Dream Incubation

Dream incubation is a practiced technique of learning to "plant a seed" in the mind, in order for a specific dream topic to occur, either for recreation or to attempt to solve a problem. For example, a person might go to bed repeating to themselves that they will dream about a presentation they have coming up, or a vacation they recently took. While somewhat similar to lucid dreaming, dream incubation is simply focusing attention on a specific issue when going to sleep. Several studies have shown this method to be successful over a period of time.

For example, in a study at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Deirdre Barrett had her students focus on a problem, such as an unsolved homework assignment or other objective problem, before going to sleep each night for a week. She found that it was certainly possible to come up with novel solutions in dreams that were both satisfactory to the dreamer and rated as objectively solving the problem by an outside observer. In her study, two-thirds of participants had dreams that addressed their chosen problem, and one-third reached some form of solution within their dreams. Other studies have found this type of bedtime dream incubation effective in solving problems of a more subjective, personal nature. A study of prominent artists and scientists who get inspiration from their dreams found that, while most of these dreams occurred spontaneously, a small proportion of the respondents had discovered informal versions of dream incubation on their own. They reported giving themselves successful pre-sleep suggestions for anything from seeing finished artwork in their dreams to asking dreams to solve computing or mechanical design problems.

Wikipedia

I first read about dream incubation about five years ago. The book related the story of a woman who wanted insight into moving to a different town. She "programed" her dream before she went to bed, asking the question of whether or not the move would be good for her. In her dream she saw herself walking down a forest path. The path got darker and grown-over with weeds. It became quite scary. She woke up feeling like her question had been answered and decided not to move to the town.

I have had success with this process in the past. Nearly every time I have tried it I have received what felt like an answer to my question.

Yesterday I was talking to my neighbor's girlfriend. She told me she sometimes takes her son to a particular day care and they like it there. I looked at the day care's website and couldn't tell what I thought about it. It looked like a nice place. They emphasized music and sports, which I thought would be great for my son, but I just didn't feel good about it. Normally, I would go with my first instinct, but in this case I couldn't tell if my reluctance came from it being the wrong place to leave my son or the fact that I don't want to have to take him to day care at all.

Before I went to bed last night I put it out there that I wanted to know whether we should use this day care or not. I had three short dreams.

In the first dream, I was sitting on the couch and my son was standing in front of me. He said, "I'm a werewolf. Aa-Oooo (like he was howling at the moon)."

The second dream was nothing more than a newspaper, but it was quite significant because the scene was in black and white. I have only had a black and white dream once before. The headline of the newspaper said something like this:

Aljk Kehfk Rlkansoih DEAD Vojsoh

Unintelligible words except for the the word dead which was in all capital letters.

In the third dream I saw Merryweather, the little fairy in the blue dress from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She was mad and said, "OOO! This one didn't work out either!" Presumably referring to the fact that this isn't the first day care that hasn't worked out for us.

I don't believe that the newspaper dream was telling me that my son would die if I took him to this particular day care. I want to be clear that dreams are symbolic. However, I do believe that it is possible that some aspect of him could have died, leaving him changed somehow, as indicated by the werewolf dream.

I feel like my question was clearly answered through dream incubation. Success.

Direct Requests Receive Direct Answers

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the simplest things. Direct requests receive direct answers.

While I was pregnant I re-read one of my favorite books, The Lightworker’s Way by Doreen Virtue. I was shocked that I had never notice how often she talks about god in that book! I was shocked and terribly disappointed! I got angry and stopped reading the book.

My life had been godless since I left the religion I was raised in. Enough is enough already, and no thank you! So one night while I lay in bed, hugely pregnant, and very uncomfortably not sleeping, I started up a conversation with my guide. I poured my heart out and in the end asked if there really is a god. She simply said, “God is love…”

I contemplated the answer and decided it wasn’t good enough. I wanted an unmistakable sign. The sign I requested was to see a bluebird. Any kind of bluebird, even the word bluebird would have been okay. I gave a time frame of one week.

At no time during that week did I think to watch one of the movies I had with a bluebird. At no time did I think to listen to one of my MP3s which mentions a bluebird. No bluebirds in the garden. No internet bluebirds. No twitters, no tweets.

On the fifth day we went to the grocery store. Drove down a road that we always took and there on a power box was a graffiti bluebird. It looked as if it had been there for ages, worn away in stops and color-faded. This was no new bluebird, but it was the first time I had seen it. I got my sign.

I wish I could say this became a regular thing for me; asking for an obvious sign to get answers to the tough questions, but it didn’t.

I left a bad situation and moved home. Sure the signs pointed me in this direction, but at no time did I ask the question: Where would be the best place for my son and I to move. Until recently.

Things in my home town haven’t exactly turned out the way I expected. I’ll say this much, any time I have told someone what I do I don’t hear from them ever again… So, it is clear this is not the place for us to live permanently. But where should we go?

The letter I wrote to my guides and angels said this, “I am asking for direction and a clear sign about where would be the best place for David and I to move…” I thought a perfect sign would be to see a moving van with the name of a town written large across the side. But I left it to spirit to give the sign and only asked that it be clear and obvious.

David and I had a play date at the zoo that morning, so we went on with our day. Truth-be-told, I forgot about asking the question until we were on our way home. We were stopped at a red light behind a mini-van. I had a wave of goose bumps wash over me when I saw the make of the mini-van. SEDONA. This was significant. And clear and obvious. But I tried talking myself out of it by saying, “Yeah? Where’s the moving van?!” Then, some unseen force moved my head. I looked to my left and saw I was stopped right next to a moving van!

