The Basics

We are endowed with three primary phases of consciousness: ordinary waking consciousness; dream consciousness; sleep consciousness.

We will focus on ordinary waking consciousness and dream consciousness. We do explore sleep consciousness in our personal practice. Our work with others focuses on ordinary waking consciousness and dream consciousness. For now.

The origins of ordinary waking consciousness remain a mystery. And may become clear to you through your own practices.

The structure of ordinary waking consciousness:

REACTION-IGNORANCE-PROJECTION

1. Sensory cues from the environment (external or internal) are connected with a deep “inner’ feelings, that lie hidden from ordinary waking consciousness in other-than-ordinary-waking-conscious awareness. As example, anger, greed, lust, joy, fear, shame can be shoved “down” into other-than-ordinary-waking consciousness. These un-consciously experienced feelings stir an internal response, or REACTION.
2. Our ordinary waking consciousness tries to make conscious sense of the hidden feeling by creating stories that seem plausible to our ordinary waking consciousness. We do this by picking a small set of “facts” from the infinite array of facts available to us, and/or by creating “facts” out of thin air. Can this be called anything other than IGNORANCE. Our ignorance does not have an evil intention, and we are completely unaware that we are doing this. Never-the-less, it is IGNORANCE.
3. Based upon this REACTION-IGNORANCE story-making dynamic, we project our story onto the environment (both external and internal) with thoughts and words and deeds. PROJECTION.

         REACTION-IGNORANCE-PROJECTION

What seems evident from current scientific research (neuropsychobehavioral science), is that the human neocortex is capable of an incomprehensibly large array of associations. The associations appear to be used as a tool to “make sense” of an innumerable array of external and internal cues. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the associations are used to try to make order out of the chaos that envelops us. There are those that assert that the associations are a mechanism to try to predict what will arrive next in our life. We believe this is so. Perhaps we fear the unknown. And our associations are skewed to give much more weight to those feeling experiences that have caused pain. Trauma. Traumas are potentially life threatening and therefore to be avoided. Perhaps at all cost.

This is one of the reasons that we chose the name “8th Wave.” The 8th wave comes from the surfer/sailor myth that ocean waves come in sets of 7, building from smallest 1 through largest 7. In reality, we never know what the 8th Wave will bring. Smaller?! Bigger?! Does it matter. As they/we are all part of the same Great Ocean.

You might say, our usual waking consciousness is largely devoted to predicting that 8th Wave. And how we do this is really intriguing. And baffling. And laughable! We take in an immense amount of environmental (external and internal) cues. At a level of other-than-ordinary consciousness, feelings arise. The feelings can certainly have positive and negative values; perhaps neutral, although we are not sure of this. We then take only certain pieces of information from the environment (external and internal) and create a story, a group of associations, around the feeling. Sometimes the information is representative of something that is occurring physically in our local time-space. And sometimes we simply make up pieces of information, pieces of imaginary information, that we then believe are “facts.” These pieces of information are then used to create the story, to explain these deep other-than-ordianry feelings. And we fully believe this story to be true. The Truth. When in truth, it is a fairy tale based upon multiple degrees of ignorance.

We then respond to the environment with actions based upon our fairy tale. Our actions produce feelings in the environment (external and internal). The environment then responds through its own cycle of reaction-ignorance-projection. And this wave continues. Wave upon Wave.

Dream consciousness is different. As long as you have a guide that is familiar with accessing the deep feeling levels in dreams.

Be wary. Some people who work with dreams, unaware of their own other-than-conscious feelings that the dream elicits, prefer the “safety” of dream interpretation. People who interpret dreams are always doing so from their own ordinary waking consciousness. Focusing upon the story line (REACTIONS), they make associations (IGNORANCE), and then PROJECT their own meanings upon the dream. Because the interpreter has more “experience” with dreams (read associations = ignorance) than the dreamer, their interpretation is often accepted by the dreamer. In our experience, this is merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

An example. A dreamer recounts the following dream: “I am standing watching a big group of people walking into a Walmart. They are poorly dressed, ignorant, losers and I don’t want to have anything to do with them. I walk off in the other direction.”

Take a moment. What does this dream bring up for you? What are your mental associations with Walmart? What are your associations about people who often go to Walmart?

