The Hidden Treasures of Dreaming - Spirit of Ma'at

In Search of Ancient KnowledgeThe knowledge that is about to be presented to you is at least three thousand years old.It represents the feminine side of the Merkavah -- or Mer-Ka-Ba -- teachings about thehuman Light Body.In this article, you will receive not only theory, but actually processes that you may useto begin to heal your own pain and negative patterns. The processes that CatherineShainberg shares with us are the same ones that were used in ancient times. Theywere a part of the training that prepared the Ancient Ones for direct experience of interdimensionalrealities and the world of Light -- a world that we now remember only in ourdreams.Dr. Shainberg's own teacher, Madame Colette Aboulker-Muscat, lives in Jerusalem andis the oldest living teacher of this tradition.We are excited to be able to share this knowledge with you, for it has almost been lost.We have been blinded to it by the glare of our left-brain-oriented senses. Now, itsremembrance could enable the world to perceive again in a truly balanced way.-- Drunvalo

The Hidden Treasures of Dreamingby Catherine Shainberg, PhDWe live in our body, but we often forget how connected to our body we really are. Weact as if our body were an alien being, inaccessible to dialogue, which must be takenelsewhere -- like an object -- to be fixed. We experience the usual plethora ofsensations, emotions, feelings, and even pains -- yet we don't seem to grasp thepossibility that we may directly and powerfully affect the health of our own body.Instead, we give our power away to medicines and drugs, or to the doctor, therapist,chiropractor, pharmacist, healer, or even our friends. And we often do this without evenasking ourselves, "Can I heal myself?"The Treasure Is in Our DreamingWhen speaking about, or to, the body, it is best to speak in images. For images are alanguage the body understands far better than words. To illustrate what I mean, let metell you a story:Once upon a time in Cracow lived a Jew named Eizik, son of Yekel. Riddled with debtand responsible for a large family, Eizik longed for someone or something to relieve himof his burdens. But nothing seemed forthcoming.One night, Eizik had a strange dream. He saw himself in Prague, the distant capital,standing under the bridge that spanned the Vltava River, just next to the king's palace."Dig!" said a voice in his ear. "On this very spot is buried a treasure. All your problemswill be solved." But upon awaking, Eizik dismissed the dream as just a figment of hisimagination. He felt that he had neither the strength nor the resources to travel so far.But the dream would not go away. Night after night, he dreamed the same dream.Finally, Eizik realized that there would be no peace for him until he journeyed to far-offPrague to verify its truth.Upon arriving at the capital, exhausted and hungry, Eizik went straight to the king'spalace. There, he recognized the bridge from his dream, the exact spot he had visioned.But soldiers were guarding the bridge. How was he to approach?He decided simply to tell the truth. And, as you may imagine, Eizik's revelationsprovoked the soldiers to great hilarity and teasing. "As for myself," one of themmockingly said, "I dreamed there was a treasure buried in Cracow, under the chimney inEizik the Jew's home! And I'm leaving right now to get it!"Upon hearing these words, Eizik had a sudden illumination. He hurried back to Cracow,removed the stones in his chimney, and, lo and behold! there was the treasure.

That the treasure lies inside ourselves, always within reach, is the first and mostobvious message of this famous Hasidic story. But that the treasure lies in our dreamingis a message that is less often understood or realized.But if the moral of the story is carried to its fullest extent, we can see that we are beingtold that dreaming itself contains the answer to our problems. In this story, dreaming isthe magic wand that disperses our clouds, opens our locked doors, moves our landmasses, cleans our cobwebs and dusty mirrors, and reveals the treasure hidden withineach of us.Is this true? Can we actually use our dreams to clear our own physical, mental,emotional, and spiritual bodies? To answer this question, we must ask another one:"What is dreaming?"Two Warring BrainsWe have only one body, but we have two arms, two legs, two eyes, and two brains.Without these ''twos'' we could not strive for the tension of balance. Unfortunately,however, one side of our mind and body will often become atrophied, thus weakeningand undermining the other side. For example, if your right arm is used too frequently,the natural symmetry of your posture can become unbalanced.Our two brains (to simplify matters we'll call them the left and right brains) havetraditionally not lived happily side by side. The left brain has dominated our way ofthinking since the advent of Scientific Enlightenment. It deals with logic, language,abstraction, mathematics, physics, problem-solving. Its thinking is sequential, linear,rational, and objective. Its progression is dependent upon the laws of cause and effect.The left brain tends to underrate and debase the subjective right brain.The right brain, on the contrary, is essentially involved with the body and all of itsattendant manifestations, sensations, and emotions. The right brain interprets facialexpressions and body movements. It deciphers lightning-speed, complex signals,reconstructing them to gain knowledge. In this way, for instance, not only does the rightbrain report on other people's appearance and state of well-being, it also makes anassessment of their deeper emotional landscape.The right brain operates instantaneously, holistically, and intuitively. As the Englishlanguage so aptly puts it, we are ''in-formed'' by the right brain, which picks up pattern,shape, and interacting forms. Thus, our smell cilia are ''in-formed'' by the shape of themolecules that waft towards our noses. Our ears are imprinted with the wave patterns ofsound, our eyes, with the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.The right brain not only receives, but also responds to the outer world and to thefluctuations within our own bodies. It does this by bringing clusters of pattern, shape,and movement into our awareness. Our interactive right brain is actively dreaming dayand night.

