Sometimes a dream is only a dream…

… and sometimes not. Dreams have a lot of different functions, and seem to come in several basic types. Here are my observations over many years of experiencing and remembering my own dreams, on what kinds of dreams there are and generally what they mean. I’ll treat some of these in greater depth in later posts. The categories below move generally from the least significant to the most significant.

Random Noise - There’s a lot going on in our heads at night, and I think some of it is just “clearing the decks.” This is house-keeping of the brain, sweeping out the debris, resetting our neuronal states, replenishing neurotransmitters, what have you. In the course of all this, there may be some random excitation of this and that spot in the brain, which our minds try to link together in a dream. These dreams are pretty meaningless and mostly make no sense, no matter how we try to slice them. My guess is, there’s a lot of this that happens that we don’t bother to remember, because there’s nothing real in there to remember.

Daily Processing - Different from the former but sometimes hard to distinguish, these dreams consist of the brain sorting out the events of the day and deciding where to put them. We receive a lot of stimuli of various kinds during the day varying in significance from snippets we read in the newspaper, to new things we’ve learned, to important life events or relationship shifts. Studies have shown that a lot of our memories are formed at night, and that sleep plays an important role in that. Many of our dreams, especially those that seem to key off of something that happened during the day, are probably related to this activity of processing daily information and events into the larger framework of our minds - short-term memory, long-term memory, building relationships and networks to other information. These dreams are experienced as being somewhat more coherent than those above, but in and of themselves don’t contain any special significance.

Anxiety Dreams - Sometimes we live through events or periods of our lives that elicit such a strong emotional response that some of it gets buried deep within our psyche. Long after that period is over, we have dreams about the events. A very common one is dreams about school - not being prepared, not knowing where your classes are, failing all your exams, not graduating. It may be about a job environment, a bad marriage, or an addiction from which you’re in recovery. What these dreams have in common is that they occur after the event or period is over, and slowly they help you work through the residual fear, anxiety, and negative connection you still have to that time period. When the dreams end, you can feel confident that that issue is released.

Messages from the Inner Mind - These are key to understanding what is going on in our lives. Our subconscious knows so much more than we do. It sees body language, takes in all kinds of information that our conscious mind filters out. I have often found myself having dreams that felt real and true about other people I am in a relationship with or a current situation on which I need guidance. I find that I can count on this information like a direct message from my intuitive self saying, “see what you have missed; know what you really know.” This can clue us in to people’s true motivations, the actual states of our relationships, our own fears or desires, and what we need that we aren’t taking care of. I have had several life-altering insights from dreams of this nature, and to me, this is probably the single most important reason to be able to remember your dreams.

“Real” Dreams - Dreams that are more than messages from our inner selves. These are dreams that are real in the sense that they connect with something or someone outside of ourselves. I have rarely had these, but can think of several clear instances where the person I was dreaming with also had the dream, or remembered the conversation, or felt my presence. I don’t pretend to be able to explain these, rather, I am observing them. I believe in my own reality, especially when it is corroborated by others.

More to come - specific examples and discussion welcome!

The stuff dreams are made of

I would like to write a little bit about dreams - specifically, what various kinds of dreams there are, and what they mean, and what you can do with them. This may be a series of posts, depending on how long-winded I end up being :) This is something I’ve been working with most of my life, and I’d love to hear others’ experiences.

How did it come about that I became interested in dreaming? In my childhood, I often had nightmares, particularly about spiders. These were not little spiders. They were great big hobbit-eating-size, Hogwarts-forest-size spiders. In my dream, I would be running through a forest, and I would get to a place with four trees in a perfect square. Giant spiders would drop down and begin making webs on all four sides, to trap me. I always had to try to run out under one of them, or through a web (and get stuck)… and the shock of that part and what could happen would wake me.

I didn’t like this much, and at some point decided I should be able to figure out that I was in one of these nightmares and wake myself up. This proved to be easier said than done. Eventually, I was able to recognize when I was in a dream, starting with the recurring ones. Those are the easiest ones to identify because they fit a particular pattern. Thinking about that pattern during the day and just saying to yourself, “when I see this, I’ll know I’m in that dream again” eventually does work.

