Having grown up American, I have to say that when I learned how to do this process it was a huge turning point in being able to do my own changework because it helped me to have a lot more clarity about which direction my dreams were pointing to.    The symbols around traveling help to clarify the difference between the ego and the true self very elegantly so they are worth attending to.   If you have read my other postings, you might have already learned that when you have negative emotions in a dream, it gives you information about your ego, whereas positive ones point you in the direction of your true self.    Here are some of the common symbols people have around transportation.

Cars:  In most cultures cars are the chief means of transport to get you to your destinations in your daily life.  There are exceptions, but generally we use cars to get us to work, to shop, to transport our children to their activities, and to do recreation.   It is a symbol connected closely to our daily experiences.  There are exceptions because we also use cars for holidays, but they are more likely to come into play when you have an issue around getting somewhere on a day to day basis.   A car is closer to home than, for instance, traveling in a plane so when a car is in your dream, it often brings up issues of getting to short term progress rather than long term.    Often people, who might be driving, are in the passenger seat when a car is out of control.   This  is an indicator that they need to take more control in their lives.   A crash can signify either trying to get somewhere too fast, not showing enough care, or that someone else is leading you in a dangerous way.

Planes:  Planes travel in the air which in symbolic terms have more to do with going after a longer term goal because they are further away from home.   Oftentimes the issue with a plane is that of running out of gas. This is because when you start a project you may have a great deal of enthusiasm, but then burn out after awhile.  You need a way to sustain enthusiasm despite setbacks and difficulties.  Not being able to get off the ground is a problem of not having enthusiasm in the first place, whereas a mid air crash might be having too much enthusiasm that is not balanced with wisdom and care.    Flying on your own is different than flying on a plane and has a more to do with the benefits of freedom as opposed to getting from one place to another in your life.

Boats:   Being in water on a boat shows you issues related to working together as a group to reach a goal as in the metaphor we are all in the same boat.   If you are rowing a boat alone, but it is a positive experience it can mean that you are doing your part to make the group function and reach the goal.   A sinking ship may signify that something is wrong with the way the group is being lead.

Bicycles:  Bicycles differ from cars in that you get to where you want to go through your own efforts, so if you have a positive dream on a bike it could mean that the dream is asking you to make stronger daily efforts.   Racing down a mountain on a bike out of control means that you probably need to develop skills along with your courage.

Motorcycle:  A motorcycle is a vehicle that manuevers a lot easier than a car and has a lot more openness to it so a dream with a motorcycle may be that you need to have a free feeling while dealing with your goals and also the able to manuever much quicker.

Trekking:  Taking a trek has a lot to do with the quality of determination and the wilingness to commit over the long term to reach a goal.    The general rule is that the longer the journey the more determination is needed, while a short journey needs a lot of enthusiasm and courage.

This is something of an adventure story. You see back in the early 80s I was studying with one of the great mentors in my life, Dr. Daniel Jordan, who had created a model of education called Anisa. In the Anisa Model we believed that human beings have unlimited potentialities and that we should combine a strong philosophy of education with the best that science had to offer in terms of research. In October of 1982 Dr Jordan died which was quite untimely for me since I was just beginning my study and collaboration with him. I thought that I would be working with him for a long time, but suddenly it was over. He was gone. By the spring of 1983 it was clear that the project at the university would not be supported, so many of us began looking around for other places to implement Anisa.

We ended up receiving a job offer on a First Nations reserve outside of Edmonton, Canada so in July of 1983 we left our country, the USA, and set out. A few weeks ago I started doing the math and realized that it had been 25 years since we had lived in the US. When I went to study with Dr. Jordan in 1980, I had hoped that I would be able to move to Latin America afterwards. It was always my dream to leave the US and live abroad. Now we are 25 years forward from when we left the US, having spent 16 of them in Canada, 6 in Brazil, and now we are on our 4th year in Malaysia.