I ask the dreamer, “How do you know it is Walmart? Do you see a sign?” “No.” “Do you go inside and see Walmart advertising?” “No.” “So this is a group of people going in somewhere unknown to you?” “Yes.” “So you’re not part of the group?” “No.” “How does it feel to not be a part of the group?” “Lonely. I don’t feel good enough. There is some shame.” So from her/his place of loneliness, inadequacy and shame (FEELINGS), she/he PROJECTS IGNORANT losers and Walmart onto the story.

What does this bring up for you?

Dream consciousness turns everything upside down. Feeling becomes preeminent rather than the storyline.

Dream consciousness. We can accept that different figures in the dream represent different aspects of ourselves. The bear in the dream brings fear (perhaps as a doorway to power) and is part of us. Because the total environment is not “real” in the sense of our usual “waking” consciousness, we can accept that what is external is a part of the internal. The usual boundaries that we accept in “waking” consciousness are blurred. We begin to see and feel our inter-connectedness with all Being.

Dream consciousness. Spacetime is warped. Or perhaps more real. Gravity is suspended. We are babies. We are dying. We are boys then girls. Girls then boys. Strangers are our parents. We descend into the center of the Earth. We travel in a flash to distant galaxies. All of these aspects are part of the story line. What are constantly underneath are FEELINGS.

Dream consciousness invites descent into FEELING. All the aspects of pain. All the aspects of joy. All the aspects of anger. All the aspects of tranquility. All the aspects of fear. All the aspects of grief. All the aspects of bliss.

DREAM consciousnes. We experience that a wonderful way to cut through the usual ordinary waking consciousness cycle of REACTION-IGNORANCE-PROJECTION is by directly experiencing the feeling present in dream consciousness.

Dream consciousness is always based upon phenomena eliciting FEELING that emerges into stories. The FEELING is essential to our heart essence. In cutting through the REACTION-IGNORANCE-PROJECTION cycle we come deeper into our heart essence, closer and closer to our true nature. Eliminating projection, we can see directly with our heart essence. Is that your soul seeing? Perhaps.

The Individual Seeking a Better Life

If you are like us, you came to spiritual practice from a sense of dissatisfaction. Desolation. Drunkiness. Drugs. Depression. Dicking around (men). Dreamy dalliances (women). Dumpster diving. Desperation.

Perhaps you have felt the same things in your business practice, your work practice, your social action practice, and on…

Something is wrong in your life and you want to change it. Very wrong. To fix it. Really wrong and no one seems to understand. You want to change this pattern once and for all. To bring (at least close to) never-ending joy and bliss into your life. This is understandable. Our lives have often been filled with traumas – small and large. Working as hard as you can, you seem to be on the never-ending hamster wheel of unmet expectations. Unfulfilled joy and bliss.

In truth, our lives are filled with ups – and downs. The ups are often easy to accept. And the downs seem best avoided at any cost. This is perhaps easy to understand from the perspective of simple physical survival. We want ample food and shelter and warmth and physical contact to ensure survival. And we know that even seemingly simple threats can in fact lead to death – a splinter in the foot can become infected, leading to sepsis and death. We are hard-wired to pay extra attention to those things that are painful, as opposed to those that are comfortable, to assure our physical survival. The night was particularly difficult for our ancestors. Our physical night vision is poor, and so we have avoided the dark as a threat to our survival.

If our survival does not seem imminently threatened, we gravitate towards the comfort of those things that feel good, safe, warm, wrapped in love. And that can lead to its own brand of problems. I can tell you, for instance, that a dose of opiate can induce a feeling of warmth, and comfort, and love, and safety, and less pain. iI you’ve just had surgery, very welcome and helpful. Some of us then decide that this is just what we need all the time – and the disasters of addiction unfold. We can, and do, re-create this problem with drugs, with food, with clothing, with sex, with exercise, with business, with achievement…

Spiritual, emotional, psychological well-being is the same story. Yet we have convinced ourselves that it is different. We are convinced that we are entitled to never-ending bliss. Not that we would simply “prefer” this bliss. We feel entitled to it, we demand it. Part of that bliss is having only what we conventionally accept as “positive” qualities in our personae. We are addicted to bliss, to these “positive” qualities. AND we avoid the internal darkness, our Shadow side, as if it were the night darkness that our ancestors feared.

And yet, we can not appreciate, nor fully experience, the positive without the negative, the light without the dark. The yin without the yang.

We can not experience the oneness that envelops both poles, without being willing to experience the polars.

