Renee Coleman's Blog - Posts Tagged "dreams"
Nature Loves to Hide or The Hidden Presences of Dreams
The other day, while brooding over how to bring practitioners to the kind of listening that is necessary for hearing through the action of dreaming, I reiterated to a dream group just how important it is to resist thinking about what images mean, or might mean, when we hear a dream.
“Well, what do you think about then?” one of the dreamers asked.
“Nothing,” I answered. “I think of nothing.” And we want to think of nothing. For this is the same ‘nothing,’ it seems, that teachers of meditation instruct us to think of when we place our attention on what’s called the ‘third eye,’ that space between our eyebrows. If we try to think of nothing, however, we quickly discover that ‘nothing’ immediately becomes a kind of content. What teachers of meditation are asking, therefore, when they tell us to think of nothing, is that we empty ourselves of all thought. But if you’ve ever tried to empty yourself of all thought you will know just how very difficult this is to accomplish.
Instead of ‘nothing’ what we’re after then is a kind of resistance to thought. We gently but quite actively use our subtle will forces to hold off thinking ‘about’ things. If we try to do this without focusing our attention ‘on’ something, we soon find that it is almost impossible. So we want to apply our subtle will forces to keep other associative images, other thoughts and ideas, from entering the space that we’re endeavoring to hold for the sake of the dream. As we listen in a turned out sort of way to the dream images, and if we allow the dream images to move according to their own nature, we soon discover that as dream images penetrate our listening they step into the space that we’re endeavoring to hold open and empty for them. The dream images therefore step through the threshold of our held-off associative attention and into imaginal being.
When the dream images have stepped into imaginal being so that we, as dreamtenders, can be present to them directly, then the dreamtime presences, that is, those spiritual presences that are behind the dream images, begin to reveal themselves. Because the dreamtime is a unique meeting place of the soul and spirit realms, as dream images emerge from the realm of soul, the streaming, all around dreaming action of the spiritual realm is revealed to us. This is why the action of dreaming is not to be confused with the details of the dream. From this perspective, dream details are only important because they carry the action of the dream.
Folks are often quite shocked to discover that the details of a dream don’t much matter, that is, in and of themselves. They are important only because without the dream details we would not be able to sense the action of dreaming. ‘Action’ here means what the dream is doing. What is the dream doing?
Sometimes we can get a feel for what the dream is doing without being able to remember even a single ‘pictorial’ image. When we wake up on the ‘wrong side of the bed,’ for example. More usually, however, we get a feel for what the dream is doing through the details. But if we focus too intently on the images we’ll miss the action. On the other hand, there is no way to focus on the action in a direct way without the details unless, as mentioned, it comes as a kind of ‘mood.’
So we want to develop capacities for listening in a focus/diffused way. We want to listen to and through the dream images as they present themselves so that we might be brought uniquely into the streaming, dreaming action of the spiritual realms. We might say then that we keep one ear out for details of the dream and the other ear out for the action of dreaming but this is not meant in a literal sort of way.
I’m not entirely sure why the dreamtime presences don’t just reveal themselves to us directly, that is, from the get go. My good guess is that it has something to do with trust. Over and over again I find myself returning to a phrase that is attributed to Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Written in ancient Greek as: Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ, it is most often translated as Nature loves to hide or Nature loves to conceal Herself.
But the word ‘Nature,’ as it’s used in this phrase by Heraclitus, is closer to the Greek word ‘physis.’ Physis, from which we get the words ‘physics’ and ‘physical,’ originally meant ‘a process of a-rising’; or ‘rising up’; ‘emerging every moment from the hidden.’ Nature, therefore, is one way that the a-rising, emerging realm is made present to us. The dreamtime is another.
Homer and other early Greeks (including Heraclitus in other fragments attributed to him) used the word ‘nature’ to suggest the character or nature of a thing, especially a human being. This sense of the word has remained in English when we capitalize Nature in order to distinguish it from, say, human nature.
