can point to dream patterns for clues to tell us why.

Meanwhile, for those of you seeking for more patterns in the stars or in ourselves, here is a round-up of astrological predictions for the upcoming election. Does anyone else besides me wish this were over already?