The Dream From An Ancient Place

The History

I recently shared an article with some friends on the plant called ayahuasca.  I had done some research on this drug and found that several articles call it a plant that has potential to help alleviate PTSD, suicidal thoughts, and severe anxiety.  Other articles are less complementary and caution that it can cause death.  My thought is that once again white folks are playing with indigenous medicines and they don't really understand how they work.  I wonder if this, like other practices, is both misunderstood and misused.  I was curious about my friends’ thoughts on this and on any articles, publications, or writings they might direct me to.

One friend who had 30 years ago visited the Amazon replied that although he had not taken anyahuasca he was aware of it and had considered taking it.  He had spent a few weeks in Iquitos, Peru where the writer of the article I had shared had her experience with the drug.  No information there, but I thanked him for his reply.

Interestingly Iquitos is a major city along the Amazon that is only assessable only by plane or boat, but here in the middle of the jungle is this thriving city.  

A couple of days after my sharing this article my friend emailed me saying he had a dream he wanted to share with me and wondered if I would be okay with that.  Dreams are important to me; my own and others, and I have helped many people recall and understand “The Sacred Language of Dreams”; so I emailed him that I would like to hear his dream.  He then emailed this dream to me.  

The Dream

“Ok...I hope you get a kick out of it. I don’t know if there is a meaning to it. Maybe you will have an idea.

Anyway I think one thing that triggered it was when you sent me the email about the ayahuasca.

Anyway my dream was I went back to Iquitos to see a Shaman about erectile dysfunction. I went into the hut and he had me lay down on a table like the one you use for Reiki. He started chanting and blowing smoke and shaking this grass type thing at me just like he did last time I got a protection ceremony from him. Then a woman came out from behind a curtain wearing a grass skirt and it was you and you had a single long feather in your hair. You had that tuning fork you use and tapped me down there and bingo…I was cured…LOL...Then I woke up.”

The dream intrigued me.  My initial thought was this dream, like the ayahuasca, was taking him on an inward journey to heal, and there were deeper symbolic meanings to his journey.  On the surface the shaman’s ceremony and my using the tuning fork had cured him, but my sense was there were deeper layers to his being “cured”.

I replied to his email saying I needed some time to think about this, and after considerable thought I again replied:

The Dream Interpretation  

The dream is interesting.  It contains 3 people, the Shaman, you, and me. If this was my dream I would consider that all 3 of these people are aspects of me and all are there to facilitate healing.  You are seeking a healing for your erectile dysfunction and the Shaman begins a ceremony like you have experienced before.  I then appear from behind a curtain with a feather in my hair and holding a tuning fork.  I use the tuning fork, touch your genitals, and the problem is corrected.  To me this says that your higher self, the shaman, directs you toward healing, and I, your feminine self, am called forth to assist with this. 

The article I sent you the other day reminded you of the ceremonies you experienced in the Amazon, but the essence of healing is your journey, and begins when you acknowledge the various parts that make up you, and ask them to assist you in this healing.  The shaman's smoke, rattle, and chant awake this part of yourself, and me and the tuning fork, which is another sound vibration like the chant and the grass rattle, allow you to achieve an erection.  It s my thought that this desire comes from you, and your dream shows you how allowing the various parts of yourself working together you can accomplish what you seek. 

Some folk’s journey to far off places to experience ceremonies and the ayahuasca, but the ultimate journey is when you realize that what you seek lies within yourself.  This dream gave you this experience and if it was my dream I would focus on developing a waking relationship with these parts of myself.  Your shaman self and your feminine self will work with you in assisting your correcting this issue.  Your dream indicates that you want to correct this problem and is instructing you as to how you might do this.  The tuning fork, smoke, rattle, and chants are just the window dressing of the dream; the important element is you’re seeking assistance and allowing the different parts of yourself to integrate, or come together, to the healing of the whole of you.

Well, that's my 25 cent analysis, hope it is helpful.  If you have questions please be in touch. 

He responded with comments and questions and said that the elements of his dream and how they were sewn together was up to him; I agreed.  He said he had been thinking about Peru a lot lately, had recently been asked to tell some stories about it, and then I had sent him the article.

I replied to him via another email:   

A conundrum which I feel is the essence of the dream time.  In the end it is for you to decide what it means to you.  You have apparently been thinking about Peru lately, and the article I shared with you certainly could have triggered your thoughts, recall, and memories...but the content of the dream is, I feel, personal to you, and in the end subject to your belief as to what it means. 

I appreciate that you felt comfortable in sharing it with me and you are correct in that I don't judge you.  If you want to talk further on this I would be happy to read/listen and give my input.  Dreams hold truth; it is that sometimes we have to move beyond the obvious and into the more subtle realms of our unconscious. 

