Page 22 - NAMAH-Jul-2020

Namah Vol. 28, Issue 2, 15th July 2020

Kubla Khan, a poem descended in a dream, has practice is liberation (3).” He follows it up by
retained its dreamlike quality. Mary Shelley stating that dreams are useful even before
dreamt of the Frankenstein story, which is a they can be used as liberation aids. “We can
warning for all of humanity from the collective heal wounds in the psyche, emotional difficulties
unconscious.The chemist Kekulé dreamt of that we have not been able to overcome. We can
the structure of benzene (1). remove energetic blocks that may be inhibiting
the free circulation of energy in the body. And
These dreams that open up a new door in our we can pierce obscurations in the mind by taking
psyche and gift us new insights are called experience beyond conceptual boundaries and
big dreams. Kelly Bulkeley, in his book, Big limitations (4).”
Dreams: the Science of Dreaming and the Origins
of Religion, puns on the word ‘dream’ when
describing big dreams:

“The influence of these dreams is more a matter
of stimulating people’s capacities for hope and
imagination, envisioning possibilities beyond
the limits of present reality… Being able to dream
the impossible is what makes humans human
(2).”

In this paper, I will concentrate on numinous
dreams; dreams that take us closer to our Self.
They play the transcendent function; they light
our way to the wholeness of our being. Paying
attention to one’s dreams; journaling them;
interpreting them; bringing out meaning from The symbolic language of dreams
them; and finally honouring them in different
ways, such as in rituals; work as a feedback The Jungian analyst, Robert Johnson, states,
mechanism on dreams. Our dream-recall “All of human life is nourished by the flow of
increases; our dreams become clearer; they symbolic imagery from the wellsprings in the
start helping us. This opens up a channel of unconscious (5).” Dreams that spring from the
communication with the unconscious world. vast ocean of the unconscious, speak to us in
It is as though a personal guardian starts symbolic language. Symbols are holograms.
talking with us using dream-language. Every angle yields a new meaning. You can
work with a dream image that is alive for
Tibetan Buddhism has an esoteric teaching you, years after you have had it. And every
of dream yoga that is passed down orally time you work with the dream, you discover
from master to pupil from before the eighth new meaning. Because dreams offer images
Century CE. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche wrote and not meanings to the images, one can look
a book about this dream yoga for English at the image from various angles, draw out
readers, where he says the “The goal of dream personal associations, cultural associations,

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