What is commonly translated as ‘loves’ in this same phrase is not some anthropomorphic desire on the part of Nature. Nor is it the intent to conceal something. Rather ‘loves,’ as it was commonly used during Homer’s time, suggests a friend, or companion. Thus the phrase accredited to Heraclitus might better be translated as: the natural companion to the process of a-rising, or rising up, is concealment.
So how does this apply to dreams? Well, if we consider that the natural companion to the process of a-rising is concealment, then can take the words of Heraclitus as a kind of invitation. As we notice the a-rising images of dreams we can keep a sideways eye out for what these same images conceal. Not for meaning, or for ‘latent content,’ as our friend Freud suggests, but rather for the hidden, companioning presences of the dreamtime.
“Well, what do you think about then?” one of the dreamers asked.
“Nothing,” I answered. “I think of nothing.” And we want to think of nothing. For this is the same ‘nothing,’ it seems, that teachers of meditation instruct us to think of when we place our attention on what’s called the ‘third eye,’ that space between our eyebrows. If we try to think of nothing, however, we quickly discover that ‘nothing’ immediately becomes a kind of content. What teachers of meditation are asking, therefore, when they tell us to think of nothing, is that we empty ourselves of all thought. But if you’ve ever tried to empty yourself of all thought you will know just how very difficult this is to accomplish.
Instead of ‘nothing’ what we’re after then is a kind of resistance to thought. We gently but quite actively use our subtle will forces to hold off thinking ‘about’ things. If we try to do this without focusing our attention ‘on’ something, we soon find that it is almost impossible. So we want to apply our subtle will forces to keep other associative images, other thoughts and ideas, from entering the space that we’re endeavoring to hold for the sake of the dream. As we listen in a turned out sort of way to the dream images, and if we allow the dream images to move according to their own nature, we soon discover that as dream images penetrate our listening they step into the space that we’re endeavoring to hold open and empty for them. The dream images therefore step through the threshold of our held-off associative attention and into imaginal being.
When the dream images have stepped into imaginal being so that we, as dreamtenders, can be present to them directly, then the dreamtime presences, that is, those spiritual presences that are behind the dream images, begin to reveal themselves. Because the dreamtime is a unique meeting place of the soul and spirit realms, as dream images emerge from the realm of soul, the streaming, all around dreaming action of the spiritual realm is revealed to us. This is why the action of dreaming is not to be confused with the details of the dream. From this perspective, dream details are only important because they carry the action of the dream.
Folks are often quite shocked to discover that the details of a dream don’t much matter, that is, in and of themselves. They are important only because without the dream details we would not be able to sense the action of dreaming. ‘Action’ here means what the dream is doing. What is the dream doing?
Sometimes we can get a feel for what the dream is doing without being able to remember even a single ‘pictorial’ image. When we wake up on the ‘wrong side of the bed,’ for example. More usually, however, we get a feel for what the dream is doing through the details. But if we focus too intently on the images we’ll miss the action. On the other hand, there is no way to focus on the action in a direct way without the details unless, as mentioned, it comes as a kind of ‘mood.’
So we want to develop capacities for listening in a focus/diffused way. We want to listen to and through the dream images as they present themselves so that we might be brought uniquely into the streaming, dreaming action of the spiritual realms. We might say then that we keep one ear out for details of the dream and the other ear out for the action of dreaming but this is not meant in a literal sort of way.
I’m not entirely sure why the dreamtime presences don’t just reveal themselves to us directly, that is, from the get go. My good guess is that it has something to do with trust. Over and over again I find myself returning to a phrase that is attributed to Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Written in ancient Greek as: Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ, it is most often translated as Nature loves to hide or Nature loves to conceal Herself.