Then, I had to wake myself up - in time for the spiders not to get me. This was a struggle. I’d try and try, but just waking up wasn’t happening, no matter how much I would yell “wake up!!” in my head. Then I got the bright idea of trying to open my eyes, really hard, physically open my eyes. Sometimes I could do that, but still not wake up right away. Eventually the light streaming into my eyes (if it was morning) would wake me up, for real. After a lot of practice with this, it has somehow become reflexive and I can now wake myself up if I need or want to.

After I had mastered this, at some point in my teens I got interested in whether I could make myself dream about something I wanted to dream about - like flying, or seeing my father. It turns out there are several parts to this one too. First, you have to remember what you dream about to know whether you’re succeeding. That takes quite a bit of practice all by itself. Then, you might try thinking about what you want to dream about right before you go to bed. Sometimes this works, but I have never found it to be all that reliable.

Third, if you should get lucky enough to find the object or action of your dreams, being able to direct the course of your dream is nice. And then of course, that requires knowing that you’re in the dream of your choice. I never did get really good at this. Sometimes I could dream about something I wanted to, like flying, but as soon as I realized I was flying in a dream and couldn’t fly in real life, I would tend to crash ;D

Probably the most important skill I learned out of all this was how to remember my dreams. This turns out to be the key to a lot of useful insights later on, which we’ll discuss more in future posts. The best way to do this is to start with those dreams we have right before waking, or right before we wake up in the middle of the night. Always keep pen and paper next to the bed, and no matter how sleepy you are, write down what you can remember the minute you wake up.

Since I always hated writing journals (odd that), I actually did it another way, by lying in bed and going over and over any details I could remember until they were fixed in my mind. Then later I might tell someone about it to further cement it in my mind. In general, if we don’t do something with our dreams in the first minute or so after waking, we tend to lose them altogether - with the exception of the few most powerful and memorable dreams. It’s good practice to do this every day, and eventually it will become second nature.

Next time we’ll talk about classifications of dreams and what they represent.

Tarot south of the border

On my trips to Puerto Vallarta, I had noticed a tarot reader across the street from the condos, and had figured that someday, when my Spanish is better, I will have to go in for a reading. I am very curious about how different it may be in Mexico from the kind of reading I am used to giving and receiving. I have heard from some folks in the South that clients, at least, often request prayers, spells, blessings, and other rituals that they are not used to from their other clients.

On this visit, we happened to notice a shop selling tarot cards, incense, books, and other ritual items, so we decided to stop in. At first, it was hard to find the tarot cards. One thing that was prominently displayed were these:

We wracked our brains for a while to remember what “Jabon” is - soap! In a way, these are like the candles that you burn to attract various things, but instead it is soap that you use to attract what you want. I could probably use the one second from left - to bring you clients. We couldn’t help giggling over the one on the right - Macho Garlic Soap.

Here’s a deck that I probably should have bought for the novelty value:

“The Tarot of Death” (not to be confused with Tarot of the Dead). I probably would have, except that there were only the 22 major arcana, and each had an identical figure of Death, colored differently and with a different background. I couldn’t quite see how this focus on Death would help you learn about Health, Money, and Love, as the cover promises. This seemed to be a general theme, in keeping with the more light-hearted attitude toward death in Mexico:

There were also many ingredients for making infusions and using in rituals in jars around the room, as well as stones and other ritual items. The woman sitting behind a desk looked like she might be a tarot reader, so at least we asked her where the tarot decks were. She pointed out a few on a shelf. It was not the most interesting assortment ever, though I did pick up a recolored version of the Marseilles that I liked, and to support the shop and to practice my Spanish on a fun, familiar topic! We got into quite an extensive discussion with her about her own practice, and it turned she had a much more intriguing assortment of decks:

Those above are her personal collection, used with more private clients (not in the shop). She had set of well-worn decks that she used for the public, including a Gypsy deck with 48 cards. She says these are used by the Gypsies in Mexico - I found myself wondering about the origin of the deck, as well as the origins of these Gypsies that apparently travel from place to place. I had thought that most European Gypsies read with regular playing cards. In spite of having 48 cards (closer to 52, at least) these were not a regular playing deck. They had some attributes like a tarocchi deck in the illustrations, almost - except for the lack of a trump suit. I’ll have to get ahold of one of these on one of my next trips and look at it more carefully.

