Ep 52 Dreams as a Spiritual Practice

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

dreams, Jung, Jungian analyst

Dominic Kaiser  00:06

Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser.  We're glad you joined us.

Christina Roberts  00:23

Hello, it is great to be with you. Today we are talking about dreams as a spiritual practice. And when this episode airs, we will have finished both the Christmas and Epiphany season in church calendars. And both of these stories talk about dreams. You know, there's the famous story where Joseph has a dream from the angel talking about the Christ child. And then the Magi had a dream, warning them to go a different route because of King Herod. And I think sometimes in our Christian faith tradition, we can overlook, oh, yeah, that's kind of a side comment about dreams. But dreams appear quite a bit in the scriptures. 

You know, of course, there's the well-known story of Joseph and his dreams in the Old Testament. But it's not only Joseph's dreams, Pharaoh had dreams that were also part of the story. And then the cup bear, and the baker also had dreams. And so we see that dreams span across socioeconomic lines, it doesn't matter what your job or vocation in dreams. As part of that, they span across cultures, there seems to be something about the ability to interpret dreams. So also an Old Testament person that we can note is Daniel, who had an ability to interpret dreams. And so today, we wanted to talk about dreams and why dreams matter.  And how can dreams actually be a spiritual practice? And I think oftentimes, when we think about dreams, it's like, well, I don't have dreams, or I don't remember my dreams. And I think that can certainly be true, right? That's kind of our normal default. And yet, dreams are something that everybody experiences. And I think sometimes just acknowledging, okay, I do dream, what does it mean to pay attention to my dreams? And how can dreams be a spiritual practice? So what do we think about dreams today?

Chris Roberts  02:08

Yeah, I love that you're bringing up dreams, and even the characters in the stories that you mentioned. And I think one of the interesting things that's happened to me as I've started to pay attention to dreams as a spiritual practice, I personally didn't start having dreams that caused me to pay attention to dreams. I was doing a spiritual direction school and I had to get seekers for this school to sort of practice my listening skills. And one of my seekers brought a dream to a year long experience of listening. And I think, I began to notice that every time we would get together, a reference towards the dream would come up in this person's life. And so I then started to pay attention to my own dreams. I had another friend that started seeing a Jungian analyst who started discussing his dreams. And so I kind of had the classic outlook towards dreams that I think a lot of people have. I don't really remember a lot of my dreams, or should I say, I didn't remember a lot of my dreams. And so I didn't really pay attention to them. And so like a practice that I've had, because this is coming up, and all these different characters and relationships that are surrounding me, I started putting a journal and pen by my bed. And I had this intention to sort of whenever I would dream, no matter what time, I would jot down a little something. And that has really helped me pay attention to dreams. And I think just an awareness that a lot of people have dreams, and the symbolism is important for their lives. And so that's what comes up to me as you talk about dreams and the importance of dreams as a practice.

Christina Roberts  04:08

Yeah, maybe I'll just piggyback off of that, Chris. I also have a practice of when I wake up, and if I remember parts of my dream, I'll just get my notes out on my phone and voice to text it or whatever. And I've given myself the permission towards another barrier. When I don’t remember it all and I just remember this one part of my dream. And I think for me, giving myself permission that even if I only remember, this person was in my dream, or I was in this location, I will write that down. And I don't feel the pressure to have to remember all of my dreams, or only if I remember 25% of my dreams. And I'm noticing over time, as I've done that practice, when I go back over my notes, it's like, wow, I've dreamed like 10 different times that I'm in this one location, there's probably something there. What does this location mean? And I might look it up in a dream dictionary or something like that. And so I think for me, lowering the bar of paying attention to dreams is a spiritual practice. I don't have to have a massive dream journal where I'm like, sketching out all my dreams and all the details. But it's like these little things where maybe, again a person that's repetitive in my dream, paying attention to those themes. So yeah, I would agree with what you're saying. 

Chris Roberts  05:13

Maybe just another side note, I, one of the things that I've also noticed, and then I’ll bounce to you, Kristina Kaiser. But the intention to pay attention to your dreams, I think makes your awareness grow. And so where you might have said, I don't really remember my dreams, I think if you set an intention to remember your dreams and write them down, you actually do dream a lot, and you start to notice it more and pay attention to it. So I think that's important to note as well, for sure.

