Abstract Index Conference Index

ABSTRACT

PRESENTATION PROPOSAL FOR THE ASD 2001 CONFERENCE
By Rosemary Ellen Guiley

1. Workshop, two hours

2. "High Dreamwork for Spiritual Guidance"

3. Rosemary Ellen Guiley is the author of Dreamwork for the Soul, The Encyclopedia of Dreams, Dreamspeak: How to Understand the Messages in Your Dreams, and Breakthrough Intuition as well as numerous other books on spiritual, Metaphysical and inspirational subjects. She is a member of the board of directors of the ASD. 

email reguiley@aol.com

4. In "high dreamwork," our dreams are teaching tools for initiation into higher spiritual consciousness. We will use sacred sound, visualization and incubation ritual to meet the spiritual guides and masters of the dream plane and to obtain guidance about our life journey and soul's path.

5. Objectives: 1) Become aware of the spiritual content of dreams; 2) Learn techniques for high dreamwork; 3) Obtain guidance or answers to questions.
Evaluation questions: 1) What role do dreams play in our spiritual development? 2) What are techniques for engaging in high dreamwork? 3) How can I use dreams to obtain specific guidance?

8. Abstract
When we enter onto a spiritual path, we use the tools of study, prayer, devotion, meditation and contemplation in order to understand Truth and how to apply it in life. But we often overlook one of the most valuable tools available to us: the dream.

Rudolph Steiner stated that the higher soul is actually born during deep sleep, when we are in a world different from the sensory one and better able to perceive the spiritual world in its own character. "Our dreams lose their meaningless, disorderly and disconnected character and begin to form an increasingly regular, lawful and coherent world," he said. "As we evolve further, this new dream-born world not only becomes the equal of outer sensory reality with regard to inner truth, but also reveals facts depicting, in the full sense of the word, a higher reality."

As we progress on our spiritual path, our ordinary dreams become mixed with what I call "power dreams." Examples of power dreams are those that contain psi; involve out-of-body experiences; can be shared simultaneously with others in "mutual dreaming;" can be controlled to a certain extent through lucidity; express awakened kundalini energy; are the mediums for profound healing; involve real encounters with the dead or otherworldly beings such as angels; and are initiatory experiences with spiritual guides, masters and otherworldly beings (some of whom may have animal forms).
Through power dreams, we become aware of the spiritual world, wherein dwells the soul. The soul is quite active in this world at night when we sleep. Through our dreams, we learn that what happens in the spiritual world is the cause of what exists in the physical world. Thus, it is the task of the initiate to bring the truths of the inner realm into expression in the outer realm. We must become more conscious of our dreams, and carry what we learn into waking life.
The true heart of the dream is a real experience that takes place in another reality. When we enter this reality, this dreamscape, we are able to transcend limitations of the physical world. Our dreams are teaching tools showing us how to grow and improve. Dreams are the original language of the spiritual path. Working with power dreams is "high dreamwork."

Historical accounts of dreams show that power dreams happen on a spontaneous basis to everyone. The more we engage in spiritual study, the more frequently power dreams occur. Historical accounts also show that we have the ability to encourage or induce such transformative dreams with incubation techniques. In fact, various mystical teachings East and West have long addressed the spiritual importance of dreams and how to induce and use dreams for guidance.
The most important step we can take with power dreams is to recognize them as such--as vehicles that help us in our development of higher states of consciousness. To benefit fully from them, we should devote time to understanding them through dreamwork. Power dreams help us understand the deep and hidden parts of ourselves, and our connection to the divine and to all creation. Power dreams help us to see and develop latent abilities and powers that are essential to our spiritual unfoldment. They provide information, understanding and knowledge which we can bring into the material world.
In the workshop, we will learn breath and visualization exercises that stimulate the higher chakras for facilitating high dreamwork. We will examine some of our own dreams for the themes and images that often relate to spiritual content.
We can facilitate our spiritual progress by encouraging more power dreaming through incubation practices. Incubation, which is derived from the Greek term incubatio ("sleeping in") is the keeping of something under conditions favorable for development. We incubate dreams by impressing and holding a request for information within consciousness, so that a desired dream is born into our awareness.
Ancient dream incubations typically involved ritual purification and cleanliness (such as bathing and changing into clean clothes), prayers, and abstention from sex, alcohol, meat and sometimes all food. Thus one=s full attention and energy could be directed to the dream.
We will discuss these procedures for incubating dreams and follow them in a modified format for a meditative incubation exercise:

1. Choose an important matter and be willing to explore it. Dream incubation is an activity of the sacred. One does not come to the night temple of the gods with trivial questions.
2. Phrase a clear question or request. Ask for specifics. Power dream examples might be to ask to meet a spiritual master, take an out-of-body trip, facilitate a healing, meet someone in the dreamscape, travel to an astral school, or see the future.
3. Write the question in a dream journal. Writing down the incubation question helps to "set" it in consciousness and start an alchemical process of incubation. The question cooks away on the back burners of the mind.