And yet we so often run in fear from the dark, the difficult “whatever” that we imagine there.

We seek out spiritual practices that promise love and light. Psychological practices that promise an end to anxiety and depression. Short-form meditation practices that promise well-being. Tantric practices that promise the best sex ever. Monetary wealth accruing practices that promise financial security and life on a golden beach. New age practices that promise an abundance of love and light and your soul mate partner. I’ve never seen a “vision board” practitioner who proclaims “I want a full Shadow experience,” I want a full “Dark Night of the Soul” upon their vision board. (Do not mis-understand us. We all benefit from a basic safety net of physical and emotional well-being.)

This leads to what has been aptly termed “spiritual bypassing.”

“Spiritual bypassing” is pursued. Until the next crisis in our lives. The next time our Shadow side rears its presence.

And then what? Are you going to pursue another round of grabbing after the light. It is understandable. Yet there is a glimmering within us that whispers “Look in the other direction!”

We do not do “spiritual bypassing” in our work.

Because dreams do not do “spiritual bypassing.”

Dreams contain the “positive” AND the “negative.” The “light” AND the “dark.” In full display. Dreams are an open door to what is often called Shadow Work. Alongside Light work. They go hand-in-hand.

We do Full bodied, fully Embodied, Full Circle, Full spiral work. Work that contains love and hate, light and dark, satisfaction and greed, wisdom and ignorance, pain and joy, fear and vulnerability, responsibility and response capability.

This is hard work. Work that is not for everybody. But is for every one that wants it. That is all that is required. A true desire to look at ALL that we are – top to bottom, front to back, light to dark, inside to outside, yin to yang, vulnerable to more vulnerable, awake to confused,…

This work can be done with us as an aid to whatever your current practice.

It can be done as a stand-alone practice.

It can be done by individuals. It can be done by couples. It can be done by groups. Spiritual groups. Business groups. Philanthropy groups. Social action groups…

Call us today!

Right NOW!

Seasoned Spiritual Practitioner

You’re a more seasoned spiritual practitioner, psychological practitioner, wealth-management practitioner.

Especially, you’re a seasoned “teacher” or “life coach.”

You’ve had glimpses of whole-ness.

AND. You know that you have weaknesses, vulnerabilities, an ever-present Shadow side.

You know that your Shadow side is often inaccessible.

By nature, hidden in Blind Spots.

You suspect it is there. You have faith that it is there.

How to reveal these Blind Spots? How to excavate and integrate your Shadow side?

Dream.

Dream reveals both the storylines around blind spots, as well as the structure of consciousness. Not in terms of generalities either. Rather, the awakening offered in dream is personal, most intimate, for each dreamer.

The language of dream is primarily a language of FEELING. Feeling that then has cognitive story lines, taken from our ordinary waking consciousness, overlain. The story line serve to catch the attention of the dreamer. Unfortunately, many dreamers remain mesmerized by the superficial storyline, and miss the underlying feeling, or lack of connection with feeling, that the dream points towards.

Excavating these feelings, we come face to face with what had previously been impenetrable blind spots. Spiraling down, or up, through layer after layer after layer. New awareness emerges.

Most sages and masters avow that a glimpse is just the beginning of practice.

Dream illuminates every step of the path from then, to then.

You know you have blinds spots.

You know you want to be the best “teacher” possible.

What are you waiting for?

Contact us. Now

Community

This takes a little time to read through. Stick with it, You’re worth it.

Community is vital for our well-Being. Both individual and societal well-Being. We arise, flourish, and die only in relationship, in community. We are imbued with inter-connection. My well-Being is your well-Being. Your suffering is my suffering. My suffering is your suffering.

And now…

You are a member of a community that is struggling. You are a member of a community that is just beginning. You are a member of a community that is doing just fine, AND wants to grow beyond its present culture.

What are the basic problems that all communities face?

A community can be non-optional, if it is required for personal and group physical survival. The members are likely to put aside individual differences and engage deeply with each other to do whatever it takes to enhance physical survival. Imagine a community under physical attack. It bands together, with each individual offering their energy and skills to repel the invasion. If the invaders are easily identified, let’s say pillaging hordes, it is easy to bind together, sacrificing the personal for the group’s survival. That is also the best chance of the individual’s survival. Community.

