A mindful approach to dreamwork

In classical meditation, we sit and observe the contents of our minds without judgment. We notice when thoughts arise, but we don’t engage with them, and we wach as they pass by.

When we dream we have the opportunity to observe the mind, too. In fact, each morning when we recall a dream, it’s as if we’ve been handed an EKG printout–albeit a colorful and creative one. The movement and imagery of a dream can be seen as a report from our subconscious to our conscious mind. So try viewing the dream as a representation of the movements of your thoughts and the quality of your mental activity. Notice whether your psyche is spiking with fear, or rolling with contentment. You can observe whether the mind is calm and focused, or just plain jittery. Is your psycho-emotional landscape spacious or cluttered? Are you joyful or full of dreary thoughts?

If you meditate during the day, you can even observe how your meditation practice affects your dreams. And with practice, you can learn to meditate within the dreams, and you can get lucidly aware during the dream, and observe the dream as it is unfolding.

A new way to engage

Dreamwork offers a slightly different way to engage mindfully with our dreams. In dreamwork, (talking or writing about the dream, for example, to discover its meaning), we press the pause button and examine the dream and its contents. Here we move from meditation (simply observing the dream) to contemplation (resting with each thought/image in order to consider its purpose and meaning). In dreamwork we get curious about each dream, each image and object within it, and we ask questions:

• Why this dream or this dream image now?
• What associations do I have with this image?
• What does it represent to me?

We then use the information we glean to help us determine what needs attention by day.

Importantly, the dreaming mind is ever-changing. One night’s fretful dreaming need not define us, any more than a passing rain cloud colors an entire day. We are wise to pay attention to our dreams, observe them, and accept the invitation to learn from them about the workings of our minds. As long as we maintain the same loving, curious, nonjudgmental attention that we cultivate on the meditation cushion, this will be a productive and constructive practice.

Copyright Tzivia Gover

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