Personal Dreams– Access the intuition of your dreamer. More insights from within.  The Delaney Method.

Dream Class 

Many cultures throughout time have honored dreams. North American culture has not paid much more than lip-service to their importance. A few families and the psychological and mystical communities have known the importance of these nightly oracles. A few examples of some cultures who have found dreams important are:

Indigenous Australians- Look at the dream as a journey. Powerful people bring back good stories from their dream time to be shared with everyone. The dream is a real experience.

In Malaysia, certain tribes feel everything on the planet is alive. In dreams, you can communicate with anything and pick up power. For example, you can commune with a plant and it may breathe its essence into you. You may learn its song and bring that song back to heal.

To many native tribes dreams are interactive and involve the tribe. Dreams predict the future. You act some dreams out with the tribe to change the course of events.  When people do not dream this is seen as extreme soul loss.

Some tribes view dreams as interactions between the living and the dead- a portal to commune.

Egyptians believed the gods spoke to us in our dreams. Dreams were known as the language of gods. They practiced conscious dream travel. The jackal or dog-headed god Anubis was related to the gates of dreaming and death.

Our pre-Christian culture was full of important dreams that shaped political history. Most cultures believed in dreams as important messages.

Christians and Jews also viewed dreams as important and they are sprinkled all through the bible as predictions, omens, and ways to shape life.

There was great controversy in religion over dreams and at some point, they became the domain of the priests and were taken out of the hands of people.

Scientists later dismissed them as useless data and our culture is still suffering from this attitude.

Yet, Freud brought them back into use, recognizing that they have value for interpreting personal issues. He interpreted many of them as being sexual in nature, in part because Europe was so repressed in this realm.

His student Jung benefitted from Freud’s teachings, but his own dreams showed him, that they were much more than even Freud imagined. He needed to develop his own system to really understand their true meaning.

He still favored the use of interpreting dreams in a personal way using the language of symbols. We, unlike most tribes, live in small family units or on our own. The community is generally not involved in our dreams, or there to act them out.

Yet in this class, it is important to be clear that there are many valid ways of looking at dreams: as Shamanic journeys, as prophecy, as diagnostic for health issues. There are also many valid ways of doing this: dream groups, constellations, journeying and Shamanic and as a personal interpretation. In the Sacred Dream Cave we worked with Aizenstat’s work, befriending personal dream images, dream circles and dream kivas. We also created a council of dreamers to consult in our lives. Aizenstat’s work focuses on developing a relationship with the images and keeping a relationship with them.

Today we will learn Dr. Gayle Delaney’s method of working with personal dreams. It is more about clarifying the content of a dream and getting a clear message from our subconscious. It is a very straightforward way to learn a lot about what is really important to us and take action to implement this knowledge. It is a very powerful technique.

Gayle Delaney’s Method-

Always read the dream in the present tense- as if it is still happening- bring it to life. Bring two typed copies of your dream to the dream interview. Usually, you will do the interview with a partner, but you can also do it for yourself. If you do it by yourself it is easier in some ways, but you may miss more difficult pieces when resistance to some issues arise.

The dream is read twice. It is deciphered in a chronological fashion, usually starting with the setting.

Place or Setting

Settings in dreams indicate where we are situated in our psyches. It may show us the age the issue manifested, or what age part of us still views the issue from. I.e. if the dream takes place in our childhood homes and we are 13 years old, in the dream, it will probably point to some issue or complex that originated or acted up at that time, and is manifesting or acting up again.

The dream setting or place is in many ways the trickiest part of the dream to identify, both for the dreamworker and the dreamer. This is so because out of all the theme possibilities that exist we need to search our psyches to try and locate the theme with only a few clues.

To try to find out dream information, get frank personal descriptions.

 

Questions–

Describe the setting or opening of the dream.

What is this place like in your dream?

How does it feel to be in this situation/setting?

(Pay attention to the Time Frame.

Is it a house from your childhood?)

Other ideas for questions are-

“How do you feel when you go there”? What kind of people would work, live there?

 

 

Get three solid words.

If the setting is vague in the dream, the description may be more general, but pin down the mood and context. Ask “What it feels like to be in that setting.”

If the setting is described broadly, i.e. a city, the description will only be helpful if it is more specific. What city is it? If it’s New York- ask how it differs from Edmonton. Remember you are looking for the dreamer’s subjective interpretation. Ask also- “Does the city look the same as it does in waking life”? Pursue the difference that exists, if it there is one. If they cannot identify the name of the city, ask “how is a city different than the country”? or   What is noticeable about this city?

When a place is the same as in waking life just pursue a description of what the place is like. If it is a basement- get three solid words from the dreamer that describe the basement.

i.e. cold, damp and dark.

