14 June 2017

I still remember the first time Richard Hastings from Dreams For Peace wrote to me that I had a dream with a mix of negatives and positives in it for “some reason.” He pointed out some of the positives and then explained how I could use those things I was already good at to help with the negatives in the dream.

After he wrote that, then this theme continued on for what seems like many months. After a while, as soon as I had a dream with any negative in it, like getting chased, or getting hurt physically, then I started looking right away for a positive. There always was one. At least one, but usually more.

Then one time he sort of freaked me out because he wrote, “the reason positives show up in a dream is to give the mind a lure, something good to go for, and also to give you a reminder of what you are good at because you will need that in order to face what is coming up.”

That freaked me out because it made me realize something negative was coming up and in order to best deal with it I had to really remember and exercise my positives.

Last night’s dream was like that – a mix of negatives and positives.

The positives were that I was hanging out with a black belt from the club and he had created a really safe place for us to just chill out and relax, to just watch movies and snack on chips. The problem was that after he put a blanket on me and I was really warm and cozy, then he got in next to me and I could see he thought maybe we would make out.

What is this “thing” which compels men to always end up thinking that a situation can lead to sex? It frustrated me in the dream. He’s a good looking guy, and great instructor in the club, and we have a lot in common in our personalities, but in the dream I just wanted to relax and watch movies and now I had to deal with him and his ego around whether or not we would get physical. So the warmth he gave me came with a price. I didn’t want to “pay” the price but I also didn’t want to give up the warmth. That sent my mind into high gear thinking of all the options and how this could turn out great for both of us.

In another part of the dream I am on a gymnastics floor training for Martial Arts. The instructor asks me to do something which she thinks will take a long time but I do it right away. This surprises her and then I explain that I was a competative gymnast until I was 14 and somethings just stuck with me. I saw the glimmer in her eye like she realized she found a gem and she was wondering how to work with what she had found. I was a bit apprehensive, not knowing if I could trust her motives but yet wanting to.

Lastly, there was a part in the dream sequence where I was a detective walking along a dark path by the river’s edge and I was following footsteps of a criminal. In the dream I knew everything – I knew who we were following, where we would find them and how we would stop them. But when I woke up it was really hard to put all those details into words.

The only thing I could consider is the great metaphor of a detective when it comes to changework because when we hunt out the negatives and transform them like a detective then life keeps getting better and better.

So – there were the positives and negatives of my recent dream. The solution now is for me to remember the positives of what I do well in my day to day life and to repeat them often and then I can get through any situation which anyone brings to me.

Anyone can do dreamwork. It just requires daily attention to the memory of the dream and the willingness to explore metaphors openly in order to learn more about the self and others. In my opinion, there is no better way to face fear and transform it than working through a dream.