Recent Presentation

Last week, I spoke to 200 counselors at the Rio Grande Valley Counseling Association's annual Counselors Institute on Padre Island, titled "Using Dreamwork to Accelerate Healing and Support Emerging Competencies in Your Counseling Practice."   The audio can be listened to here. Please forgive the repetition of my favorite joke that illustrates the problem of our preconceived views about dreams.

Counselor Institute Address

The Importance of Situated Awareness

I had a non-lucid dream last week, sandwiched between two nights of lucid dreaming, which impacted me more deeply that any other dream in the past few months.

In the dream, it was raining and the streets were flooded. A line of cars were parked ahead of me, and people were outside in the rain, praying the Hail Mary. I walked up and joined them in prayer. Turning around, I looked up toward the south, and saw hundreds of tiny clouds creating the shape of a man with his arms outstretched. I was awed and puzzled, not sure if it was natural or supernatural. Then, to the west, a disc the size of several suns appeared and began to spin slowly, drawing into itself the cloud shape that was moving toward it. The disc became more visually sharp, and looked more spherical than flat. Suddenly, the disc broke open like an egg, and a bright white flower emerged and descended slowly toward the world.

I love this dream. And the fact that I wasn't lucid was actually a blessing. Why? Because there was no thought that this "wasn't real." In other words, it had maximum emotional impact precisely because I believed it was real.

I have spoken on the importance of situated vs. non-situated awareness. I argue in a presentation that I gave not long ago that true integration of "the other" within us requires an encounter between autonomous entities, of which we (the dream ego) is one. If we do not believe that an encounter is real or actual, then how can we experience the encounter as a relationship? Tarnas says in The Passion of the Western Mind that a true relationship depends on for an autonomous, reciprocal exchange between freely responding persons. And how is that possible if we experience the "other" in the dream as illusory or self-created. 

I have posted that presentation audio somewhere on my server, and I will link it here shortly, in case this topic interests you.

I'm Back

I think they must call it "blog guilt"--when you haven't written an entry for so long that you wonder if people think you're dead.  Ken Wilber invented a related term,  which he termed "neogenic guilt," or New Age guilt--which is the not-so-exquisite experience of believing that you create your own reality, and thus must assume the blame for whenever you get sick, or run into s--- happening.

I started a new online training/personal dream group last night with five dreamers spread across the US.  I've been using Zoom videoconferencing for all kinds of meetings, and it's just perfect for online group dream work. The purpose of the 10-week group is to learn co-creative dream analysis, and to practice with each other's dreams. 

I just received the cover image for a new book that will be published this spring, for which I wrote a chapter. Edited by my colleagues and friends Stan Krippner and Jacquie Lewis (both of Saybrook Institute), I am honored to be the fine company of 13 other chapter authors, who present a particular traditional or contemporary approach to dream theory/practice.  The title of my chapter is, "The FiveStar Method: Using Co-creative Dream Analysis in Psychotherapy."

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Co-creative Dreamwork Group Starting in September

Hi friends, I will be starting a bi-weekly online dream group using Zoom videoconferencing. I am tentatively planning to start the group on Thursday, September 10, at 8 pm CST. The group will be comprised of 5-8 adults, and meet for 90 minutes each time. The cost will be $30 per session. If you, or anyone you know is interested, please email me at gscotspar@gmail.com so we can set up a phone call or a Skype visit.

We will focus on co-creative dream work, which I have developed over the past 40 years. We will also practice ways to become more conscious and responsive in our dreams.

From Lightning to Liquid Gold

I will be giving three presentations at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams in Virginia Beach next month. One of them will on "Life Changing Dreams," and I will be presenting alongside Robert Waggoner and Rober Hoss.

My own dream was what I've called my "coming to age dream," which I have recounted in several places, most notably in my book, Healing the Fisher King: A Flyfisher's Grail Quest. In fact, it's the central dream around which the whole story revolves. It is:

 I dream I am in my childhood home in Texas with my parents. It is just before dawn, and I invite them to follow me outside onto the driveway so I can reveal to them my life purpose. I lift my arms in the air, and begin to chant a single note. As I do, powerful energy erupts in my body, and at the same time, I see lightning arcing across the sky. Finally, I lower my arms, and the lightning strikes only a short distance away. I repeat this process, all the while standing outside of myself puzzled by this demonstration, and not knowing what it means. Suddenly, I become aware that my parents, in their fear, have hurled a lance into my back. I fall to the ground, knowing that I am dying. I am not afraid, but I'm disappointed that they didn't understand and accept me. They come up and stand over me, looking frightened and worried. I say, "I was really your son. But I am the son of the unborn son, who is still to come." I know that they must eventually deal with him, even though I am dying.

