Category: Just About Dreams (Page 1 of 3)

Miscellaneous dream-related material

Dreaming Our Joy

September 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

A joyous dream is like the precious seed of an heirloom vegetable: a potential-packed kernel of our essential, ancestral inheritance. We all come from dreamers, and we’ll all pass on our legacy to other dreamers. That legacy is not only conveyed through life lessons and practices, it is also fundamentally a transferal of inspiration, through joy. Dreams that bring joy will plant themselves in our hearts and flourish there, growing and flowering outward to bless others, providing sustainable nourishment with their colorful (though maybe oddly-shaped) fruits. Our sweet dreams can inspire us with the same joy that gave our ancestors hope in difficult times, making hard-won wisdom more palatable and easier to digest. So, even as we dig deep in our dreamwork, laboring to cultivate wisdom and skills that we can pass on to our own descendants, let us cherish and share the dream-seeds of joy.

Joyous dreams need very little working; they are immediately meaningful and only require our willingness to receive them. Each dreamer has a dream iconography for joy: images that signal the presence of hope, comfort, connection, sweetness or fun. For me, yellow birds (goldfinches, Wilson’s warblers, evening grosbeaks) come in dreams often when I’m grieving, to recall my own soul to me, bringing light in the dark. Flight and song are two qualities that make birds likely harbingers of joy in dreams. Do you dream of birds? Do you fly with them? Sing with them? Can you feel their brightness?

Music features in many of our joyous dreams, too. Sometimes, I dream of singing or playing an instrument in a public place where others join in spontaneously, so we become a “flash mob” of sheer exuberant playfulness. I sing “Oh What A Beautiful Morning!” or “Let’s Go Fly A Kite!” and the music makes me emerge from sleep “with a song in my heart.” These dreams remind me of a dream-like waking experience I had in my teens… I was riding a Boston subway at rush hour in August after a long workday, standing pressed against sweaty strangers, when I started contrarily singing “Jingle Bells” under my breath. Other passengers caught the mood and soon a dozen of us were singing Christmas carols (some could actually carry a tune). We started with the jaunty melodies, releasing our inhibitions and forgetting our weary misery with unseasonable mirth. Then something shifted; we began to harmonize, our voices softened. Eventually I stepped off that baking hot subway car on that sunny afternoon as the cool, gentle glory of “Silent Night” rose behind me. Joyous dreams can make memorable music like that, too, transcending our expectations with a paradoxical blend of merriment and holiness.

When I was younger, I felt the giddy bliss of my joyous dreams mostly in my throat, as if I had literally swallowed a song and couldn’t contain it. Such dreams were fresh winds lifting me; I woke up weightless. But these days I feel my joyous dreams deep in my chest or belly, and I dream of swimming, diving downward. I wake up trusting, supported by the liquid density of the dark, safe waters that surround me.

Swimming in the Stone Cellar: A friend takes me to a famous healing spring in the off-hours, at night, when no other swimmers are present. The spring is located in the stone-walled cellar of a ruined stone building. Perfectly clear cool water fills the cellar to the top of the steep stairs. We descend the steps, and swim down to where we can pass from room to room underwater, exploring. It is beautiful and spacious and deep—the water so pure that it is essentially invisible, like swimming in clear air.

Later, we return during the daytime, for a last swim before we will have to leave (we’re traveling together, visiting sacred sites like this one). Now there’s a line of people waiting for access, and groups of 10 or 12 at a time are admitted to swim together in the healing spring. It won’t be quite as awesome as swimming in the privacy of the night, but I’m still looking forward to the water, and to sharing this wonder with others.

I needed this dream, and I still feel the joy of it like the tingly glow of warming skin after a plunge in cold water. Health setbacks over the past year repeatedly broke my spirit, leaving me, sometimes, without strength, courage or hope. Worldwide crises—COVID, plus environmental, political, economic and social disasters—have been dreadful in ways shared by by virtually every living being, and yet perhaps the most terrible aspect of these crises is how they have cut us off from each other. Joyous dreams are holy healing springs, miraculously bubbling up in the stone ruins of our lives, and their restorative waters invite us to dive deep. As in my dream, we will find joyous restoration in the peaceful privacy of the night with those closest to us, but it is also vital that we “return later, in the daytime” to share joy with others. Overcoming our “social distancing” to recover our trust in one another, our trust in potential healing—this is the challenge we face now, and as we heal, individually and collectively, we will rely on our joyous dreams to remind us that happiness is still possible. We can help each other to remember this by sharing the joy whenever possible.

As I was working on this article, I received a couple of dreams from dreamers sharing their joy. Both dreams describe meaningful transformation. They are not just expressions of joy itself, but also convey change: an emergence into joy from something perhaps less easy to share. In one dream, there’s a movement from heavy greyness or meaninglessness into sacred space, and in the other a movement from night into morning. In both cases, the brightness of joy seems more fully felt because of the darkness that precedes it. This visceral contrast invites those with whom the dream is shared to resonate with joy: we recognize darkness or heaviness in ourselves, and then respond with relief to the bright opening that the dream represents. I’m grateful to these two dreamers for their sharing, and delighted to be passing their joy on to you. I’m also grateful to my own dreams—particularly those that have followed a similar pattern of emergence from difficulty or crisis into an unexpected joy—so I offer you one of these as well. It felt fitting to render these dream-gifts and my responses as a kind of conversation. May you en-joy all three, and dream on from there.

First Dreamer:

“I am a novice in a convent in a city that has a Mediterranean feel. I am looking at an arched stone window just before dawn. Another novice and I climb out the window and onto the red tile roof, looking across the city. As the sky lightens, the bells all over the city begin to ring, making loud booming noises I can hear through the soles of my feet, making a beautiful harmony. I begin to chant, ‘Bells, bells, bells!’ When I awake, I am still saying/singing to myself, ‘bells, bells, bells,’ and there is a feeling of euphoria at the dawn and the sounds.”

My Response:

I love the embodiment that this dream expresses, as the bells are not only heard but actually felt “through the soles of my feet” and echoed in the chant of “Bells, bells, bells!” The ringing joy is a heady, euphoric experience shared with another “novice,” and also a grounding experience that reverberates through the body; the sound is in the air and in the earth itself. Climbing out through the window and seeing the city from the rooftop suggests actively coming out of a private world and into a collective one, going out to meet the day and the “bells, bells, bells” that might be an inside-out version of the words “bless, bless, bless.” This dream carries a promise of blessing and a dawning of hope. May it be so.

Second dreamer:

“…in the middle of this grey and uncomfortable landscape I had a lovely vision of a protected space, like a bower, with a nuthatch in it. It was a beautiful and sacred place graced with this lovely bird. The image stayed with me and I painted it. By the time I was done, I was very happy! I started to see nuthatches at my feeder shortly afterwards. They had not visited me before.”

My Response:

This dream charmed me because nuthatches have brought me joy since I was a child. These birds have an ungainly shape, but a crazy kind of grace as they zig-zag around the trunks of trees: up, down and sideways. They sound off with a nasal “beep, beep, beep” (a comic version of the “bells, bells, bells” in the previous dream) which can be hilarious when fledglings chorus together, practicing their calls like kids talking over one other, all trying to tell some big news first. Dreaming of this bird in a sacred context, and then being visited by nuthatches in waking life invites simple delight as much as awe. The nuthatch overturns expectations, representing a humble yet powerful beauty and dignity. If we prepare sacred, protected places within ourselves and in our world to welcome these messengers of joy, they will indeed visit.

