Acting Out Dreams
By Tantra Bensko
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night” – Edgar Allan Poe.
We are so civilized, in our polite society. But look at what lurks in our subconscious, underneath.
Sleep keeps our bodies from acting out the impulses, so we never fully express what is there, physically. While acting out in dreams is very useful, acting out our night-time dreams in waking life, with full range of motion, helps our conscious mind acknowledge our subconscious. It activates our muscles in ways outside the routine, and lets the emotional energy flick off our fingers, rather than stagnate in our meridians. Acting out dreams gives us the chance to play, get creative in new ways that can trigger ideas and projects. We can experience our full selves, rather than just pretend to be the conscious, rational self. Just as writing down our dreams when we wake up gives our subconscious the idea we are serious about remembering them, so does acting them out, and we begin remembering more. The dreams communicate more clearly, as well, when they know they are watched closely.
Combining the alpha and theta brainwaves through acting out dreams, and thinking about them in beta allows us to bring more of ourselves to inner processes. And it’s much more interesting as a form of exercise than just doing the same exercises every day. It can be aerobic, strengthening, and, while it won’t substitute for working out with weights, it can burn calories and tighten muscles compared to just sitting there, thinking about your dreams — or about anything else. What if we don’t remember our dreams? We can make them up! What would we dream? We can relax, breathe deeply, close our eyes, smile, imagine light coming into us, merging with all things in the universe, manifesting divine consciousness, to dip into theta brain-waves. And then just start moving, imagining without conscious direction.
Get goofy, intense, outrageous, selfish, liminal.
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Tantra is a writer and fiction writing coach. She runs the resource site Experimental Writing, Exclusive Magazine, LucidPlay Publishing, and the FlameFlower experimental short story contest. She has books including Lucid Membrane, put out by Night Publishing, and DVDs in conjunction with VLM, instructing on Tantra Yoga. www.lucidplay.com