But the word ‘Nature,’ as it’s used in this phrase by Heraclitus, is closer to the Greek word ‘physis.’ Physis, from which we get the words ‘physics’ and ‘physical,’ originally meant ‘a process of a-rising’; or ‘rising up’; ‘emerging every moment from the hidden.’ Nature, therefore, is one way that the a-rising, emerging realm is made present to us. The dreamtime is another.
Homer and other early Greeks (including Heraclitus in other fragments attributed to him) used the word ‘nature’ to suggest the character or nature of a thing, especially a human being. This sense of the word has remained in English when we capitalize Nature in order to distinguish it from, say, human nature.
What is commonly translated as ‘loves’ in this same phrase is not some anthropomorphic desire on the part of Nature. Nor is it the intent to conceal something. Rather ‘loves,’ as it was commonly used during Homer’s time, suggests a friend, or companion. Thus the phrase accredited to Heraclitus might better be translated as: the natural companion to the process of a-rising, or rising up, is concealment.
So how does this apply to dreams? Well, if we consider that the natural companion to the process of a-rising is concealment, then can take the words of Heraclitus as a kind of invitation. As we notice the a-rising images of dreams we can keep a sideways eye out for what these same images conceal. Not for meaning, or for ‘latent content,’ as our friend Freud suggests, but rather for the hidden, companioning presences of the dreamtime.
Miracles of Beauty
This morning upon awakening in a "mood" of snow and the cold, surrounded by a nostalgia of images--of sun dogs, and hoar frost, and the northern lights--I set out to once again exalt the singularly unique, lit-from-within beauty of dreaming. For the dreamtime never ceases to amaze me with its creative, infinite beauty--the way it's always, always generating new images to freely give us, and how no two images are exactly the same. So, while searching through pictures of ice crystals, I stumbled upon many that were taken by William A. Bentley, better known as William "Snowflake" Bentley.
Snowflake Bentley was born in 1865 in Jericho, Vermont--an area known as the "Snowbelt," with an annual snowfall of about 120 inches. He spent his life living and working on the family's farm and was fascinated with the natural world that surrounded him."But always, from the very beginning," he said, "it was snowflakes that fascinated me most. The farm folks, up in this north country, dread the winter; but I was supremely happy, from the day of the first snowfall--which usually came in November--until the last one, which sometimes came as late as May."
On his fifteenth birthday, William Bentley received a microscope. He spent the next two years in a small room at the back of the farmhouse peering through his microscope at ice crystals. He made hundreds of sketches of what he saw but was always disappointed with the results. One day he chanced to read that it was possible to take photographs through a microscope. Somehow, and with the help of his mother, he persuaded his father to buy him a bellows camera and a better microscope.
He experimented with the camera, the microscope, the dry plates (that were used at that time to record photographic images) and snow. He knew nothing about photography and endured failure after failure. But with patience and persistence and a genuine love of snow, on January 15, 1885, during a snowstorm, William Bentley made the first ever photomicrograph of an ice crystal."The day that I developed the first negative made by this method, and found it good, I felt almost like falling on my knees beside that apparatus and worshipping it!" he said. "It was the greatest moment of my life."
For the next 47 years, William Bentley went on to capture images of more than 5000 snowflakes! He was so good at it that almost no one bothered to photograph another snowflake for close to a 100 years. In an article that appeared in Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1922 entitled "Photographing Snowflakes," he wrote: "Every snowflake has an infinite beauty which is enhanced by knowledge that the investigator will, in all probability, never find another exactly like it. Consequently, photographing these transient forms of Nature gives to the worker something of the spirit of a discoverer."
Gives to the worker something of the spirit of a discoverer. This is exactly what it is to work with dreams! Like snowflakes, no two dreams (or dream images, for that matter) are exactly alike (even those that are referred to as "recurring" dreams). Isn't this because no two dreamers are exactly alike? And yet every time we ask what a dream image "means" we forget this simple truth.