Third Dreamer (me):

I’m on a crowded bus. As we come to a narrow, winding mountain road, I see that the driver has abandoned his seat. Horrified, I take the seat and try to keep the bus in its lane, but steering is difficult and visibility is poor; I can’t control this huge vehicle so I keep swinging into the oncoming lane, narrowly avoiding accidents. I can’t keep this up for long.

Then we’re going backward. There’s a driver’s seat at the other end of the bus, so I rush back there, and find a small girl driving this big rig! I can’t imagine how she’s doing it, but she’s managing. We’re coming into the city now, approaching the terminal. We need to slow down. I tell her to put her whole weight on the brake; her legs are too short so she has to release the steering wheel and slide off the seat to get both feet onto the brake pedal, slowing us just enough. As we hit the rear wall of the garage, I throw myself over her to shield her from the impact. The windshield cracks but doesn’t shatter, and there’s only a bump.

We’re safe and everyone is cheering. I hug the girl, telling her how incredibly brave and capable she is. I’m filled with love and joy.

My Response:

Joy is intergenerational: we pass it on to our children along with the burdens and responsibilities we also hand over to them. This dream has many personal associations for me, but the collective story seems more interesting: the feeling here isn’t just relief at averting catastrophe, it’s an individual triumph extended to and for everyone on the journey. The passengers all cheer as they feel what I’m feeling, what the Buddhist tradition calls sympathetic joy—delight in the happiness or success of others (which benefits us all). There’s a profound shift from the front of the bus where the adult (“I”) struggled for control, to the back of the bus where a child has assumed the driver’s seat. My joy, as the adult, comes from seeing the child succeed where I could not. My role is to encourage and protect rather than to drive, and I can throw my whole body into that role just as the child throws her whole weight onto the brake pedal to slow us down.

Sympathetic joy, shared joy, is essential to us as a species. Our survival depends on our delight in one another as we recognize that everyone on this bus is essential: some of us drive, some of us witness, all of us cheer each other on. Thank you for being essential, and thank you for your joy—wherever you find it.

[This article was originally published in two parts, in the Fall, 2021 and Winter, 2022 issues of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Virtual Reality & Dreaming, Part 2

August 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[This is a recent article I wrote for DreamTime Magazine to take my exploration of Virtual Reality and dreaming a step further.]

I enter a hidden workshop, and find the tools for making and decorating an ornate mask. Wearing the mask I’ve made, I’m transported to another world where I glimpse a figure in the distance who is also wearing a mask. I return to my workshop, make a copy of the stranger’s mask, put it on, and become that stranger. I’m standing where the stranger was standing, doing what the stranger was doing! By wearing different masks, becoming different people, I am able to travel further and further into an unfolding story….

This doesn’t sound exactly like a dream—the events and images are a bit more predictable than in a typical dream—but it definitely has some dream-like elements: identity and perspective shift, and the mythical settings, vivid sense impressions and compelling narrative create a pervasive quality of significance and wonder. The experience of maskmaking prompts me to question myself and examine my own responses as if responding to a dream. I ask myself: How does my personality change in different contexts? Am I driven to acquire more and more powerful disguises, to conquer more and more worlds, or am I searching for a meaningful relationship with my own creativity and integrity?

You may have guessed by now that I’ve been describing a Virtual Reality game. A couple years ago, I wrote a column about VR here, but at the time I was a newby and by now I’ve become something of an “expert,” at least on the softer side of VR (there’s a whole range of hardcore violent VR that I’ve avoided). Although VR games are not entirely dream-like, they’re more like dreams than like ordinary video games, and I’ve been studying them extensively to learn not only how they can contribute to my own healing from PTSD, but also to better understand how this medium might be helpful in responding to much greater questions and concerns in the world today. In short, I’ve come to believe that, at its best, VR can contribute to our sense of safety and belonging by supporting our natural creativity, resilience, patience, playfulness, and openness.

VR mobilizes some of the same inner resources as dreams. Like a powerful dream, a well-crafted VR game gives us problems we can solve; it engages our bodies and emotions, as well as our minds, in finding answers and facing challenges. So, if you haven’t yet experienced it for yourself, I’d like to invite you to try on the “mask”—a VR headset. Now, you are the mask-maker, stepping into the stranger’s VR world, and I can give you a brief guided tour.

The Maskmaker falls into the genre of problem-solving VR games, and many of our dreams focus on problem-solving as well. These games or dreams can be fairly mundane and practical (basic VR puzzles or simulations might be compared to dreams about doing the dishes or studying for exams), but the better ones are wildly imaginative and immersive. Ordinary activities in dreams or VR like gardening, cooking, driving, crafts or sports (there’s VR snowboarding, believe it or not) can activate the senses and refresh our mindfulness about the things we do in our everyday lives. In fact, dreams and VR both improve our “real world” problem-solving skills because our brains don’t distinguish between dream experiences, Virtual Reality experiences, and “Real Reality” experiences: as far as our brains are concerned, they are all learning experiences. But dreams and VR also offer possibilities that RR doesn’t offer. Sure you can fly, you can breathe underwater… but did you know you could raise manatee-triceratops-cows and feed them kebabs? or solve a mystery at an abandoned space outpost? or figure out how to pickle a tractor? These dream-like games become their own real reality and you forget that they are “virtual” just as you might forget that you are dreaming. You are challenged to consider different ways of approaching not only the virtual or dream worlds, but also the world you inhabit every day. When you are fixing breakfast, could you manage it if you had baseball bats for arms? Do you suppose your computer might be curious about where you go on vacation? What would your shadow look like if you were living inside a mirror within a mirror within a mirror?

It’s so easy to become stuck in patterns of thought that not only make our own lives smaller, but actually endanger those around us and the earth itself. Climate catastrophe, rampant bigotry, brutality and greed are all the results of limited, shallow thinking, choices and actions. I believe that dreams deepen us by giving us a glimpse of possibilities beyond our own immediate interests and expectations. VR can do the same. Both VR and dreams regularly use humor (especially silly exaggerration and surprise) to keep us from being too sure of ourselves, inviting our minds to do absurd stretching exercises that will ultimately make us more flexible.

The biggest stretch for the mind might be to fully include the body. Yes, a lot of VR games literally give you a workout, but there are a few that go far beyond the virtual gym. Some VR sports, and some music games like the one called Beat Saber, approach the ecstatic. Our “real world” teaches us to be bodiless, except when we are taking exercise like bitter medicine. In VR, exercise can be bliss. In Beat Saber, for example, you are simply cutting colored blocks with a light saber but the exquisitely choreographed rhythm patterns become increasingly complex with each level, and your body becomes joyously, magically, more and more free. It’s remarkable what the body (even a tired old body like mine!) can do without the mind’s excessive coaching from the sidelines.