4. Prepare the body, mind and soul. Dream incubation should be undertaken when the proper attention can be devoted to it. During the day, follow the ancient wisdom of eating lightly or fasting; abstain from alcohol. Pray or meditate on the question, which continues the alchemical cooking. Give thanks for the answer that will come, which helps prepare the way for receiving the answer. Think about the question throughout the day. [For the exercise, we will do a ritual/meditation that combines elements of 4 and 5.]
5. At bedtime, do an incubation ritual. Create a special atmosphere by lighting a candle, burning some incense or playing some soft, meditative music. Spend time in prayer or meditation. Repeat the incubation question aloud several times followed by, "I give thanks for the answer, which will be in a dream that I remember." Visualize wakening, remembering and receiving an answer. Make the image as vivid as possible. Then try an Eastern visualization technique of placing a blue light at the throat chakra. Breathe into the blue light.
6. Write the incubation question again. This adds to the build-up of energy that is fertilizing the field of dreams to address the question.
[Sleep follows; but for the exercise, we will have a meditative period. Participants will be encouraged to journal, and to voluntarily share whatever is comfortable for them.]
Answers to questions may appear during this exercise. In addition, we will cover other ways that answers are delivered, such as through synchronicity, subsequent dreams, intuitive flashes, and so on.
Dreams are essential to our spiritual evolution. One of the purposes of dreaming is to help us live more consciously. Physicist Fred Alan Wolf observes that our dreams influence us whether we remember them or not. Unremembered, they enter life as patterns, and we live unconsciously. Ironically, we sleep through life. If we remember dreams--if we dream consciously--then we live consciously, too. The energy flows between the realm of the gods and the realm of the earth, or what today is called the implicate order and the explicate order.
What does it mean to live consciously? It means acquiring self-knowledge and a sense of one=s place in the larger scheme of things. It means realizing one=s potential. It means allowing the flower of life to open to its fullest. Perhaps the simplest answer is this: to live consciously is to enjoy the journey.
As H.G. Wells said in The Dream, "It was a life...and it was a dream, a dream within this life; and this life too is a dream. Dreams within dreams, dreams containing dreams, until we come at last, maybe, to the Dreamer of all dreams, the Being who is all beings."

Active credentials

I facilitate lay dreamwork in classes, workshops and seminars. Some of these are in response to invitations from conferences and organizations. Some I sponsor myself. Locally (in the Annapolis-Baltimore area) I teach a series of weekly classes, and put on a twice-annual workshop called Dream Quest (in 2001 this will be called Dream Odyssey). Among all the subjects I deal with in my presentations, books and articles, dreams and intuition are the most important to me.

Specific training
Other than a few classes from Montague Ullman, and some courses at the CG Jung Institute in New York City on psychology, alchemy, mythology and dreams, I have had no formal academic training in dreams per se. I am self-taught from workshops, seminars, self-study and my own experience in and outside of therapy since the mid-1980s. I have done various sorts of my own dreamwork for most of my life.

I approach dreams from a lay perspective in terms of understanding their role and importance in personal growth, especially from a spiritual perspective. By spiritual I do not mean religious, but rather having to do with enlightenment, self-fulfillment, sense of purpose in life, connection to a greater whole, inner powers of intuition, creativity and healing, etc.

Nature of experience in workshops
Examine dreams for spiritual messages and meanings

Orientation, style, methods
1. Discussion of how dreams deliver intuitive information and messages and have transformational power... elements associated with spiritual content... examples plus some historical overview

2. Individual work with a particular dream for which the participants desires to receive additional information

3. Guided meditation for waking dream incubation to answer a specific question posed by the participant... go to dream temple... connect with dream guide... get information... return and process... develop action plan... group discussion

Activities encouraged
Examination on individual basis of a particular dream or dreams... participation in guided meditation... contributing to group discussion

Ethics
I have read and do accept the ASD's guidelines on dreamwork ethics.

