Associating With Dreams
Last weekend I was down in Berkeley for the annual IASD (International Assoc. for the Study of Dreams) conference. This was a really inspiring conference, as usual, with lots of dreamworkers presenting on all sorts of topics. There was a panel of invited Muslim academics speaking on dreams and Islam; dream researchers reporting the results of their latest studies on dreams and trauma; presentations on sexual ethics in lucid dreaming, color in dreams, dreams and the Kabbalistic tree of life, past life dreams, dreams and sound, dreams and aging, dreams and social justice. One whole room is a dream-inspired art gallery, with paintings, ceramics, sculpture and mixed media works, all based on dream images. And of course, most dangerously for someone like me, there is a large bookstore set up with all the latest dream books and publications, as well as many obscure and fascinating titles. Fortunately, I was able to get away with spending under $100 on books, which made me feel practically frugal.
One of the things this conference makes me realize is that the world of serious dream-nerds is actually pretty small. All the big names in dreamwork: Patricia Garfield, Jeremy Taylor, Stephen LaBerge, Gayle Delaney, show up here, and you might even find yourself at the same table with one of them over lunch or dinner. I found an empty chair one lunch at a table where Stanley Krippner was holding forth about shamans and after-death visitations. When Meredith Sabini, Rose Dance and I presented our panel on “Dream-Based Spiritual Practice,” I was amazed to see Charles Tart and his wife in the audience. Dr. Tart had given a very interesting keynote talk on dreams and enlightenment the first evening of the conference.
Anyway, I don’t mean to spend this whole entry name-dropping, but I do encourage anyone who is interested in dreams to check out the IASD and check out the online dream conference this Fall, or one of the many regional conferences held throughout the year. It’s a great way to gain insight into your dreams, as well as learn new tools for associating with dreams.
Ross and I continue to work on our lovely piece of property out in Bodega Bay, CA, which I hope to make available for dream incubation retreats and weekend workshops by sometime this Fall. Mostly these days I spend time in our gardens there, weeding, planting, watering. It is so lovely moving back and forth between the sunny, temperate weather here in Sebastopol, and the cool, clear air at the coast. Driving west, everytime I catch a first glimpse of the bay I start to feel unreasonably happy, blessed and grateful. I love it when it’s socked in with fog at the coast, the air still and all the sounds of the neighborhood muted. I love being there at twilight too, when the fog quietly slips away and the stars come out against a sky that fades from a magenta horizon to deep indigo in the east. It’s the most effort I have put into a ritual space yet, and the times I have slept there have given me good dreams so far. I eagerly await the day when we can have group dreamings out there, supported by the ancient sand dunes at the edge of the great Pacific Ocean.
One more dream reference to note this morning. My dream teacher and friend Jeremy Taylor, one of the smartest guys I know about a lot of things, especially dreams, was recently interviewed by the SF Chronicle. It’s an interesting article, and you can read it here.
July 7th, 2005 at 11:06 am
Hi Anne,
That is so cool that you presented a panel. How’d it feel?
- T>
July 7th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
It felt good. Because my spiritual practice *is* dream-based, I got to talk a little bit about the dreams that have guided me to this point — particularly a childhood recurring dream that I worked on at age 32, that really said in no uncertain terms that my odd-seeming (to me) spirituality was really the center of my life rather than a sideline. I’ll blog more about dream incubation and how I got started on working with that ritual format — but I talked about that too, and again, it was a dream that pointed it out to me.
Panels are fun for those of us comfortable with improvising. They can range from the very formal to the very extemporaneous, and there’s really no sure way of knowing what it’s going to end up like. The 3 of us had a nice flow going, and then there were lots of comments and chaos at the end, but the room was packed and I heard comments from lots of people afterwards who really enjoyed it, so I think it went pretty well — also, there was no mass exodus for the door midway, which can be another telltale sign that you’ve lost your audience.
Thanks for posting, Thorn. Let’s catch up soon.