If you dream that you are strong, beautiful, capable—it’s not just “pretend.” You actually wake up feeling stronger, more beautiful, more capable. The nerve pathways and micro-muscles have been sparking; you’ve been expanding your idea of who you are, and extending your body’s limits (limits that probably aren’t as absolute as your mind believes). In a VR game like Beat Saber, you discover this same dream-like potential of the embodied self, and you suddenly know, really know, body and soul, that you have greater inner resources than you could have guessed. And, when you can know this in an embodied way, it means that maybe we all have far more resources than we could have guessed. With such resources—just maybe—there’s more hope for our present lives, and for the future of our world.

The power of dreaming, and of Virtual Reality, can be abused, of course. When you put on a mask, the disguise can define you or disguise you in dangerous ways. But if you take responsibility for who you become, you can create all kinds of masks and choose how to wear them. I hope that those who know how to dream deeply and wisely will be the ones to create the future of VR, and the future of our shared “Real Reality” as well. Those dreamers could be us.

[This article was originally published in the Spring, 2023 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Virtual Reality & Dreaming, Part 1

July 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[At the peak of COVID, I wrote this article about a technology that was (and still is) meaningful for me in coping with difficult circumstances. More recently, I wrote a second article to consider the ways that my experience of Virtual Reality had evolved, so I’ll share that here as well—in Part 2, next month. Both of these articles reflect upon the similarities and differences between dreaming and VR. My personal priority in doing dreamwork has always revolved around the potential for opening our minds to new possibilities, so exploring VR from this angle comes naturally to me. I hope that you will find the subject as intriguing as I do!]

The new Virtual Reality technology, now available for reasonably-priced popular use, opens up some breath-taking possibilities, that might be applied to our dreaming and waking lives. With a heavy “visor” (resembling diving goggles) and simple hand controls, you experience a fresh reality. It’s incredibly persuasive. VR isn’t exactly a dream, but can potentially provide a dream-like alchemical recipe for personal and social transformation.

I was introduced to this technology as a patient in a Pain Clinic this past summer. I had severe PTSD a year after traumatic spinal surgery, and for months I’d been having episodes of excruciating back spasms that couldn’t be controlled, my heart rhythms were unstable, and my nervous system was in shreds. Slowly and with great care, the pain experts were guiding my healing, and that process included an experimental trial with Virtual Reality.

In my first VR session, I found myself floating down a sparkling river canyon while giant otters on all sides waited for me to shoot rainbow fish to them. This was actually a pretty rudimentary VR program, and the session only lasted ten minutes, but it gave me a sense of glorious spaciousness, relief from pain and anxiety, and a chance to encounter a truly unthreatening experience with the joy of a child discovering the world for the first time. Like an ecstatic dream, it freed my mind and heart.

I probably needed this experience more than the average person because of my health issues, but we could all use an opening right now. In the era of COVID, the small world we inhabit can seem tedious and stifling, when it’s not outright alarming. Our imaginations may suffer from a lack of meaningful inspiration and a surfeit of distracting or overwhelming stimulation. These times only accentuate our human tendency to get stuck in repetitive patterns that create and perpetuate suffering. Confined to an over-familiar environment, masked and buffered from our neighbors, perhaps faced with desperate stresses and choices, we share only screen presence and grow sick of the confines of our own minds.

Maybe we are fortunate enough not to be immediately afflicted by economic pressures, environmental disasters, family emergencies, health concerns or existential crises. Still, for most of us, the past year has brought some hard reckonings with the limitations of our way of life. So where can we go for a new perspective? Of course, we turn to dreams. But, dreams can sometimes be difficult to access, especially if our waking lives are energetically exhausting. Virtual Reality could be a powerful tool for reaching new parts of our brains using the same approach that dreams use to develop and exercise under-used neurological pathways, expanding our mental breathing room and creative possibilities. And, as a side benefit, VR can accentuate dreams themselves, making them more vivid and easier to recall.

Of course, any technology that offers instant sensory gratification can become problematic if it leads to avoidant or addictive behavior. On a gloomy, wet winter day, confined to my stuffy little house, it might be too easy to retreat completely into this thrilling realm of color and light. But I can resist the impulse to overdo it: the visor is rather uncomfortable, and the natural world outside is actually where I want to live my life. Just as even the most pleasant dreams don’t usually tempt us to sleep our days away, VR can enhance our appreciation of our RR (Real Reality), rather than enticing us to escape from it.

Some members of my Pain Clinic team have been studying the therapeutic possibilities of VR. With my own home system now, I’m doing research on their (and my own) behalf—reporting back as I explore some of the most recent popular “games,” to assess the benefits and challenges that Virtual Reality might offer neurological patients like myself, or anyone experiencing “real world” stress, depression or anxiety.

I’ve been swimming with whales, gazing into unfolding mandalas, hanging by my fingertips from cliff faces, planting magical gardens, tumbling down rabbit holes, encountering thrilling surprises and staggering beauty… all while sitting comfortably in a chair. Though many of the apps designed for VR are just glorified video games full of high-speed, combat-oriented, adrenaline-pumping action, it is also possible to find apps that create a positive, transformative virtual environment. These apps, described as “experiences” rather than “games,” are remarkably similar to dreams in their capacity to challenge stale patterns of perception and thought. Personally, I try to enter a virtual world with the same respectful, even reverent, curiosity with which I approach my dreams. I expect to be astonished, sometimes confused or frustrated, often delighted, occasionally blown away. I know I will learn something.

With some apps, there are puzzles to be solved—but unlike with my everyday problems, I feel invited to linger and explore rather than pressured to figure things out. Other apps are simply playful, peaceful, or lovely—offering a sense of expansiveness and joy that comes as a tremendous relief when the world seems to present only dark prospects.

One of my favorite VR apps lets me experience the intense challenge of high altitude rock-climbing. In waking life or even in dreams I have severe vertigo and couldn’t begin to tackle these heights. But while the VR experience is vividly realistic, the vertigo is manageable, and I can glory in being thousands of feet above the ground, grappling for a grip on crumbling sandstone. It’s great training for a nervous system that has been primed by PTSD to react to every challenge as a major threat. VR climbing makes my palms sweat and activates the small muscles throughout my body; I grunt and gasp as I struggle upward; I fall again and again, try again and again, until I clamber onto the top. The tension mounts, and my nervous system gets charged up. But I’m learning to de-escalate, transforming raw fear into concentrated focus, vitality, and sensitivity to my environment. In climb after climb, I’m able to take risks in a safe space and discover how strong I am, how resilient I am. I’m learning to trust my own body again. A life-like, perhaps dream-inspired, “game” intended for popular entertainment, invented by people I will never meet, has given me a personal opportunity to heal and grow.

The past year has presented us with challenges that our old, familiar patterns of thought and behavior couldn’t meet. We’ve all needed to dream up new ways of being hopeful, new ways of trusting that we can change for the better. VR can be more than a personal tool or toy; it can be a social catalyst. We can co-create this reality as “players,” by choosing how we conduct ourselves within any given situation.

When I say “this reality,” I’m not just talking about VR now, I’m talking about a potential that exists in all of our experiences, which are never “just a game” or “just a dream” or “just the same old thing.” Whatever we do to heal and inspire ourselves, we invariably share with one another just by living together in our own unique, multifaceted time and place. So, please believe that there are wonders everywhere—it’s all a kind of dream—and let yourself be surprised, virtually and truly, every moment!

