Acting Your Dreams: Using Acting Techniques to Interpret Your Dreams by Ben Tousey Page B

our
own Dreamwright, and with our fellow dreamers. (In this book, we will use the
term Dreamwright to describe our dream’s Playwright.)
     
    It sometimes
does us good to see things outside ourselves. If we’re caught in the middle of
a struggle, all we see is the struggle. Our friends and more objective
observers can offer us insights that we might not have thought of because we
were too close to the struggle. When we work in a group, all participants can
watch and glean from each other, can practice with each other, as well as learn
and develop the skills that they will find invaluable.
     
    When dreamers
meet together in a group, I recommend each dreamer be very careful not to
enforce their ideas of what their fellow dreamer might be experiencing. This is
called projection, and it will do less to help our fellow dreamers if we’re
projecting our own stuff into our partners in dreaming. The dreamer will know
if an experience is real based on a sudden feeling of “Aha.” This “Aha” is a
gut feeling, a realization that a dreamer gets when something suddenly makes
sense. It’s that light bulb above the head that says “idea” in the comic
strips. It’s the name on the tip of our tongue that we finally remember. Suddenly
the information sinks in, and the dreamer knows “this is true.” This is the
only measure a dreamer can use to measure the truth of a dream experience.
     
    It is also
possible that you may have an “Aha” experience while working with someone
else’s dream. This is what makes working in groups so rewarding. While your
dream mate may have dreamt their own dream, their dream can still open your
eyes to similar issues that you’re having. This is called the “shared Aha.”
     
    If you’re
working in a dream group and you think you see something that the dreamer isn’t
seeing, don’t worry about it. Let the dreamer find his or her own truth.
Perhaps that “Aha” was meant for you. In which case, take it and use it to
enhance your life. Even if you know the dreamer and you’re sure that you’re
right, without an “Aha” on the dreamer’s part, the truth that you know for them
won’t make a difference. Let them make the discovery themselves. The dream will
be the dreamer’s guide.

The Map is Not the Territory:
     
    This workbook
is not meant to replace any other form of dream interpretation book already
available. It is meant to guide you through the process of opening your
unanswered letters from God via the convention of the theater… the theater of
the mind. By opening these letters you will learn more about yourself, and sink
deeper into that mystical land called dreaming. This book looks at the dream as
if it were a screenplay.
     
    Let me say another
word of caution here. It is my understanding that dreams don't show us only
what we want to see, or help us get only what we think we need from them. That
would mean that we control our dreams. Dreams have their own purpose that
cannot be fully controlled by us consciously. No matter how good we become at lucid
dreaming or dream incubation or any other form of guiding our dreams, we are
still not going to be able to control them, and to try would be unhealthy.
     
    Dreams like to
poke fun at us when we attempt to master them. They like to remind us that our
sight is limited. They like to show us those troubling areas in our lives that
we would rather not see. Unlike a rearview mirror, they do not have a blind
spot. And if they sense that we have developed a blind spot, they will force us
into that blind spot. But they do this only so that they can build us up, since
they don’t have any interest in tearing us down. They come to promote health.
So no matter how frightening and horrific a dream may seem, it’s there with a
purpose, to correct some oversight… to open up that blind spot. So to try and
conquer such a creature consciously without first trying to understand it would
only set us up for capture.
     
    It seems it