If the basement is not specific ask- “What do basements mean to you? How are they different than upstairs?

Always get a good solid description before going onto other questions.

Use these 3 good descriptors to bridge to real life. Does this setting which you describe as cold, damp and dark remind you of any situation in your waking life?

How so?

If the dream takes place in the past– ask- “What was it like back then”? If it’s future-oriented– “What do you think it will be like in the future?”

If it is late in a dream- ask what it means to be late. Get them to connect with a feeling. “Where in your life does it feel late.” Same idea with, if it is early.

With setting it is important to key into the feeling and description of the setting. Don’t spend too much time in this area. Sometimes, even this early in the dream you find that the dreamer is keeping secrets. Clarify this. If the dreamer is with-holding info. You may not be able to go on with the dream.

For example, if the dreamer is consistently shutting down and says – I can’t talk about that, you might say- “Because we’ve hit on one of those areas you can’t talk about, we can’t proceed with the dream.”

Never do more than one dream a day with a dreamer. The awareness mushes together. The action steps also get too large.

Do less rather than more. Try not to go beyond 2 hours. End with a summary. Have them write a summary- when you leave and do an action step together.

If you push too hard in an interview people may stop remembering their dreams for a while, but one sometimes does need to push a little to get over resistance.

If the dream is in 2 parts, ensure they have done their summary and taken action.

The role of personal summaries is not to be underestimated. It is with the summaries the information gels and is made into something solid the dreamer can refer back to.

Summarize during the dream for them often, especially when you are stuck.

 

Do the setting of someone’s dream in class.

Have the class divide into groups and do each other’s settings.

Hand out Dream Questions-

DREAM QUESTIONS
If you could name this dream what would you call it?

What are your feelings at the end of the dream?

 

SETTINGS

1. Describe the opening ( or next) setting of the dream.
2. What is this place like in your dream?
3. How does it feel to be in this setting?
4. What kind of people would live, work there?
5. So this setting is (restate the description). Right?
6. Does this setting which you describe as (restate the description again) remind you of any situation or area in your waking life?
7. How so?

 

PEOPLE

If two people show up in a dream together, get a desc. of both before bridging.

1. Who is __________?
2. How do you feel about this person?
3. Describe __________with four adjectives.
4. So_____________is (restate the description), right?
5. Is there anyone you know, or any part of yourself that is (restate the description).
6. How so?
7. If something is vague relate the people to the action i.e. “what kind of person would not put out a fire?
8. Negative form. Not gentle. “So what does it mean to be not gentle?
9. Really negative description hard to bridge. If you were a psychologist, what do you think would cause the person to be like this? Response “they were abused? Is there anyone in your life, or any part of yourself that has been abused?
10. When people say they know little of a dream character. Ask they what their best guess about Bill would be.

 

 

 

ANIMALS

1. What is this animal like?
2. If this animal had a personality how would you describe it?
3. So this animal is___________ (restate the description, right?)
4. Is there anyone in your life or anything or any part of yourself that is (restate the description)
5. How so?

 

OBJECTS

1. What is a __________?
2. Why do humans have or use __________s?
3. How do you feel about ____________generally?
4. What is the ________________in your dream like?
5. How do you feel about the __________ in your dream?
6. Let me see if I’ve got this right, a ______ is (restate the description), right?
7. Is there anything in your life right now or any part of yourself or anyone you know that is _______ (restate the description)?
8. How so?
9. If this object had a personality what would it be like?

 

FEELINGS

1. How do you feel at this moment in the dream?
2. Tell me more about this feeling.
3. Tell me about a time ( or the last time) you felt this way.
4. How does this feeling of (restate the description) remind you of anything in your current life?
5. How so?

 

ACTIONS AND PLOTS

(We don’t need much information, just take it back to what’s happening to it) This is almost always related with something we’re doing in life.

1. Describe the major action or event in this scene.
2. Why do humans do such things, and how do you feel about it? i.e. if a car is moving quickly, How do you feel about a fast moving car?
3. Does this action (restate the description) remind you of any situation in your life?
4. How so?
5. How would you describe the central theme or plot of this dream.
6. Does this plot (restate the description) remind you of any situation in your life?
7. How so?

 

SUMMARY QUESTIONS

1. Shall I summarize the descriptions and bridges made so far, or would you like to do it?
2. So in this part of the dream (this happened), which you described as, which reminded you of. Then (this happened), and so forth. Does all this bring anything else to mind?
3. Now, how do you understand your dream?

 

 

Original Work From: Dr. Gayle Delaney Breakthrough Dreaming.