[This article was originally published in the Spring, 2021 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Dreaming Emotional Experience

May 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[This “Dream Alchemy” column, written in 2020, describes how the strong emotions experienced in dreams can contribute to emotional flexibility and resourcefulness. Sometimes emotions in dreams can be overwhelming, and, as in the case of nightmares, may even cause the dreamer to close down rather than open up. Still, dreams always have the potential to be healing and meaningful, though framing the experience of the dream in a positive way is essential. I hope that this article serves as a positive frame for even the more difficult dreaming, and waking, experiences.]

Dreams are often emotionally intense. They can exaggerate ordinary feelings to a ridiculous degree, but they can also give us an opportunity to experience our most profound emotions in their full richness and complexity. It would be impractical to feel everything so intensely under ordinary circumstances in our waking lives. We might be moved by the death of a neighbor’s old dog, or frightened by the prospect of giving a presentation, or angered by a politician—but generally those emotions are contained within socially appropriate bounds. In dreams, however, we may discover our tremendous capacity for passionate, consuming and often contradictory feelings. Discharging strong emotion in dreams can be healthy, relieving us of repressed energies. More significantly, I believe that our dream feelings can help us to know ourselves, acquainting us with the depth and breadth of the emotional faculties that allow us to experience the world as we do.

I’ve been reading a thick book about 9/11. The subject matter is certainly disturbing, and the book isn’t particularly well-written as it tumbles repeatedly into the twin traps of sensationalism and sentimentality. Yet I keep on reading, because immersing myself in the details of this iconic catastrophe gives me a chance to witness, from many different angles, how we human beings respond to shocking, overwhelming circumstances. I want to understand who we are in the immediacy of extremity. How do we cope with chaos and pain? How do we face death? How do we make sense of the incomprehensible? How do we interact with one another in the midst of shared crisis? What makes us compassionate and courageous, and what makes us lose ourselves in selfishness?

The heroic stories from 9/11 have become legendary, representing the best responses that we might have in a desperate situation. But there are other stories, too: stories of the terrified people who abandoned injured companions or ignored pleading strangers; stories of officials who couldn’t face the sheer horror of the situation and persisted in following inapplicable protocols—ordering people to return to their offices, assuring them that everything was under control. Such unhelpful (or even harmful) responses are just as natural as the heroic ones, but we all hope that we’d come through with courage and compassion in a crisis. Among the survivors, it’s often those who were not heroes who suffer the most excruciating after-effects of a tragedy, in shame, self-justification or regret.

So, what makes the difference? I don’t think heroic behavior comes only to those with special training or religious faith, or to unusually “good” people as my 9/11 book simplistically implies. My sense, after reading these stories, is that those who are already familiar with their own intense emotions can more often choose to act on their strong, natural feelings of empathy in spite of their equally strong, natural feelings of fear. In a crisis, both kinds of feelings will arise simultaneously, but some people manage to make brave choices about how to respond to those feelings and some don’t. If we know from past experience how profoundly afraid we can feel, then we’re less likely to be overwhelmed when our feelings are most extreme. If we’ve felt this way before, then we’re less likely to ignore the reality of a terrifying situation because we can’t face the fear, and less likely to deny our empathic connection with others who are also afraid.

Few of us have felt such a nightmarish level of fear in our waking lives, but many of us have felt it in dreams. Our dreams may provide us with an opportunity to practice the full range of our emotions, so that those emotions won’t take us by surprise and overwhelm us in a crisis. Just having access to our own emotional range also expands our repertoire of responses in any situation, and makes us more resilient human beings. And, finally, the intensity of dream emotion can give us a more vivid experience of our whole selves, showing us who we really are and can be.

In dreams, I’ve been in a village under siege when the enemy breaks through the gates. I’ve been accosted in a dark parking lot. I’ve been stalked by a monster. In these kinds of dreams, I’ve been amazed and ashamed to find myself in the kind of panic that prevents me from caring about anything other than saving myself. Since the emotional centers of the brain are more active in dreams, I get a glimpse of how visceral and irresistible my fear can be. Dreams also show me how compelling desire can be, how violent rage can be, how wrenching grief can be.

I don’t know if those who behaved courageously in the surreal horror of 9/11 had previously “practiced” with fear in their dreams, but I strongly suspect that they were all people who had some previous experience of their own vulnerability. If we’ve never been vulnerable, we might expect that we can handle most situations, and we’re not likely to respond well when control, even of our own emotions, becomes impossible. But if we’ve felt the raw vulnerability of being emotionally triggered (in dreams or in waking life), we’re less likely to need to deny our unfamiliarly out-of-control “negative” feelings, and we’re more capable of choosing which feelings to act upon. During the events of 9/11, many of those who managed to follow their courage and compassion in the midst of their terror were later able to integrate the pain of what had happened rather than be broken by it, because they had connected with something within themselves more deeply meaningful than the fear.

Dreams show us the “positive” feelings as well as the “negative” ones. In one of my recent dreams, a friend of mine who has been in a wheelchair for over twenty years suddenly recovers the ability to walk: She looks radiantly healthy; her injuries are healed. Joy and tenderness well up in me. In tears, we lock eyes. I reach out to touch her shoulder, her cheek, unable to find words. The feelings we share in this moment fill us completely: wonder, love, exquisite hope…

I can’t describe the power of these dream emotions. For the first time, I felt how profoundly moving it would be to see my friend standing, walking. In waking life, this friend and I know each other well and can speak openly about many things, but we never express, or directly experience, feelings this intense. I know that I care about her, and feel saddened at the thought of the challenges she faces on a daily basis, but I didn’t realize how very deeply I care. There’s some obvious projection in this dream, since I’m just beginning to allow myself to imagine the possibility that my own physical disabilities might heal—so the wonderful tenderness I feel is, on one level, for my own potential healing as well as for my friend’s. In the dream, I care more deeply for her, and for myself, than I could ever have imagined. But, the central experience of the dream is uninhibited joy—an emotional vulnerability and openness that extends beyond either of us to encompass all beings everywhere as we struggle with limitations and pain, yet long to stand in the shining wholeness of who we really are.

When we allow ourselves to feel all of our emotions, as we do in dreams, we are likely to find that profound compassion coexists with fear. Our capacity to feel is virtually infinite. Our best actions can arise out of the fullness of our feelings. No matter what challenges we face, we can recognize ourselves in each other, and choose to feel with and for each other. In moments of extremity, we can’t know who will behave heroically and who will not—but we will all be longing to live up to the best in ourselves. Even if we can’t literally stand and walk, even if we can’t simultaneously feel our fear and act on our courageous love, we can trust that the potential for every possible response exists within each of us. We can feel it in our dreams.

