On Dream Work

By Amanda Moreno

In general, my dreams and I are fighting these days. I’ve had more nightmares in the past few weeks than I’ve probably had in my entire life combined. They’re not really the kinds that lead to me waking up screaming or anything, but they have been disturbing and chaotic.

It’s probably not helpful at all that I’ve been reading about “evil” and “psychic self defense” before bed, but I digress.

A few weeks ago I gave you a glimpse into my New Moon ritual process. As I sit here reflecting on my intention — When I make time to still my mind, to listen and perceive, I act on the inspiration that comes with dedication and ease — I’m laughing at the “still my mind” part.

My mind has been anything but still. But I’m realizing that I have been making the effort to listen and perceive. And my dreams have been the direct means of getting inspiration for writing and living and loving.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve been picking up little communications from dreams and then acting on them. I do, however, find dream work to be somewhat exhausting and tedious sometimes. It requires time and effort. And although the pay off can be huge — seeing as dream work provides a means for getting to know the images of our own unconscious minds — I tend to be inconsistent in my efforts.

So what is dream work, anyway? To my mind, dream work is yet another tool for healing and understanding because it connects us to the language of the psyche. I see it as different from dream interpretation. Dream interpretation, for me, is more about “what does the dream Mean,” whereas dream work is more alive and fluid. It’s about unpacking images and emotions. Dream work includes interpretation to a degree, but moves beyond it to see the dream as a constantly changing dynamic.

The gist of dream work is that dreams are alive, that they are multidimensional and multi-layered, and that they are communicating with us through images that are full of meaning. The images that appear in a dream are specific to the particular dream. Therefore there can be no universal meaning for “water,” because the context of the water (is it still? clear? warm? salty? menacing?) describes the image further.

I once had a teacher describe a dream as a sphere; when working on a dream, it’s kind of like you’re shooting an arrow through the sphere, increasing understanding. Sometimes the arrow goes closer to the center or the heart of the dream, sometimes it doesn’t.

There are tons of ways to work with dreams. The most essential, I’ve found, is dream journaling. Keeping a notebook and pen next to your bed and being diligent with writing dreams down as soon as you wake up helps to increase dream recall while also helping you to get to know your own patterns. I once spent a year keeping a dream journal that included astrological headers. Each day I’d type out the date and time, along with transiting aspects to my natal chart. I noticed a certain man would appear around the same point in the Moon’s cycle each month. I learned that any aspects to Neptune or my Pisces planets, or changes in the outer planets’ directions, almost always made for good dreaming weather.

Other tools for working with dreams include amplification, art and active imagination. To amplify, you can write down an image from a dream (like “bear”) and then free associate, always coming back to the original image. This helps to connect the dream image to aspects of waking life that might be up for review.

I sometimes use collage either the evening before I’m asking the dreamtime for some help, or in the days after a meaningful dream in order to bring the dream into this reality and/or to honor it.

“Active imagination,” which for me can mean closing my eyes and dialoguing with dream figures, is also useful — and almost always surprising. It is helpful to assume an attitude of not knowing — being open to what is revealed without projecting preconceived judgments about the meaning of the dream onto the figure.

These days, in light of the general unease my dreams have been leaving me with, I’ve been paying attention to emotional images or tones coming forward. For example, if I close my eyes and focus on a scene from a dream that brings me anxiety, I pay attention to how it feels, and where in my body that feeling arises. I then lean into that feeling in an attempt to exacerbate it and see what other memory or image comes to mind.

Almost without fail, I’ll get a memory from sometime earlier in my life where that same feeling of anxiety was triggered. There’s one link to work with. I then might focus on the opposite feeling — calm — and pay attention to how that feeling registers in my body, and what memories or images come up. I might then go back into the dream and try and create an “alternate ending.”

As is usual for the tools I choose to use, I think a playful and exploratory mindset is always helpful. The thrill of discovery and the mystery of the unknown keep this work alive for me — and keep me out of questioning whether I’m making something up or whether it’s “just my imagination.” Because, well, it IS all imagination after all, isn’t it?