Are You Flying in Your Dreams?

Dearest Dreamers,

If you take the time to understand them, you can’t help benefitting from the insights your dreams offer you.  So closely tied to our waking lives, and operating from a perspective neutral to our daily turmoil, dreams provide insights into our personalities and the paths we travel through life.  If we learn the beautiful, metaphorical language of dreams, we soon know ourselves and are more able to be true to ourselves.  Here is a case in point:

You may recognize the name of Amy Tan, an Oakland native, and bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife.

In an interview published in Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel, Ms. Tan speaks about the value of her dreams in her life:

“Fifteen years ago I realized how important dreams were in my life.  They weren’t just flotsam and jetsam, I could actually change the way that I felt about myself through dreams.”  She goes on to relate that her most significant dreams came to her shortly after her friend Pete died.  She tells of a vivid and emotional dream experience:

“One night I entered into a dream and Pete was there.  He said, ‘I want to take you to this place where I live…’  It was a wonderful idyllic setting with a lot of creatures flying around:  elephants, camels, people.  I said, ‘I’d like to try flying myself.’

“Pete said, ‘Sure, but since you’re not dead, you have to go over to that booth there and rent some wings.  They’re only a quarter.’

“I went and rented the wings.  I took off, and I was flying around with all the other people, having a wonderful time.  All of a sudden, I realized, ‘This is ridiculous.  How can I fly with these twenty-five-cent wings?’ 

“Immediately I started to fall.  I was terrified I was going to die.  Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I was just flying a minute ago,’ and I started flying again.  I went back and forth with this – falling and flying, falling and flying – until it finally dawned on me what this was about.  I said to myself:  ‘It is not these wings that enable you to fly, it’s your own confidence.’”

Ms. Tan then shared the epiphany her dream brought to her:  “I realized there were many things in my life that I was not allowing myself to do because I lacked the confidence.  I needed the props.  I could see all the props I’d been using, and they were just like those twenty-five-cent wings.  I could see how ridiculous it was.

“Even though it was a dream, I felt it on a gut level of experience – the fear of failing, falling, and the elation of flying…Without the dream, it probably would have taken me much longer to come to such a simple realization about myself.”

Don’t discount the power of your dreams to be transformative in your life!

Sweet Dreams to You, Dear Dreamers!

SMYD

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