Here is my story. I was really reluctant to leave California because I loved working on the model and loved the San Diego area. When I arrived in Alberta, I thought that where we were living was an armpit, but then I ended up really loving the work and loving the Cree Reserve so I again became reluctant to leave. Then my eldest daughter, Erika, decided that she wanted to go to the Maxwell International Baha’i School on Vancouver Island so when we inquired about jobs, we got them. We ended up being on the Island for 9 years and God knows the story. I was reluctant to leave. So He gave me an easy way. We were fired or restructured out. After a year of hanging out on the Island receiving unemployment insurance, we set out for the next leg on the journey, Brazil. This really is a story of reluctance.

I guess you know what I am going to say now. Brazil is so much a part of me that I often still dream in Portuguese. I thought that when I moved to Brazil that this would be it. I am just going to stay there for the rest of my life. Well, about 6 years on, the school decided to move in a different direction than the one we were in, so they asked us to leave. I think that is a really nice way to say it. Brazil has a way of stealing your heart so when we received a job offer in Asia after hanging out in Vancouver running along the seawall and going to parks with our granddaughter, Isa, for a year, I was really reluctant. I didn’t really think that Asia would be a nice place to live. How could I have been so wrong?

Really, sometimes I don’t get it with myself. I love to go on all kinds of adventures, but I am really reluctant to leave where I am. If God decides to grant me another 25 years, I think I am going to have to work on my issue of reluctance because I have had 25 wonderful years of adventure and I am just only beginning to meet a small fraction of the rest of the world.

Baha’u'llah has repeatedly exhorted us to regard the world as one country and mankind as one family. I’d like to think of moving around in the world as if I were moving from one state to another in the US visiting family, but I see that I still have a long way to go to get to His ideal.

Happy 25th to us.

The spiritual world only ever requires that you work on one energy at a time so when a dream presents one of the elements, you can be certain that that particular element is the one you need now.   So if, for instance, your house is on fire in a dream, you can be certain that something is wrong with the qualities of your mind. The mind is supposed to be a source of illumination which requires a metaphor like a candle or other positive forms of light.   Your dreams will try to get you to develop the spirituality of the mind which include things like patience, calm, tranquility, and detachment.  When you have the spiritual qualities of the mind, then guidance and intuition seem to pour in easily.

If you have water in a dream, the first thing that can come to your mind is the need to focus on your relationships.   Water has so many forms in the world because the heart has so many qualities it needs to develop.   It is the least understood of all the elements because it is often associated as a feminine rather than a masculine quality.   It is the quality most spoken about in all of the religions of the world and yet is virtually non-existent in schools.    There is a lot that can happen with water in a dream.  It can be a flood, a tidal wave,  a storm, a rough sea,  a babbling brook, a placid lake,  a drink,  or a fast moving river.    When you have a water dream, it is important to note whether it is positive or negative.   If it is positive, then the dream will be encouraging you to recall the quality that is associated with the dream.    If you are white water rafting and having a great time,  then the dream may be asking you to reach out more courageously to others.  If the you are going down a wild river hanging onto a board and frightened to death,  then it could be a symbol that your relationships are just completely out of control and moving to fast.

The element of earth comes into the dream world when you need to have the qualities associated with strength such as fulfilling your commitments, staying with a project to its end,  developing abilities and skills from the ground up, and doing things that are extremely difficult.      The earth is the most solid of the elements so you may find that you are having difficulty climbing a mountain, which would be associated with having difficulty reaching a goal.  Cars are one of the forms of transportation on the element of the earth which symbolize trying to get from one place to another such as trying to become more competent in your work.   If your car breaks down or someone else is driving it,   it means that you are having difficulties getting to where you want to go.  You could run out of gas or be reckless and crash, or someone else is directing your life and career rather than you.     This element tends to be the one most praised by the culture as we know it because when someone is reliable, trustworthy, and hard working it makes everything in society work better.    Leaders who are concerned about their position at the top will love this quality in their workers, but when it comes to the next quality, air, they will likely be very threatened.   I am absolutely certain that the reason that the earth is so popular over the others is that it isn’t a threat to autocratic leadership.

Air is connected to the spirit which is represented in qualities like enthusiasm, optimism, idealism, vision, courage and hope.   Some of the common dreams involving air are flying dreams,  dreams where you are falling, and dreams with lots of wind.    Air is a lot like the heart, in that it isn’t often taught, but it is much more threatening because it is associated with doing new things which people interested in keeping the status quo do not like.

