Dreaming is not for the faint of heart

The title of this post really was intended as a two-line poem of sorts - but Blogger allows that not, so here now, my original concept:

Dreaming is not,
for the faint of heart.
(well, it works for me, and it's my blog)

Anyhow...

I took a class this summer called the Psychology of Dreams. The textbook for the class was "Our Dreaming Minds" by Robert Van de Castle. Dr. Van de Castle attended the class as a visiting faculty member. How rare it is to have one of the lecturers for the class be the author of the textbook used in the class. I feel fortunate to have attended this class.

I must say that I had no clear idea about what we might be studying in the class, because the concept of "dreams" was cloudy in my mind. I learned that many of the older ideas about how to interpret dreams (especially Freudian) have been supplemented by new ideas about how you can interpret your own dreams. I also learned that we would survey dreams from many different perspectives and finally, I learned that the difference between our waking mind and our dreaming mind is not a well defined boundary. Eventually, I ended up thinking about it in this way; conscious plans about your future, which many call dreams, are different from the dreams that come to you when sleeping, whether you are aware of them or not. I am now convinced that we all dream when we are sleeping and that if you care to be in touch with your dreaming life there are fairly easy ways to do so. Most importantly, you own your dreams and you can record them (in a dream journal) and reflect on their meaning in a safe, non-threatening manner that has the potential to enrich your life.

So why am I bringing up the business of dreaming when I am supposed to be concerned about career and life direction. Two reasons come to mind immediately:
1. My method for approaching career/life planning is summed up as "Dream It, Learn It, Work It."
2. I thought I would learn more about dreaming that might be useful to my clients if I took the class.

And I believe I did.

What I didn't expect was to become aware of a whole new source of information from dreaming that may be of equal or greater value than the career dreaming (or planning) I recommend in my book and in my private practice. The two kinds of dreaming are complementary in a way I would not have imagined had I not taken the class.

I am going to continue to work with and think about how how this all can fit together. The good news is that something useful may be gained and nothing will be lost. I'm dreaming (planning) about how to build a bridge between what I call conscious dreaming (controlled dreaming) and unconscious dreaming (uncontrolled dreaming) that we may be able to walk together. If you have any thoughts on the subject I would be delighted to hear from you.

Copyright E. Charles Bliss; all rights reserved