DREAMS/INTUITION
rDreamwork for the Soul. Berkley Books, trade paperback 1998 ($12.95).
Contents: How to use dreams for personal growth, haling and "high spiritual guidance." Features dreams of psi, lucidity, past-life, future, prophecy, out-of-body, astral travel, spiritual initiation, contact with the dead, visions of other realms, etc.
Book clubs: Literary Guild, alternate selection.
Serial rights: New Age, second serial.

rThe Encyclopedia of Dreams: Symbols and Interpretations. Crossroad, hardcover 1993 ($27.50), and Berkley Books mass market 1995 ($6.99). A bestselling reference work, more than 100,000 copies sold.
Contents: 150,000 words on dream interpretation for the lay person from a Jungian perspective. Introductory chapters cover research into the nature of dreams, how to remember dreams and how to interpret them. Encyclopedia portion covers 500-600 specific symbols, with emphasis given to universal meanings drawn from mythology and mystical traditions.
Foreign rights: Greek: Editions Akti-Oxy; Polish: Da Capo; Hungarian: Szukits Konyvkiado; Italian: Armenia.

ANGELS
r I Bring You Glad Tidings: Inspiring True Stories of Christmas Angels. Pocket Books hardcover 1999 ($16.00).
Contents: 30,000 words, a collection of 19 inspirational true stories of love, forgiveness, reconciliation, rescue and healing, featuring angels and a Christmas theme.

rThe Encyclopedia of Angels. Facts On File, hardcover 1996 ($40.00), and trade paper 1998 ($19.95).
Contents: 200,000 words, 400 entries on angelology (the study of angels), angelophany (the experience of angels), theologies, philosophies, art, literature, film and visionary experience.
Foreign rights: Japanese: Hara Shobo.
Book clubs: One Spirit, alternate selection.

rAngels of Mercy. Pocket Books, mass market 1994 ($5.50). More than 90,000 copies in print, four months on the Waldenbooks religious bestseller list.
Contents: Historical overview of beliefs about angels, cross-religious comparisons of angelic beings, true modern encounters with angels, plus how to be receptive to, and benefit from, angelic energies and influences. Stories emphasize healing on physical, emotional and spiritual levels, and transformations of consciousness.

rAn Angel in Your Pocket. Thorson=s/HarperCollins, mass market 1999. A condensed edition of Angels of Mercy for the United Kingdom market.

PRAYER
rPrayer Works. Unity Books, trade paperback 1998 ($12.95).
Contents: What makes prayer successful; dramatic true-life stories from the Silent Unity prayer service.
Book clubs: One Spirit, alternate selection.

rBlessings: Prayers for the Home and Family. Pocket Books, hardcover 1996 ($16.00) and trade paperback 1998 ($12.00).
Contents: Anthology of 180 cross-cultural prayers suited for daily use in family settings.

rWellness: Prayers for Comfort and Healing. Pocket Books, hardcover 1998 ($16.00) and trade paperback 1998 ($12.00).
Contents: Anthology of cross-cultural prayers, second in a series.

rThe Miracle of Prayer: True Stories of Blessed Healings. Pocket Books, trade paperback 1995 ($14.00).
Contents: The healing power of prayer, prayer and psi, ways to pray, mystical prayer, prayer and kundalini, plus dramatic true-life stories of prayer that saved lives.
Foreign rights: Spanish: Ediciones Martinez Arroca. Italian: Sperling & Kupfer.

PARANORMAL/MYSTICAL/SUPERNATURAL
rHarper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Phenomena. Harper San Francisco, hardcover 1991 ($35.95) and trade paperback 1991 ($26.00). Reissued by Random House 2001.
Contents: 350,000 words, more than 500 entries on paranormal phenomena, mystical experiences and traditions, historical figures, parapsychology, Jungian psychology, mythology, altered states of consciousness, shamanism, magic, alchemy, planetary consciousness, philosophy and more.
Foreign rights: United Kingdom: Thorson's/ HarperCollins; Spanish and Portuguese: HarperCollins Latin American Division; Greek: Compupress, Athens.
Book clubs: Book-of-the-Month Club, alternate selection; Quality Paperback Club, alternate selection.

rThe Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. Facts On File, hardcover 1992 ($40.00) and trade paper 1993 ($19.95). A best-selling reference work. Second edition released October 2000.
Contents: 285,000 words, 470 entries on theories about ghosts, hauntings and poltergeists; famous cases; historical figures; Spiritualism phenomena; mediumship; beliefs and practices concerning spirits and spirits of the dead in cultures around the world; research into survival after death; and psychical research and parapsychology pertaining to apparitions and poltergeists.
Book clubs: Book-of-the-Month Club, alternate selection; Quality Paperback Club, alternate selection; Writer's Digest Book Club, alternate selection; One Spirit Club, alternate selection.
Foreign rights: United Kingdom: Guinness. Japanese: Seido. Russian: Korzhenevsk.
Serial rights: National Examiner, first serial rights; National Enquirer, second serial rights.