Here is a list of things which each element that you might want to explore.

Air

Flying is often associated with freedom of action

Airplane is a medium in the air so it represents using your air-like qualities such as lightness and enthusiasm to accomplish goals that are new and a bit more radical.

Falling usually means falling from grace.  Falling from grace comes from not trusing in the Spirit as an extremely positive force that is always supporting you regardless of whether you deserve it or not.   Falling comes when you feel like you don’t merit things.

Wind usually tends to hold you back from rushing forward toward your vision.  The wind should be at your back instead of in front of you.  When you analyze a wind dream, imagine it at your back and then just let go of your hesitation.

Tornado is a symbol of how people take a small rather insignificant thing and then spin it until it becomes really destructive.   Tornados are what incompetent leaders use to get into power.  They find small things in others that are negative and spin them in others ears so that others get really fearful and make that person the leader.   Tornados happen where the values are more earth like the prairies.   They tend to pay attention to small things that aren’t true rather than investigating them fully.

Hurricane is a symbol of leaders who are trying to be god-like.   The association with God is that they originate in the ocean.   This is the same as a cyclone.  Hurricanes let you know that the relationship with God is being replaced by a leader who wants power.   When you dream it, it is a warning.

Fire/Light

House on fire- many people have this dream when they try to use thinking all the time instead of other energy like relating energy.   The mind needs to cool to think well and be objective.

Light:  generally light is the source of illumination.   The negative side of light is darkness which is the absence of light.   When things are dark, it means that they need to be illumined with light.

Candle:  a candle is a soft light which is what you often need to find guidance or answers as opposed to really bright sunlight which may be overwhelming to the mind.   People often meditate to candle light because it has a way of letting you go inside and find answers.  The biggest mistake with the mind is to fret about finding an answer.   Many people don’t realize that the spiritual world will guide you when you need it and will withhold guidance when it is unnecessary.  It is part of the formula of trust.

Forest fire:  a symbol of how wrong thinking destroying growth and uprightness.

Unlike other elements where there are means of transportation associated with the energy,  the element of light requires remaining still.

Water

Tsunami:    Cultural negativity in relating such backbiting, gossip, and criticism that is sustained by extremely negative and authoritarian leadership.    The opposite and positive force is encouragement which is sustained by finding positives in others and acknowledging them.

River:  raging river with a bridge is the problem of getting from one place to another in your life by crossing over lots of angry people.   The key to successfully dealing with anger is to not get pulled into the river.

Ocean:  The ocean is the symbol of the world of God because of its vastness.   A violent sea represents being out of relationship with the Creator.  I often substitute the spiritual world for the world of God. In my mind they are interchangeable.

Glass of Water: is a symbol of getting in relationship with oneself.   When you are thirsty in the desert, you are out of relationship with self.   The great majority of people are chronically dehydrated which has something to do with not being able have a positive relationship with themselves.

Shower is about cleansing oneself or purifying oneself.  Trouble showering means having trouble with motives either your own or others.

Toilet is the place where you let go of negativity that comes in and is meant to flow out.

Rain is a symbol of for what you to assist relationships to grow.   A drought is not enough relationship and a torrential rain is too much relationship.

Earth

Transportation on the earth:  many dreams in this realm are about moving from one place to another such as climbing a mountain,  driving in a car, going on a train, riding a motorcycle,  running, walking, biking.

Progress is made on the earth through effort.  When you are in the air and traveling like in a plane it is effortless, but on the earth you need your determination to go from one place to another.   Much of what happens is overcoming obstacles like big boulders or rock cliffs to scale.    You develop in this area through lots of repetition, doing the difficult thing,  always developing new skills.   If you are in a foreign country where they don’t speak your native tongue, then you need effort by practicing the new language a lot.

Earthquake:  your life if being shaken up, which means you need to get on solid ground.

In the next post I will write a little about buildings such as houses.   I would love to hear your dreams so please feel free to write me when you want to know what they mean.

“I was going down stairs to get some water. On the way down a statue of cats came alive and were staring at me.  Down stairs there were two purple jaguars circling around me.  Om my chair there was a sleeping lady with Ron from Harry Potter.  wrapped around her arms and Ron said, “If you wake her up she will kill me.” I said, “what” and then the lady woke up and killed Ron!! Then I woke up.