If the invader is not so easily identified, say a micro-organism in the middle ages, ignorance and projection rear their twin ugly heads. Perhaps unusual women are then identified as the problem, and many thousands or perhaps millions are killed as witches. But the community is unified in its ignorance and projection.

Ah yes. Projection. And ignorance. And scapegoating. The deadly sport of communities gripped in fear.

Our initial reaction to any environmental cue takes place in a deep, other-than-conscious level. At this level, the reaction is feeling. We use the information available to us, largely from past experience, to create a story around the environmental cue. To “make sense” out of the cue. We say that our stories are built on “facts.” As our information is always limited, it is more accurate to say that they are built upon varying levels of ignorance. Modern advertising is founded upon this reality, whether it is for deodorant or political candidates or…

We then complete the circle by acting towards the environmental cue on the basis of the story that we believe to be “true” information. We project onto the environmental cue our story, our ignorance.

Our projection activity (whether thought, word, or deed) creates another environmental cue within the community. This environmental cue is received by other members of the community, and within our own psyche and body. And then each member of the community re-creates the feeling reaction-ignorance-projection cycle. Reverberating and amplifying.

If we are in a community upon which our survival does not depend,, we have the luxury of engaging this reaction-ignorance-projection cycle.

Most of our communities nowadays are not engaged from the place of perceived immediate physical survival. They are voluntary organizations – spiritual, religious, political, social, business, education. We in the West, have “grown up” in cultures that often value the individual over the group. We take it as our right and responsibility to have opinions about our communities, our associations, our relationships.

Let’s imagine I’m a member of a spiritual group. Someone else, X, in the group doesn’t bring food for a pot-luck meal for the community. This environmental cue triggers an other-than-conscious feeling (perhaps I grew up in a poor and unsafe home where I might not have food for days at a time, and I fear hunger and also harbor anger at the people that made my home unsafe). Unable to recognize these deep feelings, I create a story that X never brings food and is selfish. I lash out at X, projecting my fear and anger, but feeling justified in lashing out because my story is “true” (this can become even more difficult if X is at times a bit selfish, as we all are). X can then go into her/his own reaction-ignorance-projection cycle. And the fabric of the community is strained.

The example we’ve given is VERY rudimentary. The situations and feelings might seem so obvious to you that you doubt that this reaction-ignorance-projection cycle could ever be much of a problem.

So we ask you, what are your reaction-ignorance-projection cycles? How do you feel being asked this question? Are there places in your life where your relationships are strained? Are you in a community that is struggling? What is your part in this struggling? Are you in a community that is desiring to grow and heal, in such areas as patriarchal abuse, racism, diversity, business development, and has arrived at an impasse? What now?

The great difficulty is that all of the reactions typically reside within a Blind Spot. There is a Zen koan that goes: There is an ox kept in a pen. The pen has a wood lattice door, the openings in the lattice about fist size. The horns get out. The head gets out. The massive chest gets out easily. But the tail gets stuck. Within Buddhist stories, the Ox is often a metaphor for our true nature. In this story our true nature is trying to emerge and is caught on its tail. The tail is in a blind spot, AND, not coincidentally, the place where our “shit” emerges. Pardon the crudity, but “shit” is often used to refer to the dark stuff, the often unwanted stuff, the Shadow side of our being. Even though shit is also fertilizer. Until the Blind Spot is excavated, illuminated, brought into awareness, it distorts our inner landscape, as well as activities and relationships in community.

And we are completely unaware. Not by conscious choice. We are just unaware because Blind Spots are truly blind to our ordinary waking consciousness. Once you understand that Blind Spots are the norm, what can you do?

To ignore the Shadow side blind spots in spiritual practice is to engage in spiritual bypassing. To ignore the Shadow side blind spots in business practice is to engage in business bypassing.

It is my experience that sexual scandal within a spiritual community hinges upon reaction-ignorance-projection. The Shadow side. It is my experience that abuses of authority within spiritual community emerges within the reaction-ignorance-projection cycles. Our Blind Spots.

These problems are not only true for spiritual communities. I read Ray Dalio’s book “Principles.” I read Kim Scott’s book “Radical Candor.” I read Robert Kegan’s and Lisa Lahey’s books “How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work,” and “Immunity to Change.” These books all deal with optimizing business performance by fostering transparent, honest relationship in business community. In my opinion, all of these authors, in one degree or another, point to this reaction-ignorance-projection cycle, as being a major obstacle to high business performance. These authors very much want to eliminate the devastating problems that this cycle creates for imaginative, flourishing businesses. They have put their hearts and souls into their efforts.

