TL;DR: The author relates a client’s dream and the fascination they and the client shared in interpreting the dream and how the dream clarified aspects of the client’s life. They then encourage readers to explore their dreams as a bonafide source of real-life rewards.
One thing I really like about the Positively Focused Practice is dream work. It’s so powerful. It’s powerful because so much happens in dreams that directly tie to waking life.
Clients are discovering how powerful their dreams are as they learn how to connect their dream experiences to their waking life. Contrary to what psychology and science assert, immense, real-life value comes from the dream world. Indeed, our entire waking life stems from that place where dreams are born.
Today I want to show what that value looks like by sharing a client’s dream experience. I want to share how it relates to his waking experience and how he felt after discovering his dream gave him information he really wanted to know.
Ready? Here we go!
Participating in our expansion
Troy is an aspiring writer and musician. Most of his 67-year life brought Troy resentment and regret, however. That’s because early on, Troy conjured disempowering beliefs about his creative expression. He didn’t believe it was good enough. So, of course, the world around him reflected that belief back to him, in the form of people not appreciating his expression.
Like nearly all people, Troy saw what people were doing and saying, or rather not saying, about his work as evidence. He told himself people not appreciating his writing was proof his work wasn’t any good. Perhaps you can see the trouble here. And maybe you can see how almost everyone talks themselves in to trouble when they don’t know what physical reality is for.
Physical reality is a reflection. It is a reflection we each create. Our reflection shows us beliefs we hold about a myriad of subjects, including beliefs of which we may not be consciously aware. By experiencing physical reality, among other things, we can true up the reflection (what shows up in life) to include more of our desires.
Physical reality also exists so we can directly participate in our individual growth and the growth of All That Is. A better word for “growth” is “expansion”.
So Troy not knowing his reality is a reflection caused him to create more resentment and regret by misunderstanding how people’s response to his work was serving him.
Misinterpreting physical reality
Physical reality is the way All That Is expands. It also is the best way we as individuals expand. Everything in physical, therefore, is positive. It shows us where we are relative to our desires, much like a map shows us where we are relative to where we want to be. Physical reality also shows us how well we’re doing in getting to where we want to be. And it gives us clues to things we may be clueless about. Things having a massive effect on how well or not well we’re crating a life we want, for example.
All the while physical reality can be a joyful, pleasurable, exciting adventure. One literally filled only with those things we want and none of what we don’t.
But if we don’t know what you just read, we misinterpret physical reality. We misinterpret it as “real”….not a reflection. That gets us into trouble because if we mistake the reflection as reality, then we tend to create more of what we see thinking it’s real. That’s why most people’s lives come packed with some of what they want and a lot of what they don’t want.
Troy’s balance of those two things skewed to unwanted. A lot of what he didn’t want showed up in his life, which is why he ended up resentful and filled with regret.
Seeing reality differently
That was before Troy found the Positively Focused Practice. Indeed, anyone who believes physical reality is anything other than a reflection of their inner state is going to create a reality including some wanted and some unwanted. But when a person figures this out, amazement is at hand. That person can use physical reality for its intended purpose. And in using it that way, they can create the reality of their dreams.
How?
By using physical reality for the reflection it is. Then tuning their inner state to match what they want. When they do that, then physical reality, which, again, is a reflection, must reflect that more positive inner state, e.g. a life experience including more of what they want. That’s what Troy is learning to do. His dreams are helping him do that.
Instead of interpreting his reality as evidence of negative beliefs about his writing, like he used to do, Troy started looking at his reality differently. He started seeing it as a reflection of his inner state. Then he started doing something about his inner state.
What did he do?
He began telling better stories about his life, about himself, and about the world in general. Doing so, his mood improved. And as that happened, gradually, his life improved too. Meanwhile, he started the dream work. Then small changes started happening regarding how people responded to his creativity. Troy eventually saw bits of evidence of his success as a writer emerging.
Shortly thereafter, Troy had a dream.
A happy dream
The dream confused him because he didn’t know how to interpret it.
He dreamed about a regionally famous musician. In the dream, she was apologizing for breaking Troy’s heart. Troy told her she didn’t break his heart and in response, the musician expressed disappointment. Troy felt bad about that. So he changed his tune. He told her that his heart was broken. As soon as he did, both he and the musician laughed uproariously. Troy woke at that moment in confusion.
