Hello Dreamers,

I just returned from teaching in London at the Shamanic Lands conference with many a wonderful teacher, who I was very honored to share both teaching/speaking space with. My input was to lead the conference participants into the dreamtime on the first night, and then assist them to decode their dreams in an open forum, the second morning of the conference. On Monday I taught a sold out workshop using indigenous techniques to teach the group how to consider alternatives to decode the dreamtime.

One of the things I mentioned at the event, is that in the tradition of some of the indigenous Peoples with whom I have worked work, if you were struck by lightening and lived, you were automatically seen to have shamanic skills that were to be shared with the community. Essentially shamanic skills meant to open your perceptions, and also to learn what the soul needs to continue to grow in consciousness. And, when we dream of something, say a snake bite, in some traditions you were literally treated the next morning in your waking state for the snake bite. In other words the dream state will manifest the waking state you experience in some capacity. I offer these two observations due to the dream below.

Hi Sandy,

I do have a dream. I feel some of it is obvious but I still have a feeling I am missing something. I included my dream here, but if there is another place to post it please let me know.

It is night time and I am in a dark room laying in bed with my youngest son, who in my dream is a baby.

I would suggest this dream was taking you back in time to process some feelings or events, that you may not have been able to process fully as regards your past. I do not know the name of your son, but in session I would ask that. You state, “I am in the dark,” possibly referring to a time in your past that felt dark, maybe foreboding, or at least confusing. Besides the fact that your son was a baby and needed you, and because everything in the dream is also an aspect of ourselves, it could suggest that you were more naïve, or perhaps needed someone’s help to take care of a situation, in which you were not feeling nurtured or protected.

The bed is made so that our heads are at the end of the bed where I normally would have my feet, and not against the wall. Open and unprotected. I think there are more beds with my other children in the room too.

The place where you try to get some peace of mind (metaphorically the bed), is ‘topsy turvey.’ Something in your world has been turned upside down, and you are feeling unprotected (no wall to lean into as a boundary), and unsure how to protect your other children (“my other children were in the room”). Again, because everything in the dream is an aspect of self, it can also allude to the fact that that your ‘inner pantheon of helpers’, to which you turn to for clarity, didn’t offer you any answers as to what you should do either.

We are close to a window and there is thunder and lightening outside, and I am a little concerned about being struck, as I have been struck by lightening before. I move my son a little further away from the window.

Have you literally been struck in the waking world by lightening; or are you referring to knowing in the dream time that you have been struck before. I would give a bit of a different spin, depending on your answer. However, you are close to a window. Windows can suggest a view into the soul’s needs, a way out of a confined space, or changing your perceptions of a situation as you look at it a different way. You are afraid to be struck by lightening. Lightening in dreams can suggest a shock; something scorching that you didn’t anticipate; forces outside your control. It can also indicate that you suddenly have a knowing; something within you ‘lights up,’ and you understand what you need to do. Thunder is a sound, a loud sound from the heavens to be aware, to listen to your needs, to wake up to something from the outside, interfering and affecting something in your inner world. In one Native prayer, one part says, “We welcome the Thunder Beings, who bring the rains that cleanse and that heal.” So I could also suggest that whatever was being ‘shook up’ in your inner world, was occurring for a deeper healing.

I end up leaving the room with a friend, Dawn, and another women that I don’t know. We are going down some stairs and out a door and once outside I realize I can’t relax I keep seeing how the lightening is going to strike my son in the head thru the window. I have to go back to my little boy.

Interesting word play. You leave with your friend ‘Dawn.’ At dawn there is the potential for a new beginning, a new day coming, but it means you need to leave the house, possibly leave your home, or the place you have always called home.  There is much you still need to do to secure as sense of protection and peace of mind although you now know what direction you now need to go in.

I run back in and take him out of the bed and move to other part of room far away from the window. I see the lightening as it hits the window. It almost strikes my boy and it lights up part of the room. There is no sound just a small miniature like beam of lightening.

Although you are aware of this, you still have to bide your time for a bit, and go back inside (stay at the locale) to rescue both your children, and the parts of yourself (the life you were leading then) that have needed protection and now must choose to seek a new beginning elsewhere.

You try and move to a far away place to find comfort and safety, but you know in the process that there will still be repercussions (the lightening hits the window). It almost strikes your boy-possibly some or all of you children are affected by this decision you have to make, but “it lights up the room.” You KNOW what you need to do. The small miniature beam of lightening might suggest that the path will not be as obvious as you might want it to be initially, or as concretized as you need it to be to feel total safety, but there will be a beam that guides you forward and directs you. 

Throughout the whole dream I am filled with strong emotions. I was feeling love, anxiety, fear and had a sense of knowing that I at first was trying to deny but eventually choose to listen to.

I would suggest that this involved the choice you had to make way back when, that there was fear and anxiety, but also love and a knowing for yourself and those you cared for, that you couldn’t deny.

If you had brought this into session, I might also ask, what in your current life is mirroring or mimicking the upheaval that you felt in your past. What are you sensing you might need to leave behind? What ah ha moments (lightening) might you be experiencing where you may be accepting or diminishing your own light? This might not apply at all, possibly you were just processing the old….but we go in cycles, so dreaming of something from our past circumstances, might also be trying to bring light to a current situation in the now.

Thank you for sharing.