Why then do we undervalue this twin side of ourselves? If we are right-handed, wouldwe ever think of cutting off the left arm, simply because it is not as useful as the right?Who is it that tells us our right brain is not useful?The answer, of course, is: the left brain! Having claimed our attention, the left brainrefuses to relinquish its prerogative. It tells us that the cognitions of the right brain aredreams, and that dreams are mere fantasy. But are they?Dreaming and FantasyBefore we go on to describe the forgotten powers of dreaming, we must dispel thenotion that dreaming and fantasy are one and the same. The left brain, being willful,aggressive, and competitive, sets itself goals that it proceeds to realize. Fantasy is theleft brain's way of twisting our true dreaming to its own purposes.For example, we might fantasize that our boss is fired for stealing money from thecompany, and, lo and behold, we are offered his job! Fantasy is self-serving. Ourclaims, expectations, desires, longings, and resentments color the fantasy and itsoutcome.True dreaming is free of such conniving. Instead, it responses playfully, like a childdoes. Presented with a grimace, it will stick its tongue out. Presented with a beautifulwoman, it will light up with a wondrous smell or a beatific landscape. Dreamingresponds to what it perceives, not simplistically, not foolishly, but in a manner that isdirect, spontaneous, and creative.We will call this responsive dreaming ''Active Imagination.''The ''Health Foods'' of RelatednessImagine an infant deprived at an early age of its mother. It cries and cries -- andcontinues to cry into adulthood.What do we feed it? Words. ''Talking cures.'' Unfortunately, however, talking curesaffect only the mind. They cannot affect the poor body, still longing for the soft touch ofa mother's caressing hands, the sweet sound of her cooing, the luminosity of her eyesand smile.Words only wrap the unfortunate story of loss more securely around the suffering body.They cannot cure the body of its hunger. Only through ''in-forming'' the right brain --using Active Imagination to feed it lived experiences, the embodied relationships, thesustenance it so desperately needs -- only this way can the void of patterning beaddressed. By in-forming the right brain through the Active Imagination, the twistedconfigurations patterned by early lack can be unraveled and reconfigured.

How can we in-form the right brain through Active Imagination? How does this actuallywork?To begin with, through the therapist or other helper, the right brain instantly picks up thesound of the listening ear, the look of the loving eyes, the feel of the hand that caressesthe body, or even its proximity. Half the work of healing is done by attentive presence,caring, or touch.Even at a distance, the right brain is wired like a radio, picking up the shape of thesecaring frequencies. We experience this phenomenon in our daily life, when we think ofsomeone, only to find them calling us in the next hour or day. The vision of that person'sface and the emotion generated in our right brain sends a localized signal to the otherperson in the same way that tuning to a radio station will cause specific sounds andcontent to be received. Resonance to subtle thought and feeling is the hallmark of theright brain.Personally Attending to Our PainsBecause of the right brain's ability to pick up sustenance as described above, we do notneed to wait in order to feed ourselves the healthy food of relatedness! Others, inattending to us, may stimulate our responsiveness. But we can attend to ourselves inthe same way. In fact, being always in our bodies, we can do this even more powerfullythan anyone else. All it takes is turning our senses inward to harken to our own needs.Where do we start? With our bodies. At first, we start this re-patterning of theconfigurations of lack by attending to our body's pains and discomforts. When wecontract against our pain, trying to distance ourselves from it, we are feeding the patternof lack. When we conquer our natural impulse to run away and instead begin to feed ourright brain the experiences, the subtle energies, the sustenance our body seeks, we canreverse the negative patterning and create healing.Here's how to do this:Attending to Your PainClose your eyes, breathe out slowly three times counting from three back to one. Seethe "1" tall, clear, and very bright.Now, turning your eyes inward -- inside your body -- let your vision travel down to thearea of the physical, emotional, or mental pain. Allow yourself to be in-formed by thepain: What does it look like? What color is it? Does it smell? Does it have a texture ora sound? Is it hot or cold? Inflamed or dull? Wet or dry? Describe to yourselfeverything you ''see'' about your pain.

