Chapter 10


Birgitta's Dream

An Example of a Motivational Dream

Draft (Please do not distribute)

LetÕs focus back on discussing a dream.  Here is a dream my wife, Birgitta, related in a dream workshop.  Note that this dream is told in present tense.  When a dream is told or written down, it is advantageous to tell it in the PRESENT tense.  This brings immediacy to the dream and makes it more available to amplify and communicate.

 

I call my dream ÒWasted Vatican.Ó   I am in a car, in a beautiful limousine, like driving on a high road, and the sun is setting, and I see a big pine and fruit trees; massive trunks.

 

As IÕm riding there IÕm awed at the grandeur of the place, and the sun is sort of below the mountain, I am on a high ridge. I said, ÒWhat road is this?Ó  And the answer is, or the answer is, itÕs the road of the high roads.  Oh.  And there between those big trunks, all of a sudden comes into view a huge building.  And itÕs pink marble.

 

It has sculptures in it, and as we come close, I say itÕs like a whole block big.  ItÕs so huge.  And I look up and I see itÕs many stories high, and thereÕs a huge entrance and I go in.  Into a huge entry hall and IÕm looking around, what is this place?

 

And in the middle, there is a modern structure.  ItÕs a square, big columns, maybe six, seven feet on each side and it goes way up all the way to the top, all those stories.  And as I come real close, I realize, thatÕs the story of Adam and Eve.  My goodness.  ThereÕs no one, what is this.  So the sculptureÕs all the way up, becomes more and more, it goes through history.

And it is transparent, I mean, I could see through to the other side of all of this.  So I start to climb up like a monkey to see the whole thing, and when I get to the top, there is a blue thing, this color blue.

And itÕs plastic, or it is a modern material.  I poke at it, itÕs an elevator.  I come back down, and a man comes walking through and I ask him, ÒWhat is this building, what is that?Ó  And he says it like a secret, like don't tell anybody, ÒThis was meant to be the Vatican.Ó  ÒWhat is it now?Ó  ÒItÕs an old age home.Ó  And thatÕs when I wake up

But [as I reflected afterwards] I felt it such a tragedy.  It felt to me, quite a long time afterwards, when I began to see my life in retrospect, that ideals that I had were squashed, somehow.  The road of the high roads, I mean, my idealism didnÕt lead to what I had expected.  Something was a tremendous letdown.

The CREEI score of this dream yielded only three question marks.  ThatÕs what I would call a motivational pattern.  This dream can be amplified and changed into a transformative dream by using the three stanza poem. Birgitta was able to revisit it and rewrite it into a transformative poem.