Kristina Kaiser  05:41

And I think it's interesting. Richard Rohr was talking about this in one of his daily meditations to not specifically dreams or just the notions of spiritual practices at all, that pretty much anything we do is either setting something in stone in our lives, or we're, you know, creating a new thing in our lives. And so even when we think, Oh, I'm not really practicing, and point of fact, anything that we're doing regularly is a practice. The question is, is it a spiritual practice? Or are we adding a spiritual intention to it?  And I think the same seems to be true with our dreams. It makes sense that our awareness seems to grow over time if we give it a little bit of credence and, and it's funny, I've even noted, there's things that I know to be true of my dreams. Like, I often see a house with many rooms, or like secret rooms type things. But my husband has different things that he notices about my dreams. Like you're always being chased. And I was like, No, I'm not. And so then I had to go back and or start noticing from this point forward, because that's probably more realistic. It's hard to remember something if you don't write it down. But is that true? Do I always feel like I'm running away from something which would also be a meaningful thing to process?

Christina Roberts  07:00

Yeah. And you bring up an interesting point, too, I think, you know, kind of going back to the Bible. There's a story in the Old Testament where Gideon was overhearing two friends talking about their dreams. And so I think sometimes, these dreams might stick with us. And so we want to bring it up in maybe a spiritual companioning session, or just with a spouse or a friend, like, Hey, I had this really weird dream last night. And here it is, and not even that you necessarily have to, again, have some profound thing, but I really appreciate sharing with another person.  They might recognize Oh, that's interesting. I might think that the bowling alley means one thing, and this person wonders if the bowling alley means something else. And it can kind of nuance and tease that out a little bit. And so I think that there's something about the privateness of these are my dreams that maybe I'm jotting down in my journal, and I just want to reflect on them myself. But then sometimes there seems to be an invitation to open that up to whatever degree to someone that has a compassionate listening ear towards us.

Chris Roberts  07:53

Yeah, I like that bringing something out in the open to someone else has a different effect, then us sort of studying our own dreams. I recall a significant dream that sort of altered my life drastically was this dream where I had a specific set of actions, like judgment towards a person. And then I got to have the dream again. And instead of being a dream of judgment, I had hospitality. So I got to do the dream differently. And I think I brought it up to my spiritual director, and the things that they noticed in the dream, I don't think that I would have paid attention to.  But it was in the retelling of my dream that I was able to hear from a different perspective. And that's what really altered the course of my life and brought up the hospitality thing. I didn't notice that hospitality is something that's really important to me, in my life. And as a family, you know, we've tried to offer hospitality as much as possible. And so I really like what you're saying about bringing things out can cause something different to happen, then, sort of just self-reflection.

Kristina Kaiser  09:04

I think the dwelling can really help us to solidify things. It's his holy pause in a way.  Actually, you would find this in episode 15. But when we sat and did that kind of telling of my dream and really, I feel like my long term memory of what happened there, it feels like and what is God saying? Let's just say it feels like one question. There were probably many more but time passes, what do you remember? And what I remember is in getting still who I thought I was changed, just by getting still.  Suddenly I switched roles and asked that question and instead of the dream being odd and confusing, it was assuring and meaningful.  It really opened up how God had been available to me for a long period of time, and then became the larger messages of that dream have similar to what you're saying become long term messages for me.

Christina Roberts  10:12

Yeah. And I think that there are different aspects of our dreams, right. So some dreams are just like working out of what's happening in our waking hours. And so maybe we just watched a movie, and then that comes up in our dream. And we're all of a sudden in the movie scene, right. And it's just sort of like our own way of decluttering the day and getting all that stuff out from our brain. But I do think you're right, that sometimes dreams can be very validating. Maybe they can be affirming something in our lives. Sometimes I think they can be directional or informative. So again, going back to Paul, in the New Testament, when he was they were trying to figure out where to go on their journey. And he had a dream in the night where somebody from Macedonia was inviting him to come to Him. And so that's very pronounced:  I am seeking direction, where do I go and something shows up in my dream, I'm paying attention to that. And then I'm sure he talked to his companions, and they kind of discern together.  Just because something shows up in the dream doesn't mean that I'm going to alter the course of my life. But dreams are supplemented with consolation, desolation, wisdom in a multitude of counselors, like all the different practices that we do. This is one aspect in a holistic approach to our spiritual lives. And I think dreams can be creative and formative, all of the different things that we're naming today, I think that's important, too, to recognize, and also that there is a symbolism to dreams that I think we can hear something differently when it's coming through a symbol versus a literal thing that we're in our waking hours trying to figure something out when it comes in a different form in a dream. It's like, huh, I can hear or see that a little bit differently.

