Thursday, November 14, 2019

If You Don't Have a Dream, Ask for One from the World

One morning when I woke with no dream recall, I stepped out into the street to walk my dog saying, "I would love the world to give me a dream."
     A man walking his own dog across the street called out to me immediately, "Robert, do you have a moment? I'd like to tell you a dream." He was a neighbor I knew slightly. Our previous conversations were usually about our dogs.
    Of course, I hastened across the street. He was very excited. He had just dreamed that he was riding on a train with a bear, sharing a basket of apples. The train divided and he found himself in a different railroad car. He said, "I was glad I still had the basket of food, but sorry that the bear and I parted ways."
   We had a lively discussion about how the dream might reflect choices he would need to make about his job, and the need not to part company with all that the bear meant to him - healing, play, living a natural life - while earning his meal ticket. He was grateful for our dreamplay, and told me later that it helped him to push for - and arrange - the right job transfer.
    I was grateful that the world had literally given me a dream when I needed one.
    The incident was also an example of the workings of one of the favorite oracles of the ancients. They believed that voices from the deeper reality are heard in a kledon - sounds or speech coming out of silence or the undifferentiated hubbub of everyday life. In my book Sidewalk Oracles I explain how to listen for a kledon as daily practice.
   Whatever your relationship with your night life, when you step out into the day make it your intention to be alert and alive to the dreamlike symbolism of what is going on around you.
   If you have a theme for guidance, carry that with you. Get a statement clear in your mind, "I would like guidance on...." [you fill in the blank].Then be willing to receive the first unusual or unlikely thing that enters your field of perception as a message from the world, a dream delivered on the street.

photo credit: Bear on BART

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