Dream a LIttle Dream...

A standard of the American songbook is the 1931 "Dream a Little Dream of Me."  I've had an earworm of the song for months. Not the whole song: just the part "Dream a little dream of me."  I didn't even own a recording so I went to iTunes and downloaded one to listen to the whole song.  It's a nice song: very danceable, which is an important song criteria for me. 

Usually I find that when there is a song that plays like that in my mind, there's usually a message. So, who am I supposed to be dreaming about?  Finally this morning as I was getting out of bed with the song playing in my mind...again, it suddenly hit me that the "me" that I am supposed to be dreaming about is me--moi!  I don't think it is "about" me, but probably "for" me.  Dream a dream for me.


For decades, I was sure that I didn't dream. For much of my life, I hardly ever remembered a dream. When I was in graduate school, though, I took a creativity class and developed a system for remembering dreams; then I couldn't turn them off. After that, I had vivid dreams every night, and I remembered them in great detail.  Often I would write down four, five, or even six, taking pages in my dream journal to capture them.

In recent years, I've mostly been back in the don't-remember-the-dreams zone again.  Oh, occasionally, I will remember and job down some word.  If I do that, most of the time, I am amazed at how much I remember even at the end of the work day when I come home. What is different this time is that I know dream remembrance can be like turning a tap on and off.  If I follow certain steps, 90% of the time, I remember the dreams.  Over the years when I guided leaders in Intentional Living Intensives, I was able to get most of them remembering and learning from dreams within a day or two.

The process is no great mystery.  I lay a pad on my night stand before going to sleep, and as I do so, I express the intention, "I am going to have a dream tonight that I will remember.  If I need to, I will awaken only long enough to jot down a few key words that will help me recall the dream in the morning."  When I've turned lights off and am about to drift off to sleep again, I say the same thing to myself again.  Then, I forget about it and go to sleep.

The second part is my current challenge: wake up naturally.  The jolt of an alarm clock acts as an instant eraser for me. Even the crickets on my iPhone have the same effect. If I use a clock radio, then my mind instantly goes to what is on the radio, which also disappears the dream.  When I awaken naturally, just as I begin to come to awareness, but I'm not fully awake, if I grab my pad and start writing, the words spill out of my subconscious.  All I have to do is occasionally write the words, "What was next?" and more is there. 

If I need the words I wrote in the middle of the night, usually in the dark, I look at them just as I am coming to awareness, and the dream memories start flowing.

The last part is to just write whatever comes out without judgment or trying to make sense of it until nothing else comes.  Then I journal what I think it means.  Many think that our brains are in "soul school" at night, and we are working out spiritual lessons.  Others say that the right brain, which has a much greater capacity for taking in information during the day than can be processed, uses our sleep/dream time to make sense of data it has been collecting all day.  I don't know the answer: I just know that when I capture my dreams and use them to learn, extraordinary knowing comes from them.  Huge challenges are solved instantly.  My creativity flows.

But, I haven't figured out how to make the system work with my work schedule.  I have to get up at 5:20 most days.  Friday it will be 4:45, and that is a.m.  There is no way I wake up naturally at that time.  Even if I did, I get up at that ungodly hour because that is the time it takes for me to get ready for work.  I don't have 30-45 minutes to write my dreams and still get to work on time.  Getting up at 5:20 seems like such an unnatural act that I am sure I couldn't get up earlier more than the occasional time when I absolutely have to get up to be at a retreat site to set up.  Conundrum. 

Something quite remarkable is stirring in my dreams these days.  Since I started writing on my new book, I have the sense when I awaken that I have dreamed.  I don't remember yet, but I just know I had a dream.  I take that to be a good sign.  I think that is what the song is trying to tell me.  I need to get a new system so that I will remember the dreams or can pick them up later.  That is a dream for me.  If I post and shutdown right now, I might get an extra 20 minutes of sleep, dream time, and maybe even awaken early enough to dream a little dream for me.

**NOTE NEXT DAY: it work!!  I had a dream, jotted down some words in the middle of the night, they reminded me in the morning and I wrote half a page about the dream.  I haven't figured the dream out...yet...but it is intriguing.