As one might imagine, this dream played out over the course of many years, in which I struggled in my own zeal to bring spirit into this world, but sometimes in a way that was premature and insensitive to the forces in myself and in my relationships that were disinclined to support such efforts. To put it mildly! Overcoming one's own resistance to higher power, and becoming more humble in one's methods, has been a lifelong quest. (I can still be quite pushy.) I have compared my own journey to that of Parcifal, who, in his unconsciousness brutishness, initially failed in his quest to find the Grail, and then returned later in life as a mature and chastened man and fulfilled the requirements of the quest.

The lucid dream below (in the posting "Who is she, anyway?") intimates the solution that Parcifal finally discovered; that is, coming into right relationship with the feminine spirit, who then offers to "accompany" the self into world, thus fulfilling the incarnation of the whole person. Parsifal committed all sorts of offenses against the feminine and, as a consequence, did not have what it took when he faced the Grail in all of its splensor; that is, he didn't have the presence of heart to offer himself in service to "one it served" -- metaphorically, the Fisher King, or the son of the unborn son. Giving way to the companion in the soul, who is willing to serve rather than to dominate, is a man's ultimate attainment, in my opinion. And it does not come easy. It requires a long struggle, and necessary failures, before the opening of the warrior soul gives way to the attendant feminine companion who finally consents to accompany him in his incarnational quest. 

That is what the dream posted below intimates: that the presence of the feminine spirit transforms the male incarnational thrust from a raw, overwhelming and unsustainable effort (lightning) into a glorious manifestation of refined consciousness that renders everything golden that it touches. While the process is perhaps never complete, consummatory experiences such as the one below at least provide glimpses of what Paul Harvey once referred to as, "the other half of the story," and offer encouragement that the long journey toward meaning will finally bear its golden fruit.

Who is she, anyway?

In my peregrinations through lucid and out-of-body realms, I usually meet people who seem quite autonomous and self-possessed, as if they are "real" persons. The question of the lucid dream character's nature is one that intrigues me considerably. Indeed, it is at the forefront of my thinking about lucid dreaming, as exemplified by the chapter I wrote last year for the new lucid dream anthology, published by Praeger and edited by my colleagues Ryan Hurd and Kelley Bulkeley.

Because this question is always on my mind, I often ask dream characters who they are, or engage them in very personal exchanges in order to understand their purpose in the dream.

Last week, I had the following lucid dream, in which I encountered two unknown women, whose responses to my statements about returning to my own world prompted surprising replies. Here is the dream:

This lucid dream occurred after I had awakened around 4 AM and had taken galantamine before meditating. I meditated for about half an hour, and then returned to bed. I didn't immediately go into lucid dream without a break in consciousness, but became lucid shortly after returning to sleep... I decide to fly up into the air and seek a more refined level of consciousness. I fly up into a dark sky, praying as I go, and feeling very positive about what I will encounter. Finally, I emerge out of the top of the dark field and I see a brightly lit area nearby, as if it is an island floating above the darkness. I fly over to it and climb up the edge of the island and approach a woman who is seated on a ledge or slope, and sit down beside her. Our connection is immediately felt by me and by her, it seems, as our eyes meet. I speak to her awhile, and then aske her her name. She says her name twice without me hearing it. As has been the case before during these experiences, when a person speaks to me, it’s as if the sound is being blown away by a wind. After asking her twice to repeat her name, I finally hear her say, “Amit,” or something like that. Finally I say to her, “We will probably never meet again.” She replies, “If you do not come back here, I will come to your world.” We part at that point and I move into another level of the dream, in which I again encounter people on a hillside and a lighted area which was very beautiful. Again, I encounter a woman with whom I feel an immediate deep knowing and rapport. We talk with several other people, the details of which I have since forgotten. Soon, however, I say to her, “I must go back to my world.” I am surprised that she stands up and says, “I will go with you.” We walk to what appears to be an elevator of sorts, and begin to descend toward my own world. 

Then I seem to be "back," at least partly, witnessing and participating in the process of my return. Julie has a key that I know is essential to making the return possible. I took the key from her, and put the key into a socket. When I inserted it, I felt a subtle vibration and then saw a mist begin to develop around the socket. In the middle of the mist, I saw what appeared to be in embryonic white form, which was not fully developed. It was floating in the middle of the air. Then I looked away and saw gifts began to appear all around me all wrapped in colorful paper. A woman who is standing nearby eagerly took one and was going to open it when I said to her, "Please don't do that, yet; let's wait until the process is complete." She agrees to wait, and I look back to the area where the mist had been forming, and now instead of some protoplasmic form, I see a small gazebo that was colored white and red about 2 feet in diameter which had a spire that reached seven or 8 feet above my head. The spire is open at the top, as if the ribs of the spire are supporting the tip, allowing me to see the 1st foot or two of the space at the end of the spire before it became fully enclosed again until it opens at the base. In the space between the very tip and where it became enclosed, I see that there is a golden liquid flowing from the tip toward the base, which appears to be liquid gold. The source of it, however, is puzzling, because neither does there seem to be gold flowing from the sky into the tip, but there doesn't seem to be any way for the liquid to get there from the bottom part of the gazebo, either. I am fascinated by this riveting image, and want to touch the golden liquid. So as it emerges from the base into a pool right in front of me, I reach out and put my hands into the flow of the liquid. I then withdraw my hands and look at the back my hands, only to see that they were covered with gold liquid which has the consistency of water, not metal. I am immensely delighted, and then find myself back in bed.

