Shana & Friend |
Dream a Little Dream of Me
by Shana Ogren Lourey
Some cultures hold a belief in the dreaming process as a kind of soul travel, where the dream world is a sort of other reality and an important source to be listened to. Dreams could bring insight to an individual or a people, on the future health of your children or how to plant a crop.
A tradition started by the Ojibwa tribe to filter our journeys when we sleep is called the dream catcher. It is a web sewn inside a circle, with feathers flowing off of it, hung above one's bed. The belief is held that the good and positive dreams are able to easily run through the web and feathers and into the sleeping person. The dream catcher will then trap negative dreams in the web so that they cannot get through to the sleeper. My mother (not Native American in any way; just a believer in many things from many avenues) always gave me one to hang up in my room.
When I was a child, I often imagined the possibility that what I considered life was actually a dream itself. Mind you, not my own dream. I envisioned some baby dreaming up my whole life, and that I did not in reality exist. I was a figment and a character in someone else's imagination each night; a main character, of course. Quite an ego! I do consider it to be significant when specific people appear in my own dreams. It seems premonitory and somehow related to a sense of instinct.
Numerous dreamers believe you can dictate what you dream about; but do be careful in your dictation. Once wanting to dream about a man I had my eye on, I repeated a mantra with his name over and over to myself before I fell asleep. Impressively, it worked! But unfortunately, I dreamt instead of an actor who happened to share the same name. I learned to be very specific if I was ever to try and control my dreams again.
Different experiences can lead to different kinds of dreams. While I was serving in the Peace Corps in Malawi, Africa from 2007-2009, I had a nightmare soon after I had arrived in the village. It was about people breaking into my home to attack me and of children taking photos of me as I suffered from a seizure. When I awoke from this dream in the middle of the night, I felt more terrified than I ever have from a nightmare. It brought me to tears.
I was told two stories. One was from the Peace Corps doctors; that the anti-Malaria medicine I was taking daily could cause some intense fantasies or dreams. The other story was from the Malawians. It involved a witchcraft accusation on a neighbor. I'm still not sure which interpretation I believe.
Unfortunately, I lost most of my ability to remember my dreams as the result of a severe brain injury obtained from a car accident. If I do remember them, they are often dreams of mundane errands that I do each day. There is nothing magical in the dream and there is nothing medicinally interesting created in them. They are like to-do lists of my waking life. Grocery store shopping? Check. Speaking to a neighbor about the weather? Check. Getting my child to sleep? Check.
So now I use dreams instead to judge myself. I ask – what if I wake up and find all this brain injury I have is a dream? What will I conclude of how I faced and handled the situation? Will it be a nightmare or some inspirational Lifetime channel tv special?
I miss the days of dreaming lightly but actually; of perhaps traveling in my mind or heart or soul to some place new. My dreaming passport waits. I look forward to making the journey once again.
“Everyone who is successful must have dreamed of something.”
Maricopa |