Alas, in my opinion, the solutions that are typically offered, to spiritual and business communities alike, are cognitive-behavioral based structures. The origin of the problems lies in the other-than-conscious realm of Shadow, in Blind Spots that are unavailable to our ordinary waking consciousness. Blind Spots, by definition, can not be seen at the level of ordinary waking consciousness. They are therefore not really amenable to cognitive manipulations. We can’t cognitively know what we cognitively don’t know. Cognitive-behavioral techniques can not reach these levels.

There are numerous practices now available that recognize this and offer practices that work to illuminate the Shadow. These practices focus upon feeling corridors as a path to the Shadow. I am a big fan of “Feeding Your Demons” offered by Tsultrim Allione. I am a big fan of BreathWork practices. I am familiar with other practices, such as ecstatic dance, Rolfing, drumming, chanting, etc. These all share a belief that the opening to feeling, especially in our bodies, is necessary for enlightening, for healing, for growth. They are wonderful practices.

And they share a potential stumbling block. In my opinion, they can often begin on the level of ordinary waking consciousness, asking the individual to identify the feelings, the blocks in their body that need work. Or the person defers this to the intuition of the practitioner ”expert” working with them. For the reasons above, I find this reliance upon ordinary waking consciousness a potential problem. We don’t know in our ordinary waking consciousness what we don’t know. And the expert should not be trusted to substitute her/his ordinary waking consciousness.

What can we do? Is there a reliable path to follow?

Yes!

Trust yourself. How do you feel now? It turns out that we have each been gifted with more than one form of consciousness. Ordinary waking consciousness…Dream consciousness…Sleep consciousness. How do you feel?

We each have the non-ordinary consciousness of DREAM. We are this fully. Dream emerges as non-ordinary subtle consciousness. Dreams are anchored in a feeling realm that emerges from the Shadow, as well as the realm of ordinary waking consciousness. The story content of our dream is often lifted from ordinary waking consciousness as a stage upon which the Shadow, feeling consciousness plays. Revealed, it becomes crystal clear how we project this unfelt Shadow consciousness upon all aspects of our life’s story through the process of reaction-ignorance-projection. The process of meeting the feelings buried in the Shadow and embodying them, ultimately leads to integration of Shadow with ordinary waking consciousness.

Ultimately. This is not typically a one-off action. The unrecognized feelings, the unrecognized consciousness, in the Shadow reverberates and amplifies against the years of reaction-ignorance-projection that we have lived as our ordinary waking life. It is more of a spiral dance through the labyrinth, taking the time that it takes.

You can’t really know if it’s for you, until you dive in, get yourself fully soaked, and see what emerges from the ocean of Dream consciousness.

What has this to do with community? This seems like an interior project for each individual, not for community!? While this practice is essential for individual seekers, whether spiritual or business, it can be equally important for collective processes, for community.

Carl Jung, and others, including many Shamanic traditions, have recognized that there exists a collective unconscious. A real place that emerges in Dream. Your ancestors and my ancestors likely had an intimate relationship with Dream.

The individual can certainly engage in a practice that is limited to exploration of her/his consciousness in a setting of one-to-one work with a guide (please note, we are not promoting that anyone seek out a Jungian trained analyst, although that is fine. We are, however, certain that this kind of exploration is best done with a trained guide). Meeting the energies that exist in the Shadow of the collective unconscious is a very worthwhile path. It is a path that Rick and Tom have followed for many years.

And…

We feel strongly that group exploration of Dream consciousness adds dimensions to the realization of consciousness that cannot be accessed through individual practice. The mechanics are: a member of the community offers her/his dream; each member of the community is invited to take roles within the dream; the dream is then embodied by the community; embodying the actions and feelings and emotions. The hidden Shadow side is embodied and allowed to come into consciousness.