Most things in dreams make absolutely no sense to the rational mind except the major negative emotion which is, in this case, fear.    It shows the main problem of our time that is a warning to this young 9 year old.   I don’t think that dreams of 9 year olds are meant to be analyzed metaphorically by themselves, but the fear is meant to felt so that they can recall it to someone who may help them through the process.   Unfortunately, it is a communication form that is only beginning to be understood so most children have little guidance about what is going on around them.     This dream starts by the boy going downstairs to get some water.    When you go down in a dream it usually means going to your lower nature rather than your higher one.   Going to get some water means that he is thirsty for a relationship.   The problem is the almost universal problem of young people in the world today.  They go to their lower natures, their ego,  for a relationship rather than their higher nature.   When this is done, their lives end up in fear and separation.

As he goes down the things that were statues come alive and start circling around him.    Animals in dreams can either be negative or positive.   When they appear as negative symbols, then the dreamer can turn his live around by finding their positive opposites.   The negative side of cat in a relationship is its aloofness and turning away from others, and the negative aspect of the big cats is their aggressive nature to tear into others.  The dream tells him that if he takes to his lower path that this is what he gets, aloof and distant relationships or really aggressive and abusive ones.   The final symbol is the mother figure who becomes a killer of a famous fantasy character when she is wakened.

A mother is supposed to be nurturing in real life,   but, in this episode, because he was taking the low road, he doesn’t get nurtured, he just sees horror.  The fantasy character lets him know that he imagines really bad things happening when he is on the low road.

It is often easiest to solve a dream by going backwards from the end of the dream rather than forward.  In this dream he ends up in a situation where he is  witnessing the death of an imaginary character.   This means that he can take the first steps to nurturing positive relationships and feeling alive and positive by being in the real world rather than the imaginary one.   This seems to be a major issue with all of the cultures of the world today.   Because the majority of relationships are built on material values, people slip into a destructive world of imagination rather than being real.    Children are just modeling their parents by slipping into things that distract them from real life.   Parents cannot moderate their children because they, the parents, do the same thing.

So the first step for most people and for this child is to be spend more time in the real world rather than in fantasy land.   It is not that Harry Potter is a bad read,  it is just that our culture spends too much time with him because we have become so atrocious at friendship and love and nurturing.   So then once you can get into the real world of friendship,  then you can take on the positive characteristics of the animal symbols, which in this case, would be to create a circle of friendship and pounce on goals that are positive.   The final symbol, which is the cats staring and being statues, is to be like a positive cat, which is to be independently minded.

What I do to get the symbols to become positive is to take their negative energy and flip them around to the positives.   So a statue of a cat would be like having the capacity of to think independently, but just not using it at all because it is much easier to just go into fantasy land rather than real thinking.    Real thinking is to be able to have opinions and discussions about real problems and then solving them.   And you can only get to the point of being able to have true discussions and openness when there is a circle of extremely positive relationships.

As we remember, the first part of the dream was to go downwards to get the water, which means taking the easy or material way to a relationship.  So the key, which is mostly non-existent in schools and in the world is for people to really desire excellence in having positive relationships.   Most people just do not want to put in the effort that a relationship requires.  They want it easy with the other side giving them lots of rewards.   So the main key to turning around the world culture is to be able to have a strong desire for working on relationships and on staying with the effort that is required.   It is not meant to be easy, but this is exactly what this child expects.

Sends your dreams to richardchastings@gmail.com and get started on change.

As a third child Fiona Zaynab, you will have some definite advantages.   Although Erika and Chris will have high expectations for you, the fact that there are already two others in the family will give you a certain amount of freedom because they just can’t watch over three the way they watch over two.   It is a place for your independent mind, for choosing the road less traveled.   Being a third child just seems to allow you go your own way, at least it did for me because I always felt a lot of support from the other family members that it was ok to try to do something different.   I see you in the first few moments in this new world that you has been born into and then imagine all of the great experiences you will have in doing that for which you have been created, all of the support you will have to be exactly who you are,  and all of the history of those family members who have preceded you, ones that you or I have never even known.

