AWAKENING
IN THE DREAM GROUPS
Article by Paul
Levy a spiritual and political activist.
I'm not sure whether to say that my friends and I have developed
a new way of working with people's dreaming processes, or to say
that we've discovered something. In any case, it is clear that
we've tapped into something profound.. More accurately, I feel
safe in saying that something has been revealed through following
our inner dreaming process (what I call "following the dreaming").
I feel strongly drawn to share what my friends and I are experiencing
in our "Awakening in the Dream Groups," as it can be
of great benefit to many people.
Let
me start off by saying that these groups are not for everyone,
as they require a high degree of being able to self-reflect
and be vulnerable. They only work if enough people in the group
are awake enough to realize what we are doing, as they act as
so much yeast in the dough, so to speak, helping the bread to
leaven. The groups are radically changing people's lives.
These
"Awakening in the Dream" Groups are based on our life
being a dream, more specifically, they are based on how we are
"dreaming up" our life moment by moment. In a sense,
we are doing a radical experiment, as we are actually imagining
that our situation is indeed a dream, and following what this
shows us. The groups are based on the projective tendencies
of our mind, how we are in essence dreaming in and up our life
in a way that's similar to how we do at night, where our inner
process is getting dreamed up into and as our waking life itself.
The same dreaming mind that is dreaming our dreams at night
is dreaming our life. In a sense, in the groups we are just
doing real dreamwork, with the dream being what happens in the
group.
We
are discovering that we can inquire into who we are by following
the process of our being together, without any agenda, structure
or strategy about what we're going to do. I call this "following
the dreaming." The groups and the relationships in the
group themselves become the vehicle for realization, as over
time, our psyche's intermingle, pushing each other's buttons,
triggering projections, touching and effecting each other's
unconscious. And we simply inquire into this process, by entering
the same present moment together with the realization that we
are merely dream characters in each others dream. What this
means is that we realize that we are all embodied reflections
of each other, as well as that every moment we are all dreaming
up this mass shared dream together. This is a waking dream that
is mutually, interdependently getting dreamed up by all of us
together. We are all getting dreamed up and picking up roles
in each other's process. We are all dreaming up the deeper dreamfield,
while concurrently, we are being dreamed up by it. This is not
some sort of elaborate visualization practice, but is simply
seeing the truth of our situation. When everyone is training
seeing the dreamlike nature of our situation, a certain field
gets conjured up that is very lubricated for healing.
Part
of the process is the sharing of our imaginings, our projections,
our hallucinations that we have onto each other's inkblots with
each other. Imagine a dream where all of the dream characters
are sharing their projections with each other. We are all in
a position to see each other in a way that each of us, by ourselves,
can't. Of course, it is up to each one of us whenever we get
the rest of the group's reflections to discern if people are
just projecting, or are they really seeing our blind spot? When
a dream character in a dream shares their imaginings, their
projections of who you are, of what they imagine you are doing,
it would be foolish to at least not consider what they are saying.
There
is something about being really seen by other people. Imagine
being in a dream and have your fellow dream characters actually
see where you are asleep, see your unconscious, your blind spot.
If this is a dream, who are those fellow dream characters who
are seeing your unconscious but the awakening parts of you?
And how can this not have an effect on you?
By
inquiring into the nature of our experiences together, we discover
that we are not in a position to actually know what is happening
seemingly "out there" in the group (there's always
the possibility of us projecting, distorting, deluding ourselves).
Someone might be doing something, for example, and everyone
will be seeing what they are doing differently, it's not a question
of who's right, but this is pointing to something- that we are
not in a position to know what is "objectively" happening
out there, but we are in a position to know what we are perceiving
(what our particular hallucination is). By everyone in the group
expressing themselves out of this realization, it cuts through
blame, as well as allowing people to not take things personally.
People can then openly share their projections, for we are taking
responsibility for our experience.
In
the groups, we have the intention to awaken, to transduce light.
What this, of course, means is that we will invariably evoke
the unconscious, which will act itself out in and through the
group. Like Jung says, when an unconscious content is ready
to be integrated, it always appears physically, ie- it gets
dreamed up into the dreamfield. The split-off, unconscious parts
of ourselves get projected out and dreamed up by, through, and
into the group. To again quote Jung, "everything unconscious,
once it was activated, was projected into matter- that is to
say, it approached people from outside." There's something
about having fellow dream characters who are turned onto this
realization that creates a net, or container, in which, instead
of allowing the unconscious to vaporize, we can catch and anchor
the unconscious content to consciousness, taking away its omnipotence
and autonomy, as well as liberating the energy that was bound
up in it for creative expression. This is true alchemy.