Commendations: The book has been highly praised by librarians and scholars and was named one of the "outstanding reference works of 1992" by the Reference Services Committee of the American Library Association Reference and Adult Services Division. The School Library Journal named it a "best adult reference book for young adults" for 1993.

r The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. Facts On File, hardcover 1989 ($45.00) and trade paper 1990 ($19.95). A bestselling reference work covering folklore, the history of the Inquisition, famous cases, the growth of Wicca, etc. More than 100,000 copies sold. Second edition published in 1999: hardcover ($65) and trade paper ($24.95).
Contents: 300,00 words, more than 600 entries, illustrated, covering the history of witchcraft, magic, sorcery, the Inquisition, modern Wicca and Paganism and related topics; cross-cultural perspectives.
Foreign rights: Japanese: Hara Shobo. Russian: Korzhenevsk. German: Czechoslovakian:
Book clubs: Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection; Time-Life Paperback Preview, Europe.
Commendations: Best reference work, American Library Association.

rThe Atlas of the Mysterious in North America. Facts On File, hardcover 1994 ($35.00) and trade paper 1995 ($17.95).
Contents: A reference compendium of places of mystery, including earthworks, mounds, stoneworks, power points and sacred places, haunted places, water monster hauntings, monster and bigfoot sightings, ghost lights sites, phantom ships and more. Heavily illustrated with photos, drawings and maps.

TAROT
rThe Alchemical Tarot. Thorsons/HarperCollins, book and deck set 1995 ($32.00).
Contents: A book and deck set emphasizing the alchemical symbolism of the Tarot, with original art by Robert Michael Place. Specially designed as a tool for inner work.
Foreign rights: Turkish.

rThe Angels Tarot. HarperSanFrancisco, book and deck set 1995 ($30.00).
Contents: A book and deck set using angelology as the theme for interpreting the Tarot, with original art by Robert Michael Place. Intended as a tool for inner work.
Foreign rights: United Kingdom: Thorson/HarperCollins. German.

rThe Mystical Tarot. New American Library, mass market 1991($4.99).
Contents: A guide to the Tarot, with emphasis on interpreting symbols, developing intuition, and using the Tarot in meditation and as a means to inner growth.

FORTHCOMING IN 2001
Breakthrough Intuition: How to Achieve a Life of Abundance by Listening to the Voice Within. Berkley Books, trade paper (March). A practical guide to developing the intuition to enhance personal growth and satisfaction life, work and spirituality. Explains intuition and provides a self-study course with 94 exercises and applications

Dreamspeak: How to Understand the Messages in Your Dreams. Berkley Books, trade paper (August). In-depth look at symbols in dreams and what they mean.

The Encyclopedia of Saints. Facts On File, hardcover and trade paper (October). Biographies, miracles and mystical experiences of the 410 most important and intriguing saints. Eleven appendices.

A Miracle in Your Pocket. Thorson=s/HarperCollins, mass market paper. Explains miracles, gives true stories, teaches how to develop a "miracle-making consciousness."

REISSUES IN 2001
rTales of Reincarnation. Pocket Books, mass market 1989 ($4.99). Out of print. E-book to be published by Time Warner in 2001.
Contents: An overview of beliefs about reincarnation, and of the development of past-life recall as a therapeutic tool. Original anecdotal material underscores the dramatic transformational potential of exploring past lives.
Foreign rights: Portuguese: Pensamento.

rVampires Among Us. Pocket Books, mass market 1991. Out of print. E-book to be published by Time Warner in 2001.
Foreign rights: United Kingdom, Hungary, Romania.
Contents: Lore and anecdotes about vampires, ancient and modern.

OUT OF PRINT
rMoonscapes: A Celebration of Lunar Astronomy, Magic, Legend and Lore. Prentice-Hall, hardcover 1991 ($17.95). Out of print.
Contents: A lavishly illustrated almanac of everything you ever wanted to know about the mysteries of the moon, including scientific findings, space exploration, mythology and cosmology, folklore and superstition.
Foreign rights: United Kingdom: Piatkus. German: Der Goldmann Verlag, a division of Bertelsmann.

rThe Complete Vampire Companion. Macmillan, trade paperback, 1994. Out of print.
Contents: A treasury of lore about vampire superstitions, and vampires in film, fiction, legend, music, performing arts and real life.