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ABSTRACT
Shamanic Dream Counseling: Five Questions on Behalf of the Dream
Tom Crockett, Kelly Leigh
urbanshaman@cox.net
Tom Crockett, M.F.A., is a writer, teacher, and shamanic counselor.
He is the editor of Maskan: A Newsletter of Urban Contemporary
Shamanism. He is the author of The Artist Inside: A Spiritual Guide
to Cultivating Your Creative Self (Broadway Books, 2000), and the
forthcoming Stone Age Wisdom: Shamanic Principles for Living in Balance
(Fair Winds Press, 2003). He is a student and apprentice in cross-cultural
shamanic practice and maintains a private shamanic counseling practice.
Kelly Leigh, is a bodywork therapist, a shamanic counselor, and a
dreamworker. She works with energetic therapies, honoring the divine
feminine and the profound healing and release manifested by alignment with
the element of water. She has been involved in storytelling, dreamsharing,
and dream counseling and is a student of cross-cultural shamanic practice.
Summary of Presentation
A nearly universal shamanic worldview is the belief in five principles:
everything is alive, conscious, dynamic, connected, and responsive.
Contemporary shamanic dreamwork honoring the five principles compels
certain kinds of questions about the dream imagery that leads to a
spiritual and energetic reading of what is wanting to manifest in the life
of the dreamer.
Learning Objectives.
• Participants will learn the five principles of a shamanic
worldview.
• Participants will learn the kinds of questions prompted by each
of the five underlying principles and how they move the dreamer toward a
clearer understanding of what is trying to manifest in his or her life.
• Participants will learn to remain true to the image of the dream
in the construction of an energetic reading of the dream.
Evaluation questions:
- Why is it important to honor the what before the why in dreams?
- What does it mean to ask what a dream image wants?
- How do dreams reveal what the soul is trying to manifest?
Abstract
The shamanic/animist worldview of our hunter/gatherer ancestors is
still with us today. Every time we swear at an object that trips us,
or name a car or boat, or cajole our computers into working, we are
functioning within the deep memory of that worldview. That worldview
holds that everything around us is alive, conscious, dynamic,
connected, and responsive. Surprisingly, science is coming to confirm
the fundamental accuracy of this worldview. It does appear as though
we are all connected through a soup of consciousness known as the zero
point field. We do seem to be able to effect change on living and
"nonliving" systems at a distance. Modern science is
confirming what shamans and mystics have always told us.
Building a contemporary shamanic form of dreamwork requires that we
honor this worldview when attending to the imagery of our dreams. In
traditional societies a dreamer consults a shaman to understand what
the dream wants. The shaman with the help of questions and
consciousness altering practices reenters the dreamspace of the client
to act on behalf of the dream. The questions the shaman asks moves the
dream beyond the personal imagery into the spiritual and energetic
realm.
If the universe is alive then the elements within it deserve our
attention. Shamans evolved in hunter/gatherer cultures where
observation and the ability to pay close attention to details were
essential. This compels us to ask what a thing is, not what does it
mean, but what is it unto itself. What are the characteristics that
make a bus different from a car or train? What makes a horse different
from other animals? What are the unique characteristics of an
individual? We stay true to the dream image by attending to it in
itself not by associating with it.
If the universe is conscious, we are compelled to ask the images in
our dream what it is they want. This is initially a general question:
What does a spoon want or what does a house or a particular animal or
person want? We remember, however to stay with the evidence of the
dream in asking what does this spoon or house or animal or
person want? During this process we continue to return to the
narrative of the dream, restating it in energetic terms and growing it
as we go.
If the universe is dynamic, we must ask where is there movement and
where is movement restricted in the dream? Shamanic time is cyclical
time. Nothing stands still. Everything moves. It is the nature of
things to be in motion. When we identify the places where energy is
not moving, we are close to why we are experiencing imbalance. When we
find the places where energy is moving we come close to what is about
to manifest in our lives—what is trying to be born. The keys to
health and happiness and living in balance and beauty can be found in
what restores movement to the system.
A connected universe leads us finally to ask how or where this
dream story in its energetic retelling is connected to our waking life
experience. This may be a question for discussion or it may be a
question to be held and considered. The final principle, that the
universe is responsive, suggests that whatever is manifesting in our
lives is in response to a prayer or intention we have expressed at
some level. Through the dream and our connection to it we begin to
look at how our current life situation is in response to a certain
prayer or intention. Regaining control of our prayers and intentions
is what the dream is helping us do. The shamanic dreamwork counseling
session ends with a full retelling of the dream from a mythic or
spiritual or energetic perspective. It is not an interpretation, but a
tracking of the images and the energies they hold. Clients often find
that this retelling connects the dreams to their lives in profound new
ways.
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