Resources for Learning to Work
Consciously with Your Dreams

Dream Dictionary for Dummies

Dreams for Dummies

Other Dream Resources

Dreamwork Trainings with Penney

Articles on Dreamwork

InnerViews #2/pdf: Deepening Your Dreamstate: Dreams and Precognitive Omens About World Events (4/02)

Download these free pdfs!

Reasons to Dream/Common Dream Themes

10 Tips for Better Dreaming

Questions to Trigger Dreams/Dream Interpreting Tips

Creating A Successful Dream Group

10 Ways to Work with Kids and Their Dreams

Books by Friends and Colleagues

Rosemary Ellen Guiley, PhD
Dreamspeak: How to Understand the Messages in Your Dreams (Berkley, 2001)

Dreamwork for the Soul: A Spiritual Guide to Dream Interpretation (Berkley, 1998)
    How to understand and work with your dreams on a higher, spiritual level.

The Encyclopedia of Dreams (Berkley, 1995)

Jeremy Taylor
The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Universal Themes in Myths, Dreams, and the Symbolism of Waking Life (Paulist Press 1998)

Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious (Warner Books 1993)

Dreamwork: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power of Dreams (Paulist Press 1984)

. . . you'll have interesting, fun things to talk about with your friends and family.

. . . you'll have firsthand contact with the Mystery of the unknown realms.

. . . dreams teach you about your psychological process and the subconscious beliefs and fears that can interfere with your happiness.

. . . you'll expand your sense of personal identity, understanding that you're more than a physical body.

. . . you'll learn to recognize your inner wisdom. Dreams provide accurate guidance from your soul.

. . . you'll realize how naturally intuitive and creative you are.

. . . dreams can help you with problem solving, decision making, even with manifesting the help and resources you need.

. . . dreams can help you heal yourself and others, physically and emotionally.

. . . you'll learn you have the natural capacity to know about things that are in the past, future, or in other locations.

. . . you'll improve your ability to communicate and understand what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes.

---

Common Dream Themes

My teeth are falling out!

I'm naked in public!

I'm in a play and I forgot my lines!

Someone is chasing me and I'm paralyzed!

I'm revisiting an old house I once lived in and it has new rooms!

I'm making love with: a movie star!

I lost my wallet and can't find my keys!

I have to take a test and: can't find the examination room/didn't study/forgot to go!

I'm flying: without an airplane/through high tension lines/2 feet off the ground!

I'm in an elevator and it's: falling/going sideways/going really fast!

My car: has flat tires/won't start/has brakes that don't work!

I found: money on the street/buried treasure/jewels in the attic!

I have to catch: a plane/train and am: late/can't find my luggage!

I'm having surgery on my: eyes/knees/heart/feet/throat.

To help you develop a rich dream life, try:

Start talking about dreams to your friends and family. Dreams increase when you pay attention to them and show enthusiasm.

Get clear about why you want to dream. Know what's possible—dreams have many positive benefits and these can motivate you to dream more.

Take a warm bath before bed, and steer clear of alcohol, stimulants, mood altering medications, and too much extraverted social activity in the evening.

Sniff a dream pillow scented with mugwort, rosemary, lavender, or sage.

Try eating foods rich in tryptophan like turkey, milk, bananas, and cheese, or engage in a period of quiet study in the evening.

Learn to wake up without an alarm clock; many dreams are lost when your body is shocked awake suddenly.

Start a dream diary and keep it next to your bed. Write your dreams in it every morning first thing.

If you can't remember a dream in the morning, make one up and write it in your dream diary! Soon you'll remember the real thing.

Learn dream incubation techniques so you can program yourself to dream what you want and remember what you dreamed.

Write a poem from your dream or make a drawing or painting inspired by dream imagery.

10 Questions to Ask to Trigger Dream Responses

What do I need to know about the functioning of my body to improve my health?

What beliefs are interfering with my ability to see my life situation clearly?

What is the next phase of my life work?

How can I connect with my grandparents who died?

How can I improve my relationship with my spouse?

Which of the possible solutions to this problem would best serve my growth?

What is causing my child's anxiety and irritability, and what can I do?

How can I move through my writer's block and jumpstart my creativity?

What hidden factors are limiting the forward movement of my career?

What do I need to know to become more spiritually aware?

Things to Keep in Mind When Interpreting a Dream

Interpreting dreams doesn't have to be difficult, intellectual, or dry.

Use your intuition to sense which dreams have that extra "psychic weight" and allow yourself to work with those first.

Does the dream trigger an experience of love or fear? How is it a teaching?

Is the dream about your physical body, the way you use your energy, your hidden emotions, your ideas and belief system, your inspirations, your life purpose, or is it transpersonal and visionary?

If the dream is helping you become more authentic, what is it trying to tell you?

If the dream were depicting a literal movement of your awareness, rather than something symbolic, what might you be doing?

What are the key elements of the dream and how is each one an aspect of your life right now?

What choices did you make and what feelings did you experience in the dream? What does this tell you about yourself?

Are there any puns, double meanings, or cliches in the dream? What might the secondary meanings denote?

Was the dream in color, or sepia-toned or black and white? Was it lit brightly or was it dark?

Did you have any "sidebar" impressions or outside commentary about parts of the dream?

DreamWork Development Exercises
( in random order)

Dream Recall Ceremonies

Your body loves ritual. Dreams are often easier to remember when you trigger the subconscious recall with a physical stimulus. If you wrote a note to your dream self, folded it and put it under your pillow, you might also say to your subconscious: “In the morning, I’m going to reread this note and it will trigger my memory.”

You can set a glass of water, which you have held and charged with positive intentions to remember your dreams, by your bed. Say to your subconscious mind: “In the morning, when I take a drink of this water, it will trigger me to remember my dreams.”

Work with these little rituals consistently so your body knows you mean it. Don't give up after the first or second try.

Interpret an Omen

1. Think back and list 3 odd, perhaps surrealistic experiences you’ve had in the past few months. Or did you see something recently that you’d consider an omen? Did a huge flock of geese fly over you in a V from right to left? Did you get bitten by a black widow spider, or sprain an ankle, or find a $20 bill? Was there a synchronicity that seems to be pointing out a theme? Did three old friends from the distant past show up unexpectedly in town this month?

2. What question is each omen an answer to? What is the Source telling you via these symbols?

Title Your Dreams

Go back through your dream diary, and from the beginning, give titles to all the dreams you've recorded. Use your intuition to allow the most colorful images and whimsical actions to connect with each other and form a poetic title that captures the spirit of the dream and makes it instantaneously recognizable. You might want to make a page at the back of your diary on which you list all your dreams' titles.

Pretend You're Freud or Jung

Write several paragraphs about what one of your dreams means, as though you are (Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Buddha, Jesus, your grandmother, your inner five-year-old, your favorite celebrity, etc.).