Motivation vs. Exhaustion

I had a funny experience the other day; I was doing a tarot reading for someone else, when two cards came up that just made me laugh because they are so indicative of my life right now. I have long suspected the tarot does this - you often get requests for readings that give you messages you yourself need.

The cards in question are from Mark McElroy’s Bright Ideas deck, which doesn’t look exactly like a tarot deck. He developed it in part for corporate brainstorming, and so the images are quite a bit more modern than a traditional deck. In any case, here are the two cards I drew:

Situation:

Ace of Cups equivalent - the seed of your heart’s desire

Crossing Card (Obstacles or Challenges):

Ten of Wands equivalent - duties and responsibilities weighing heavily; time to let go of burdens and move on

Get the drift? :D

Here I am all fired up about a new project - an online mediation business that I hope to start within the next month (more on that later as the website gets developed) and the feeling that the mediation/facilitation career I’ve been working toward for so long is finally coming through. I’m very, very motivated to start something new.

On the other hand, I am literally chained to my desk with work related to the end of the fiscal biennium for the state - everyone wants their projects done before the end of the month, and it’s almost more work than I can physically do. That’s normal for the end of the biennium, but it’s rough, all the same. Especially when I am trying to sneak in work on my website at the same time!

Well, one more week of this and I hope to be done with the State projects. Then I have federal projects that will keep me working at almost the same pace through the end of the year - a little more free time, but not much.

This is not the first time I’ve been trying to start one career while still working at another. It is exhausting. But I hope to be diminishing those piles of paper and finishing up some things I’ve been working on almost 10 years. It will feel good to have left something productive behind for others to use, and to move onto something new - hopefully next year.

Russian publishers

Just got a copy of the Russian version of my book - I really like the cover. Somehow this seems much classier than the American version of it, shown below. And it’s hardcover, even. Beautiful :) What do you think?

The two versions certainly give you a different impression. Interesting what the publishers think will sell better in different markets (authors have little to no control over the covers of their books - something that takes a LOT of getting used to!).

Spring Tarot Classes

Just wanted to mention the two tarot classes I will be teaching this spring - for more information and sign-ups, see the course description page on TarotMoon. I’m particularly looking forward to the Ethics class, as that is a new one that I haven’t seen anywhere. Hoping for lots of lively debate!

* Court Cards - Beginning/Intermediate - 8 weeks (Mar 16 - May 11, 2007). Get to know the court cards like never before - this course is designed to introduce the reader to this difficult group of cards from a wide variety of unique and in-depth perspectives. We will explore their personalities (good, bad, and …), elemental, psychological, and astrological qualities, address gender issues, experiment with significators, play with body language, and learn how to tell if a given court card represents the querant, someone else, or not a person at all. Meet the court cards disguised as approaches, professions, occupations, institutions, activities, animals, and more.

* Ethical Issues in Tarot Reading - All levels - 4 weeks (April 2007). This is a short course focusing on ethical issues in tarot reading that may arise when reading for the public. The course does not teach or promote a particular approach to ethics, but rather provides a forum for exploring the issues and assisting each reader to discover his or her boundaries and develop a personal code of ethics.

Check out the Tarot Channel

I just started writing for a new group tarot blog (featuring Mark McElroy and Janet Boyer as editors) over at The Tarot Channel. Pop over and check it out, and let us know what you think. It’s a neat idea, I think, to have a bunch of us writing in the same place about a topic we all like, but approach in very different ways. Plus Mark has a unique talent for finding odd and interesting tidbits on the web to keep us all entertained :)

As you know, this blog is kinda my own personal space, and you may find anything at all here on any given day. This way, if I feel like really writing about tarot in ways that are more in-depth and less personal, I’ve got another place to do it. Both of these forms of blogging are new to me in the last year, and it’s all very interesting - so many ways to communicate and participate in a community, and hard to know which ones will take the world by storm and which ones will slowly fall away. Fun to watch it happen though!