“In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim.” ~ U2

We’d all love to take a picture of our dreams and post those mystical over-saturated images on Instagram, but we can’t. Our dreams aren’t photos from a U2 concert—even if they seem as vivid as one.

Dreams are just about the only thing that we cannot capture on film.

It’s like an undiscovered universe, but only for our inner eyes. Dreamtime can also be a mind-blowing space for recognizing patterns of joys and difficulties in our waking state.

Yet how do we blend the two states together to become more aware of our subconscious and conscious desires?

How do we communicate what we saw? How do we Instagram our dreams? Is it possible? I’m not sure, but I’ll try, so I’ve been collecting my dreams upon waking.

Here’s how:

Stay put as soon as you wake. Keep your eyes closed, and try to see the images of your dreams. Start tracing your dreams backwards, as if recounting your steps through a forest or a walk along the beach.

Watch as one image blends into another image, and once you’ve remembered your dreams grab the poetry dream journal you’ve put next to your bed.

Write the images as a poetic snapshot.

In the darkness of pre-dawn dotted with sparkles of distant light, I’ve often been awed awake by the way my technicolored dreams are seemingly more alive than life.

On many mornings, I’ve inadvertently used poetry as a vessel for tapping into the messages of dreamtime.

It’s the only way that I can Instagram my dreams.

Here’s one of my dreams, about meeting a plant spirit medicine healer:

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I’m spiraling

down

through the luminescence 

           of dream space

like sands through an hourglass,

and yet

in my dreaming
the scent of sea salt
surrounds me

almost as real as those days I wandered along the edge of the sea,

but I am not awake,

and yet I am

in a dream 

surrounded

by a collection of people
who are all ages and all walks of life,

it’s a cuddling party where everyone is laughing,

I’m sitting on a cat-scratched couch
with golden pillows worn around the edges
as a hint of sepia colored light
fills the redwood cabin,
and you are there,

leaning against me,
telling me
about plant spirit medicine,
so I listen
because
that’s what we do
in dreams,

pause for a moment

or what isn’t
even a solid second,
but a brief hesitation
in the spirals of space
in which I hear

you,

a reflection
of me,

offer advice
in the folds of dreamtime
reminding me to stay true to my path
even as it is rocky and jagged,
soon the crest of the mountain will appear,
you encourage me,
offering a sip of your spirit medicine tea,

and I want to taste your lips,

not the drink,

but I can’t

because the images 

          superimpose,
so sepia melts me
into velvety green
of ferns in a redwood forest,

which fades
into pale light
of the morning sky,
as I awaken,
rubbing the fairy dust flakes from my eyes,
wondering
about the delicate spiral dance in between dreaming
and being alive.

~

Author: Jessie Wright

Editor: Toby Israel

Image: Ryan Pouncy/Unsplash // Vinoth Chandar/Flickr

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