Your grandmother and I were a bit surprised when your mother and father decided to have you, the number three child, because much of the world these days rarely goes past two and a country of over a billion has even stopped at one.   But the threes have a special gift.  You are both in your family and free from it at the same time.  You will be free from convention and ready to explore all that is wondrous and new.     You will crave the unexplored parts of life even as an addict craves his drugs.   It is already so apparent in your complete tranquility, Fiona.  You are surrounded in love and support and this will set you free.

I leave you with a prayer for the first days of your life, Fiona, and long for our first of many adventures together.   “O Thou most glorious Lord! Make this little maidservant of thine blessed and happy; cause her to be cherished at the threshold of thy oneness, and let her drink deep from the cup of Thy love so she may be filled with rapture and ecstacy and diffuse sweet scented fragrances….”

Abdu’l Baha

The really interesting thing about whether I was dealing with encouragement or relationship or power was that when my inner self was negative, then my outer self became tense and, hence the run became more difficult.   The more positive the relationship I had with my true self during the run, the more relaxed I was and the better I felt.  It seems quite simple and obvious,  but here is how it played itself out.   The nice thing about running is that it is an activity that you can do by yourself and in order to do it you need to have a good relationship with your own self.   So the first issue that came up was that I was trying to get someone else to have a positive relationship with me and then I found my mind trying to play with the pattern of how to get them to have a positive relationship with me.  What I realized was that I could have a positive relationship with my own self, so I dropped trying to get others to have a positive relationship with me and then suddenly an image of me running along beside me as my best friend just popped like we were running arm in arm.   At that point my body really relaxed and I just felt so great.  This was somewhere about 8-9k into the run.   I kept that image for awhile and then another issue showed up further down the roade which had much more to do with encouragement.   Encouragement is more like a positive voice that keeps you going so when the issue came up,  the voice was quite negative and critical and really didn’t want to have a relationship with me.   As I let go of the negative voice I found that the encouraging self appeared on as if it were on a bicycle next to me riding in a really relaxed way.   The encouraging self just gave me a nice plan and allowed me even more relaxation.   This happened around 12-13k.

Somewhere around 15-16k I started feeling really worn out and tired. It was already about 30 C.   I was filled with thoughts about trying to get people in authority in all kinds of situations to become powerful in a positive way to make things better.  This is a huge recurring theme in my life so I knew that since the relational and encouraging work had gone so well that I would give my powerful self a go.    What was interesting was that while the relational and encouraging selves appeared like images beside or near me, the empowered self was inside me.    I could feel it working on me feeling my body and my strength while I was running, but at the same time it was telling me where to relax.   At 18-19k I was still running at about the same pace that I was at 8-9k even when I had slowed down when the issue first appeared.

As I stayed with the empowered self it began to remind me of past runs that I had made at distance and started to get my body to run like those runs rather than running fatigued and slowed down.   So what I gained from the last part of the run was that empowerment arises when you feel your strength inside as if you are very relaxed but also feeling how strong you are.  It seems to come when I can change the focus away from other people’s power to my own memories when I felt strong in the past.

In summary, relational energy seems to be right beside me, encouraging energy is near but the focus is more auditory where as relational is visual and kinesthetic,  and empowered energy seems to be very kinesthetic feeling of being relaxed and strong at the same time that is generated from a positive memory.

If you try this exercise,  first just let the issue appear, spend some time analyzing it, and then let go of the negative energy so that you can acquire some of the positive energies.   Besides the three mentioned there is also a fourth energy, the enlightened self, which is more about guidance.   It has more to do with the issue of not finding your way, but it was not on my journey today.   When you find yourself lost or on the wrong path or on a path that someone else has lead you to, the issue usually has something to do with purity of motive.

Happy running!

“One day I had a dream that a giant mutant worm tried to eat me. When I was sleeping I heard a noise outside.  I went outside and couldn’t see the giant worm.  It was right behind me.  It tried to eat me, but when I turned back, I woke up because I was so scared.”

