Create a dream practice

Maybe you have a regular yoga, meditation, writing, music, journaling, or exercise practice, but do you have a dream practice?

What do you do with your dreams when you wake up in the morning?

Do you catch a wisp of a dream, ponder for a moment, and then jump out of bed and get on with your day?

Do you vaguely consult a dream book, or the internet, and then give up because the proffered interpretations do not relate to your situation?

Do you find yourself contemplating a dream at lunchtime, only to have your focus suddenly snapped away by someone or something that needs your more urgent attention?

If you have a scary or unsettling dream, one that lingers and worries away at the edge of your mind throughout several days, do you keep the dream to yourself, mention it to a friend, worry about going to sleep for fear of having a similar nightmare, or take steps to discover what it means? What steps do you take?

Do you sometimes write down your dreams, but not always?

If you are intensely passionate about your dreams, curious about what they mean, and dedicated to exploring your dreams to gain insight into yourself and your life, what’s your practice? Do you have a routine that you can follow, even on days when your passion wanes or the call of the to-do list is too insistent?

Think about the various practices you have in your life. I have a yoga practice that includes attending classes. Part of the practice is the commitment to getting my yoga gear on, rolling up my mat, and leaving home at a set time on my yoga days. Whether or not I am super keen on the day, whether or not I think I ‘should’ be doing other things, my practice begins with following those simple steps that actually get me to the yoga studio.

I also have a writing practice. If I am writing a book, it is a very different practice from my blog-writing one, but each includes the practical step of sitting at my computer at the self-appointed time and letting the words flow. Much as I enjoy writing and am inspired to share my words with others, my output would have been considerably less in the absence of a dedicated practice.

A solid practice includes a non-negotiable routine that removes the barriers to actually beginning: the non-negotiable walking out the door dressed in yoga gear at a certain time on a certain day; the non-negotiable walking into the office, sitting in front of the computer, opening a Word doc, and laying fingers on the keyboard.

So where might a solid dream practice begin?

1. Write down your dreams every morning. If this is impossible, speak them into the recording app on your phone, or draw a quick series of stickmen accompanied by a few keywords to jog your memory of the dream later. Choose your method and commit to it. If you need to wake up a little earlier to do this, go to bed a little earlier. (Dreams too easily evaporate. Recording them secures the details for you to explore later, and this practice alone increases your dream recall in the long run.)
2. Decide how many dreams you are going to explore in any one week. Be honest with yourself. How much time do you have? If you have plenty of time and you’re really keen, dedicate your dream practice to exploring one dream from each night. In the early days of your practice, while you’re still learning dream interpretation techniques, you might dedicate your dream practice to choosing one dream each week to explore.
3. Make your dream practice as unique and individual as you desire but make sure you define it and commit to it. Examples include:
4. Decide on a day and time (perhaps even a place) to explore your dream, in the same way that you decide on a day and time to attend a yoga class, practice a musical instrument, or go for a run. Stick to it.
5. Decide on your method: I created the ‘How to interpret your dreams step-by-step’ course to give you a – wait for it! – process that you can easily follow one step at a time. You download and print your dream interpretation chart (as well as course notes) and, guided by me on the videos, you simply fill in the chart as you complete each step. Once you’ve completed the steps, you have your interpretation. You then simply repeat this process for each dream. After a while, the process will become second nature to you.
6. Another approach some people like is to include listening to my podcast, ‘The Dream Show with Jane Teresa Anderson’ as part of their dream practice. It might be listening to one podcast a week, or one a month, or one a day. The practice of listening results in picking up key skills you can apply to your own dreams. People often say to me, ‘I had a dream and I thought about what questions you would ask if I was on The Dream Show, and when I answered the imagined questions, I understood my dream’.
7. Or your dream practice might be to meet with other dreamers to explore your dreams together, perhaps as a dream group. Again, it is a practice only if you make it a dedicated routine: pick the day and time, invite people who are equally dedicated to sharing the practice.
8. Or you might decide that your dream practice is to choose one dream a week, or one dream a month, to explore with me. (Many of my regular clients do this, making setting the consultation date a part of the practice, then choosing the dream to bring to the session closer to the time.)
9. Or you might prefer to take a seasonal dream practice approach, perhaps dedicating to a spring practice, or a ‘term’ practice that works for you.

As you design your own unique dream practice, be guided by one that is doable yet offers you a bit of a stretch.

Choose a practice that suits your nature, that feels right to you, then add a slice of challenge, an edging beyond your comfort zone. Then write your Dream Practice down as a charter, something to pin on the wall, to read every day, to seal your commitment, and support your devotion.

Follow your practice, and let the magic begin.

PS If you thought ‘Create a dream practice’ – the title of this blog – was going to be about how to create a professional dreamwork practice, you might be interested in doing my Dream Therapy Professional Level 1 course.

And if you’re irritated by my spelling of ‘practice’, as I know many of you will be, I am very fond of sticking with my native British English spelling! In British English, practice is the noun, practise is the verb. Let’s continue to celebrate diversity and individuality in our various practices and practises.

 

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