Robert Johnson, Joyce Rockwood Hudson: Dreams
“If we go to that realm (the inner life or unconscious) consciously, it is by our inner work: our prayers, meditations, dreams work, ceremonies, and Active Imagination. If we try to ignore the inner world, as most of us do, the unconscious will find its way into our lives through pathology: our psychosomatic symptoms, compulsions, depressions, and neuroses.”—Robert Johnson in Inner Work, Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth (Harper&Row 1989), p. 11.
My spiritual director best helps me and others connect with God through dreams. Dreams are certainly one way God, the dream maker, speaks to us. Working on our dreams is like studying a new language. It is the symbolic language of the unconscious. We connect to the unconscious with dreams, imagination, synchronicity, coincidences, or serendipity.
We study our dreams, learning about personal symbols specific to us, like the sea and trees, are for me. However, there are also collective symbols that are universal, such as water representing the unconscious, light being our consciousness, a child being the creative part of us, animals representing instincts, vehicles representing energy or how we get along with a car representing our independent energy, and buses, planes, trains being collective energy.
Dreams also speak in the language of mythology, fairytales, religious rituals, and music.
Consider learning about dream-work as a spiritual practice. Join a dream group. The gold in dreams is more easily and richly mined with the help of others. Two initial books to learn more about dream-work are Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson and Natural Spirituality: A Handbook for Jungian Inner Work in Spiritual Community by Joyce Rockwood Hudson. Both are also excellent books to read together in a group.
If this spiritual discipline interests you, simply keep an electronic or old-fashioned notebook by your bed, write down your dreams as soon as you awaken, and see what happens!
Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/