On the joy of having a dream partner
Reflections from the International Healing-Centered Education Conference
Dear Dreamers,
We recently offered a dream gathering at the International Healing-Centered Education Conference organized by the Acosta Institute. Today I wanted to share with you some reflections on our session!
You can view our session here:
Aside from the session just being an affirmation of the profundity of sharing dreams in community (and in this instance, sharing with people who we mostly did not know personally), I was really struck by how dreamwork has woven its way into mine and Minna’s friendship, and how it has been a source of such deep sharing and learning through the process of sharing our dreams.
We met through dreamwork (as our first post explained), so our friendship was really woven - and continues to weave! - through dreams, and we have continued to share dreams over the course of the time we have known each other. In the process of sharing about dreams, we end up sharing so much else about our lives and inner worlds. Often when I share a dream, I feel compelled and inspired to share the context or backstory of why something might be there. For example, if my grandma is in my dream, so much of the meaning relates to what my relationship to my grandma is. So over the course of this time of sharing many dreams, we have shared so much about our lives and histories and stories. There are many reasons for the depth of our friendship and connection, but sharing dreams regularly is definitely a big part of it, and probably why it feels like we have known each other for much longer than a litte over a year.
In the dreamwork session (which you can watch at the link above), I shared a dream I had had the night before about Minna. The dream turned out to really be a dream for her, and we had such a profound and beautiful sharing around this. This is one of the magical elements of dreams: they are never ours or just for us. They remind us that we are part of a collective, and the collective whole (of human and more-than-human relationships) is informing and feeding our dreams. Sometimes, a dream enters through us, and it is really meant for someone else. And we might only know this if we share it. And in fact, whether a dream directly involves someone else, our dreams make meaning for and through each other.
Which brings me to another thought: I cannot recommend enough, if you are getting into dreamwork practice, to have a “dream partner” who you regularly share with. Over time, you begin to notice the recurring themes in one another’s dreams, and sometimes can notice things for the other person that they can’t see themselves because they are too close to it. In addition to writing your dreams down as often as you can (ideally daily, as a practice), I encourage you to find a friend who you can have a consistent dreamwork practice with. A likely side effect is that it will deepen your friendship and connection, too!
This sharing doesn’t need to be fancy or formal. For Minna and I, this often looks like leaving voice memos for each other about our dreams, or sending a screenshot of our dream notes. You don’t need to connect in real time to do this (although it is lovely when that is possible!), and voice memos can be a great way to practice it. Then, you can ask each other questions using some of the generative prompts in our guide below (or your own!).
Think of the friend who you usually want to share your wildest dreams with, and see if they are up for it as a regular practice. If you try it, let us know how it goes! Or if this is already a part of your dreamwork practice, we would love to hear your reflections and insights in the comments below.
To support your dreamwork, we have also put together a Prism of Wisdom Dream Gathering resource, which we hope you will find helpful, and which you can find here. This resource gathers together our understanding, ideas, and practice around dreamwork, generative prompts, and a list of resources to support your dream weaving and learning. We hope you enjoy it and welcome any feedback on it!
Sweet (and rich and colorful) dreams,
Stephanie
P.S. I wrote some other reflections on the conference as a whole last week which you can find here :)
Phil tends to be my dream partner, although I inevitably always have more material than him! I think if I shared everything with him, he would get exhausted, LOL. This leads to a curious concept about what makes an "important" dream. Like, if I were to share only a handful of dreams with someone, I would probably look for those with strong feeling tones or images, but sometimes when I step back and document what might initially feel like "insignificant" dreams, a very profound message pops out. As an example, I had what felt like a 5-second dream about organizing my travel toiletry bag. I almost didn't write it down, except when I started to do so, very clear messages about compartmentalizing and spilling over and boundaries popped out like an image from one of those Magic Eye books. Sometimes the length or initial impact of the dream isn't always the indicator that it has great meaning!