Understanding dreams is the same as reading a book, only instead of narrative, the language of the dream is metaphor.   It is helpful to know the child who is being described in the dream because it adds the kind of detail that the dream doesn’t fully give,  but it is not totally necessary.    When you can read the metaphor, you can understand the meaning of the dream.   You can also read what is known in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) as submodalities such as size, color, shape, speed, distortion, loudness, texture, pressure, etc..

Since children live in a land of giants, that is, everyone is much bigger than they are, many of their fears are registered by the submodality of size.  In this dream,  an animal that normally lives underground and is very small is transformed into huge proportions.    This is what makes the animal so fearful.   If it were small and in the ground doing what it does best, it would be creating air in the soil.    A positive worm helps by making the solid earth have more air.   It puts space between the particles in the soil so it isn’t so compact.   In the metaphorical world, the world of non-physical reality,  soil or earth represents some of the qualities that teachers love most such as perseverance,  responsibility, and reliability.    What happens to many children is that under the pressure to perform their earth like qualities, they become extremely compact and then they have a hard time achieving excellence.    The way a positive worm helps is to make things much lighter by giving more air.   In the metaphorical world this is something like having a sense of humour.   So you can say that a positive worm can dig into places where people are feeling compact because of pressure and then make them feel light.  Laughing makes it easier for them to achieve because they get a lot looser.

A negative worm is someone who makes his way into a person’s space and then makes them feel bad about themselves.   You can see from the drawing above that the child and the worm are drawn together which means that the child has become the negative worm that is ruining other people’s lives rather than helping them.   If the two were drawn apart from each other, you could assume that the worm was someone else.  But this child has really become a worm and now the worm is even going to get him.

Fortunately he wakes up when he sees that the worm is about to get him.     What I told the child was he needed to stop being a worm and start being more positive with others.   He could even start telling more jokes to make people happier.   It wasn’t a shock to him that he was a negative worm.  He knew it.  By turning around and seeing himself as a negative worm it woke him so that he could start to become positive.

Reading a metaphor:  To read a metaphor you simply ask yourself,  “What is a …..?”  Then you start differentiating the elements of the metaphor.   After you have analyzed the elements, then you can begin making equivalents with the non-material world.    Most living things have a positive and negative side such as a shark can either be frightening or it can be a metaphor for biting into new things.

The metaphor of sleeping means being asleep in your life or being unaware of his positive self.  He was so busy being a giant worm that he couldn’t recognize who he was.   But now he knows that he doesn’t have to be the worm, that he can be positive and do helpful things with others especially making them laugh.

So instead of having negative feelings and interactions with them,  everything flowed amazingly well today.   All of my interactions with the old enemies were suddenly friendly.     Did they change miraculously?  I think not.    The decision seemed to change everything.    It was strange almost like being in never neverland.    The day was extremely joyous.    I think that I must have put out a really bad vibe to the enemies before because when I decided to change,  they suddenly became friendlier and easier to work with.   Very strange!

So I began to think about how I might get the most out of myself and then a young woman told me a dream that she had about going on a road to an old house where she felt really great.   Well an old house where you feel positive in a dream is a place in your old memories where you feel great.  So I began to remember some of the best events I have initiated.   Here is one.  Look at the two teams just really happy together.

So the next process I am going to work on in getting the best out of myself is to remember positive experiences as if they are still fully alive and happening right now and then just do more things.

Hmmmm.   Think I will organize a big trip.

There is the mandatory handshake of course, for sportsmanship, but an embrace is a kind of recognition, that though we are rivals and the competition is intense, in the end we respect and admire each other.   When the decathlon and heptathlon events are completed after two full days of competing,  all of the athletes embrace and then take a victory lap together around the field.   There is the gold medal winner,  which is what the world wants to see, but there is also a great feeling of love between the athletes that transcends the old boundaries.    We don’t choose our countries of birth,  but we do have a choice about embracing change and knocking down old beliefs and old patterns.

So when you find the worst thing about yourself, you can be change it into the very best quality,  by first believing that it is possible.   Who would have believed in the 19th Century that a descendant of a slave would be the most recognized person in China, Kobe Bryant.   And who could have also believed that a white person would embrace him as a brother?   It has happened and we have lived to see it.   If a descendant of a slave can rise to be the most recognized person in a country of 1 billion people,  then what can we do?

It is a staggering question?