Sometimes when I tell people that one of the ways I express my environmental activism is to lead group dreams for global healing, I’m met with skepticism. People, understandably wonder if dreams can really make a difference.
After all, when we refer to someone as a dreamer, we often imply that they don’t have their feet on the ground, so to speak; that they live in a fantasy world without taking action in any tangible ways.
Also, with a heat wave sweeping the East Coast, tides rising around the world and, and strange weather patterns becoming almost commonplace … can we really say we’re impacting global climate change?
Well, yes. I believe that 350 Dreamers can claim some amazing results. Our dream nights have brought together people from around the globe, helping us to build our concern and caring for people in other parts of the world.
And consider this:
- In sharing dreams across personal, cultural, and national boundaries, we learn we have shared concerns.
- Dreams bring us closer to the natural world.
- By focusing on global healing in our dreams, we are less able to live in denial, or to pretend our actions do not matter.
So, yes, dreams can help create community and dissolve boundaries. Yes, dreams are linked to the environment and link us to it as well. And yes, dreams do matter, they heal and have the power to help us to be healing agents.
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Join the Conversation:
What benefits of group dreaming for the environment would you add to this list?
How has dreaming made you a more caring, healing, or helpful person in your waking life?
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This post is excerpted from my recent talk about 350 Dreamers given at the International Association for the Study of Dreams annual conference in Berkeley California.
Related articles
- Healing Hands (350dreamers.wordpress.com)
- How to Incubate a Dream for Global Healing (350dreamers.wordpress.com)
2 comments
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July 5, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Travis Wernet
Beautiful reminders here Tzivia: pertinent reamarks and refelctions, in my opinion. I’ve been doing group dream work for at least the last 16 years and my sense is that doing the work to seek to understand and honor the messages and experiences in the dreams leads those of us who are willing to seek and follow the creative promptings of the dreams to recognize we too are ‘nature’ and that by slowing and reflecting on our authentic roles as part of a larger inter-connected whole, we might find more space and willingness to embody the often paradoxical qualities of being part of an intelligent moving force of living energy that certainly feels like it is capable of deep and profound shifts and healing transformations. To my mind and heart simply choosing to perceive that the dreams offer a rejoining with separate / divided aspects of the dreamer’s deeper nature/identity goes a long ways in terms of supporting the kind of awareness that can be with the kinds of challenges we are facing in terms of global warming, weather changes and the whole host of social and cultural conflicts and tasks with which we grapple on a daily basis.
July 5, 2012 at 7:50 pm
Tzivia
Yes! Yes! I agree.
I wrote a little bit about the necessity of treating our body with care if we want to care well for the earth here: https://350dreamers.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/creating-energy-balance-%E2%80%93-within/
Thought you might enjoy that post, too.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment!