Archives:

Dreams & Dream Messages

Meeting the Bear

John Lennon & My Grandfather

In Search of Key and Keyhole

Eye to Eye with the Bear

Dream Work

Meeting the Bear
by Dawn Baumann Brunke

I recently turned 40. On the eve of my birthday, I had a dream in which I wandered just beyond the edges of my neighborhood. Passing the last house, I stood at the end of our street, facing the woods. As I stood, I sensed a presence and there, to my left, apparently having wandered just beyond the edges of his neighborhood, was a very large brown bear. He stood on the lawn of the last house, facing the direction from which I had just come. In the slow-motion manner of certain portentous dreams, we turned to face each other. Standing still, frozen in the moment, we regarded each other with fluctuating measures of fear and fascination. And then, as the possibilities of what might happen raced through my mind -- Would he give chase? Would I run? Would we both turn back the way we had come? -- I awoke.

I have to report that I was a bit disappointed. Being pulled from the flurry of possible outcomes was like being forced to leave a good mystery film just as the secret is about to be revealed. Beyond the initial disappointment, however, there was something else, something vaguely unsettling.

The more I pondered the puzzle of the dream, the more I began to have the disconcerting feeling that the answer to what would happen -- what could happen in any situation -- was more in my hands than I cared to imagine. After all, the dream was my creation and in that sense, the bear was a part of me. Bear and I are of one essence, yet in the inner theatre of the mind, we appear as two in order to enact a play.

So, what does it mean to wake up from a dream-play before it is finished? What are we called to awaken to? In the dream of meeting the bear, it is interesting to note that the totemic aspect of bears has to do with awakening the power of the Unconscious mind. As author Ted Andrews notes in Animal Speak, "Bear medicine can teach you to go deep within so that you can make your choices and decisions from a position of power."

As we move from the 1900s to the 2000s, I wonder if Bear might be an appropriate symbol for our collective awakening. Are we ready to take on the responsibility to wake from the dream, to bring the dormant knowledge held in the Unconscious out into the open, into consciousness, into our everyday lives?

Consider our position: here we stand, just a bit beyond the edges of all that is known in our neighborhood, face to face with the forest, the 21st century, the unknown. And there to meet us stands the ancient, awesome power of Bear.

No wonder the mixture of fear and fascination accompanies so many human transitions. The outcome of our future is in our hands, our minds, our hearts, our souls. Just as it's always been. Whatever will we do?

Dawn Baumann Brunke is the editor of Alaska Wellness and author of Animal Voices: Telepathic Communication in the Web of Life and Awakening to Animal Voices: A Teen Guide to Telepathic Communication with All Life. See www.animalvoices.net for more.

John Lennon & My Grandfather
by Dawn Baumann Brunke

I was recently having a metaphysical discussion with some friends about dreams. In specific, we were contemplating how one might discern the difference between people/spirit beings who come to us in dreams to relate messages and people/spirit beings who are conjured up by our subconscious for starring roles in our dreams. In other words, how can you tell if a visiting figure in a dream is "really" some person you know or if that person is simply an image your inner dreammaker is using to make a point?

That night, I had two dreams. In the first dream, John Lennon was sitting across from me at a bar. We had a great conversation with a good deal of laughter, and as I left, I asked if I could have his autograph. When he groaned, I told him he didn't have to do it. He said, of course, he did and then he made a little picture for me on a piece of paper along with a very short story. But when I looked over to read the words, I couldn't make sense of them. I asked him, "What does this say?" When he looked, he couldn't read it either, and there we were laughing, neither of us able to make sense of it. What finally stopped me from laughing was the sobering realization that this was some kind of an explanation to a question I couldn't remember.

In the second dream, I saw my grandfather, who died when I was 8 years old. He was looking slightly away from me, but as I approached him he turned to face me. He then hugged me very tightly, as if enveloping me, and suddenly there was such a strong rush of love flowing between us that it brought unexpected tears to our eyes.

Upon awakening, I concluded that the two dreams were in answer to my question, one conjured by the internal dreamworkers and one that "really" involved my grandfather's presence. But as the day wore on, the dream images stuck with me, not as two images but as one, and I began to feel something that I couldn't quite explain.

I began to wonder if, at deeper levels, it really matters so much where any message comes from -- dreams, an overheard conversation, the shape of a cloud, a sudden remembering. Does the vehicle of the message make the power of the message any more or less real? Laughing with John Lennon, hugging my Grandfather -- perhaps the answer to any dream, any aspect of life or death, is all in the relationship. Perhaps the question we need to ask ourselves isn't so much "Is it real?" as "How am I touched and changed by this situation, this meeting, this event?" Perhaps this is the beginning of a shift to a deeper awareness of our interconnection with all beings everywhere.

Dawn Baumann Brunke is the editor of Alaska Wellness and author of Animal Voices: Telepathic Communication in the Web of Life and Awakening to Animal Voices: A Teen Guide to Telepathic Communication with All Life. See www.animalvoices.net for more.