Like William Bentley with snowflakes, I too am "possessed with a great desire to show people something of the wonderful loveliness"--of dreams: the nature of dreaming. The good news is that with dreams no special equipment is required. All that's needed is a dreamer and a heart that is willing to turn toward the light of dreams.
Now, no photograph of a snowflake has ever kept even a single snowflake from melting. So even though William Bentley fancied himself something of a "preserver" of snow, what he really did was to get us to take a much closer look. By inviting folks to look more closely, to see what he saw, William Bentley introduced the world to what he called "miracles of beauty." Snow crystals were a kind of portal for him; they showed him the astounding beauty of Earth.
Dreams can likewise be a portal. It's no use, however, trying to "preserve" dreams, if preservation means pressing dream images onto slides for viewing and photographing. And anyway, this would merely preserve a "record" of the dream. But if this record, like William Bentley's photographs, invites us to take a closer look, if we are introduced to, and allowed to mingle with, the miracles of beauty in the dreamtime, and we set to work in a spirit of discovery, we may indeed find that this helps to keep the dream from melting altogether.
If, as "Snowflake" Bentley suggests, Nature combines her "greatest skill and artistry in the production of snowflakes" isn't this also true of dreams? Of dreamers? In this season of miracles, whether one celebrates the miracle of light or the miracle of divine birth, or the miracles of unity and culture, is it not also worth celebrating that each and every one of us is a lit-from-within, unique and dreaming miracle of beauty, a masterpiece of design in Earth's dream of us?
Here's to all of us. Happy Holidays.
in dreams,
Renée
Snowflake Bentley was born in 1865 in Jericho, Vermont--an area known as the "Snowbelt," with an annual snowfall of about 120 inches. He spent his life living and working on the family's farm and was fascinated with the natural world that surrounded him."But always, from the very beginning," he said, "it was snowflakes that fascinated me most. The farm folks, up in this north country, dread the winter; but I was supremely happy, from the day of the first snowfall--which usually came in November--until the last one, which sometimes came as late as May."
On his fifteenth birthday, William Bentley received a microscope. He spent the next two years in a small room at the back of the farmhouse peering through his microscope at ice crystals. He made hundreds of sketches of what he saw but was always disappointed with the results. One day he chanced to read that it was possible to take photographs through a microscope. Somehow, and with the help of his mother, he persuaded his father to buy him a bellows camera and a better microscope.
He experimented with the camera, the microscope, the dry plates (that were used at that time to record photographic images) and snow. He knew nothing about photography and endured failure after failure. But with patience and persistence and a genuine love of snow, on January 15, 1885, during a snowstorm, William Bentley made the first ever photomicrograph of an ice crystal."The day that I developed the first negative made by this method, and found it good, I felt almost like falling on my knees beside that apparatus and worshipping it!" he said. "It was the greatest moment of my life."
For the next 47 years, William Bentley went on to capture images of more than 5000 snowflakes! He was so good at it that almost no one bothered to photograph another snowflake for close to a 100 years. In an article that appeared in Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1922 entitled "Photographing Snowflakes," he wrote: "Every snowflake has an infinite beauty which is enhanced by knowledge that the investigator will, in all probability, never find another exactly like it. Consequently, photographing these transient forms of Nature gives to the worker something of the spirit of a discoverer."
Gives to the worker something of the spirit of a discoverer. This is exactly what it is to work with dreams! Like snowflakes, no two dreams (or dream images, for that matter) are exactly alike (even those that are referred to as "recurring" dreams). Isn't this because no two dreamers are exactly alike? And yet every time we ask what a dream image "means" we forget this simple truth.
Like William Bentley with snowflakes, I too am "possessed with a great desire to show people something of the wonderful loveliness"--of dreams: the nature of dreaming. The good news is that with dreams no special equipment is required. All that's needed is a dreamer and a heart that is willing to turn toward the light of dreams.