I think it's interesting that the dream culminates in such glorious fashion after having the two female dream characters promise to reach out to me, or to accompany me in my world. It's as if their willingness is expressed by the bounty of the golden fluid that flows from their world into mine. There's a lot here, but regardless of what it all means, this dream is another chapter in my ongoing quest to understand the identity of lucid dream figures (or persons!).

Meeting the Master in a Lucid Dream

Many people have commented that lucidity doesn't necessarily confer right intention or lead to right action. Edgar Cayce, in commenting on the afterlife once said, "A dead Presbyterian is a dead Presbyterian," or something like that. He wasn't denigrating Presbyterians, only saying that death doesn't necessarily result in an enlightened perspective. Similarly, lucid dreamers will often exhibit the same habits and predilections that they exhibit in the waking state. So, without clarifying one's intentions, lucidity can result in a mere replication of conscious bias. Lately, I've been affirming that I will seek divine presence, and be open to the present of the Master, in whatever form that consciousness will take.  Three nights ago, I had the following experience, which shows how holding to one's intentions in the lucid dream can lead to very memorable and deep encounters.

 I meditated and was awake for about an hour. During meditation, I affirmed that once becoming lucid, I would seek the presence of the divine, and an encounter with the master. After dozing off, I found myself moving slowly away from my body into the darkness, praying as I flew for the presence of the divine. I felt very much at peace and expectant. Then a glowing area in the darkness appeared to my left and above me so I turned to that and headed that way. I continued to fly up into space thinking that I would get above the darkness, and sure enough the darkness began to recede. Then I noticed that I was with someone else who is flying beside me, apparently man whom I do not know. Finally I went back down to the ground where I began to search for someone that I could talk to. I walked along a path, looking into the faces of the people who passed me trying to catch their eyes. I was hoping that someone would look at me and feel familiar or meaningfully connected. Finally after a long period of time in which I meandered about through crowds of people, I decided to ask somebody where the master was.  I stopped by a young man and ask him, "Where is the master?" He pointed behind me to the northwest, so I thanked him and turned around and walked in that direction.  As I walked down the path, I see a young boy who seems to be dressed in a Cub Scout uniform and he passed me by. I continued walking and then looked to my left and saw a man sitting off to the left by himself. I approach him, and ask him, "Are you the master? He nodded. He took me by the shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes and called me by name. I knew that he knew me completely He then seemed to going to a swoon or a trance. His eyes shut halfway and he got very close to me and began talking about my life, my past and my future. It was all very nebulous and abstract, but I sensed that he knew me deeply. Finally, I felt the sheets move on the bed as Julie turned over, and I lost the hold on the experience, so I moved back to my body and woke up.

This dream brings to mind a lucid dream I had 30 years ago, in which I was lucid and looking for Jesus. I went up to several people, looked at them, and then turned away thinking, "That's not Jesus." Finally, I see an old man sitting by the side of the road. I ask him where Jesus is. He looks at me quizzically, and says, "You know, Jesus doesn't talk to just anyone." I was shocked by his words, and realized upon awakening that my own assumptions about the people around me had limited my ability to encounter the master. That is, by assuming that Jesus did not reside in the people I encountered, I was effectively setting myself up to be "excluded" from his presence. So it's always tricky to look for the divine outside of one's own immediate experience, isn't it? I mean, any search implies that it's not already at hand, and any search depreciates one's immediate experience. 

Going back to my recent dream, I could have seen "the master" in the first young man, or in the little boy, couldn't I? If the highest Spirit resides in the lowest forms, then if we can't see the divine in the person who stands before us, then essentially, we can't see it anywhere. So one might ask, why did I succeed in encountering "the master" after not seeing him/her in the people I'd already encountered? Perhaps it's because my tendency to isolate spirit from my everyday experience has all but given way to seeing God in everyone. Still, I long for that singular encounter with the one who knows me like no other. I suppose I will never quite exhaust the desire to be known and loved completely by one who stands above us all.