Dear reader,
Here are two simple ways to launch your parallel dream practice and enhance the dream sharing process. It may sound a little tedious and time consuming at first, but when tested in practice it does open up room for new insights.
Dr. Kelley Bulkeley Ph. D., a dream researcher, suggests that telling the dream in present tense and then immediately telling it for the second time improves dream recall and reveals deeper meaning of a dream.
Sharing a dream story in present tense brings it into here-and-now and according to Bulkeley, allows for a more empathic discussion with your dream partner.
Telling the dream for the second time may seem silly and tiresome, but I can see why it works. Most of the time when I record a dream in my journal, I close the journal and take a moment to pause and let everything settle. Then I share the dream with my husband. In that second telling of the dream, I tend to remember new details, the story seems to unfold and deeper meanings emerge, what Bulkeley defined as a “holistic awareness” of the dream.
In that second telling, most of the time, but not always I begin to feel into the messages of the dream, and it feels as if veils of the subconscious parts of myself are lifting. There is a revelatory quality to the story line of the dream. There are “aha” moments of self understanding and at the end of the process a sense of wonder at our ability to have these types of meaningful experiences on nightly basis.
Try either or both of these suggested techniques next time you recall a dream and see how they work for you. Leave a comment and share your experience of this practice with us.
Dr. Bulkeley is a director of Sleep and Dream Database an online public dream resource center for dream research, dream art and public education about dreaming.