Now, no photograph of a snowflake has ever kept even a single snowflake from melting. So even though William Bentley fancied himself something of a "preserver" of snow, what he really did was to get us to take a much closer look. By inviting folks to look more closely, to see what he saw, William Bentley introduced the world to what he called "miracles of beauty." Snow crystals were a kind of portal for him; they showed him the astounding beauty of Earth.
Dreams can likewise be a portal. It's no use, however, trying to "preserve" dreams, if preservation means pressing dream images onto slides for viewing and photographing. And anyway, this would merely preserve a "record" of the dream. But if this record, like William Bentley's photographs, invites us to take a closer look, if we are introduced to, and allowed to mingle with, the miracles of beauty in the dreamtime, and we set to work in a spirit of discovery, we may indeed find that this helps to keep the dream from melting altogether.
If, as "Snowflake" Bentley suggests, Nature combines her "greatest skill and artistry in the production of snowflakes" isn't this also true of dreams? Of dreamers? In this season of miracles, whether one celebrates the miracle of light or the miracle of divine birth, or the miracles of unity and culture, is it not also worth celebrating that each and every one of us is a lit-from-within, unique and dreaming miracle of beauty, a masterpiece of design in Earth's dream of us?
Here's to all of us. Happy Holidays.
in dreams,
Renée
How to Practice with Recurring Dreams
The general assumption regarding recurring dreams is that they are trying to get our attention. This is true, of course, but not only because they are trying to tell the dreamer something about him or herself, as is often assumed. As difficult as this may be to accept, recurring dream images want our attention for their sake, not merely ours. When we give our attention to dream images for their sake, however, we are at the very same time bringing attention to what is "between" us, between the dreamer and the dream images, and therefore to the connectedness of things.
I find it helps to regard recurring dream images as one might a "toddler." As illustrative example, you may recall that marvelous scene in It's a Wonderful Life--the holiday film classic with Jimmy Stewart playing the part of George Bailey. It's Christmas Eve and George has just learned that 8,000 dollars from the Bailey Building and Loan has gone missing. He is completely undone and utterly preoccupied with the implications of what the missing money will mean for him and his family, and for his business.
Meanwhile at home, and unaware of this latest development, George's wife, Mary, and the Bailey children prepare to receive the extended family for a holiday celebration. Click on the link below to watch the film clip:
It's a Wonderful Life . . . George Bailey and Family
Fully five times Tommy says, "Excuse me," while tugging at his father trying to get his attention. Like little Tommy, recurring dream images try relentlessly to get our attention. And just like George, we too are also mostly impatient with the intrusions.
But this scene also illustrates for us the "timing" of recurring dreams. Whether they take place over a few days or weeks, months, or even years, it seems that recurring dream images are trying to puncture our self-preoccupation. Suffering, as is the case in this scene with George Bailey, makes us "feel" as though we are separate and isolated, utterly alone. Our place in the "center" of the drama, therefore, becomes highlighted.
This is precisely when recurring dream images come along to try to get our attention, to remind us that we are not alone. And, because of their persistence, they're actually very good at it. Like little Tommy Bailey, recurring dream images can be quite relentless. Too often, however, we turn the image's hard won attention back on ourselves by asking, "What is this recurring image trying to tell me about me?"
Rest assured that if recurring dream images are trying to tell us anything about ourselves, it's that we are too pre-occupied with "feeling separate and isolated."
We have forgotten that we are but small dreamers in a much larger dream. And we have likewise forgotten that the medium is the message--that dreams are trying to companion us, take us out of feeling isolated and separated, and into noticing, not only that we are connected, but how we are connected. That is why it's not generally the content of the recurring images that penetrates dreamers so much as the appearance and reappearance of the images. Dreams, and especially recurring dreams, remind us that we are never isolated, never separate, regardless of how it sometimes feels.
It all comes down to a practice of noticing. When a dream image's recurrence is firmly established, what we want to do is to acknowledge its creative persistence. It recurrence shows us that it is really interested in, and devoted to, getting our attention.
