Recording Your Dreams - Part Four

Setting out Your Dream Journal

To set out your dream journal, divide each page into two columns, one approx, 5 cm wide and the remainder, as shown below.

Key Words Dream Description
Approx 5 cm wide Balance of page.
Write key words here Detailed description goes here.
Associated feelings Underline any key words, feelings etc.that come to mind as you write.
Draw, sketch etc Try not disturb the flow of your writing. You can underline quickly without slowing down and losing the train of thought.

Leave the first few pages of your journal blank so that you can reference each significant dream by recording a one or two line index of the key symbols and date, in chronological sequence.

This will allow you to view the cycles that emerge throughout the course of your life. Such cycles will only become apparent after you have been recording your dreams for a long period of time. For most people, there will be several parallel issues that are personally relevant to you, and your close associates, that will intertwine with each other throughout the whole of your life. The issues associated with such central themes tend to be cyclic and will often repeat, time and time again, presenting themselves in a variety of new forms.

By learning to recognise these cyclic themes, by learning to explore them consciously, and by exploring the beliefs and values that underpin their expression in your life, you will soon empower yourself to discover new ways of expressing your creativity and dealing with these recurring issues in exciting new ways.

Sample Dream Record

Date: 28/7/97

fire
colours
brilliant greens
emeraldy
dunes
peninsular
flames
no fear
watching
rapture with beauty of colours

reef island
maps charts
navigation
boats
voyages
structures
map symbols
straight lines
patterns
 		Woke from a dream as someone was calling me and warning me that a fire was coming my way. Standing watching the brilliant colours and I am aware that I am watching myself watching and I am enjoying the thrill and rapture of just being there soaking up the colours -- totally. There is a boat off the shore. At the same time I am like a witness detached and watching from a different dimension.

I turn to see a wall of flame coming toward me but I feel no sense of danger or fear. I simply lie down to allow the flames to pass above me because I am able to shelter behind the tussocky grassed sand dunes which range from a few feet (waist high) to well over my head. The tops of the tussocky grassed dunes behind me (uphill side) is well above me. 

The tussocked dunes are like a mosaic of clouds and between each island of grassy sand is a labyrynth of bare sand pathways which are much lower than the grassed hillocks, so it is very easy to lie down to shelter. I mainly remember the sheer beauty of the situation and just the feeing of intense joy in the creativity and rebirthing effects of the fire as it jumps and runs from hillock to hillock, playing leap frog with the wind. As the fire caresses the islands of grass it transforms them first to black and red. Then, as the fire departs, as quickly as it had come, it leaves behind the most surreal emerald greens of lush new growth. The fire is like a magic wand that transforms the landscape and brings it back to vibrant new life. The walls of flame dance across the landscape, changing direction with the wind, dying down then flaring up again, almost at random, jumping and dancing across the hillocks with each wind shift.

Now, as I write, I can see the beauty of this because it seems to symbolise how I have tried to live my life since my first journey to India. Involved, surrounded by the sensations of the three dimensional reality that I have chosen to explore within using my day to day consciousness. Aware. But at the same time silent, witnessing, flowing with the wind, with silent forces that attempt to move me first this way then that. As my mind dances from dune to dune, like the fire, I realise that the islands represent individual lives or family collectives. Yet each hillock (island) is separate and unique, but linked together by the basic bare sand that not only surrounds them. I am aware of my own uniqueness and individuality and of the separateness of my consciousness, but at the same time aware of and part of the regenerating rush of the fire.