Life Is a Dream

Here is a game I play with my journal from time to time:

Write a dream report on a day in your life. Any day will do, today or way back, special or blah. Write a quick summary of the main events, and anything else that leaps out at you. Three incidents may be enough. Write fast. Don’t edit and try not to pause until you are done. Don’t worry about muddling names or details; you do that in your dream journal all the time, and this is not your office calendar.

Jot down any associations that come through strongly as you are writing.

You now have the story of a day in your life. Give it a title. Don’t fuss over this; keep moving at speed.

Add any sketches, doodles, or souvenirs that catch your fancy.

Now work with your day report as you might do with a dream report. Explore symbols. Note recurring themes. (Late again? Always getting involved with the wrong type of man?) Look for puns, visual and verbal. Track your social self: What do you do or not do with certain people that is out of character?

Note whether anything here relates to the real life of your dreams.

Is there something here you want to change or celebrate or avoid manifesting in the future? If so, what action will you take? 

Write yourself a bumper sticker, a one-liner that captures the quality of your dream of the day, or your intention for moving forward.

When we contemplate what we remember from dreams, we often think about how the dream relates to "real life", a misnomer for ordinary reality. It is refreshing to reverse the process and ask how ordinary life relates to the real lives we are leading in dreams.

Text partially adapted from Dreamgates by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.

 

Photo: Covered Bridge on the Metuje River in Bohemia by RM