Acting on the Shamanic Content in Dreams

This may be the first time, and possibly the only time, that someone starts a talk on shamanic dreaming by invoking Donald Rumsfeld. If so, that’s probably a good thing. But irony is good for the soul and useful quotes come from all sources, even from the least insightful among us. And there is one of his that I would like to repurpose here today.

After over 20 years of intensive dream work and study, added to my long-­‐‑ standing magical training and spiritual practice, I have come to one basic principle for working with dreams shamanically. And that is: you go to work with the dreams you have, not the dreams you wish you had.

Once you add “shamanic” to the title of anything, an acquisitive overtone seeps in. We start expecting the spirits to talk directly to us in their true forms. We want a lightning bolt of inspiration, the lucid dream of a lifetime, that nod from the Universe that we are on the right path. But of course dreams rarely come in such forms.

That doesn’t matter though, because “shamanic” content can really be any content in any dream, provided that we engage with it intentionally and specifically on waking. The concept is simple: be willing to treat your dream with reverence, and commit to a dialogue with it no matter where it leads.

Why is it important to re-­‐‑frame shamanic dreams this way? Because it guards against hubris—both in ourselves and in others. It emphasizes gratitude for the dream we have rather than impatience for the dream we want. And finally, it forces us to enter into and witness the changes already occurring in our psyches, which is what even our most obtuse dreams are reflecting back to us right now.

When we can accept what is, and see our current situation in the our dreaming psyche’s own terms, we have expanded our visionary capacity,

and we open ourselves to more of the transformative magic available to us through dreams.

A Bardic Taxonomy

I come from a bardic tradition, trained by a long line of singers and storytellers. The key to great storytelling is to tell the truth about what happened in a way that brings out its sacred aspects and uplifts others.

Dreams are stories, and our purpose here is to consciously interweave them with our waking life stories. Celtic bards talk about three different types of sacred story. Let’s apply this shamanic model to our understanding of dreams, and see what that tells us about acquiring wisdom by working with them.

The Quest

Once there was a king who had three sons, and sent them off to prove themselves worthy of inheriting the kingdom. The first two were foolish and greedy, and jealous of the third, who was kind and clever.

You have heard variations of this story, no doubt. Spoiler alert: the first two come to bad ends, and the youngest one inherits. This story is about the quest, but the outcome always rests on the character of individuals, hard work, and honest effort.

It is the kindnesses the youngest does for the creatures he meets that ultimately bring him success. Remember the old hag who asks for food and the young boy gives her his last sandwich? She’s the one who lifts the spell in the end, or tells him how to outwit the giant.

To apply this concept to dreamwork, look for instances of threes—three people, a scene repeating three times, travelling through three different settings/rooms/worlds, or a dream that starts with a challenge or quest. If you have recently met three of anything in a dream, notice how you responded to each.

Always be on the lookout for physically repulsive creatures, the ones we are most likely to shun. Also needy people, or those with an injury or disability. Notice how all the other dream characters interact with them.

Often, dreams confound us with who to trust. The key here is to review our own motives. Are we acting in a trustworthy manner? Are our intentions in line with our values? Is what we are questing for a good idea, or attainable? The dream is likely to be commenting on our goal as well as our process.

Responding to these dreams while awake. Very often our dream tells us yes, you’re good to go, your quest is virtuous. But in waking we still act insecure about our goals and whine about the challenges facing us. For heaven’s sake, if you get one thing out of this talk it’s to buck up! Act courageously, keep pressing on toward your goals, be courteous to those you meet but firm in your resolve. Take whatever steps you need to take to embody the confidence and inner strength of your dream. This is not a trivial pursuit. This is the point of the story.

A very good practice is to thank the allies you meet in dreams. Set out a simple talisman or gift for them three days in a row—under a tree, on the sidewalk, in your backyard, whatever setting most closely replicates the place you met. And practice saying thank you in person to people who help you in waking. This will train you to thank allies and helpers in dreams, as well.

Suffering

Another key bardic theme is suffering. Not just stories of war and death, but of enduring travails and setbacks, betrayals and bad luck. Often these stories begin with a prophecy of hard times ahead, which of course our heroes forget until they find themselves in those exact circumstances, at which point they remember the prophecy and know what to do to extract themselves and get back on track.

I hear a lot of suffering dreams after people experience a great moment of waking insight, an enlightened dream or a profound lucid event. When we receive a vision where everything makes sense, and we see exactly where we want to go, that can actually propel us down into the doldrums quite suddenly, and for a very long time.

Setting aside the scientific questions of brain chemistry, there are typically a couple things going on here. First, our waking perception of time is quite different from that of our dreaming mind. Sometimes it seems as though dreams speak in terms of geologic time, not in our preferred concept of days, weeks and months.

We can have a dream that says a major life change is upon us, but then that change takes ten years to manifest. Ten years is actually a quite common length of time for a dream-­prophesied change to take place. In the meantime, we will endure a lot of suffering if we expect that change to happen immediately.

Second, seeing a solution is not the same as being up to the task of implementing it. We need the bolt of lightning to show us the outcome, and then we should expect a long training period during which we gather the skills and experiences (aka setbacks and travails) necessary in order to make it happen.