[This article was originally published in the Winter, 2020 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

The Ninth Dog Guards The Threshold

April 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[This “Dream Alchemy” column, first published in DreamTime magazine in 2019, includes a dream that still raises questions in my mind about the true meaning of healing. Now, more than four years after it was written, I’m touched by the innocence of my approach to the dream, my idea that the “ninth dog” resting across the threshold and blocking my way, might be suggesting that my need for rest would require nine weeks, after which I would be ready to return to life. Healing turns out to be a much more complicated process—and the dream, too, is rich with imagery that I don’t/can’t fully understand. Dreams are mysterious; they don’t offer formulaic answers to our questions, though they do allow us glimpses of potentials, impressions and openings. In this dream, the experience of the dreaming itself was a form of healing that unfolded over nine weeks, nine months, and beyond. Some healing is completed, some is perpetually in process. My intention is to remain aware of my own changing understanding over time.]

What are your intentions as you work with dreams? Whether we are researchers, artists, therapists, educators or explorers, our dreams can be some of the most powerful, potentially sacred, experiences in our lives, and we should approach them intentionally and respectfully.

Whatever we bring into the world, the intentions that guide our actions really do matter. That was true for the ancient alchemists, too. If their intentions were selfish, their experiments were likely to end in flames and failure rather than successfully realizing greedy dreams of gold, power, and immortality.

When I offer workshops (about dreams or anything else), I always begin by sharing my intentions for this gathering of people, this unique event:

I intend that we will be reminded of things we already know.
I intend that we will learn something new.
I intend that something special will happen among us: an alchemy that can take place only here and now.
I intend that whatever happens here and now will expand outward to touch others and spread beyond our imagining.

These intentions are very broad, of course. I think they can be applied to many different kinds of endeavors, and they can certainly be applied to dreamwork. Dreams themselves serve all of the purposes expressed by these intentions: they remind us of what we already know; they show us something new; they create an experience in themselves; and they can expand beyond any one dreamer’s experience to reach others in ever-expanding ways.

Here’s a dream that expresses these intentions clearly:

The Ninth Dog Guards the Threshold: I’m in deep woods, being chased by a pack of wolfhounds. They are not mean dogs—but they are guard dogs, and I am in their territory. For refuge, I run to an isolated house; an older woman meets me at the screen door and lets me in. The dogs come in, too, but she provides protection and will help me deal with them. She explains that we can’t manage the dogs as a pack—each dog needs something different. One dog needs information, understanding. Other dogs need other things: some have emotional needs (comfort, kindness, patience, reassurance); some have physical needs (petting, feeding, healing, play). The dogs become calmer and friendlier in the woman’s presence, and I know I can follow her example and be safe with them. But now the woman is speaking urgently, calling for my full attention: “Not all the dogs are here! Where is the ninth dog?” I am confused by the question. Why does it matter whether they are all here or not? Also, there are only six dogs—are there supposed to be nine? She’s insistent, so I recognize that the ninth dog is especially important. I look for him, and find him. Unlike the other dogs, he’s a black lab. He’s sleeping on the threshold of the doorway where I entered. He wakes, stands up wagging his tail drowsily, greets me, then lies back down. He’s not threatening at all—but not budging either. He won’t let me cross the threshold until it is time. For now, we must let him sleep.

The dream helpfully reminded me of something I already knew. I was recovering from spinal surgery, and the wolfhounds expressed the many urgent needs that were “hounding” me. I would have to tend those needs one by one, in a safe place, under the guidance of the wise woman who represented my own inner wisdom. The last dog affirmed my need for rest, and I couldn’t cross the threshold and return to active life until all the dogs were satisfied, especially that one.

I also learned something new. The question “Where is the ninth dog?” led me to wonder about the significance of the number of dogs in the dream. Apparently there were nine dogs: six chasing me, two absent, one guarding the threshold. The specific numbers made sense if I looked at them in terms of time: It had been two weeks since I’d left the hospital (those two dogs were absent because they’d already caught up with me—their needs had been met), but there were still seven more weeks, seven more dogs presenting their immediate needs. I’d hoped to return to work after five weeks of recovery, but the dream suggested I’d need more time—a total of nine weeks. My healing would take longer because there were many physical, emotional and spiritual needs still to be met. The first need was for me to “get” this information, to understand; and the last, most significant need was for rest. Because the wise woman insisted that I find “the ninth dog,” I was compelled to pay attention. As it turned out, I needed those extra weeks since new cardiac problems and pain issues developed, and prolonged rest was absolutely essential to my healing. It wasn’t enough to accept my own needs conceptually—I had to learn what these dogs were asking of me. I had to change my expectations, and my plans. I had to allow myself to be changed.

A powerful alchemy occurred within the direct experience of the dream. I truly felt the fear as those needs threatened to overwhelm me, the relief when I turned inward (entering the house) and found a guide who could respond wisely. I felt genuine recognition when I found the sleepy “ninth dog” on the threshold, and acknowledged my own profound longing to rest, to satisfy the simplest and deepest need of all. This was the need that lay behind every other need, gently but firmly preventing me from crossing the threshold. The “black lab” was the blackness of night, the transformative laboratory of sleep and dreams where authentic healing can occur—a place where I could rest in the deep darkness of my inner unknowing, to be restored and recreated.

So, this dream spoke to all of my personal intentions: I was reminded, guided, inspired and changed—and after all of the dogs had been satisfied, I was released to share what I had learned by living this dream in the world, letting its meaning expand and spread beyond me. All sacred ceremonies follow a similar pattern. Like our dreams, they are shaped by fundamental spiritual intentions that include revisiting the wisdom we already hold, making new discoveries, invoking and inviting transformation… And, finally, there’s a “sending forth,” where the individual and collective experience of the this unique time and place can be scattered like pollen on the wind, to seed new possibilities, new dreams.

Perhaps every dream is a kind of ceremony that potentially expresses our best intentions, holding us in the crucible of transformation (guarded by the “black lab” of sleep, and “hounded” to meet our own essential human needs), until we can be “sent forth” to share that which has changed us.

[This article was originally published in the Fall, 2019 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Pass It On

March 7, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[My second “Dream Alchemy” column, first published in DreamTime magazine in 2019, is concerned with transformation and also the sharing of gifts. The dream I share here was certainly a gift in my own life—in fact, only a few days ago, this dream came back to me and the memory of it helped me through a long night when I was feeling ill and disconnected. The dream reminded me that I belong to a human lineage, and that belonging carries both responsibilities and blessings. I hope that the “bread” of this dream will nourish you, as it nourishes me.]

In keeping with the theme of “Dream Alchemy,” I’d like to consider some of the transformative processes at the heart of both alchemy and dreamwork. Alchemical change occurs when something ordinary is subjected to various procedures (heating, cooling, distilling, coalescing…) until something extraordinary happens. The remarkable result of alchemical experimentation is the transformation of a dark heavy substance (prima materia, like lead or feces) into a substance of great value (usually gold), or into a potion with special properties, perhaps an elixir of immortality. Alchemy breaks the rules of our predictable lives, and, metaphorically at least, shows us that true value may be found in unlikely places when various elements (people, circumstances, natural forces, chemical compounds) combine to become more than the sum of their parts. When these components come together in the right way, even time itself can be suspended or reshaped so that, in a sense, we might live forever.

