Many, if not all children, experience intense nightmares. I was no exception, much to the consternation of my family. My nightly outbursts were so extreme that I was encouraged by my mother (thanks to her Jungian therapist) to start writing about these trauma-provoking night terrors once I could put a pen to paper. The opportunity to explore my dreams and their connection to my mom's childhood eye surgery opened my curiosity to explore how consciousness could be operating. Were my dreams about my eye being removed connected to her radical eye surgery at the same age? This dream consciousness seemed to know no physical boundary, at least where she and I were concerned.
I've returned to dream journals during pivotal points in my life since, taking note of repeating dreams and how they change over time. During my teens and early twenties, I consulted Jungian and Native American sources to unravel some of the mysteries of my dream life. Some of the reoccurring themes involving eyes, tidal waves, and more recently, a haunted room, felt deeply connected to the gross body and subtle energy.
At the turn of the century, I was exposed to Hatha yoga, Kundalini, and the chakra system. From there, my dream life emerged vividly and with meaning. Many of the symbols and themes in my dreams began to make more sense, opening a map to better understand my own mind and more precisely listen for guidance.
It was over the next five years exploring psychedelic culture, in combination with self-study of Arnold Mindell's Process-Oriented Psychology and energy work (Reiki), that some of my dreams felt are inherently mind-manifesting, much like those substances themselves. The parallel was tantalizing. But it wasn't until recently that I became curious enough to bring these threads together. Ttoday, I take the approach that there is no integration of non-ordinary and psychedelic experiences without dream work.
In 2021 I enrolled for the first cohort of the Vital Psychedelics Training program to better understand the emerging field of psychedelic therapy and my role in the community. As I poured myself into the course material around integration, I found myself wanting to focus more on the critical role dreamwork could play while preparing for a psychedelic experience, and of course, during the tender days and weeks following. I chose my experiential retreat Jamaica to apply one dreamwork model taught by Swami Sivananda Radha, the practice of dream yoga as described in her 1994 book Realities of the Dreaming Mind. This book was at my side during the entirety of the retreat, and I returned to it whenever time allowed, even during the latter part of my medicine journey.
Harnessing the moon cycle for inner work
The synchronicity was not lost on me that the cover of this book depicts the waxing crescent moon, the precise moon phase we happened to have been in on the day of my psilocybin journey, with the new moon appearing on the day we arrived, on January 22, 2023. We often commented during the week that the crescent was unusually positioned at the bottom of the moon, appearing like a smile. To me, it was a sign to follow and immediately following the retreat, I created this personal blog to track and interpret significant dreams that took place during the first 30 days following this event.
New moons are considered to be a fortuitous time to start a new endeavor. And so this begins.
I dedicate this blog toward documenting my own dream interpretation with images generated by Dream.AI that reflect key dream messages in the dream.
The method I'll use is the following from chapter 2:
1. Dream record: Write your dream quickly and honestly.
2. Signature: Put the date and your signature beneath.
3. Commentary: Add any details you may have missed. Describe your feelings.
4. Initial interpretations: What is your immediate impression of the dream’s meaning?
5. Conscious concerns: Briefly note events that could have led to the dream.
6. Key words/symbols: Select the main words from the dream and write down associations and meanings to you.
7.Intepretation: See how the symbolic meanings fit together to give messages on several levels.
8. Application: Apply the dream’s message to your life. Use a simple I statement.
9. Dream group: If you find it helpful, you can work with others to get different perspectives.
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