When Troy told me this dream, I was overjoyed. That’s because I knew exactly what it was about. After explaining it to him, Troy too was really happy about the dream because the dream told him a lot of things about where he is and where he’s headed.
On the surface, the dream was about Troy’s creative aspirations. But the dream had an even deeper meeting. Let’s take a look at both.
Desire goes both ways
The regionally successful musician in the dream represented Troy’s desire for stardom. The reason this particular star showed up in his dream is because she’s familiar. Troy performed as a back up musician for her. And, Troy does see her as very successful. This is important because the musician is regionally successful. She’s not an international star like Beyonce or Taylor Swift, for example.
That accords with the balance of Troy’s desire for success and his belief in his ability to be successful. He doesn’t see himself as either an international best selling author, or an internationally-recognized musician. His desires, in other words, are tempered by what he believes is possible: regional success. It’s no wonder then that the regionally successful performer showed up in his dream instead of Taylor Swift.
The performer’s apology represented Troy’s frustration and disappointment over not having the success he wants. Historically Troy blamed everyone other than himself about not being successful. So here his stardom was taking responsibility for his lack of stardom, which is exactly what Troy wants according to his beliefs.
But Troy acknowledged in the dream that his heart wasn’t broken. That represented Troy taking back his power, which he’s doing in waking life through his Positively Focused practice. This is an important element of his dream. Amplifying that will empower him further in waking life.
Something remarkable happens next in the dream. When he says his heart wasn’t broken, his stardom affects an air of disappointment. This is so important. It shows that Troy’s stardom wants him to want that stardom as much as Troy wants the stardom!
This is such an important feature of this dream, I want to spend a little time on it next.
Our desires live apart from us
Our desires are as alive as we are. And, like us, they desire. Their biggest desire is their full self-expression, much like a human desires its full self-expression.
So when we birth a desire, that desire wants fulfillment. So much so that if we don’t fulfill it, it will go elsewhere to pursue its fulfillment. That’s why sometimes a person will have a desire, not act on it, and then someone else will suddenly seemingly express that same desire into the world. What happened there is the desire went elsewhere because it “knew” it wasn’t going to be fulfilled with the first person.
Another way a desire will fulfill itself is by finding its fulfillment in another dimension, an alternate reality, if you will. Indeed, desires are so ravenous for self-expression, usually when one person has a desire, many others receive that same desire at the same time!
So desires are as alive as we are and seek self expression. Troy’s dream showed him his desire – stardom – wants Troy to fully express it! That’s why the musician expressed disappointment when Troy said his heart wasn’t broken. The desire wants to know Troy’s heart is in it, i.e. he wants to fulfill it.
As I mentioned earlier, an even deeper meaning came along with this dream. Let’s examine that next.
Our desires know…
At the end of the dream both Troy and his desire (the musician) busted out laughing when Troy apologized for telling the musician his heart wasn’t broken. This was a major message from this dream.
We are all eternal beings. In our eternity, we don’t experience any of life as dire, serious or even significant. As humans we sometimes feel all these things. But from our Broader Perspective, our lives here on earth are about joy, fun and expansion. That’s all. Our desires feel the same way.
In other words, and I write about this all the time, we’re here to have fun in our lives. Nothing serious is happening, and our desires know this. That’s why, when Troy apologized, the musician representing Troy’s stardom, and Troy himself, in the dream, burst out laughing.
While talking about this dream with Troy, I could see his demeanor change in real time. His shoulders relaxed. He became more thoughtful. Then a lightbulb went off in his head as we talked about how his stardom wants him as much as he wants it. I could tell Troy really enjoyed finding out what we talked about.
And this is the nature of the dream reality. There is so much useful, valuable information happening in that reality. It’s the same reality we come from before we’re born. I call it “nonphysical”.
Real life rewards
Awareness of nonphysical, whether through dreams or otherwise, can vastly improve our waking experience. It’s a wonder humans don’t avail themselves of this valuable knowledge when it’s so effing close to them and being offered every day. A lot of people don’t even realize they’re dreaming! Let alone recalling any dreams, or better yet, interpreting them accurately.
But everyone dreams. Including those who think they don’t. But they don’t realize it happening because they unconsciously block those experiences. How? By telling themselves they don’t dream.
We can see from Troy’s experience that dreams offer a lot of value. They tell us how we’re doing on our path to everything we want. And they can give us huge insights into what life is all about.
Dreams offer really great real-life rewards. That’s why I encourage all my clients to discover those rewards by exploring their dreams.