We spend almost one-third of our lives wrapped in shadows and dreams. Sleep provides rest for our bodies and our conscious minds. However, our inner beings are far from inactive during sleep, as is evidenced by our dreams.
Dreams have been the subject of spiritual and philosophical debate for three thousand years. Such debate continues, particularly among sleep researchers who have as yet been unable to identify the mental and physiological processes at work during the occurrence of dreams. Though hundreds of theories have been advanced, dreams remain a mysterious, largely unexplained aspect of our daily lives.
Early polytheistic peoples had little difficulty in explaining dreams. There were some differences in these explanations, but most were founded on a belief unacceptable to the modem practice of scientific inquiry: dreams are spiritual experiences in which advice or warnings are issued from the divinities.
The intense interest in dreams has never waned. Thousands of books have been published, each promising to reveal the secrets of these night messages. Virtually all modern works, however, ignore the obvious spiritual nature of some dreams. The authors of these books prefer to see dreams as signs of unfulfilled wishes and past experiences. They boldly state that all dreams originate within their dreamers’ minds and bodies. A few modern dream researchers grudgingly admit that some dreams seem to be of psychic origin, but all mention of dreams as messages from deity occurs only in historical contexts, or are entirely dismissed.
This is a unique dream book. Though it acknowledges that some dreams lack deep meaning, it also embraces the concept that our personal deities can visit us in our dreams. Thus, sleep itself can be a spiritual act.
Part I of this book examines theories regarding dreams and their importance to the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians and Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Hawaiians, and Native Americans. It closes with a short look at dream books.
Part II defines a unique ritual system designed to secure dreams from our personal deities, based on the techniques of antiquity as well as on personal experience. Part III consists of an in-depth guide to remembering and recording your dreams, interpreting them, and determining whether they’re of divine origin.
Dreaming the Divine, then, is both a historical survey and a practical guide to this ancient process. It recognizes and celebrates the fact that during sleep we enter an alternate state of consciousness in which we’re more easily approached by our goddesses and gods.
The techniques outlined in parts II and III of this book aren’t complex or time-consuming: a few actions, an invocation, bed. Yet they may well lead us to higher states of awareness, provide comfort and counseling, send warnings of the future, and strengthen our relationship with our personal deities.
Sleep can indeed be a ritual act. Dreaming the Divine is no less than a guide to a unique form of personal spiritual practice. Based on three millennia of the continuous use of similar rites, it elevates sleep from a necessary period of mental and physical rest to a higher purpose.
Dreaming the Divine has something to offer to all who worship the Goddess and the God.
Reveal yourself to me and let me see
a favorable dream.
May the dream that I dream be
favorable,
May the dream that I dream be true,
May Mamu, the goddess of dreams,
stand at my head;
Let me enter E-Sagila, the temple of
the gods, the house of life.