I help folks play with their dreams (the sleeping kind) for self-knowledge, healing and spiritual growth. With a background in consciousness studies and archaeology, my expertise is in dreams at the intersections of culture, cosmos and ecology. Let's court the mysteries together!
Can we Decolonize Lucid Dreaming?
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Hi Reader, Hope you're having a dreamy week! Lucid dreaming is a shamanic skill, a method of heightened awareness in the dream that allows healers and voyagers access to information, insight and energetic powers. But this is a far cry from how we as Westerners are taught about lucid dreaming. More often than not, lucid dreaming is discussed as a fantasy realm where we can indulge our private fantasies, seeking entertainment and pleasure. Not that there’s anything wrong with this perspective, limited as it is. It’s simply a marketer’s dream seeking the lowest common denominator, neatly paralleling the adolescent cravings that drive the main engines of distraction and consumption in Western culture. You don’t have to be indigenous to appreciate the shamanic aspects of lucid dreaming, but as Westerners we need to let go of some destructive myths in order to participate at the deeper levels of imagination like those cultivated in traditional dreaming cultures. However, donning the cultures of others has its limitations, as well as hidden power dynamics that derive from those same colonial attitudes that reflect our disenfranchisement from spirit in the first place. In his book Dreamseekers, Harvey Arden writes about the way indigenous cultures feel drained by Westerner’s appropriation of their healing ways. One young aboriginal man fumes, “Get your own Dreamtime. Don’t take ours.” So as we go about decolonizing lucid dreaming, it must be with an antiracist lens on one hand, and a commitment to our own ancestral work on the other.
When I began exploring the ancestral connection to lucid dreaming (20 years ago!), it was a box of Lucky Charms that presented itself first. Further dreams helped me move beyond stereotypes of my Irish heritage into deeper connections with my deep ancestry. This process takes time, and it's worth it. To read more about this idea of lucid dreaming as a shamanic technology, check out my full article here And save the date! I'll be teaching the shamanic lucid dreaming paradigm as part of my upcoming training: Lucid Ignition: the Shamanic Edition Watch: New Lucid Dreaming DocumentaryCheck out this new documentary by dream therapist Melissa Johnson. Featuring many of my colleagues at the International Association for the Study of Dreams, this film goes deep into the possibilities of lucid dreaming from a psychologically mature perspective. Recommended! Listen: Wake TF Up PodcastI was recently featured on Toni Porrello's podcast Wake TF Up. We discussed the relationship between archaeology and dream research, my experiences with sleep paralysis, and powerful techniques for lucid dreaming. The episode also covers the concept of using dream work as a form of resistance and empowerment in the context of social justice. Listen on Audible, Apple or Spotify Dream strong! Ryan Hurd |
Dream Studies Newsletter
I help folks play with their dreams (the sleeping kind) for self-knowledge, healing and spiritual growth. With a background in consciousness studies and archaeology, my expertise is in dreams at the intersections of culture, cosmos and ecology. Let's court the mysteries together!
Hi Reader, If you are getting on the road for Thanksgiving like 82 million other Americans, you might appreciate this talk on how how harvest feasts invite big dreams.... especially grown-up slumber parties involving carb loading and alcohol. In fact, it's relevant for my friends across the pond too because we are entering into the harvest feast cycle that comes with the end of the year. These are often complicated holidays made more complicated by stress, travel and -- I'll just say it outl...
Hi Reader Today's the last chance to get 25% off enrollment in my course Extraordinary Dreams -- my annual training on working with the insights of big dreams, including precognitive dreams, mystical lucid dreams and visitations. Extraordinary dreams rattles the cage of our comfort zones. They shake up the Cosmos as we see it by definition. What’s more, their transformative effects on our lives are palpable. The research on this point is clear; I could load you down with peer reviewed...
Hi Reader Ever had a dream that changed the way you see the world? A dream that refuses to be rationally debunked, put on a shelf and forgotten? A few years ago, I dreamed that I was in the attic of my house, and a pipe burst in the wall. The water was flowing out like a faucet. In the dream, I went downstairs to look for help, and on my way down, ran into my brother-in-law. That same morning, my brother-in-law (who at that time shared a house with my wife and I) told me over coffee he had...