When
someone steps into the unconscious, they are like psychic flypaper,
or an out of phase inkblot that immediately attracts people's
unconscious projections. For you cannot see the unconscious
and remain a passive member of the audience, once you see the
unconscious you are a participant in the scene, it all depends
on your ability to self-reflect and assimilate what has gotten
triggered in you. Any one of us being able to metabolize what
has gotten activated in us helps all of our fellow dream characters,,
as this realization registers in the collective consciousness
of the group (not to mention the whole universe). In a sense,
this is full-embodied, group dreamwork.
To
the extent that we are disconnected and dis-associated from
ourselves, we are incongruent, which will evoke and attract
other peoples projections and processes onto our out of phase
inkblot, as we get dreamed into a role in their dream, and they
in ours. We unconsciously react to and amplify in our waking
dream exactly what needs to be played out so as to express in
embodied form our inner process. We all project, or dream onto
the inkblot of life, connecting the dots in such a way so as
to literally "dream up" into materialization our very
inner process onto and as the seemingly outer universe, and
then we become entranced by the manifestation, imagining it
to be objectively existing and separate from us. In the group,
we are helping each other to actually stay in and work through
this very convincingly real and seductive situation, as this
is the place where we can, in real time (the present moment)
transmute this energy, dream the dream differently and assimilate
this unconscious content.
At
any one point, just like the pendulum with the strongest swing
entrains the other pendulums, someone's (unconscious) dreaming
process gets activated and everyone else gets dreamed into that
person's dream, playing whatever roles are required for the
unfoldment of that activated dreaming process. And of course,
the role we get dreamed up into by the field is magically not
only the role that others need us to play, but is at the same
time the very role we need to step into and unfold for our own
deepest healing. That is simply what is happening all the time
with everyone, I am talking about getting a group of people
who are awake to this process and creating a container where,
instead of just acting it out unconsciously, thereby perpetuating
our woundedness, we add one key ingredient- consciousness.
Let
me just say that it is not easy work. People could be studying
with me for weeks, months, and really "getting" the
whole theory of how we are all dreaming each other up, picking
up roles in each other's process so as to actually incarnate,
into materialized form as our very life itself our inner dreaming
process. But once someone's unconscious is activated, and their
projections fly out onto the inkblot of the group, they are
typically not aware that they are dreaming (that the boundary
has collapsed between inner and outer- they are then "inside"
of their mind). To the extent that people get absorbed into
their own dreaming process, they will be unaware that what they
are experiencing in embodied form as the actual process in the
group, is itself nothing other than the materialization, the
embodied expression played out in real time on the screen of
their waking consciousness, of their own inner dreaming process.
When this happens, it is like their inner wound, their trauma
has blossomed out of their psyche and has spilled into actual
reality and is playing itself out on the real time stage of
the group. People can become so entranced with the seeming "realness"
of the reality that they have dreamed up that they actually
decide to leave at this point. I have seen this happen again
and again, and it is happening as I write this in one of my
groups. It is so interesting to watch- right at the point they
have dreamed up into seemingly solid form the very inner process
that they need to work through, they get freaked out, scared
and leave. The group has come up with a saying "You either
change or you leave the group and blame the group."
It's
those times when the person recognizes the deeper process that
is happening and stays, that they literally as well as symbolically,
access it in a way where they can dream it through, actually
metabolizing and assimilating part of their unconscious. It's
like enacting on the stage of life an inner process that you
just needed to play out, to actually incarnate and give physical
form to, doing it in the imagination alone just wouldn't work,
you had to imagine it into being. There is something about where
these two worlds co-incide that is where the real healing happens.
Whenever
a shadow element manifests through someone, and they embody
and act out the unconscious, instead of in a typical group,
where any sort of conflict is marginalized ("we're about
love and harmony here, we can't have any conflict," which
is just a reflection of how inwardly polarized we all are towards
our own darkness), in these groups, any sort of conflict is
seen to be a doorway into the deeper process- friction creates
light. Like an alchemical container, there needs to be enough
"pressure" for the "prima materia" to transform.
To the extent that these shadow energies are consciously seen,
worked with and embraced, they become integrated and literally
flesh out our full-spectrum (both light and dark) holograms,
which is what genuine incarnation is all about.
Being
awake to the dreamlike nature of our situation is to see that
we are all inifnite wave functions pulsating in and out of the
void every nanosecond. I'm very interested in what you say about
physics moving away from the whole idea of collapsing the wave
function, please let me know more about this if you can, for
I find it to be a perfect description of what happens when you
become lucid in a dream- the way you observe the dream has an
instantaneous effect, on the way the dream manifests, as the
observer is literally the observed.
