Article Highlights:
- Day-dreamwork
Dear DayDreamer,
For the past dozen years or more, I’ve played with an interesting perspective on waking reality. It’s resulted in a type of dreamwork I call day-dreamwork. It grows out of an exercise I developed in my early twenties after observing that strange things often happen in waking reality that are oddly like the strange things that can happen “only in dreams.”
They happen when we’re awake but we don’t notice them in the same way because they’re out of the ordinary so the mind discounts them. I started keeping a DayDreamer Log, jotting those oddities down in the same way I might make note of an interesting night dream.
Over time I became very intrigued by the dreamlike quality of life. It seemed to me that “reality” might be more malleable than we tended to believe. As we all know, dreams can quickly change, they hop about in non-linear ways and unlikely things happen.
They are often inexplicable, frequently metaphorical, sometimes instructive and helpful or healing. And sometimes dreams have tremendous impact on waking reality. Are these things true of the so-called “real reality” of our daytime world as well? I began to think so.
Here are a few brief entries from my old DayDreamer logs:
August 1975 – today I was behind a young woman at the grocery store who had a doll in her cart that wore a dog collar. And a real dog wearing doll clothes. “They are my best friends,” she said, “they are helping me shop. Then after a short pause, “Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.” Obviously she had a story I didn’t know, but as a brief encounter, what an unusual visual and message. Noticeable.
May 1980 – I was at JC Penny’s department store today and looked out the 3rd floor window. On the rooftop of the building across the street I saw a worker who appeared to be hot mopping the roof with tar. He looked up and – seeing me standing at the large store window – he suddenly did a hand-stand and walked in a circle on his hands before dropping to his feet again, laughing. A flush of strange emotion went through me and I suddenly had the very clear thought that soon my life might be turned upside down. (18 months later I was unexpectedly divorced.)
July 1985 -I drove down a rural coastal road in Hawaii and looked to my left to see a fence post with a metal chair balanced (nailed?) on top of it. I stopped and took a photo. Such an unlikely thing to see.
Early winter, 1989 – Driving past an empty field with an overturned old car in it, I saw a goat standing on concrete blocks stacked on top of the up-turned undercarriage of the car. The goat was chewing on a red shirt that stood out against the snowy background and was waving like a flag in the wind.
Summer, 2014 – I joined a friend at her son’s grade school presentation in the small rural gymnasium. The double side doors were open to the outside for ventilation because of the heat. We were near the doors. A red and blue dragonfly flew in and after cruising up and down our row, settled on the toe of my shoe. My legs were crossed and it perched on my upper dangling foot. It stayed there long enough that I began to find it almost eerie so I uncrossed my legs to shift it. It hovered until I settled and then lighted on my foot again. It stayed there throughout the program regardless of my shifting about. Very dreamlike.
Some night dreams have meaning and can be analyzed to bring wisdom to waking life. Other night dreams are medicine and need to be absorbed more than analyzed. There are also night dreams that give clear messages. Some dreams can and need to be understood. Others need to be observed and some are meant to be felt.
It’s the same with these daydream moments. All are my life talking to me or portending itself or playing with me or helping me. Noticing is all that’s needed. Like with night dreams, paying a bit more attention to them increases their value to you.
I no longer write all of mine down. Most of the time I just remark to myself at the time, often aloud. “I just saw a goat on a pile of blocks on a upside down car chewing on a red flag-like shirt, silhouetted brightly against the snow. I’ll keep that in mind.” That’s the kind of thing I say. I may ruminate on it then or later, or I might just smile at my dream and go along on my way. But I acknowledge it with a sense of fun.
I also discovered that, fascinatingly, I can ask for a daydream to answer or inform me about something specific. That can be done with night dreams too, but it’s easier with daydreams. This is similar to asking for a sign, but it begets something fuller than just a simple sign, something richer.
In last week’s mailing I mentioned the question I had about accompanying my friend to the Monroe Institute. Shortly after getting her invite I said aloud, “I’d like a daydream today that helps me understand what my time at the Monroe Institute would be like and whether it’s for me.”
A bit later I headed to town for groceries. I didn’t even make it as far as town before I had my daydream – the many men in black and the CIA type cars peppered along the route for about a mile.
As is often the case with night dreams, this daydream had a strong dream feeling or impression. The feeling/impression was that there’s a strong government component or involvement now at Monroe and that, while it was not sinister, it was not really for me.
So I didn’t accompany my friend, who did go. She told me later that the government involvement there was very much present and it was apparently sort of a training and recruiting ground for agents and workers of certain types.
I just asked and my life arranged the time of the town trip to coincide with whatever it was that required the high security presence of all those cars and men. Once you get into the fun of it, it becomes as easy as that.
Our daytime reality is malleable in many interesting ways. Working with this can be easier than working with night dreams for many people. And like with night dreams, day-dreaming increases with your attention. It’s a lot of fun and I highly recommend you begin to pay more attention to your day dream moments. Life really is but a dream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily merrily,
🛶 Mayet 🛶
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