In Search of Key and Keyhole
by Dawn Brunke

Shortly after beginning holistic chiropractic treatments to resolve an old back injury, I had a dream. In the dream world, I found myself sitting in a small room of an old castle with my ‘Back Guide.’ He appears as an old man with a long white beard, white hair and flowing robes – an engaging Merlin figure. My guide tells me that the spine is a puzzle. It is not just vertebrae and discs, he says, but nerves and energy meridians that go out to affect every part of the body. And it’s not just that, he emphasizes, for there are other layers to the spine as well. In fact, the spine holds vast connections beyond the physical, including links to the metaphysical, the emotional, the spiritual, and so on. That is why, my Merlin tells me, that when one is in the midst of healing, it is important not only to find the right key, but the right keyhole.

What does that mean, I wonder? And just as I think the question, the answer becomes clear: although we may indeed have found the right key to a problem, if we’re not addressing the right level, focusing at the right time, positioned at the right place, then our key can only affect so much. Eyes sparkling, my guide sits silent, a faint smile acknowledging that a secret has been revealed.

The following day, I shared the dream with my chiropractor. “Well, of course,” he exclaimed, “that’s exactly how it works!” Indeed, the holistic approach acknowledges that our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual facets all play an essential role in the totality of our being. Finding the key (be it a massage stroke, chiropractic adjustment, acupuncture point or herb) as well as the keyhole (which may exist on one or more of many levels) is what leads us to that experience of deep down release.

As we embark on any healing journey, we will inevitably discover an amazing interconnected network of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and bodily symptoms. Deep patterns are involved—from cellular to soul-related, all reflected in who we are and what symptoms we have at any given moment in our life.

We can never really force healing, but we can court it, dance within it, discovering our own keys and keyholes as we open our arms to embrace the adventure that any healing journey holds for us. In all areas of healing, we need to listen to the body as well as the mind; we need to hear the call of feelings as well as the stirrings of the soul. And as we address each level, holding the key that fits each keyhole, then, like a bank lock, everything releases, opening smoothly, effortlessly in natural unfolding. As we are ready, we too open easily, perfectly, to a larger understanding of who we really are.

Dawn Baumann Brunke is the editor of Alaska Wellness and author of Animal Voices: Telepathic Communication in the Web of Life and Awakening to Animal Voices: A Teen Guide to Telepathic Communication with All Life. See www.animalvoices.net for more.

Eye to Eye with the Bear
by Dawn Brunke

Not so long ago, I dreamed of looking deep into the eyes of a large human bear. In that moment, all was well; we understood each other in some way beyond words or thoughts or ideas of what should and should not be. If that were the whole of the dream, I would have thought it great. But, alas, it was not.

In the dream, there are four black bears walking on a path close to a house in which my family and I are living. One of the bears leaves the path and comes towards us. Somehow, he gets inside the house, and I must escape with my daughter. This we do, fairly easily, and as I leave I plan to call the authorities so they can get the bear, shoot the bear – I don’t know what “they” will do, but they will take care of it. At the last moment, I turn and look through the window and see the bear, which is now standing on its hind legs in a curiously familiar position, looking very much like a human bear. Our eyes lock, and in that tiny fraction of seeing into the bear, I know him and he knows me, and we both know all is well. But when I look away, back to the path, back to the hope of “them” who will save me from the bear, I discover that is the path I choose.

When I awoke from the dream, I felt disappointed that I was so fearful of the bear. The bear was not violent or even particularly scary, and yet I was afraid. I also felt sad that I wanted to get other humans to kill this bear, who hadn’t really hurt anyone. Why did I not trust our moment of connection?

Whether we like their messages or not, this is the job of dreams: to tell us more about who we really are. Carl Jung dubbed them the “conscious mind of the unconscious.” In symbolic code, dreams point out our fears and secret desires, our doubts and worries, our covert longings. They are a blue print of our deep psyche, giving us a glimpse of the forces that dance our inner and outer selves. As Dr. Brugh Joy writes, “Dreams are a threshold to understanding universal principles of Life in general, and they have collective as well as individual significance.”

While working on this issue of Alaska Wellness, supposedly focused on the topic of animals, I was initially surprised that so many articles had to do with the nature of fear. But this, too, is who we are, where we are. As we go through a global transformation of consciousness, evolving to greater spiritual awareness, we necessarily confront our fears, both individually and collectively. And as we work to meet and integrate all aspects of ourselves, we inevitably meet our shadow selves – be they in the form of bears, terrorists or political leaders.

So, what will we do on meeting our shadow? Will we run? Shoot the bear (or get others to shoot it for us)? Hide? Or will we reach out? Remember to trust our experiences and our intuition? It’s a tricky business, forming a relationship with our shadow selves. It’s scary because it’s what we’re most afraid of, and yet, it’s powerful beyond measure, for it involves moving ourselves into a greater presence, opening to a larger awareness of who we truly are.

Dawn Brunke is the editor of Alaska Wellness and author of Animal Voices and Awakening to Animal Voices: A Teen Guide to Telepathic Communication with All Life. See www.animalvoices.net for more.

Dream Work
by Elizabeth Wallmann-Filley