"I see you," therefore, is a good way to start acknowledging a recurring image. You might want to follow this with a gesture of gratitude: "Thank you for your tireless devotion." Next you may want to offer yourself to the image for its sake: "Is there anything you want of me, or from me, or somehow through me?"
And finally, and most importantly, resist the temptation to answer this last question in a fill-in-the-blank sort of way. The practice is simply to ask the question in an ongoing way without looking for an answer.
Unfortunately, we are in the rather dreary cultural habit of looking everywhere for answers. The dreamtime, however, is not a realm that is terribly concerned with answers. The dreamtime IS concerned, deeply and intimately, with responses; it is, in fact, a Call and Response realm. So just our capacity to ask these kinds of questions, and to keep asking them, is what opens us up to connected, imaginal relatedness and creative receptivity.
I find it helps to regard recurring dream images as one might a "toddler." As illustrative example, you may recall that marvelous scene in It's a Wonderful Life--the holiday film classic with Jimmy Stewart playing the part of George Bailey. It's Christmas Eve and George has just learned that 8,000 dollars from the Bailey Building and Loan has gone missing. He is completely undone and utterly preoccupied with the implications of what the missing money will mean for him and his family, and for his business.
Meanwhile at home, and unaware of this latest development, George's wife, Mary, and the Bailey children prepare to receive the extended family for a holiday celebration. Click on the link below to watch the film clip:
It's a Wonderful Life . . . George Bailey and Family
Fully five times Tommy says, "Excuse me," while tugging at his father trying to get his attention. Like little Tommy, recurring dream images try relentlessly to get our attention. And just like George, we too are also mostly impatient with the intrusions.
But this scene also illustrates for us the "timing" of recurring dreams. Whether they take place over a few days or weeks, months, or even years, it seems that recurring dream images are trying to puncture our self-preoccupation. Suffering, as is the case in this scene with George Bailey, makes us "feel" as though we are separate and isolated, utterly alone. Our place in the "center" of the drama, therefore, becomes highlighted.
This is precisely when recurring dream images come along to try to get our attention, to remind us that we are not alone. And, because of their persistence, they're actually very good at it. Like little Tommy Bailey, recurring dream images can be quite relentless. Too often, however, we turn the image's hard won attention back on ourselves by asking, "What is this recurring image trying to tell me about me?"
Rest assured that if recurring dream images are trying to tell us anything about ourselves, it's that we are too pre-occupied with "feeling separate and isolated."
We have forgotten that we are but small dreamers in a much larger dream. And we have likewise forgotten that the medium is the message--that dreams are trying to companion us, take us out of feeling isolated and separated, and into noticing, not only that we are connected, but how we are connected. That is why it's not generally the content of the recurring images that penetrates dreamers so much as the appearance and reappearance of the images. Dreams, and especially recurring dreams, remind us that we are never isolated, never separate, regardless of how it sometimes feels.
It all comes down to a practice of noticing. When a dream image's recurrence is firmly established, what we want to do is to acknowledge its creative persistence. It recurrence shows us that it is really interested in, and devoted to, getting our attention.
"I see you," therefore, is a good way to start acknowledging a recurring image. You might want to follow this with a gesture of gratitude: "Thank you for your tireless devotion." Next you may want to offer yourself to the image for its sake: "Is there anything you want of me, or from me, or somehow through me?"
And finally, and most importantly, resist the temptation to answer this last question in a fill-in-the-blank sort of way. The practice is simply to ask the question in an ongoing way without looking for an answer.
Unfortunately, we are in the rather dreary cultural habit of looking everywhere for answers. The dreamtime, however, is not a realm that is terribly concerned with answers. The dreamtime IS concerned, deeply and intimately, with responses; it is, in fact, a Call and Response realm. So just our capacity to ask these kinds of questions, and to keep asking them, is what opens us up to connected, imaginal relatedness and creative receptivity.
