For the past couple of months I have been playing with the possibility that I could enhance my dream recall and lucidity. I did this mostly because I am in the process of writing a book on dreams, neuroscience and archetypes. As I began to play in these realms my dream recall began to improve, and over the course of 2 months I was remembering a dream with good recall on average 2 of 3 days.
This increase shocked me since I have been recording my dreams for 20 years. I also began wearing a fitness watch while I slept that measures heart rate while sleeping. This fact helped me see that during certain REM states that I actually wake up periodically during the experience of the dream. I was doing something that improved both my recall and my lucidity.
Dream lucidity can be described not only as a way to bring conscious awareness and action to our dream state, but also the ability to observe the dream passively. In this way, my increased interest in remembering my dreams activated a lucidity and awareness that I was dreaming. Neurobiologically, it could be said that my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is activated in REM states, a situation which is not normally accomplished.
While I was deep into the experience of dreaming and writing, something was missing. I was overwhelmed with organizing and analyzing a large volume of information. It is no small undertaking, since I love the potential dream images have in bringing new emotional experience. Mundane dream images connected to large motifs and archetypes, and I did not have the brain power alone to complete the project.
So to further explore these connections through a practical experience, I launched an Instagram account dedicated to bring consciousness to dream images. The purpose of this account is to give voice to modern images that connect us all. In these posts, I seed an image of a mundane object and relate a few associations to the object. These associations are my own and those of authors who research symbols for a living. Once I began this exercise, I immediately began to see these images in my dreams.
With these seeds in my dream, I could amplify the dream and connect it to a neurobiological model of the mind. With this attention, the dream image integrates and consolidates energies of motivational and interpersonal relatedness.
Furthermore, by sharing these images and symbolic associations on Instagram, I could bring these consolidations of awareness to a social community. In other words, I'm sharing the collective images and symbols back to the group to bring consciousness to our collective unconscious.
The method uses the power of the image and social media to work collectively on the project started by Carl Jung and analytical psychologists. There is no one interpretation and no right or wrong way to go in the investment of collective consciousness. So far the account has attracted artists, alchemists, and other free spirited individuals that want deeper meaning and more importantly connection.
These blogs expand on the entire experience of seeding, dreaming, sharing, amplifying and integrating symbols.
