Shamanic Dreams and Visions

Dreaming the Old Way

Chances are, you do not know what I mean when I talk about Dreaming. Conversations have been
trouble for me since 1991, when in a single night something happened that was so powerful and so
strange that it completely altered my perception of reality. Ever after that I've felt that I was speaking a
different language; that the words I use may be the same ones I used before, but that they have new
and multiple meanings that others don't comprehend. I stumbled into the world of ancient knowledge
that night, becoming brutally aware of the things the old masters knew, in times that are now only
regarded as legend.

I did not know I was changed, but I found out right away that I couldn't talk to people without getting
strange looks in response. I remember going on a date once a couple of years after this world changing
event and telling the woman I was with one of the things I had learned from my vision quest that
night. We were sitting at a table in a coffee shop full of customers, the kind of cozy place where you
can hear many conversations going on all around you but you seldom pay much attention to what is
being said except for what happens at your table. I was telling my friend about the concept of Riding
the Horse Backwards, and what it means when applied to human conduct, when I noticed that she
was glancing around the cafe nervously and looking embarrassed. I looked around at the other people
in the coffee shop and they were all staring at us. The entire place had fallen silent except for me;
people had frozen in mid movement; even the wait staff had simply stopped in mid travel with coffee
mugs in hand, drifting steam in lazy trails. Heyoka tell good stories.

It's frustrating for me because from where I am it's all obvious, but trying to tell people about it who
have no direct experience themselves, or worse yet, think that they do but are experiencing something
else, is next to impossible. I have very little common ground with the rest of my species. A word like
dreaming used to be easy to understand and to talk about, when it meant the same thing for me as for
others. Now it is nearly impossible to explain, even if I add concepts like lucid dreaming, toltec
dreaming, shamanic dreaming, and astral travel or the near death experience. Dreaming includes all
of that and more. What most people know as dreaming is like the light coming through the crack at
the bottom of a door. They think that is all there is to it; or that at the most, a very talented person
might be able to get down there and peer over the threshold.

I know that much more is possible. There's an astronomical difference between what you see by
squinting under the door, and what happens when you swing the door open wide and walk through it.
That changes things; that lets what is out there in here, and things will never be the same even if you
do come back inside and shut the door again. Something has come inside with you that will never
leave.

Most of the people who listen to me think they know everything about what I'm saying; that their
experience is my experience; or that everything I'm saying can be explained away or shrugged off as
hallucination. Now and then over the years I've been able to help a few people open that door, and
then they feel differently. Then they say, oh, in a very quiet but shaky voice, oh, I see what you mean.
Most of the time they find ways to shut the door again, and learn to disbelieve what happened.

In ancient times the masters taught that what we see as our physical world is only a small portion of
what exists; that what is unseen is vast and powerful beyond imagination. The forces and beings who
reside in the unseen worlds are the invisible powers behind the machinations of this one. Dreaming as I
know it is the door between the worlds. I keep it open.

These days, at least on the surface, my dreams are mostly just the ordinary dreams that tug and worry
at the remnants of waking life in an effort to understand yesterday and plan tomorrow. Beneath that
surface, all my dreams are different and not ordinary, because I am always watching what happens. I
am careful to conduct myself in the worlds of dreaming in the same way that I would conduct myself
in the waking world, because for me (and for others I meet there) they may be the same. I did not
always believe that; I believe it now because I proved it to myself, and to others, in ways both
wonderful and terrible--but mostly terrible. The work of acquiring proof took years, and I did quite a
lot of harm along the way. Now when I read of other Dreamers and other paths, especially the ones
which are less cautious than mine, I shake my head and hope they won't get too far before they learn
what the old shamans knew. Dreaming is a place for warriors; to dream in the old way one must be a
responsible and honorable person, or be willing to pay the price of indiscretion.

To some extent I miss the old days when my Dreaming knew no bounds, either of time and space or of
conduct. I was a wild man then, and I relished the wild times. Knowing what I now know, my
Dreaming has become tame, out of necessity for myself, my life and health and freedom; and out of
respect for others. Perhaps I am missing some fine adventures, but that is the price of knowledge and
of years. My desires still take me to unusual places, but most of all they lead me home. That's a good
thing. Sometimes I get bored with the quiet and think of bringing the wild times back, but I remember
the good and the bad of it in too much detail to do such a thing in the old unlimited way. From time to
time a strange thing still happens; now and then I receive a visitor. I think that's all that I want. I like
being able to sleep without a weapon beside me. I like not being at war. What I have may not quite be
peace, but it's at least a truce, and good enough for me.

In the ancient times, dreams were considered real, and the events within them were as important as
any other experience. To some of the old nations, there was no boundary between these worlds; if you
dreamt of a need for something, you were bound to fulfull it in this world or die a death of spirit. The
needs expressed in the dreams of others were honored by their fellows, no matter how extreme their
demands.

In my Dreaming, these days, my most constant desire is to find a place to lie down and sleep. That's
something I seldom got, in the old days when I dreamed without limits. I'm like the grizzled old dog
napping under the porch; when strangers come around all the young dogs run out and bark and act
tough, but the old dog just opens an eye and glares. He won't come out unless it's important. You don't
want to wake up the old dog under the porch.

As always, there's no place to start, no dream that is first and no dream that is last. Just pick one from
the Dreaming Archives.