Dreaming in the Indigenous Mind:
Reconstituting Tribal Dreaming in a Multicultural and Modern Way
Apela Colorado, PhD, received her PhD from Brandeis University
in 1982. She is of the Oneida tribe and a traditional cultural
practitioner. She was taught from early on to value all the
various dream states. When she created a Masters degree in
Indigenous Mind at Naropa – Oakland, she incorporated indigenous
dreamwork within the curriculum.
Atava Garcia Swicicki, MA, is a graduate of Stanford
University. Her fascination with dreams began as a child. As a
student and faculty member of Naropa University’s Indigenous Mind
program, she has explored the way her Mexican and Slavic ancestors
and spirits communicate through dreams. She applies these insights
as a facilitator of dream groups.
Kit Cooley, MA, began recording dreams with the death of her
beloved Italian grandmother, Lucy, who appeared in her dreams,
providing valuable insights and prescience. She joined the
Indigenous Mind program, graduating in 2003. As adjunct faculty,
she now teaches and counsels students on topics including
dreamwork as it relates to Indigenous Science.
Teresa MacColl, MA, has done Celtic ancestral research in the
Indigenous Mind program at Naropa University, which included the
Celtic Second Sight, dreams and prophecy. Using her science
background, she helped to create the IM group’s ”dream database”
and is conducting research into collectively looking at students’
dreams.
Loren Hadassah Finkelstein
is completing the Indigenous Mind program at Naropa University.
Her interest in dreamwork led her to Thailand where she studied
with Diana Manilova, a Russian-born healer initiated by the
Mongolian Shamans of Lake Baikal. Currently, she is helping to
study the collective dreams of the IM program.
Abstract
In the Indigenous Mind program
each student learns how to receive dream messages from Ancestors,
Spirit and Guides and is offered guidance to understand them in
the context of the waking world. As Indigenous Scientists we study
and observe the way the Moon, Sun and planetary cycles influence
our dreams. We study the patterns of dreams over the process of
each student’s development within the program, and ground those
experiences in the best of dream literature.
This
panel will first present on the principles of the Indigenous Mind
program as taught by Dr. Apela Colorado. She will offer the Nine
Tenets of Indigenous Science, the foundation from which students
begin their individual paths of weaving science and Spirit into
our larger truth. We will then present examples from students of
the program, illustrating the ways in which dreams guide our work.
Our case studies will illustrate just a piece of what has been
revealed through dream images and will offer tools for
understanding dreams as guides in the waking world - particularly
in their propensity for cross-cultural understanding and healing.
Just like our diverse group of students, much of the post-modern
world does not have Elders or intact cultures to link the modern
and disassociative way of studying our dreams with the ancient
integrated ways of our ancestors. Working within our diverse group
we will show examples of how dreams work on multiple levels to
impart messages and understandings for today and simultaneously
reconstitute tribal ways. Thus our workshop process becomes a
bridge for participants who wish to link these two ways of knowing
dreams. Finally, we will present the ways in which technology has
impacted our ability to understand our dreams as a community. We
will walk people through the database we have created to collect
and organize our dreaming. In conclusion, we will share our
findings, the wisdom that has been gleaned through our process of
communal dreaming, as well as the direction and focus this work is
taking.
