The Place Where Dreams Are Born

The Place Where Dreams Are Born?
The other night I played an old parlor game with my friend Julie and her daughter Ari. One of us hid an object under an upturned wooden salad bowl, then the other two, with empty minds, attempted to draw what was hidden. We didn’t do well with the hidden nail-clipper or the glass heart, but when Ari hid a sliced apple, Julie and I drew surprisingly accurate pictures. How come? My theory is that by being quiet and relaxed and open to the possibility, we could go to a place in our mind’s eye where we could see the apple. It’s a different kind of seeing — the kind we do in dreams.

That we can see differently or do a wide range of remarkable things by turning off our thinking is obvious on those occasions when we “just do it.” A dramatic example of this is recounted by Allan J. Hamilton, M.D., in “Healing Prayers that Work” (read the article here). A colleague of Hamilton’s had driven himself to the emergency room because his heart had lost its rhythm. After a couple hours of failed interventions, his choices appeared to be death by arrhythmia or possible death via the electric paddles intended to save him. What did he choose? The story is a good one — one that goes to the heart of the dilemma between Western scientific thought and spiritual faith. Hamilton’s story illuminates some questionable assumptions in the famous Harvard study that concluded that prayers don’t work, and he offers some theories about what sorts of prayers might work.

The gap between scientific-method-determined healing modes and spiritual healing won’t go away any time soon. In “Energy Medicine Coming of Age” (read the article here), Betsy Robinson looks at the problems of applying scientific methods and assumptions to the world of energy medicine. The good news is that really smart, open-minded people are coming together to dream a future where all medicines will work for our greater good.

So where is this place of dreams? In “Waking Up to Your Dreams” (read the article here), Robert Moss, the pioneer of Active Dreaming, suggests that from this place, our dreams are the best personal doctor we could have. To help us get to know that doctor’s medicine, he introduces us to dream games that he’ll be exploring further in an S&H Dream Workshop.

But even a workshop won’t reveal the place where dreams are born. And perhaps that’s best. As the great dreamer and poet Rumi (read the article here) said: “Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I will meet you there.”

Stephen Kiesling
editor-in-chief
steve@SpiritualityHealth.com