Practicing reciprocity with dreams
On cultivating relationship through action
Dear reader,
In the northern hemisphere, we are in the darkest time of year, a ripe time for sleep and dreams. How did you sleep last night? What did you dream?
For some of us, however, the bustle of the season might not lead to the best conditions for sleep. I am traveling at the moment and didn’t sleep particularly well, and don’t remember last night’s dreams. But usually, the first thing I do upon waking is write them down.
Writing down my dreams is one way I practice reciprocity and cultivate a relationship with them. When people tell me they want to start nurturing a relationship with dreams, this is my #1 recommendation: start writing them down. Today I wanted to share with you about practicing reciprocity with dreams - writing and beyond - as a way of cultivating a relationship with them.
Dreamwork as reciprocity
At Prism of Wisdom, we love Toko-pa Turner’s description of dreamwork as “a medicinal practice of reciprocity between the seen and the unseen for rehabilitating our imaginal capacity.” Rather than seeing dreamwork as a transactional relationship in which we are trying to extract meaning, as modernity might have us believe, we see dreams as a gift from unseen realms, and through working with our dreams, we cultivate and honor this relationship and become open to the wisdom and knowledge available through them. Part of engaging in this reciprocal relationship can be doing things with our dreams, such as writing them down, drawing images, or taking other actions inspired by them.
Ways of practicing reciprocity with dreams
Writing - Keeping a dream journal
Writing down our dreams is one form of reciprocity we can cultivate with them. I have been writing down my dreams since I was a teenager. I used to write them down by hand (which I generally prefer), but after my daughter was born, I often found myself holding her immediately after I woke up. I started keeping them in a notes file on my phone so as to not lose the practice, which I have continued to do. A nice thing about having them electronically is that they are easily searchable. A downside to keeping them on your phone is getting distracted by messages or other notifications when you open the phone. I recommend minimizing this as much as possible, which may mean not using the phone as your dream journal. Do what works for you.
Some tips for keeping a dream journal:
Write your dreams as soon as you wake up. I usually write them down while my coffee is making. Sometimes I will make very short notes (key words or phrases) on the way to the coffee pot, then write them out more fully while making and drinking coffee. An interesing thing about dreams (and perhaps fodder for a future post) is that some of them stick around for a while, and some seem to evaporate soon after waking. I jot what I can as soon as I can so I don’t lose touch with them. If you keep them in a hard journal, keep the journal by your bedside so it is easily accessible when you wake up.
Write in the present tense. This was a tip I read as a teenager and I have always done it this way. It helps me to remember more details as I’m writing, placing me back into the scene, images, and feelings.
Write down anything you can remember - plot, images, feelings. Even if it’s just one image or feeling, write it down. Just one image or feeling is a gift from the dream realm, even if it is just the feeling you have when you wake up. Sometimes one image might jog your memory to others, too. Write with as much detail as you can. Often I will write down a dream, and then go back over it, and as I do, new details will emerge. As this relationship builds, you will most likely be able to remember more details over time.
Write them down daily. The more you write your dreams down, the more you will remember. Set the intention to remember your dreams, and over time you will remember more. Let your dreams know you want to be in relationship with them, and they will respond. They want to be in relationship with you too. They want you to remember, and they want you to act and play with them.
Dreams love for us to do things with them. For me, writing down my dreams is a way of honoring them. I don’t always do anything with them - the act of writing them down is sometimes enough. But speaking them out loud to others, or taking an image from a dream and drawing it, or whatever you feel inspired by your dreams - our dreams love when we do this. And interesting things start to happen when we do. It is like weaving the waking and sleeping worlds together. It is magical. Don’t take my word for it - try it, and let me know how it goes. I will share a few more examples of this below.
Speak your dream
Another form of reciprocity is sharing your dream with others. Speaking dreams aloud is another layer of reciprocity. After decades of writing my dreams, I came to the practice of community dreamwork later in life, and find a totally different power in this act of reciprocity. You don’t need a community - just sharing it with one other person is enough! Minna and I love to share dreams over WhatsApp voice memos. If you want to join our Zoom dreamwork practice community, please send us a message and we will add you to the list.
Creating art from dream images
Another way to be in reciprocal relationship with your dreams is to create art from the images in them. You don’t need to be a great artist- it can be a stick figure, or even drawing a phrase or word from the dream. Dance with image and see what happens. As noted above, Toko-pa Turner describes dreamwork as medicine for healing our imaginal capacities, and engaging with artistic action around our dreams is a way of engaging with this healing. Creating art from dream images is a way to make them live beyond our dreams, a way of honoring them.
Other examples of cultivating reciprocity
The other day I had a dream about a song. Here is an excerpt from my dream notes:
“ ___ has just spent three nights away, and I leave daphne with him to go for a drive. I don’t know where I’m going, I’m just heading in a direction. It’s a road in the woods. I’m listening to jimmy eat world and looking at my phone while driving and driving really recklessly and luckily the oncoming traffic is paying more attention than I am. But i am having so much fun and it feels liberating.”
I woke up and wrote the dream down. I had a strong urge to listen to the song when I got to the office. I hadn’t listened to the song in a long time, but it was part of the soundtrack of my young adult life. Its lyrics felt resonant.
The song was in my head for a few days. After a while I realized the chords seemed pretty easy and I could probably play some version of it on the guitar, which I had hardly touched in months. I started to play it and I enjoyed it. The melody is in the sweet spot of my register and was fun to sing.
The dream spoke pretty clearly to me: I was (am) yearning for the freedom of being alone, of driving down wooded roads and listening to my favorite music. As a professor-mom, I have to keep it together a lot of time, but there was something about the feeling of the dream of being reckless that felt so liberating, something I don’t get to engage in often in my waking life. And the music was connecting me with the reckless abandon of my youth.
The dream also got me to play the guitar. I love singing and playing guitar and don’t do it nearly often enough. It’s something I always want to do more of. The dream inspired me to do this, to touch a part of myself that had gotten a bit dusty.
I have also had a few recent dreams about elders in my life dying. They have been unwell, and from both dreams I awoke in a sort of panic, hoping they were still alive. The dreams got me to reach out to them. When I reached out to my aunt, she said she was doing ok, recovering from an injury, but was having a hard day and said that my text really lifted her spirits. It felt like the dream was just giving me a gentle nudge that I needed to reach out to her, that she needed to hear from me right now.
Gratitude as reciprocity
Perhaps most importantly, cultivating a sense of gratitude for what we receive from our dreams is the heart of a reciprocal relationship. Be grateful for whatever stories, images, or messages you receive from the dream realm, even if you don’t understand them. They are gifts to hold, mysteries to unfold, invitations to dance with. Taking action with the dreams - whether through writing them down, speaking them aloud, creating art from them, or other actions - is a way of expressing this gratitude.
So see what your dream wants you to do. Sing the song. Draw the image. Pick up a long lost hobby. Text your friend or loved one. Dreams help us to remember parts of ourselves we may have forgotten. Experiment, and see what happens.
Let us know how it goes!
Sweet dreams,
Stephanie
P.S. Happy solstice! Both Minna and I wrote solstice posts for our personal Substacks, which you can find on In the Between and Enchantable. Sending you solstice blessings!
Note: The part about dream journals was originally written for Enchantable and has been edited and expanded for Prism of Wisdom.