by Phil

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This journal, Dream Realm Diaries, is exclusively devoted to dreams, their interpretations, or related topics and links. It was begun in June, 2006, just after I had decided to join a local dream interpretation group. I was then anticipating my first meeting with the other members. Initially, my expectation was simply that attending the meetings might be a good way to make a few new friends in an interesting setting. I would later realize there might be a bit more to it than that. I had known something of dreams from, several decades earlier, having kept a dream journal and read several books on the subject. In my early twenties I had also briefly been in counseling with therapists who took a Jungian approach to our sessions. They had introduced me to how dreams may be a window into a deeper and yet broader sense of Self. In the course of a series of dream group meetings, I have now found that what is involved here is a positive, ongoing, and fresh integration of one's disparate aspects, especially those which, like Rodney Daingerfield, get no respect. We appear to be both far more and less than our individual egos, the selves with which we ordinarily identify, that are concerned mainly with our security and the opinions of others about us. A paramount rule in our group is the protection of individual members' privacy. Accordingly, in this set of entries there will be no recounting of others' dreams, only my own. Nor will other members' contributions to the dream analyses be presented in such a way as to identify them. Even my name has been changed. Dreams are in a foreign language. Their images are frequently puns and/or symbolic, making a straightforward reading of them by the dreamer challenging. Add to this that the ego resists much of what the dream has to say, and the difficulty of dream interpretation begins to become apparent. Yet, once their keys have been found, decoded dreams have much to offer. They may provide multi-layered meanings, rather nuanced, subtle messages, vehemently dramatic conflicts or relationships, unexpected personal resources, and vast funds of experience and intuition. Whether we call them coincidences or synchronicity, there are definite suggestions of dream clairvoyance and precognition as well. Many question if there is any inherent meaning in dreams. For me, there is no longer any doubt. I see the dream interpretation process now as like a journey. We may well get stuck along the way. Though we proceed with optimism and hope, we have no assurance of a happy outcome to the odyssey. But in the course of this exploration dreams have a great deal to teach us. Often they merely instruct in small ways. Yet their lessons can also be as practical as solutions to vexing problems, as fresh and funny as the most surprising or absurd comedy routines, or as inspiring and transformative as moments of peak creativity or of intense spiritual discovery. What follows, then, is the record, since involvement with a dream group began, of my remembered dreams, the dim or clear views they present, and of insights that may be gleaned from them. Interesting Dream Diaries Found on the Web: dracon's dream journal sawlogs a dream journal Everything Inane's Dream Journal

Phil's Other Sites: The Vintage Diarist   Main site for the journal, Steps. Investor's Journal   A diary on investing, value, personal finance, and retirement budgeting. Phil's Place   A site with a strictly poetic focus.

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