The key here is to pay attention to the echoes of the prophetic dream during our times of suffering. There will always be elements in current dreams that hearken back to the themes and small details of a major precursor dream. Being consciously aware that we are undergoing a transformative process for a sacred purpose changes our lived experience, and transmutes our suffering into something more than an excuse for self-­pity. (Thankfully for me, the Gods generally approve of the judicious use of chocolate and whiskey.)

Undergoing struggle is, again, the point of interacting shamanically with our dreams. Do we believe that we can manifest our heart’s desire? What about when things get really hard? Are we still being guided? What about now, when a loved one dies, or that dream job goes to someone else? And now? Suffering is about understanding the depth of commitment necessary for change. The deeper we go, the more solid our foundation and the more thorough the process.

Why are such suffering dreams necessary? These dreams insist that we “change the habits of a lifetime,” as my teacher Jeremy Taylor would say. They challenge us to overcome our considerable resistance and inertia to altering lifelong patterns and outlooks, and often the only way to do that is by taking the longest path.

Having been on a number of these myself, and having witnessed their effects on some very dear friends, I will offer a couple pieces of hard-­won advice on working with these dreams journeys in waking life: First, you will be asked to do seemingly impossible things. Always remember, dreams reward honest effort. Put your back into it, but don’t worry about perfection.

Second, if you truly have the courage to follow these dreams shamanically, there will come a point at which everything of your old self is gone. You will be stripped bare, and up against some very unpleasant truths of your own being. Do not shy away from this moment. Breathe into it. At times like these, the proper prayer is, “Mercy.”

Inspiration

Sometimes we have stunning, memorable dreams that do not presage future trials. Sometimes they are simply gifts, moments of extraordinary beauty, and we are the lucky recipients. In the manner of the clever and kind youngest son, our best response is to show gratitude, and pass the gift along to one who is in greater need.

But again, we find these moments of serendipity in all manner of dreams, and often fail to notice. In every dream, no matter how harsh, there is a moment when things go right. A question is answered. We cross the bridge in one piece, we get an approving glance from the person in charge. Even though we are lost, around a dingy corner is a scene with colors so deep and vivid that they take our breath away.

The ancient storytellers had much to say about luck and serendipity. There were stories and rituals to increase luck, to ask for certain kinds of luck, and to thank the spirits for every single piece of luck that came our way. But in our quest for “the dreams we want,” we keep asking for luck (in the form of a “big dream”) while ignoring or in some cases even dis-remembering the smaller pieces of luck that are strewn all along our path every night!

So, pay attention first to moments of beauty in dreams. Re-train yourself now to shift the focus of your dreamwork in this way. There is plenty of time to investigate why we are lost on a dingy corner. What is most important from the standpoint of gaining strength and wisdom from dreams is to feel every one of those vivid colors, and to allow our bodies to absorb and retain the feeling of trust encoded in these moments right now.

This is a shamanic, kinesthetic process. We dare to accept the dream on its own terms, with all its foibles, as a teacher to our body‑mind. We dare to weave even this dream into our waking life experience, to trust that our path has brought the right dream at the right time. And so we honor it.

Of all human foibles, storytellers warn us the most against hubris. Hubris offends the Gods. It also makes you really a bore at parties. One way to understand the arrival of a stunning Big Dream is to remember that dreams reward hard work and honest effort. Or, as Louis Pasteur said, “chance favors the prepared mind.”

A big dream that seemingly arrives by chance is more likely the culmination and celebration of a long process of internal and external growth and change. We worked hard to achieve this moment of insight that seemingly came like a bolt out the blue. Our dreamwork can sometimes underemphasize the years of preparation that went into dreaming this one remarkable dream.

So, how do we respond to these amazing dreams? How can we act like Youngest Son in this instance? In the words of the late, great Berkeley storyteller Malvina Reynolds, when we give it away, we end up having more.

Dreams like this are meant to be shared. Not everyday, not to everyone, but told at the right moment they can powerfully influence others who may be on a quest of their own but don’t yet have a context for understanding it.

The nice thing about sharing dreams of serendipity and grace is that there is no preaching involved. We do not have to impart some harsh moral lesson, we just get to remind others of the immense, benevolent Universe that we are a very small part of, and remind them to pay attention to the moments of beauty that come their way, too.

Conclusion

One of my objectives for this talk was to insist that shamanic dreamwork is not some woo notion that is necessarily incompatible with the lives we live today, or that will make us insufferable human beings. Interweaving our waking and dreaming stories in a conscious, active way is one of the most practical things we can do with our dreams.

In closing I would propose an exercise for those who don’t think they’ve ever had a shamanic dream. Take an early dream, one from when you were 5, or 10, or even 20, and find the quest (or question) in it. Find the beauty in it, even if it’s a nightmare. Then compare it to where you are now. Follow the pathway your life has taken back through the twists and turns, the setbacks and struggles, to that moment as a young person when you first asked that question and had that dream.

Discovering this story will strengthen your own dreaming, and help affirm that even when you are not aware of it, the powerful process of interweaving sleeping and waking insights is at work within you.

Find that story, tell it to yourself, and then give it away. Thank you.