There are a number of reasons for our community embodiment approach. Not that there is an order of importance:

1. This is, after all, a collective unconscious. A collective Shadow side. While the outward manifestations in our reaction-ignorance-projection ordinary waking life are dizzingly diverse, the inner corridors are surprisingly similar. Haven’t we all felt anger? Haven’t we all felt jealousy? If we are asked to embody a role in the dream that reveals anger, jealousy, we get to bring our own feeling/emotion into the embodiment, feeling the anger and it’s resonance with the dreamer’s anger.
2. The exploration of Dream consciousness tends to open our vulnerabilities. Our vulnerability is amplified in the presence of others. In the safe environment of your Dream community, you get to be vulnerable and held in your vulnerability.
3. There is no “teacher” other than the Dream consciousness itself. A guide is important, AND the guide is always led by the Dream and by what is revealed in the embodiment of the Dream. A guide doesn’t substitute her/his own “understanding,” which is nothing more than a substituted rection-ignorance-projection cycle. There is no “teacher” to idolize, decreasing the likelihood of the unconscious encouragement of abusive “teacher-student” relationships.
4. If there is a nominal leader of the community, she/he is allowed to share their Dream consciousness like everyone else in the community. The leader’s Shadow side is shared, revealing to the community that we are each and all living with unrecognized Shadow. Once again, the opportunity exists to take the “teacher’ off the pedestal, decreasing the likelihood of abusive “teacher-student” relationships. And the leader/teacher has the opportunity to reveal and integrate Her/his Shadow side within the container of the community.
5. The Shadow side Blind Spots that lead to patriarchy, racism, fears and phobias are opened and explored. We get to open these areas of ourselves in community, decreasing the grip that shame has on many of us. We get to allow others to feel what it is truly like to be ourselves. And we get to enter into the feeling heart of people of widely divergent race, gender, social status, political affiliation, and…
6. We are given the opportunity to enter into the very heart of each other’s lives. Into our most sacred spaces. We are not practicing or working in isolation. We are not guessing about what is going on in our community relationships. We are breaking the cycle of reaction-ignorance-projection. Done lovingly and tenderly, this encourages the development of heart-felt community. The activity of practicing together to be a loving and safe container for every member of the community is a rare opportunity to grow community.

Does this excite you?

Or are you nervous as all get out?

Contact us now.

You like dreams

You’re curious about your dream consciousness. You’ve had awareness in dream state that is so remarkable you cannot shake the importance of your dreams.

You know in your bones that there is wisdom in your dreams

And you have not found a person, nor a group, that works with dreams that fully open them for you. And you to them.

Many groups and practitioners engage with dream on the level of the story line. The meaning of the story line. This is an approach that uses the cognitive mind of ordinary waking consciousness to try to explore and “explain” dream consciousness. This is an approach that appeals to the ego-enmeshed mind. The ego loves stories. The ego is stories. Our persona, the stories that we pick and choose to present to others, loves to be reinforced by other stories. A mask. As we experience the moment-to-moment arising of life, we have other-than-conscious feeling(s). Our mind then creates a story to surround the feeling, to in some way make sense out of our experience. Our stories are NOT an accurate reflection of reality. (See “Why Engage With Us – The Basics”). The story line is a  mask that, when engaged with from the realm of cognitive associations, leads away from true nature, our true reality.

Feelings that are associated with traumas, negative experiences, are relegated to our Shadow side. Buried. Deep. Our Shadow side, by its’ very nature, is not accessible to our ordinary waking consciousness.

Our Shadow side is fully present in Dream consciousness. (How are you feeling now?)

If you know how to look. (How are you feeling now?)

All too often, it goes like this: The dreamer comes in with a dream, trying to understand the meaning of the dream. The dreamer presents it to someone, or to a group, that endeavors to interpret the storyline at the level of ordinary waking consciousness. A red horse means passionate power. A blue horse running down into a cave means your power is dying. The interpreters substitute their associations (ignorance) for those of the dreamer.

Adding to the problem, we have been raised in a hierarchical society in which the priests and doctors and psychologists, and now coaches, are deemed, for reasons of “experience” or “success” or self-promotion, to have associations that are more valuable than those of the dreamer. Or the priest/doctor/psychologist/coach will help you to identify the meaning that is most in line with your goals, your aspirations, your “highest self” that is always some well-meaning attempt by our ego to imitate our true nature. As these interpretations come from “authorities,” the dreamer is primed to accept them.

For us, this approach is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Our approach to dream hinges upon identifying, and exploring, the feeling(s) of the dream. Feelings are the navel of the dream. Feelings are where the Shadow reveals itself. Feelings. The tunnel where our birth source connects with our own unique manifestation. Our own unique manifestation blossoming in our heart essence. The navel, part of our blood line. Connecting our heart with the Heart of the Universe. Our birth, our heart essence, our Being becoming, is filled with joy and pain, and blood and tears, and smiles and grunts and shouts, and fear and serenity. Just as physical birth. And the way to come face-to-face with our Heart essence is through this direct feeling.

