Visualisation versus dream alchemy

If you’ve been following my work, you’ll know that I encourage you to do dream alchemy visualisations to assist your unconscious mind in transforming blocks, but is there a place for doing ‘normal’ visualisations as well?

One of our newsletter subscribers, Liziwe, recently asked if I would cover this topic in a blog, so this one’s for you, Liziwe! Oh, and for everyone else reading this blog too.

Liziwe said, “I’m curious if you do visualisation/manifestations as a way to create future self or life, for example, wanting to move to a better place or attracting better life circumstances such as love or better relationships or money?”

Before I address this question, let’s take a quick look at dream alchemy visualisations.

What are dream alchemy visualisations, and how do they differ from the type of visualisations Liziwe is referring to?

The simplest way to do this is to give an example.

Imagine you had a dream about arriving at an airport too late to catch your plane. On waking and interpreting your dream, you might have concluded that the plane is a job opportunity you feel is within your grasp although somehow you keep missing it. Your interpretation might have revealed that the reason you keep missing the opportunity is that you unconsciously doubt your abilities, and this doubt undermines your efforts. The undermining might manifest as omitting key information from your resume, or subtle negative body language during an interview.

A good dream alchemy visualisation for this dream would be to close your eyes and visualise yourself back in your dream only this time you arrive at the airport in plenty of time and you easily catch the plane. Visualise the sensation of taking off in the plane and summon up a feeling of confidence and satisfaction as you feel the plane ascend.

What you’re doing here is talking to your unconscious mind using its own language, the language it presented in your dream.

You’re telling your unconscious mind to transform ‘late’ to ‘early’ and to transform ‘miss the job opportunity (miss the plane)’ to ‘catch the job opportunity (catch the plane)’ by transforming doubt into confidence. Repeating the dream alchemy visualisation helps to reprogram your unconscious mind, undoing limiting beliefs that cause you to doubt your abilities, and building new confident beliefs in their place. As a result, those unconscious undermining tactics dissolve, and you start to submit better resumes, or you naturally display more confident body language in interviews, or you simply find yourself in the right place at the right time to get that much desired job.

Now let’s take that same scenario – where you keep missing out on job opportunities – but instead of interpreting a dream and doing a dream alchemy visualisation, you do a more standard type of visualisation.

You might picture the job you really want and visualise yourself getting that job.

Now, if you have no unconscious blocks to getting that job, this type of visualisation will probably help you to manifest it. But if you do have an unconscious block, the more you do your visualisation, the more your unconscious mind will protest. The more you do your visualisation, the more you trigger your unconscious blocks to powerfully undermine your efforts to get that job.

Where there’s unconscious resistance to the outcome you want to manifest, all the ‘normal’ visualisation in the world isn’t going to help.

It will, instead, strengthen your unconscious resistance.

Now, back to Liziwe’s question. Do I do visualisation/manifestations as a way to create my future self or life?

I used to frequently do visualisations until I discovered how they can bring about the opposite result if there is an unconscious objection. My approach now is more dream-centred. I watch my dreams, notice where there are unconscious blocks to the things I would like to manifest, and then create specific dream alchemy to reprogram these. I usually create dream alchemy visualisations, but I sometimes use other modalities such as affirmations, artwork, writing, and body work, sticking to the same principles of transforming dream symbols and dream emotions. While it takes a little work to interpret my dreams and design the dream alchemy, the powerful results are worth the effort!

I do have goals. I plan and look ahead. I visualise the results I anticipate or what I would like to happen. For example, if I’m looking for a new home, I’ll write a list of all the features I want it to have. It’s a practical approach: I can check that a potential home has everything I want, rather than getting carried away with loving one or two features and overlooking what it’s missing. Because I don’t have any unconscious blocks to getting the home I want, it will generally manifest, with all the features and a few extra bonuses. But if I had unconscious blocks, I would expect a dream to come up shortly after writing my list, a dream that would reveal my unconscious mind’s response to my visualisation. I’d then create a dream alchemy practise to smooth my way.

I believe we’re all extremely powerful at manifestation. We either manifest our conscious desires, or we manifest our unconscious blocks to our conscious desires. Of the two minds – the conscious and the unconscious – the unconscious has the more powerful edge. And where can you go to discover the makeup of your unconscious mind? Your dreams, of course!

So, Liziwe, yes, I do visualisations to manifest what I’d like to happen, and then I watch my dreams. Where there’s unconscious resistance, I change the visualisation to a carefully created dream alchemy visualisation designed to transform unconscious blocks into beliefs that support my desired outcome.

I’d like to stress, though, that my general approach to my future is to look ahead, make plans, then attend to the present, watching my dreams for feedback. I’m very much a step-by-step person, dedicated to taking action in the present. It’s what we do (and feel) today that determines our future. Inside knowledge of my unconscious blocks, combined with the powerful magic of dream alchemy, helps me to take the best steps.

Even so, I prefer to keep an open mind regarding goals. Narrow focus on a goal can blind you to better – or more healing – alternatives. There again, thankfully, dreams provide a running commentary on those alternatives, helping us to see our blind spots and open to new perspectives on how to live our glorious lives.

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