An Invitation for Crowdsourced Dream Work

An Invitation for Crowdsourced Dream Work
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One way to get better at engaging your dreams, both waking dreams and those of the night, is to talk about them. Since dreams operate on the level of emotions, symbols and universal themes, there is something everyone can learn from anyone's dream.

This doesn't take away from the personal aspect of the dream, it simply means that dreams are that much more powerful because they are also relevant to us as a global, living and breathing community. The dream is personal and the themes are universal.

Just as people travel to experience different perspectives and find joy and curiosity in exploring how other cultures eat, sleep, move, heal and celebrate, we can also travel in our dreams to explore how people feel, create, search, decide and grow.

This is because we are looking at collective consciousness, the intangible qualities that we all experience simply by being alive, the shared space from which we all then individuate as we are always being and becoming who we uniquely are.

To use more dreamlike imagery, it is like we are all floating on the same sea and depending on where we are situated; whether we are drifting or anchored, fighting a storm or soaring forward with flow, whether we have just left the coast or are out in the deep, under a starry sky or watching the sun break above the horizon; we'll have both a unique, personal experience and also one that others floating in the sea of life can also relate to.

On this note, I thought it could be fun to do some crowd-sourced dreaming. I'll share a dream and give some context for what some of the symbols mean to me, and then I invite you to use the comments to ask clarifying questions and share emotions that arise. You can also complete this sentence, "If it were my dream...".

*****
Ok, so here is the dream:

Nelson Mandela is on his deathbed. I am a guitar player and I have been summoned to come teach him how to play guitar. I anxiously stand facing him as I'm about to start playing.

*****

Here is some additional context:
In waking life, this dream took place 3 weeks before Nelson Mandela actually died.
While Nelson Mandela is an archetype himself meaning many things to many people, he holds some personal symbolism for me as well. I had a life-changing trip to South Africa in 2010. My friend and I traveled there for a month to celebrate the World Cup and our thirtieth birthdays.

This trip was significant because we planned for four years and were persistent in making it happen even as our lives took big, unexpected turns. While there we felt so free; embracing music, dancing and laughter that was alive in ever second of the event and journey. I returned from that trip knowing that I had to make a change in my life, and so it was the impetus for me to sell my things and go on a journey to discover my passions.

While I had the dream, I was on that very journey, at the base of a mountain in Peru. Earlier that year, I had purchased a small guitar while traveling in Argentina. For two years prior I had talked about my desire to learn the guitar and finally decided that I couldn't learn if I didn't have one.

In the dream, I felt honor and anxiety. I thought "why me??" and also told myself that I could rise to the occasion. I felt that it was a symbol of a full life well lived if the request of Nelson Mandela was to learn something new and be surrounded by music in his final days.

With that context, I invite you to play with me and the dream world in crowd-sourced dream exploration. Please be kind, dreams are personal. I will be responding to comments below as we collectively try this little experiment.

With gratitude, Erin.

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