As you do this, you will be impelled to do something about what you are ''seeing.'' Forinstance, let us imagine that you have been in-formed that there is a fine-line fracturein your bone. How might you deal with it? The answer is found only through yourown inner impulses. Just as you did when you were a child, you play. You improvise.For instance, you might get the notion to fill up the crack with a ray of sunlight. Oryou might have the impulse to glue it with the white paste of a chewed radish. Findyour own images. You have received an inner image of a fine-line fracture, and yourespond by offering an image back to the image offered you.In this way, you are feeding your right brain. Through the neuronal pathways, this newmessage is transmitted to your bone. Your bone, accordingly in-formed, hastens toheal.Please, don't believe what I am saying! Instead, put it actively to the test. Words cannotin-form. Only images perceived, fully experienced, and embodied will do this. The nexttime you experience pain, use your active imagination to heal yourself.Responding to Inner In-FormationPain -- contraction -- is not the only way to access the right brain. Relaxation offersequally compelling in-formation. For instance, when you are dozing off but not quiteasleep yet, you may suddenly be flooded with novel sensations, vivid colors, lights, andstrange images or juxtaposition of images. These images (called hypnagogic) arerevealing the contours of your right brain. When you are falling asleep, with exteriorstimuli shut out or muted, the right brain surfaces like a sunken island out of the oceanof sleep oblivion.Your dreams present you with yet another unfinished puzzle to which you can add yourown pieces. For instance, you dream that you are swept away by a swollen torrent. Youwake up with a feeling of terror. But after contemplation, you recognize that your life isjust too busy, that you are out of control. In a case like this, what do you do? Call upyour therapist in a panic? Possibly. But a better way, perhaps, is just to sit down, closeyour eyes, and return into the dream. This method of dealing with your fear is faster andcheaper, and it frees you to be responsible and independent.

Here is how to go about it:Attending to Your DreamClose your eyes, and breathe out three times, counting from three back to one. See the"1" tall, clear, and very bright.Now, return into the dream. See yourself being swept away by a raging torrent. Whatdo you do to extricate yourself? You could, for example, relax completely -- let go,and let yourself be carried by the raging waters. Soon, you drift down to a calm,sparkling sea. Or you might hang on to a low branch and heave yourself from theroiling waters. Or you might simply decide to sink to the bottom of the torrent and restthere, becoming the water, then rising, realize that the waters have become calm.Watch what unfolds. When you feel that the movement has come to completion,breathe out and open your eyes.So you do have many options. But please remember this: When you re-enter a dream,only one of those options will surface. The dream image and that one option serve asboth your diagnosis and your healing. You find the resolution to a difficult image throughthe unfolding of your active dreaming, and in the process you in-form your body of theabatement of the physical, emotional, or mental storm. You have participated directly inyour own healing.Dialoguing With Your Right BrainWill you be satisfied with just responding to a pain or to a dream? How about dialoguingdirectly with your right brain? You know now that it needs your imput to return to healthand then to continue being healthy. Are you not tempted to find out what treasure isburied under your emotional chimney? To pull away the stones that have confined andhidden it from view? To plunge unabashedly into the space just opened up?To do so, you must act. You must ask a question, expecting the answer to reach you --not in words, but in a 3-D, surround-sound, all-encompassing experience. Your rightbrain is just like a well-cared-for child. The more you dare to ask questions of it, themore active, vital, perky, and playful it gets. Soon, it is joyously manifesting thecornucopia of its hidden world. Your crying infant who became a sad adult is suddenlyfeeling replete.By paying attention to yourself, you are being fed, enriched, moved and transformed.The old fixed configuration of loss and impoverishment is breaking up, transmuting, andflowing into the promised land of milk and honey. Abundance, richness, creativity, joy,lightness of being, love, grace, beauty -- all spring up from that inner land. To access it,just utilize this in-formation:

Dialoguing With Your Dream WorldClose your eyes. Breathe out three times, counting from three back to one. See the ''1''tall, clear, and very bright.Imagine that you are standing in a meadow, looking up into a clear blue sky.Stretching your arm up to the sun, and catching a ray of light, use this ray of light todraw a circle of light in the right-hand side of the sky. Breathe out and bring your armdown.Look into the circle of light, and see what wonders are appearing there for you. Whenyou have seen, respond directly if the need arises. Or else, if the image completes andsatisfies you, breathe out and open your eyes.There are an infinity of ways of tapping into the imaginal Source. Clues to how this canbe done may be found by modeling yourself on the poet. The poet inhabits a no-man'sland between words and image. He jolts us out of our habitual mode of seeing byjuxtaposed or leaping images, paradoxical or unexpected effects, sharp directionalshifts. Stuffy configurations are disposed of, new ones configured. You can learnabundantly from the poet's craft.Remember that your left brain wants to disclaim everything you have just read. Yourright brain, on the contrary, leaps up to the bait of pattern, image, touch, sound, smell,and taste.Will you feed your hungry inner child the healthy foods of your imagination? If you doso, you not only heal yourself, but also propel yourself into new and exciting adventures.Like Eizik of Cracow, by actively participating in your own dreaming, you can discoverthe buried treasure in your hearth. Therein lies your own, inborn heritage of health,abundance, happiness, and a balanced life.