Incense and Light intermingle at a Christmas Eve service in downtown Munich, Germany. (photo: A Furchert)

Dear fellow pilgrim,

It is odd, but much of enlightened society and religion has lost its connection to dreams. Not that people don’t dream anymore; research shows we dream for more than an hour every night in what is called REM sleep. And we know that dreams often relate to the themes of our day and to larger themes in our lives.

But still, there is no agreement if our dreams mean anything, and if any serious person should pay attention to her dream life.

“And an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream...”

— Matthew 1

But Lo and behold! Dreams are right in the Christmas story! (Though we often skim over them without giving them any deeper thought. ) As the story has it, Joseph has at least 2 significant, life changing and life saving dreams. The first not to leave Mary despite her mysterious pregnancy, and the second to go home another way, tricking Herod and saving the child. But they did not work magic, they worked because Joseph paid attention, understood them, and acted accordingly.

So why is much of Christianity reluctant to talk about dreaming? How come that much of society has marginalized dreams and left them to the therapist? And even in the world of therapy there is only a small branch interested in helping people deal with their dreams in meaningful ways.

Today, on this 10th day of Christmas, at the unfolding of the new year, we invite you to tend to your dreams like you would looking at sacred art.

Of course, our dreams are rarely as clear as Joseph’s are reported to have been. Instead we might wake up shaken by a dream and try to shake it off as quickly as we can. Some might just feel odd, not something we want to spend any time on, some might even haunt us. Having trained as a psychological scientist first I mainly knew about dreams as symptoms, nightmares, to be controlled or treated. It took many more years and experience also to see the sacred side of dreams and to welcome them as guides from beyond who can help us on our journey of becoming whole, on my own journey and the journey of kindred souls I have been working with.

Surely the Christmas gospel treats dreams not only as meaningful, but as Divine messengers. Thus we could conclude, that God god’s-self speaks in dreams to us, just like to Joseph and Mary, and the many important and not so important people before us. Welcoming dreams as guides from beyond invites us to step on sacred ground, and opens the liminal space, where the living light seeks to dwell within us. All of Christmas happens in a liminal space, the night, the birthing, angel choirs, dream messages and hallelujah choruses.

And thus my invitation on this 10th day of Christmas is to join these choirs and attend to the song your soul is singing while you are asleep.

Welcome your guides from beyond

When we give retreats, we often ask our retreatents to tend to their dreams, as dreams often accompany a time of retreat, when we are more open to our interior journey - as you probably have noticed. One can tend one’s dreams by having a journal at the bedside to write them down or record them before getting up. Dreams are fleeting, liminal experiences. Their pregnant images and untapped emotions are easily swept away by the thoughts of the day, so they often escape our conscious and rational life.

So, if you have already recorded a dream from the past, if you can remember a vivid dream, or if a dream you dreamt the last days waits to be unpacked, or if you have drawn an image from an interior impression, all this is material for your tender care and self-compassion, not only with your dream material but with yourself as dreamer.

If not, a welcoming attitude towards a dream might soon lead to a dream or image.

Wherever you find your dream or interior image, below you can find a practice to tend to it in a compassionate and sacred way.

A practice of dream compassion

There are many ways to think about dreams, and their significance. “Various approaches have been used,” writes Sister Galen Martini, a psychologist and Jungian analyst in her dream manual, “some of them evocative and helpful, others excessively popularized and reductive…” So beware of fast dream interpretations and manuals that tell you the meaning of every symbol. There is not a one size fits all interpretation. An experienced dream guide will always help you to unpack your very own meaning, not do a psychic reading.

Understanding your dream often needs an experienced guide who can lead you through the process, especially difficult or nightmarish ones. (I myself have found dream work the most rewarding part of my work.) Our own ego perspective often sits in the driver seat while we dream in those corners of our (un)consciousness that are less accessible to us. We need to find ways to detach from the rational first person perspective in order to engage in new ways with the stories our dreams tell.

But there are ways you can tend to your dreams in a helpful way by yourself. Martini’s dream manual gives a helpful introduction (also for those of you in the helping professions). Here I like to suggest a monastic practice many of you have already used one way or another, also because we often use it here (e.g. when sharing into Mary’s gaze on the 4th day): the sacred reading practice or Lectio (or Visio) Divina.

Just as you can do a sacred reading on an image, art piece, or text, you can do so with your dream narrative or image. It allows you to step away from your first person perspective and into the sacred space where the Divine messenger enters.

Write down a dream or use a dream you have written down, or an image or drawing that a dream-like state has produced (do not use a disturbing or nightmarish one). Or wait until a dream visits you in the next days while you are welcoming it with an open heart.
Settle into a meditation with your dream content in front of you.
Read or gaze at it. Look on yourself - the dreamer - with compassion. And look on the dream content with compassion and openness (without judgement or censoring) to what ever message it might offer.
Breath slowly and prayerfully. Look at your dream narrative or image like you would at any other sacred art. Notice the place, the characters, the story line. Let your hand scribble down notes while you quieten your mind.
What word, figure or image grabs your attention? What is the feeling accompanying it? Turn it over lovingly in your heart, ask it some questions. Sit with it for a while.
Take notes if you can. Notice changes in your image or narrative as you tend to it.
Ask the image or aspect you have tend to: what is your message for me today? (a word, a phrase, a feeling, a task to behold)
And remember to end your meditation with some silent time.