I was excited and scared all at once. I have heard great things about the place, but my skin type is not exactly conducive to the desert. However, I have been comparing the daily weather conditions in Sedona to where I am now and. The temperatures are almost identical. But Sedona has more rainfall in the summertime and gets overcast during the day. Yay!

I am really looking forward to this move.

Soul Loss

Most indigenous cultures believe that the soul can fragment due to trauma. These soul fragments do not progress with the rest of the soul but become trapped in the moment of the trauma where they split off from the whole.

My experience with soul loss is minor compared to what some people go through, but I have gone through the process of finding and reintegrating aspects of my soul that were stuck in my childhood.

For a little bit of background I’ll say that as a kid I had a compulsive habit of biting and licking my lips. My lips would swell up and dry out. They would crack and bleed, and the only relief, albeit temporary, would be to lick them again. It was a never-ending cycle. I won’t go into the reason I was so nervous as a kid that I was compelled to bite my lips, but the trauma that caused that nervousness is what caused the soul fragmentation.

I had forgotten about this old habit of mine until I found the soul fragment and tried to reintegrate it. A couple of days after the reintegration I realized that my lips were swollen and sore. When I tried to smile my lips cracked. Then I remembered.

While in meditation, I found that part of me that was the fragment I had reintegrated and put her in a bubble, away from the rest of me. The discomfort I felt in my lips went away immediately. After the recommendation of a friend, I spent some time talking to that scared, nervous little girl, telling her everything was OK and that I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Over some time I would go back to the bubble and check on the fragment-the little girl I used to be. Whatever part of the fragment that had stopped being scared and nervous I would let out of the bubble and reintegrate with the rest of me. Eventually, the fragment was fully integrated once again with no physical side effects.

As a mom, I worry about the kinds of trauma that could cause soul loss and try to keep my son as protected as possible. But there are always things that you can’t see coming.

My son and I were playing not too long ago, chasing each other around the house, peeking around corners and pretending to be scared. I guess he didn’t hear me come into the room, or he was distracted by the TV for minute, but when I peeked around the couch and said boo the poor little guy jumped and cried out. I actually saw his energy fragment and part of it float away like it was a cartoon ghost. I ran to him to give him comfort and as I hugged him I was talking out loud to the fragmented part of his energy, telling it that it was OK and I loved it too… Some of it came back, and some of it stayed in that moment of shock.

I was reminded of these personal examples when I saw a stranger at a group function last night. He seemed a little off so I stayed distant from him without trying to make it obvious. It is my habit to observe people who come into contact with us before we get too close to them.

This man felt absent. Not all there. He had the faint feeling of someone who is mentally handicapped, but there was something else. Energetically I reached out to him and was surprised to find that such a large portion of his soul had fragmented he really was “not all there”. When I realized he was dealing with soul loss I saw in my minds eye a pie graph with 25% of it shaded. A full quarter of this man was gone, stuck in its past as an abused child. (I saw what happened to him as a child, but here is no need to pass that information on.)

You can read more about soul loss in the book Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman. If you read this book, keep in mind she is a shamanic practitioner and has a monetary interest in some of the advice she gives. While I don’t agree with all the warnings she gives, the book is a good place to start if you are interested in soul retrieval.

I used a modified version of Colette Baron-Reid’s Goblin Meditation to reintegrate my soul fragment. Listen to Colette talk about the goblin and hear the meditation here.

Beautful Sychronicity

It has been no secret that I really didn't want to move back to the town I lived in before moving to Germany. I was dreading it, in fact. However, this is where the signs pointed, and after dragging my feet for months, I finally moved back.

To say that this step has been rewarded would be an understatement.

My son and I stayed with a friend of mine for nearly a week when we first got back. The day I started to look for our own place we viewed an apartment that ended up to be too small for us. I was disappointed because it was in a part of town that I would have like to have lived in. But, I had to go with my gut despite really wanting that place to work out.

The next day I found 3 places that I like and called the numbers listed. One of the places kept standing out to me. In fact, it looked illuminated on the paper. It was really no surprise to me when the landlord for that apartment was the first one to call me back. What was a surprise is she turned out to be a good friend from about 15 years ago who I had lost contact with.

Just based on the ads this apartment was not my fist choice. The first and biggest problem I had with it was it was a 4-plex, not a house. I wanted my own little house so that I could plant a garden. I had been looking forward to growing my own veggies for a long time. But I went and looked at the apartment anyway.

The rooms were large. It had two bedrooms so my son would have his own room. There was a bathtub and shower in the bathroom, which was great because our last house only had a shower. The location was absolutely perfect, in the part of town I wanted to be in. A grocery store and laundromat within easy walking distance, very important because I don't have a driver's license as it expired while I was in Germany, and I don't have a car yet either. The apartment is across the street from an elementary school, so the little guy would have a playground. Everything looked great and the landlord (my old friend's husband) gave the keys right then and there.

It looked like they were in the middle of landscaping, and I asked what they were going to plant. He said he wasn't sure yet and asked if I had any preference. I told him that I really wanted to grow some vegetables and he said I could plant whatever I wanted. I was thrilled!

I met my old friend later that day to sign the lease and instead of having to prepay my rent because I don't have a job (like I had anticipated having to do) she didn't even make me pay a deposit! What luck!!

We moved in and have found the people in our area to be so nice. People say hi and smile when you pass them on the sidewalk. Strangers stop for a little chat. Everyone smiles at my son and they say nice things to him. It so opposite from where we came from! I say Thank You everyday that we were directed to move back to this town.

My son is thriving, getting back to his old happy self. He gets more exercise and is sleeping better. And I am happy to finally be home.