Dreams experiment with these same elements, stretching the bounds of what we believe is possible and offering us infinite abundance, while reminding us that authentic treasures are not to be kept, but to be shared and passed on as wisdom. Here is one such dream:

The Dalai Lama’s dearest friend is dead. He weeps openly. I’m escorting him through the crowd of mourners. He needs to return home, to sleep, but he’s barefoot and there’s snow on the ground. I intend to go get a car to drive him, but I realize that he has become a small, crying child. I can’t leave him alone, so I must carry him. As I lift him, he transforms—becoming an infant, then an adult corpse stiff with rigor mortis, then both simultaneously. I have difficulty carrying him, so I drop all my personal belongings and devote myself to the task completely.

Later, alone, I’m standing in line for the bathroom. The Dalai Lama as a tall young man emerges from the crowd with his retainers. He’s reserved and distracted. I don’t expect him to recognize me. But then I feel his hand on my arm. He asks me to get him a snack—a packet of cookies—from a nearby bakery counter. I get the cookies; he thanks me. This seems to complete the process I began by carrying him earlier. I feel deeply honored to have had a small part in the reincarnation of a holy one.

(I wake from this dream in awe, wondering whether the Dalai Lama has actually died. Outside in the dark, it begins to rain—a downpour—the wind blows hard, the wind chimes ring. There’s lightning, thunder. It’s magical. I return to sleep and the dream continues…)

Now I’m indoors and the whole building fills with people: the Dalai Lama’s entourage, plus a crowd of followers, gathering for the closing ceremony of his visit. A woman from his inner circle brings me a gift. It’s a carafe filled with a thick, yeasty liquid that looks like sourdough starter, with a thin red ribbon tied around the neck of the carafe. She hands the potion to me, saying that it is “for you”—but when I ask if I’m really supposed to keep it, she says “no.” I try to give it back, but she won’t take it, repeating that it’s “for you.” I ask, “Is it mine?” and again she says “no,” but won’t take it back. She leaves. I’m bewildered about what to do with the gift. Holly [my partner] explains that it must be like yeast: we should take some of what I’ve been given and add flour and water so it will grow. Then I can return the original carafe and keep growing more. I can’t “keep it” for myself, but I must “keep it alive.”

For me, the Dalai Lama represents profound wisdom and extraordinary leadership, manifested through an authentic, gracious, humble human being. He is said to be the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion (Avalokiteshvara/ Kwan Yin/ Chenrezig). Having passed through many forms, suffered death and rebirth over and over, the bodhisattva returns endlessly, serves willingly, until all beings can come to full awakening. In my dream, I find myself in the role of literally carrying this awesome loving presence through the transformations of a lifetime. Perhaps this is the true meaning behind all of our lives: we are part of a lineage, carrying forward the awakened potential that is our inheritance, manifesting that potential through all of our actions in this world.

The compassionate grief that the Dalai Lama feels for his friend, and the sense of tender responsibility I feel for the barefoot, crying child provide the energy, the life force, the fire that sets the crucible boiling and makes birth and death and rebirth unfold. The passage of a lifetime is both a difficult task, and a mutual dance of love and blessing.

The dream becomes more ordinary when the Dalai Lama is a young man preoccupied with his responsibilities, and I am just another person waiting my turn to tend to my own physical needs and ablutions. What’s asked of me here is simple: to provide a snack for someone I respect, to offer him a respite in the midst of his daily business. Nothing more is required, yet the “cookies” I offer are a kind of sacrament. The Dalai Lama accepts them matter-of-factly, yet there’s a tacit acknowledgement that the very ordinariness of the gesture has confirmed my part in the whole miracle of compassionate love, passed from one person to another.

I awaken briefly to experience the wonder of the natural world, to participate in it just as I have been participating in the miraculous dream world. Rain, thunder, lightning, wind, windchimes… The music of the spheres, the bubbling of alchemical potions and preparations, the transformation of lifetimes, all offered up as easily as a midnight storm passing through—as I slip back into sleep and return to the dream.

As always, the reward for service to others is ambiguous, and invites new questions, offers new challenges to learn, share and change. The red ribbon around the neck of the carafe is like the red thread that people of many faiths wear as a bracelet, as a reminder of our life-blood and the circular, braided path of our interconnectedness. And what about the liquid inside the carafe? What is this frothy stuff that’s been given into my care? It’s “for me,” but not “mine.” It’s “to keep alive,” but not “to keep.” It’s my very life, and its only value lies in allowing it to develop, to expand, to provide for others, to return to the giver with gratitude but still have plenty left to pass on. What a dream this is! It’s the loaves and fishes, it’s the circle of life, it’s every cliché that conceals a real truth. With such yeasty stuff, we bake the bread of heaven, each tearing off a warm, crusty piece as it’s passed around.

The alchemy of the dream completes itself when the dream is shared. The ordinary becomes extraordinary; the finite becomes infinite. Indeed, the elixir of immortality can be concocted through the deep work of dreaming.

[This article was originally published in the Spring, 2019 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Dream Alchemy

February 6, 2023 / kirstenbackstrom

[Welcome back to Compass Dreamwork! After a three year sabbatical, I’m finally emerging from hibernation, blinking in the sunlight, ready to reconnect. It’s been a difficult time for many of us, and it’s good to return to my dreaming community, to share ideas and, I hope, hear from some of you as well. Instead of writing a regular blog, I’ll be opening up the conversation by posting articles each month that were originally published in my “Dream Alchemy” column for DreamTime magazine. If you’re a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, you might have seen the column, but if not, the articles will be new to you. From time to time, I’ll be sharing other essays and excerpts from various projects I’m working on. I hope you enjoy reading what I’ve written, and I invite your comments. ]

Each night as we sleep, the caldron begins to bubble. Unremarkable raw materials, mixed with infinitesimal droplets of mysterious tinctures, get cooked down to their essential elements. A cleansing steam rises as the impurities are filtered out, and the elements interact in new combinations—sizzling, sparking, shrinking and expanding, changing color. The pungent catalyst of emotion sets off a chemical reaction. Images appear in the drifting smoke. Occasionally, something explodes. Sometimes we have to discard the burnt sludge at the bottom of the beaker and begin again, but often there’s a glimmer of gold. Deep transformation can emerge unexpectedly from the chaotic process of dream creativity, rewarding us with bright insights and alchemical treasures: precious metals, the Philosopher’s Stone, the Universal Solvent, or even the Elixir of Immortality. When we begin to experiment with our dreams, we discover that anything is possible.

As we dream, a strange concoction is created. Whether we see this concoction as a psychological experience, a neurological event, a profound message, or an encounter with other worlds, our dreams represent a dynamic aspect of our lives that can inspire us to experiment. As we explore our dreams, we find ourselves delving into the vital essence of our perceptions, our choices, our beliefs, our relationships, our environment. Dreams are strange. They give us plenty of raw materials, but it’s up to us to simmer, stir, titrate, distill and filter those materials, using our tools and skills to realize their potential. We really don’t know what we’re doing when we’re dreaming, but if we bring curiosity and courage to our dream experiences, we can find authentic valuables in this process of alchemical investigation.

I’m calling this column “Dream Alchemy” because both alchemy and dreamwork have to do with finding meaning and life in a transformative process that includes everything: the worst and the best, the mundane and the miraculous, the corporeal and the ineffable. I’ll be exploring dreams from a wide variety of perspectives, applying what I’ve learned from others and what I’ve discovered through my own alchemical investigations and life experiences.

