What to do with dreams?

Something I’d like to do this year: learn more about how to work with dreams and Yi, together, as a single fabric of meaning. (Something that’ll be made much more practical by this journal software.) So I’m casting readings like this one and this one in an attempt to create a context within which it’ll all come together.

The thing is… dreams are strange. Or at least, from the perspective of our culture’s normal view of the world and how to live in it, they’re strange – they don’t fit anywhere. Nor does divination, of course, and since you’re reading this I don’t suppose you share in that ‘normal view of the world’ either – but still, why would anyone need to dream? And what are you supposed to do with the dreams you have?

Actually, even if it’s clear that dreams are important, it’s not obvious what we’re to do with them. At least if you cast a reading, you form your intention before you cast – it’s no bad idea to write down what your reading is for and how things will be different as a result of it, before you cast. But dreams are like synchronicities: they volunteer themselves, come unsolicited, so it’s far from clear what they’re about, let alone how to respond.

Are we meant to ‘respond’ at all – or even to understand? Dreams are an important inner process, true… but so are the workings of the gallbladder, and we don’t try to bring those into conscious awareness; we mind our own business and let it do its work. Maybe dreams are best just left alone. Or maybe we should…

• interpret them, seek to identify their message
• or interact with them in other ways, re-entering them in imagination, turning them into art or fiction
• or share them, make them part of relationships
• or just store them away for review
• or always look for a way to translate them into action in waking life

…?

Question: what would be a good way to respond to dreams? What are we meant to do with them?

Answer: Hexagram 2, Earth, unchanging.

(If you’re familiar with Yi – isn’t that brilliant?)

The first and second hexagrams of the Yijing are the ‘gates’ into its world. The first is made of pure solid lines –

– and represents Creative Force, Heaven. It’s the ceaseless driving creative power that makes acorns grow into oak trees and the stars move in their paths: the principle, the information, whose movement becomes reality. Human experience of this hexagram is usually about trying to find ways to relate to its power – it can show up as inspiration, driving energy, or sometimes as knowing, even as moral certainty.

The second hexagram, the way to respond to dreams, is made of pure open lines –

– and represents Earth, the Receptive. Those open lines are space where everything happens, and the capacity to sustain it all. As often as not, this hexagram’s answering some variation on the question, ‘How can I serve?‘

Isn’t Hexagram 1 – the pure energy, creative spirit without embodiment – a lot like a dream? So doesn’t it make perfect, beautiful sense that our response to that should be Hexagram 2?

Here’s the oracle of Hexagram 2:

‘Earth.
From the source, creating success.
The constancy of a mare bears fruit.
A noble one has a direction to go.
At first: confusion. Later: gains a master.
Fruitful in the southwest, gaining partners.
In the northeast, losing partners.
Peaceful constancy brings good fortune.’

This begins just like Hexagram 1, which says simply,

‘Creative Force.
From the source, creating success.
Constancy bears fruit.’

But as Earth, responding to the pure energy of the dream, we specifically need the mare’s constancy to participate fully in the creative flow. She’s gentle, swift, strong, and above all alertly responsive, available to be guided.

So… the working of dreams is not like the workings of gallbladders, then; it’s not enough just to forget them and leave them be. It’s better to approach dreams with ears pricked, ready to change course – to do something in response.

‘A noble one has a direction to go.
At first: confusion. Later: gains a master.’

The ‘direction to go’ is a lot like the intention that begins a reading: I want to go this way (I just don’t know how/ what it might look like). This line in a reading about dreams reminds me that we always have an intention: we’re always walking round with a question, a deep desire. If we become aware of what that is, then we have a chance to notice how our world is already answering it. Then the master and guide – the Chinese character for ‘master’, wonderfully, shows a lit lamp – emerges from the confusion. (Though it seems it’s necessary to have the confusion first!)

‘So, you are soil to be worked, you are a mare. Or, more literally, you are a nobleman who is looking for a job, hoping to be worked by a spirited leader.’

(Freeman Crouch, I Ching: the Chameleon Book)

– and this is the best approach to take to dreams.

‘Fruitful in the southwest, gaining partners.
In the northeast, losing partners.
Peaceful constancy brings good fortune.’

We had the southwest/northeast axis in my previous dream reading, too, in Hexagram 39. Here as there, I think this says that dreams are something to be worked on together, with partners. At least, there is a balance to be had between going southwest with the dream, to find allies, and then going alone to the northeast, following your own lamp-guide to act on your dream.

Then from the mare’s constancy to ‘peaceful’ constancy – one of my favourite characters, meaning content, still, quiet, at ease, and showing in its ancient form a woman under her roof. Be alert to dreams, respond to them like a mare to guidance, like earth to seeds, share them, act on them – and also settle in quietly and make yourself at home with them. This is where you live.

(If you find the images of ancient characters in this post interesting, please show your appreciation by making a donation at Richard Sears’ Chinese Etymology site!)