Dreams are enigmas. They are multi-dimensional expressions of our multi-dimensional selves. And dreamwork can be as multi-faceted and multi-layered as the dream itself. There are many different ways to approach dreamwork and many schools of thought as to what dreams actually are, but essentially all dreamwork is focussed on bridging the worlds between our different states of consciousness, and bringing gifts from the deeper wisdom of our dreaming nature into the light of our waking minds.
If we can imagine our waking state of consciousness symbolically as our ‘Sun’ Mind, and our dreaming state symbolically as our ‘Moon’ Mind, then dreamwork can be seen as the creative marriage and interpretive-dance-like interaction between these two quite different states of mind. The dualistic energies of our waking and dreaming minds have been symbolised through out the ages in many cultures as sun/moon, yang/yin, light/dark or masculine/feminine. They are recognised as archetypes of our psyches, representing nodes on a spectrum of consciousness, between which our human experience oscillates. Both have their own magical powers that shape our existence, and both when out-of-balance can be destructive to our well-being.
Its important to note that our Sun Mind and Moon Mind are never mutually exclusive; just as the yin-yang symbol demonstrates, each contains a good-sized splodge of the other. Also, we don’t need to be asleep to dream; we have the ability to enter our Moon Mind state of consciousness while awake through meditation, lucid journeying and sacred ceremony, as well as via psycho-active plants and substances. Likewise we can also access our Sun Mind while we are sleeping, especially through the practice of lucid dreaming.
Both our Sun Mind and Moon Mind each have their archetypal light and shadow aspects. Our waking Sun Mind is a master of order and rationality, of linear time, law and justice, and mastery over the physical world. Efficient, analytical and burning with yang energy, the light of our Sun Mind powers our action and expansion, our ability to control and manipulate the physical world through physical means. Its shadow however is to over-dominate, control and expand without limit or compassion. Our dreaming Moon Mind is the expression of our wild and untamed heart. Deeply passionate and emotional, intuitive and creative, its home is the non-linear world of the Dreaming. Its light powers our mystical experiences, the ‘knowings’ in our bones, our imagination, our creativity, and our ancient mythic connections to the universe around us and everything in it. In its shadows however, we can be over-whelmed by our emotions, lose our strength of self-discipline and our ability to function effectively within consensus reality.
Our culture currently has a ‘glaring’ imbalance towards our collective Sun Mind and this has resulted in a break-down of relationship with our dreams and with our collective Moon Mind, to the point of draining the magic, mystery and spontaneity out of our experience of the world. As well as physically destroying the earth’s wild nature and psychologically destroying our connection to our own wild inner-natures, which happen to be only our only source to creatively imagine our way out of this mess. Meanwhile, our Moon Mind is held in exile in the shadows by our collective consciousness – expressing itself in our fear, pain, anxiety, loneliness and alienation, the results of its rejection and betrayal by our collective Sun Mind.
If we want magic to come alive in our lives, we must tend to our everyday relationship with it.
Toko-pa Turner
Dreamwork is the excellent practice of returning harmony and balance to this sacred marriage of opposites, and as we weave the dreaming Moon Mind back into living-connection with our waking Sun Mind we restore the magic and mystery of divine dreaming to its rightful place as the guiding spirit of our lives. We also invite the Dreaming back into our collective world, as one by one we add the voices of our dreaming to the symphony of our shared waking dream.
The Dreaming is the Oneness from which all individual dreams are dreamt. Our Moon Mind understands this Oneness, and sees each individual as an essential voice in the great uni-verse, the song of life. Our dreaming Moon Mind encourages us to sing our unique gifts into being. She guides us through our dreams in a synesthaesic tapestry of mythic story. Its a kind of poetry-of-form that can be completely baffling to our rational and linear-based Sun Mind. Verbal and written languages have been learned by our Sun Mind through imitation and study, but Dreaming we are born with. The Moon Mind speaks the fundamental language of our consciousness; it is the language of Nature as she creates through us, her creations.
~ Artwork by Catrin Welz-Stein ~