Because of my particular background and inclinations, I’ll be emphasizing certain aspects of dreams and dreamwork. As a dream alchemist, my apparatus includes:

1) Working with dreams about death, and particularly the kinds of dreams we have when we are ill, grieving, aging or experiencing big life transitions and thresholds. I’ve been exploring my own death dreams, and studying death dreams in hospice chaplaincy, pastoral care and spiritual direction contexts for many years, and they seem to represent a concentrated quintessence of change and renewal.

2) Working especially with unpleasant dreams, difficult dreams and nightmares, because they invite the alchemy of transforming heavy, dark substances like lead (or feces) into gold.

3) Finding meaningful ways that dreams can change the world—exploring the implications of dreamwork as a personal task or quest that can be part of a larger, universal task or quest. The metaphor of dreamwork as pilgrimage is especially significant for me, and I want to explore how the dream-pilgrimage of an individual lifetime reflects and contributes to the shared journey of all living beings, the whole earth, the cosmos.

4) I’ve been a student of world mythologies all my life, because they express central human existential concerns: the nature and origins of our existence, consciousness, identity, reality. Mythologies and dreams are manifestations of our longing for the Philosopher’s Stone, our endless search for meaning, which can be conveyed as story, rich with metaphor, paradox and mystery.

5) Fun and creativity! I love turning dreams (and waking life) upside down and inside out, like an alchemist messing about with ingredients, stirring up and sometimes exploding the “stuff” of our waking and dreaming experiences so that new and surprising substances can come into being.

There’s a lot of dream alchemy ahead in this column… so, watch this space!

Here’s a dream, to play with:

Giving Away the Marble: An older, wiser woman has a lot of wonderful small objects: marbles of all kinds and tiny stone animals of all species. I get to keep a few of them, and I’m trying to choose. A man with a toddler is nearby—I offer the boy a little giraffe (now a stuffed toy rather than stone) and a clear marble that reflects everything upside-down. He accepts the giraffe, but ignores the marble. I roll the marble on the floor, and it becomes much larger, the size of an earth globe. It is mostly clear, a slightly irregular glass sphere with sparkling lights in it. I pick it up (it’s heavy!) and feel its shape—finding it beautiful. Now, the man would like to have it, but I would like to keep it. I decide to give it to him.

Alchemical transformations occur in this dream: the stone giraffe becomes a stuffed toy; the marble, when rolled on the ground, becomes a sparkling glass globe; my desire to keep these treasures becomes a willingness to give them away. Gifts are passed on from generation to generation as the old, wise woman gives them to me, and I give them to the small boy and his young father.

What are these gifts? They are simple, toy-like, and “wonderful”—the kinds of gifts we all need to inspire our growth and development. The child accepts a giraffe—an awkward yet graceful creature with a long neck, reaching for the heights—just as this child will eventually, inevitably, grow into the longing aspirations and awkward grace of adolescence. Instead of a hard stone animal, this giraffe has become a soft toy, supple and comforting.

I’m a woman in late middle-age, so the gifts I choose (marble and giraffe) represent things that I can appreciate but know I can’t really keep. I recognize that the child should have the chance to choose, too. The marble is still mine for now—the spherical glass jewel that reflects everything within it upside-down… but then I roll it on the ground, on the earth, and it grows into an entire globe-like world, slightly irregular, imperfect, but full of sparkling light. It is heavy, too heavy for one person to carry forever. Even Atlas had difficulty carrying the whole earth; I can’t carry it for long. Much as I’d like to hold onto my important role of bearing the weight of this beautiful world, I recognize that the next generation needs to receive it from me. And so I give it away, just as I gave away the giraffe. Maybe now I’ve become the wise old woman myself, passing on the blessings I have in abundance.

The shifting shapes of our dreams give their gifts freely, playfully, to the holy alchemical fire that will transform them. We grow, age, choose, offer, receive. Let’s explore the transformative power of our dreams together, sharing the gold that results from our experimentation. I’ll be looking forward to the expanding possibilities of this column, and the dream-alchemy we can create together.

[This article was originally published in the Winter, 2019 issue of DreamTime Magazine. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to DreamTime by joining the International Association for the Study of Dreams ]

Changes in Compass Dreamwork

January 31, 2020 / kirstenbackstrom

Everything is always changing, and that’s good, of course—but also often sad. Without change, there would be stagnation and death, but where there’s change, there are endings as well as new beginnings.

A lot of clichés! Admittedly, I’m stalling here. It’s hard to write this, but I won’t be maintaining the Compass Dreamwork blog on a regular basis any longer. We’ve been dreaming together in this blog for seven years now, and seven years marks a completed cycle. I’ve begun to repeat myself, so it’s time to pause… look around… listen…

I don’t yet know what’s coming next. If you enjoy reading my work, there will still be occasional posts coming through on Compass Dreamwork: maybe some surprise blog articles from time to time, and some reprints of articles published elsewhere. There’s also a huge archive here on the site (if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can browse through the “Categories” menu and pick posts on any topic you choose). And, of course, I’d love to have you read (or perhaps re-read?) my book, Just Walk.

Among the potential projects I’m considering is a sequel to Just Walk… called Just Wait. Also, a book on dreams is brewing. However, my biggest project, for now, is just waiting, just dreaming. I’ve made a commitment not to let myself become busy. It’s time for spaciousnes and patience, time to breathe, to live.

Wishing you all the time you need in your life, too.

Thank you, for the ways that you have nurtured my work —your reading, your insights, your comments and questions. I trust that the community we’ve made together will continue, in new ways. I’ll be in touch with you, when the time is right.

Walk Softly On The Earth: Tenderfoot Dreams

January 15, 2019 / kirstenbackstrom

When someone shares a dream about feet in one of my regular dream groups, there’s often a humorous tone to the discussion. The dreamer usually presents the dream in a light-hearted way, and the group members may respond with laughter. Feet seem to be inherently a bit comical, or maybe it’s just the way we dream of them. In our dreams, we walk on tiptoes, hop, skip or trip over our own feet; we find ourselves wearing bunny slippers or someone else’s old loafers; our shoes are missing or mismatched; our socks have holes; we have luminous toenails or too many toes… Feet appear fairly commonly in dreams, and the preponderance of foot-related silliness can make these dreams seem trivial. But feet can be significant. In fact, awake or asleep, we need our feet. There’s a reason that feet are sometimes called “dogs.” Like our canine friends, our feet can be trusted. They are faithful, sometimes funny, often brave. They serve us with love, and their service is both practical and spiritual.

For much of my life, I didn’t really understand my feet. They seemed somehow embarrassing. I broke my ankle when I was three (racing down a slippery hallway in my socks) and was prone to sprains, so I always thought of my feet as a weak point. My arches were too high, my toes too long… I avoided going barefoot because my feet just seemed so naked.But when I really needed them, those feet stepped up. When I was training to walk the Camino de Santiago in 2016, I worried that they would fail me, but they just got stronger. The further I walked, the stronger they got. During that 500 mile trudge across northern Spain, I began to realize that my feet are sacred, and very dear. I learned to care for them, as they care for me. Though they sometimes ache with all their hard work, they carry me easily, and they’ve become muscular and beautiful in their own awkward, knobby, intrepid and steadfast way.