I once led a dream class with a group of women at a church.  The class was in the sanctuary; a beautiful appointed room with wonderful symbols on the walls, but the women couldn't grasp the difference between dream symbols and waking life; so I asked this; "have you ever had an amorous dream about your pastor?"  Well, they giggled uncomfortably, some faces flushed, and a few heads nodded slightly.  I then said that more than being a dream about passion or inappropriate love, this could be a dream about wanting to merge with a deeper spiritual part of them, and the pastor might be a symbol for this.  This led to a more meaningful discussion with the class...

I offer you this example as a way to consider my appearance in your dream....  We have been friends, have shared events in our lives, and you trust me.  I could be a symbol for your deep feminine energy and perhaps this is a part of you than can help you address the issue of your erectile dysfunction.... Just a thought....but something to consider as you sew the elements of your dream into a pattern.

His response was “these are the elements and how or why they are sewn together will be something for me to think about.” His thoughts on the story that I shared about the dream class were: "Yeah kinda like crushes on a teacher or fantasies about a girlfriend’s sister. Then again some aren’t to me inappropriate but just a human experience that was more of an “encounter” in a sense that can be exciting."

 

He considered my comment on the inner feminine and said:  "I have always believed we all have both male and female sides and most don’t agree or explore them. Why the dream was about erectile dysfunction is probably a mix of that being a symbol for some reason and just wondering."

I replied that I would put a star by this in your dream book, and check back to it once-in-awhile.  It could be a dream of important change in your life......

He asked why I suggested that and I answered:  It's about a change in how you perceive and relate to the world; not sexual, although that could be a part of it, but about your sense and perception of things around you.  Maybe, and this is just my thought, less through your camera lens and more through your direct perception of all that you encounter.  Sex can be a total experience of mind, body, and soul; to want to be able to experience this again, especially in later years of life can also be a desire to engage more fully in all encounters in your life.  Again just my thought but it could be food for thought.....

He followed with this thought:  "Sounds very reasonable to me and makes sense especially when you get older maybe and look back and forward to what one has experienced and may or may not again."

To which I said:  Yes, plus I find that as I get older fears no longer control me; especially about what others think.  There is a freedom in this that makes even the things I may not do again feel more vibrant and alive for having the experience.

He then shared:  "I know I have no regrets. I always said I never want to wind up on a front porch rocking back and forth wondering “What if” I have had many, many experiences and I’m not dead yet I guess. Like that song goes, “I’m not as good as I once was but I’m good once as I always was...” Well I guess that’s not totally true either...LOL otherwise I wouldn’t have had the dream." 

I said: The dream is just offering you the opportunity to feel more alive here and now in the moment.  Regrets are wasted energy; you do what you do, learn, and move on.  That is, to my thinking, a life well lived. 

I am remained of the symbolic nature of sex in dreams.  Like my statement to the class in the church’s sanctuary sex often represents our desire to merge with the characteristics that we perceive are present in the symbols presented in the dream.   The article I had shared with this person spoke to the author’s recovering and integrating with a part of herself through her experience with the ayahuasca. I wondered if my friend was experiencing the same attempt to merge with the symbolic parts of him represented by the shaman and me in his dream. 

My understanding of ayahuasca is that ultimately it is a journey into the self, and although there may be dangers from the drug’s reaction to the human body, it can be healing to the participant.  It may allow the user access to his/her unconscious and unlock the secrets she/he is searching for.  Sometimes this search is dramatic other times it is subtle. Like the author of this article, Britany Robinson, says: “Perhaps it was bold of us to expect an ancient practice, so ingrained in the culture of those who spent their entire lives on this river, to take root in our psyches.  For me, the effects would have to be more subtle.  Ayahuasca did not inspire the dramatic reaction that I expected. But this place was so beautiful, maybe it didn’t have to.”

Like dreams the dreamer often needs to look at the hidden, underlying symbols of his/her dreams.  Rather than anticipating the wild ride of the effects of ayahuasca the dreamer might look beneath the obvious of the dream and realize there is a very quiet and subtle voice that directs the course of the dream’s wisdom if she/he will slow down and move beyond what appears to be the obvious. 

I am unsure if my thoughts on his dream were helpful to my friend; I hope they were.  They reminded me of the importance of dreams.  They are often triggered by a current event in our lives, but if we take the time to explore the subtle message there we often find the healing qualities that those seeking the ayahuasca experience are looking for.  I know people who are always off stalking adventure and they never are satisfied so they seem to be on an endless quest.  I think that my friend who had this dream was like that many years ago until his life’s circumstances caused him to bring to a close his physical searching.  If I am correct I wonder if he has found a way to continue on with this questing and perhaps find what has eluded him before.   Again, I hope so.