The Dreaming Phenomenon

I’ve always been a strong dreamer. I’m sure I’ve mentioned in earlier blog entries when talking about dreaming, that I can easily recall dreams dating back to infancy and early childhood. More often than not my dreams are similar to daily living experiences. I’m a lucid dreamer. Many mornings I need a few minutes before I can adjust to waking reality. I’ve had times where I’m a bit disoriented. I’ve often wondered which one of me is the real ME: The dreaming me or the waking me.

It seems that my dreamer self has a life of her own. I’ve often felt like she had her own path and purpose; her own destiny. She knows people I have never met before; visited countries that I’ve never traveled to; and has a personality that can often make me blush. Amazingly HER LIFE can be verified and shows no discrepancies with waking reality. For example when I was 18 years old I dreamt I went to Paris, France. I remember driving through the city and stopping at the cleaners to pick up my boyfriend’s white shirts. The shop belonged to a Chinese couple. I took the time to notice the street names and I even watched a Raven fly overhead south bound towards Versailles. I seemed to know a lot about the city as if I actually lived there. There was construction across the street and I watched the carpenters for a moment as they worked. It seemed important to remember all of the details. I even wrote them down as soon as I woke up. 16 years later when I actually traveled to Paris I sought out the street names she had given me and found the cleaners, the Chinese owners, the Raven, and the carpenters working on the building across the street. The only difference was I didn’t live there; I didn’t drive through the city; or picked up shirts for a boyfriend.

My dreamer often predicts events in my life, which surprisingly always come true. She seems to always know more about me than I know about her. I’ve discovered her and her world through the last 45 years of my life whereas she seemed very much aware of ME from the get go: Past, present and future. We didn’t always get along and I wasn’t always impressed with her; but I have to be honest, she’s grown on me through the years. ☺

I’ve gone through different phases or different steps in my dreaming process, and it’s spread out over the last four decades. Students often ask me how long is the initiation of a traditional dreamer? It’s a question that is hard to answer because in my experience there’s no beginning or end to my dreaming education. I often remind people that we only use about 15% of our brain and .01% of our dreaming capabilities. A First Nation elder and teacher of mine once explained to me that our social structures often hinder our dreaming development. If we don’t encourage dreaming and we don’t give dreaming usefulness then the chances are we won’t grow into our dreamers.

EC, a Passamaquody traditional elder and teacher believed in Dreamers and she spoke highly of these people as if they were legendary heroes and unique creatures. Before we met, EC dreamt of a White Wolf who saved her from getting run over by a semi-truck on a main highway in her region. EC explained: “…that while the White Wolf jumped and pushed her out of the way, its right leg got hit by the truck.” This dream was so lucid that when she woke up she was 100% certain that this White Wolf Dreamer existed in the waking reality. EC was an experienced traditional dreamer.

EC called her sister and told her about the dream. She also expressed that she needed to find this White Wolf. EC was convinced that this Dreamer had literally given her more time to live. At about the same time, her sister was asked to do the opening ceremony for a Women’s Healing and Empowerment Conference. Synchronically I was one of the keynote lecturers. MP had just received the booklet for the Conference when her sister called. On the front page was my picture and my native name: White Wolf. She gasped and cried out: “There’s no coincidences.” Quickly she told her sister and in the following moments the two women devised a plan to switch spots at the conference and request a full day of my undivided attention.

Strangely enough a few days before my husband and I drove down to St-Andrews, N.B. from Montreal, Quebec – I slipped in the bathtub and hurt my right knee. I was in crutches when I arrived on site. When I met EC the first thing she said was: “It was YOU!” We spent almost twelve hours together that first day. She talked uninterrupted during the whole time as if she didn’t want to miss telling me everything. I don’t think she believed we would ever see each other again despite the fact that she tried her best to convince me that we were meant to journey together. She certainly gave me lots to think about.

My personal experience and countless repetitions; which were witnessed by others and myself was enough to confirm to me that I wasn’t crazy; but to discover that I unconsciously (so to speak) followed a set tradition was an added bonus. I learnt a long time ago not to depend on confirmations yet I have to admit they always feel good when Spirit sends them nevertheless. I wasn’t surprised to hear that I manifested in the waking some of the dreaming details. It took a bit over a month to get my knee back into shape. For as long as I can remember I’ve been able to physically bring back dreaming elements. In my late teens I dreamt that I was being attacked by a lion and woke up with evidence of the scratches and blood staining the sheets. I was living with my boyfriend at the time and he was a bit freaked out by this experience. Lets put it this way, he learnt to get used to it once he became my husband.

This kind of occurrence seemed to go away once I was able to manage my emotional reactions in the dreaming. It seems that these manifestations are attached to intense emotions. Usually when we dream strong emotions they wake us up; but in some instances especially when we are used to lucid dreaming they lack the strength needed to wake us up. It’s during these instances that we wake up with such manifestations.

I once read that soon after the European invasion whole tribes if indigenous people disappeared. Legends said that they simply stepped back into the dreaming. There are stories which speak of people capable of teleporting themselves to distant territories simply to spend an evening with a daughter, son-in-law and grand-children. Some of these tales speak of family members literally witnessing the dreamer in flesh and blood as if she teleported her body along with her through the dreaming. Other stories speak of wars fought through the dreamtime where dreamers had the ability to assassinate leaders from other communities with the help of poisonous snakes, herbal or food poisons, and disease contamination. Where many people today like to disbelieve such tales; others are wary of them.

I have to say that I’ve been able to accomplish things with the help of dreaming, which is within the realm of phenomenon. It has given me access to realities that are beyond comprehension. I can’t express how much dreaming is a huge part of my life and how it has literally changed how I view others, life in general and the part I play in it. I teach dreaming and share my experiences with others through lectures and workshops. I would say that within our modern society: I’m an expert on the topic. Yet, I’d like to believe that there’s somewhere out there where I could learn how to bridge the 90 some percent left of our dreaming potential. Many of my teachers have come from the dreaming and I’d like to follow them and others like them once this Earth has taught me what I need to learn… Dreaming is definitely my way!


P.S. This blog entry was a request by JIH