In
this waking dream of ours we are, like I have suggested, mutually
collapsing each others wave functions- ie, dreaming each other
up (or down)- but in a nonlinear, acausal way, where I am dreaming
you up, but you are dreaming me up to dream you up, ad infinitum
as well as visa versa. In a process with no beginning in time,
but rather a process that happens outside of time itself, in
no time, faster than the twinkling of an eye, we dream each
other up to unconsciously act out, in embodied form our incomplete
processes. To the extent that I'm asleep to your intrinsic multi-dimensionality
(as well as my own), I will solidify your convincingly real
manifestation, making it more probable that this will be how
you will continue to incarnate in my waking dream, and once
you manifest in this way, it confirms to me even more my solidified
view of you, so I will "dream you up" this way even
more, ad infinitum, and visa versa (you are doing the same thing
to me). In addition, once you experience me as a dream character
in your dream who is solidifying you in this way, to the extent
you fall asleep and get hooked by my manifestation, you will
not only be more likely to manifest in exactly that way, but
you will solidify me as someone who solidifies you, which will
even more increase the probability that I will dream you up
in that very way, ad infinitum, as well as visa versa. I am
trying to get across a sense of how the dreaming up process
is collaborative, circular, what Buddhism calls "interdependent
co-origination." I am merely mapping and describing what
is happening all of the time with everyone, only it's happening
unconsciously. .
In
the groups we are having insight into when someone manifests
in their limited, problematic identity pattern (what I call
their Halloween costume). The habitual tendency is to become
entranced, as if under a spell and imagine that this is who
they actually are (as their manifestation is certainly convincing,
in a full-embodied way), thereby solidifying and concretizing
their infinitely fluid multi-dimensional hologram (not to mention,
solidifying ourselves in the process), which increases the probability
even more that this is how they will continue to manifest. When
we don't get hooked by their impermanent display, however, not
solidifying them as being how we are momentarily experiencing
them, and then reacting to our solidified image of who we imagine
them to be as if it's objectively who they are, we discover
that they have much more space to step out of the concretized
role that they themselves were caught in, which not only helps
them but ourselves as well. This can potentially snap us out
of an infinitely self-perpetuating, closed feedback loop, an
infinite regression that we were co-llaboratively co-dreaming,
as we are both able to step out of and transcend a role each
of us had been caught in. We continually re-discover that we
are all mutually, interdependently dreaming up our dreaming
processes together to a point where they synchronistically co-incide
and co-rrelate, actually materializing and incarnating into
and as our waking dream itself. Simply recognizing the dream-upable
nature of our situation and following what this is showing us
offers us an opportunity for healing and integration that simply
isn't available to us by our seemingly alienated selves.
So
in the groups we give each other permission to step over our
edge and speak the marginalized voice, to step into a role that
the deeper dreamfield is thirsting for someone to pick up and
play. If this is indeed a mass shared dream that we are all
dreaming up, then whenever someone picks up a role in the dream,
falls into their unconscious, pushes our buttons, gets into
a conflict, etc, they are just getting dreamed up by the deeper
dreamfield to play this out for all of us. And if this is truly
a dream, if we view what is happening in this way, then this
dreamlike reality of ours has no choice but to spontaneously
shape-shift and manifest in this way.
I
am not in the normal role of facilitator, as I, as much as anyone,
go over my edge, sharing my struggles and step into my unconscious,
becoming vulnerable and open for reflections. When I step into
my unconscious, the role of facilitator needs to get picked
up by someone else in the group, as not only can I not play
both these roles at once, but the facilitator is clearly just
a role in the field that needn't be monopolized. When an unconscious
content is in the process of getting integrated, that particular
role starts to fluidly switch between members in the group,
as it is literally getting metabolized by the group (instead
of just one person all the time getting dreamed up into the
same role). This is all just dreamwork, with the dream being
what happens in the group.
When
an awakening in the dream groups stabilises and configures in
a way where a certain resonance is created, it is what I call
an "in-phase dreaming circle," which is actually an
organism of a higher-dimension. Instead of there being, for
example, ten seemingly separate selves who are imagining that
they are alien to each other, imagine if these ten seemingly
separate selves woke up and recognized that they are interconnected
and parts of one another (reflections of each other, each other's
dream characters).
Furthermore,
when these awakening in the dream groups are contemplated as
a symbol that has precipitated into and out of the dreamfield,
they are recognized to be what I call microcosmic fractals,
reflecting a deeper process of awakening that is available both
individually and collectively, as a planet. What is happening
in the groups is then realized to be an evolutionary quantum
leap of human consciousness that has crystallized into materialised
form in this waking dream of ours.
.