We approach dream through the primacy of these feeling corridors. The feelings carrying us ever deeper. We descend into our Shadow side, to fully embody that aspect of our Being. We ascend into our Light side, to fully embody that aspect of our Being. Yin within Yang. Yang within Yin.

We embrace whatever feeling corridor is presented in the dream as the place that is most important for the dreamer’s awakening. We find these tunnels by exploring the dream with the dreamer. Inviting the dreamer to revisit different story places in the dream, we ask her/him to take a breath, slow down and feel whatever is arising in that dream moment. We do not force what we think the feeling of the dream moment should be upon the dreamer. We accept where the dreamer is within her/his unique journey. The feeling place in this dream is the exact place and feeling that the dreamer is poised to experience, To take the step that is necessary for healing, for integration of the Shadow side.. The next dream will guide the next step in the journey.

What could be easier. Have a dream. Enter a feeling corridor. Come face-to-face with true nature, a nature which, by the way, you never imagined possible.

I do not know anyone for whom this has happened so easily or so quickly. (Maybe you will be the first! And how do you feel?)) You see, our Shadow side, the side where many feeling tunnels find their descent, is really difficult to access. And in truth, it is precisely the last place we want to enter. It requires unbelievable courage, and faith, to enter into this Dream Work.

We have each experienced numerous traumas during our lifetime. Large and small. Each trauma is associated with a feeling state – perhaps pain, shame, guilt, fear, grief, anxiety, pain, more pain. And we have each created our own stories surrounding and protecting ourselves from these traumas. The stories stay in our ordinary waking conscious, and the feeling is buried. When intense feelings begin to emerge from and the Shadow side during ordinary waking consciousness, they trigger the stories tied into our traumas. We think that we may literally die if we open to these feelings. It has been our experience that Dream always contains the antidote to the story that enslaves us in ordinary waking consciousness. Dream only brings up thes intense feelings when there is also a container of support in the dream. Provided with the support, we can experience the feeling and take the next step in the excavation and integration of our Shadow side. This takes the time that it takes.

The support is always Love. Divine Love. Archetypal Love. Self-love. When the Love is allowed into our bodies, into our hearts, there can be a catapulting into a new dimension.

Dream consciousness has an advantage here in that it can show to us directly the structure of consciousness, the structure of our lives. Dream consciousness arises within sleep. Out of emptiness, a whole world suddenly arises, exists for a moment, and then disappears. Completely. Every moment complete in its arisng-moment-disappearing. This can be very freeing. We can begin to experience and accept that karma may not be what we have thought it to be. What has apparently occurred in the past, does not dictate the present. And there is no future. Just this. Just this. Just this. Likewise, the Love that embraces us simply appears. We never have to earn it. We can never lose it, as it is always emerging into us. As us.

A dreamer: I see a woman run by me with a hoodie hiding her face. She is a robber and I think the woman needs to be arrested. I run after the woman and call the police, but they don’t come. I begin to get anxious. The woman stops and turns and she is a friend of mine whom I hold in high regard. She is looking lovingly into my eyes. I am confused and a bit angry. When explored, it turns out there is no evidence in the dream that a robbery has occurred. The dreamer is actually feeling fear around this energetic feminine energy. Both her/his own feminine energy and the energy of women in the outer world. His unfelt fear causes her/him to project the story of robber upon the feminine. Lock up this energy, this feeling, in the Shadow side. When explored, shame lies beneath her/his confusion and anger. When face-to-face with the Loving gaze of this feminine energy, she/he feels shame. The way through this is to simply feel the fear and the shame while the woman is looking into her/him with Love. Become aware when fear and shame are emerging in her/his ordinary waking life, and allow the woman to look into her/him with Loving gaze. This is very difficult to do. It would be impossible to do without the Love of the woman looking into her/him. It takes tremendous courage, and vulnerability, and humility, and loving support. This dreamer did engage deeply with these feelings, with striking changes in her/his life.

We could go on and on about the richness of exploring Dream consciousness.

If we’ve ignited you’re curiosity. Or you’ve already been enthralled by your dreams.

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