Chris Roberts  11:46

Yeah, I think I just want to name that in our, in our Western society, I think, for someone to change the course of their life because of a dream that they had. Most people would say, That's absurd. You know, we need hard cold facts and data to make discernments in our life. And I don't think people need permission to see dreams as a discerning point in their life. And in the Western world, I think it's odd that somebody would pay attention to a dream. I think people just need permission to say, you know, dreams might have more significance than we give them credit for, or credence for in our society.

Kristina Kaiser  12:35

And I also think, so much of it will seem like common sense to you, like you probably wanted that ,you probably needed just a little bit of assurance or something along those lines. I know that I need to make this change. And I continue to work this out, even when I sleep. I totally see what you're saying. And some of it's probably going to feel so natural. Because I think back to Christina's point that notion of this is in conjunction with all these other spiritual practices that we're engaging in. 

Christina Roberts  13:10

I have the same mutual friend as Chris, who is really into the Jungian aspect of dreams. And he meets with a Jungian analyst, I guess, is what they're called. And I remember him saying, I look forward to going to bed every night, because I can't wait to see what I'm going to dream. And he's so excited about what his dreams are going to reveal. And it's been just this real healing journey in our friend who, I don't think he shares the same Christian faith that we do.  He comes from a different angle of how he approaches God, the universe, whatever. But dreams have been a source of real healing and wholeness in his life. And so there's such a richness that I hope we can encourage everyone to tap into.

Thanks for such a generative conversation. Now we're going to transition to the part of our podcast where we talk about what we are into this week. What are we into?

Kristina Kaiser  14:03

I know this is going to seem super ordinary, but I am into making lists. There was just so much to get done. So oftentimes, I can keep a running list in my head and that works for me, but there was enough that I felt like I wasn't making a list and checking it twice. And so I pulled out my pink pen and now I get to check things off and that is my grand thing these days.

Chris Roberts  14:29

Nice. Well, it is the Advent season and New Years, and I am really into eggnog. I love eggnog. In fact, me and my oldest child fight over the dregs of eggnog. And I think one of the things that I love about eggnog is that it comes in so many different flavors and thicknesses.  I'm personally the thicker, the better type. What I really enjoy as a eggnog connoisseur I've really enjoyed this season partaking of eggnog. I've put some in my coffee, I drink straight,  anyway I can have eggnog, I'm going to go for it.

Christina Roberts  15:14

That is true. You love eggnog. Well, I will stick with the drink theme and I am into Izzy sparkling juices. Recently we had just this lovely nonprofit in our community Madison and they did this thing called spread good cheer. Where you could sponsor someone and surprise them with a favorite drink and a treat and they would go deliver it to someone.  And so someone very generously and sweetly sponsored me and so I got a text, Hey, you were chosen for the Spread the Cheer. What's your favorite drink? I'll drop it off. And so I didn't want a hot drink because I thought by the time it gets here, it will be kind of lukewarm. So I was like, Oh, I would love some Clementine Izzy.  And so she bought me a four pack, and I've been enjoying that and remembering I love these. I don't have to wait for the summer to drink them; I can delight in my Clementine Izzy. ( or pomegranate is also good.)  I just love all the Izzy. So that is what I'm into this week.

Chris Roberts  16:07

There's one that she's been leaving around and if she doesn't drink it soon. I'm going to snatch it up.

Christina Roberts  16:15

There will be some conflict if that happens. 

Well, thanks for joining us today. If you enjoyed listening to the podcast, we invite you to check out our bi weekly newsletter. You can find a link in the show notes or subscribe at thecontemplativelife.net. Until next time, make it a great week. Thanks for joining us.