Metaphorically, a foot can be a stand-in (pun intended) for the body as a whole. The ancient healing art of reflexology is based on the fact that pressure points on the feet correspond to the organs and systems of the body. What could be more representative of our physicality than our feet? Our feet literally bear the weight of our mortal lives. They connect us to the earth, and we balance ourselves upon them. With each step, one foot rises into emptiness, transcending gravity and carrying us forward, while the other accepts the entire burden of the body’s weight, bearing down, holding steady—then, as the first foot comes down to the ground, the second foot eases up, tipping us forward, rising to swing into motion. The feet are indeed taking turns, engaging in a perfect dance of give-and-take that creates the essential momentum for our progress through the world.

Unlike our other paired parts (hands, eyes, etc.), the feet cannot perform their functions separately—one hand can still work, one eye can still see, one ear can still hear, one lung can still breathe, but one foot can only fidget on its own. We have to stand on our own two feet, and it takes two to tango. In a sense, our feet remind us that our separateness is an illusion, our lives are carefully balanced with the world around us, and if we are not acting in harmony with ourselves and in coordination with others, we can go nowhere.

So, when feet appear in our dreams, they may be telling us something profound about the nature of our bodies and our souls (soles), our independence and our interdependence, our connection to the earth and to one another. There’s something tender, even poignant, about our feet. They manifest our strength and our vulnerability at the same time.

In the Christian story, feet play a significant role. With great tenderness and reverence, Mary (the sister of Martha) pours precious ointment over the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her hair. This is a way of offering blessing and gratitude to the most fundamentally human aspect of the divine—and when Jesus acknowledges this by saying “you will not always have me with you” he is emphasizing his own mortality, his temporal nature. In Buddhist terms, he is acknowledging his rare and precious “human birth,” his fragile humanity. The hardworking feet embody this humanity, with humility. When Jesus stoops to wash the apostles’ feet, he again draws attention to the humble and temporary nature of all of our lives—the ordinary holiness we must treasure in each other.

Although I’m not a traditional Christian, such images have always moved me. I remember sitting in my uncle’s church as a child, horrified by the presence of a larger-than-life-size crucifix above the altar, yet fascinated by the poignant vulnerability of the feet of Christ, pierced together by a single nail. Even in death, when the feet have been mortified along with the rest of the body, those bleeding feet remind us powerfully that they belong to a flesh-and-blood human being, a unique person, who somehow transcends the final brokenness of the physical self.

When my mother died, I was sitting at her bedside and watched the life go out of her face. Unlike most of the other people whose deaths I’ve witnessed, no trace of her individuality lingered in her features after death; her body seemed instantly emptied of all that she had been. My sister (Jill) was unsure she could handle seeing Mom like this, yet she feared that if she did not look, she would regret it later. So, my other sister (Didi) and I suggested looking at Mom’s feet instead of her face. Even though the rest of the body was just a corpse, swollen with edema and slackened by death, those feet were still Mom’s feet. The three of us, her three daughters, gathered close. Uncovering Mom’s feet was like receiving her blessing, and giving her ours. We touched her feet gently, crying, recognizing them, remembering them. They were so familiar and so ordinary, so uniquely Mom’s.

I’ve been more aware of my own feet recently. While much of my body is changing rapidly due to illness (losing muscle, and becoming more frail), my feet, like Mom’s, are still reassuringly familiar. Whether I’m barefoot or wearing shoes, I look down at my feet a lot because the structural changes in my upper body make it difficult to hold my head up. When I’m taking long walks, I have to rest my neck by hanging my head much of the time, and when my head is down, I notice my feet, as well as the ground under them.

The ground is beautiful; the earth is beautiful. I notice the the scrambled tweed pattern of douglas-fir needles on the path, the maple leaves etched in frost, the footprints of humans and dogs in the mud, and my own feet in their well-worn boots finding the earth with every step. When I’m hanging my head, I can’t see where I’m going, but I can see where I am. Right here, pressing my feet against the sustaining ground of my life.

Dreams about feet might be amusing because it is wise and right to acknowledge our human vulnerability and courage with a sense of humor. Look at us! We are awkward, knobby, intrepid and steadfast creatures. We are beautiful, from our heavy heads to our stumbling feet. And the earth we walk upon is holy ground.

Three-Part Dreams: Discovering the Rogue

July 17, 2018 / kirstenbackstrom

Many dreams have distinct scenes, and it’s surprising how often those scenes come in threes. It’s also common to have multiple dreams in the same night, and those frequently come in threes as well. Maybe it’s just that our memories tend to organize themselves in sets of three—perhaps there was a fourth scene, or a fourth dream, that we don’t remember. Nevertheless, whether it’s a function of memory or a function of the dreams themselves, the pattern is significant, and can be useful when we are trying to relate to the dream world.

One way of looking at a three-part dream is to think of the parts as past, present and future. Something happened in the first dream, which leads to what happens in the second dream, which leads to what will happen in the third dream. Or, there’s a problem in the first dream (where the problem started), which becomes better or worse in the second dream (what is going on now), and could reach its best or worst potential in the third dream (what will happen if the trend continues). If you look at a three-part dream this way, you’ll see a development from one situation to the next, and that can certainly be meaningful in many cases.

However, time may not really be relevant to the unfolding of dream meanings. Modern physics suggests that our sense of past-present-future does not reflect the way things actually are. Time is not linear, and we can sometimes experience this in the dream world. Often, it’s not entirely clear which dream-part came first, second or third. Dreams can transcend clock time—with precognitive elements (showing future events in the waking world), or dream events that occur simultaneously, or with cause-and-effect dream elements that work both forward and backward.

For example, recently I dreamed:

I’m buying some food at a deli counter for tomorrow’s journey: a packet containing an egg-and-potato pancake. I walk past the produce display just as the mist-spray comes on—but it malfunctions and is more like a gushing sprinkler, which soaks my clothes…

When I tried to record this dream (which had many other details not included here), I realized that I couldn’t figure out which part happened first. It seemed impossible, but in the part where I was buying the packet of food, my clothes were definitely wet. And in the part where my clothes got sprinkled, I was definitely carrying the packet of food. So, somehow, each scene had to have been preceded by the other scene. Hm.

Because of such incongruities, I’ve been exploring other ways of looking at three-part dreams—where the three parts are interdependent in a more cyclical or multi-dimensional model that doesn’t rely on sequence.

Threes are dynamic. When you have two things, there’s balance or contrast. When you have four things, there’s stability. But three means that something is happening. Whenever two things interact, a third thing comes into being that is more than the sum of its parts. My own way of describing the “third thing” is to call it the “rogue.”*

In couple relationships, the two partners as individuals combine their energies, but the rogue of that relationship is a third individual in itself—often having characteristics possessed by neither of the two partners. A child is a rogue, because she or he comes from two parents and has an individuality that can resemble both parents, but is also unique and distinct. The rogue is not just a synthesis, but a leap into new possibilities. Continue reading

Category: Just About Dreams (Page 1 of 3)

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