Do you ever have an experience that gives you so much hope and inspiration about what humanity could pull off if it only focused on what’s important? Three days ago I had just that experience.

Since I was very young, I’ve place high value on dreams and what they have to offer if you work with them. I had very clear, precognitive dreams where future scenarios would play out in my dreams before they happened in the daylight. I thought everybody did this. I quickly learned, by the way people would look at me when I said “I dreamed this,” that not only didn’t everybody do that, but they also look at you like you’re a freak if you say this.

In an effort to fit in, I stopped talking about dreams with most people. I quietly studied any books I could get my hands on about how dreams had played out through history. I learned that many, many cultures put high value on what happens in the dream state. I saw how others knew what I had come to know: the gift of dreaming is one of those treasure maps we’ve been given to not only prosper in our personal lives, but also thrive communally and globally.

The more you pay attention to them, the more they give you to pay attention to. I know this general universal law. What you appreciate, appreciates. I committed to paying attention. I started a dream journaling process. I keep one journal by my bed with a light and pen. I jot down my dreams, and then type them into my official dream journal during my morning routine. My dream journal now sits at 70,000 words and offers me a peek into my psyche, world events, the overall collective. It’s a fascinating glance.

My dreams seem to shift to new levels which I can tell by the landscapes. I never have recurring dreams. My theory is that because I pay attention to the story my dream is trying to tell, it can move on to new material without having to show reruns. I’ve learned my dream symbols which are more reliable than the dream dictionaries or other people’s ideas of my symbols. For example, I dream about being on campuses frequently. When I have a campus dream, I know that means I’m in a higher learning period spiritually and a series of that landscape will also be followed by a peaceful, snow landscape dream which means I have learned the spiritual lesson I needed to know.

Still, all this dream exploration was happening in the isolation of my space. The only person who I really shared occasional dreams with was my husband and he’s not really into dreams. Intuitively, I knew this material was meant to be shared. Three years ago, I set out to decipher what that looked like. I spoke out my intention in a philosophy class. One person slipped me a note and told me she was interested and had done some advanced work in the area. We started to meet. Another joined. In this small laboratory, my intuitions were confirmed. Dreams are meant to be shared and examined as a collective. They are a treasure map for possibility.

I continued to study, read, watch documentaries, attend a 4 day Dream Tending workshop at Pacifica in Southern California. I joined an online dream group and followed the World Dream Initiative, meant to show the collective flow of dreams across the world. Still, something was missing. In the online dream group, many of the dreamers were Pacifica students meeting live. I knew the live element was somehow key. Something about the indigenous influence of tribes pouring out of their villages each morning and sharing space needed to flow into the circle somehow.

Lingering in the back of my mind was that if I just kept paying attention to the dreams, and how they wanted to work with humans, a circle would come. I started laying the intention. I would stay open and wait until the timing was perfect. Three days ago, that time came.

I set a time and place to have the dream circle. I knew at least a few people were interested and that would be enough to start seeing the possibilities. We went through some very basic dream recording tips and programmed a dream for this circle with this prompt: Show me exactly what I need to know right now for my dream group, myself, and my world? 

As the nature of a dream circle is centered on confidentiality of that sacred circle, I won’t share specifics. Suffice it to say, twelve people showed up to this special, sacred space, and the connections were pure magic. The synchronicities throughout dreams confirmed what my intuition has always known: there are very different types of dreamers who bring unique gifts that are meant to be shared together for the benefit of the individual growth, the tribe and the world.

I think the reason it has taken over 50 years for me to find this circle is because the timing is now perfect. This is a group committed to expanding their consciousness (and that of others) in a way that feels clear of hidden agenda. In the unlikely venue of conservative Nor-Nor Cal, I couldn’t have predicted it.  It just goes to show–all in perfect time and geography is, so often, only a perceived barrier.

I’m grateful, inspired, and enthusiastic about sharing space and time with these amazing beings, their pure intentions, and their dreams.