Connecting the Dots

The first night of the 1998 Professional Seminar, Laurie Monroe guided us through a process of visioning, then drawing our visions. As I drew, it reminded me of lucid dreaming: being in a dream yet knowing that you are dreaming. I was drawing the vision and living it at the same time. This is often my experience at The Monroe Institute. There are all these little dots of information floating around, seemingly unconnected. Then, a conversation here, a sentence there, a brief glance, and suddenly, the dots connect. The pattern becomes obvious.

When asking for my vision, I immediately saw the Julia Set crop circle across the road from Stonehenge in England. Next flashed a picture of a huge saucer-shaped ship above the crop circle. The words that accompanied the vision were, A spaceship without walls. My visioning happened quickly, and as I waited for the others to finish, my mind turned to an actual experience at the Stonehenge crop circle.

It was the summer of 1996. I was sitting in one of the smaller circles with the intention of remote viewing to pick up information about the formation of the Julia Set. As I settled into a comfortable position, preparing to enter the remote viewing state of consciousness, I suddenly found myself in Focus 27. My initial reaction was irritation. I had not come all the way to England to experience what I could easily do at home. I received what I considered to be minimal information about the circle and left in disappointment. However, what had subjectively seemed like only a few minutes in the circle had actually been an hour and a half!

That night, our research group had special permission to do a midnight meditation in Stonehenge. The man who was to lead the meditation got sick at the last minute, and I was asked to do it. Inside the ancient circle of stones, I walked the circumference, touching each stone as I passed. I was enveloped in a timeless, familiar peace. I realized, This is home-like Focus 27.

Without planning or preparation, the words of the meditation moved through me naturally and easily, as though I had done it many times before. Only our group had permission to be there, but from out of nowhere, two strangers joined us. In the space of the circle, there were no boundaries, no past, no future, only the present. As the ceremony concluded, the two strangers disappeared. As often happens at the Institute, each person in the ceremonial circle was meant to be there at that precise time. And so, the dots keep connecting.

When I participated in the first Exploration 27, the expanded space of Focus 27 felt perfect. In Focus 27, time had the same flavor as the hour and a half in the crop circle and the meditation in Stonehenge. In each experience, I felt at home. In fact, in the expanded Focus 27 space, when instructions were given to return, I reacted with an adamant NO WAY! I jerked off my headphones, intending to enjoy and explore on my own. It was exquisite! Then I heard Bob’s voice saying, very gently, Joan, you might want to consider going back with the group. I panicked. With a thump, I was back in my body, searching desperately for the headphones. With pounding heart, I rejoined the group, but the hunger to return to that space persisted.

The visioning with Laurie connected all those dots: the picture I drew of the Julia Set crop circle and the flying saucer, the Stonehenge meditation, Focus 27, and my Overnight in Dreamland workshop. That is the sacred space that I seek to evoke when serving as a guide into the Dream Temple. The Dream Temple is a healing temple, and in my experience, it is an extended Focus 27 space.

A Dream Message

After my last visit to The Monroe Institute, I saw no reason to return. Then I had a dream: I am leading a dream group in the debriefing room at the Nancy Penn Center. Everyone looks like regular people, but they are actually an ancient group of shamans who have come together one more time to celebrate and prepare.

I called Shirley Bliley and asked if it would be appropriate to do a shamanic dream group at the Professional Seminar. The answer was yes, but we would have to use David Francis Hall. This did not match my dream, but I was flexible. On arriving for the conference, I learned that the shamanic dreaming trip would be in the debriefing room after all.

Building the Dream Temple

Since childhood, dreams have held important information for me. As a psychotherapist, exploring dream symbology was an integral part of my work, but never the primary focus. After my last trip to the Institute, the idea for a dreamland all-nighter blossomed. Each morning, I awoke with another piece of the puzzle retrieved through my dreams. As it took shape, I saw it as an opportunity for people to work on dreams immediately-rather than a day, a week, or even years later. I planned to invite a group of people to stay all night with me, do ninety-minute sleep cycles throughout the night, and process at the end of each cycle.

I called Mark Certo, audio engineer at the Institute, to see if they could make a special Hemi-Sync ninety-minute sleep tape. I could not believe my luck. Such a thing already existed- -the TimeOut CD. Mark enthusiastically helped me map out a customized program for my purposes. Track 1, Awake, takes the listener into light sleep. Track 2 is guidance into deep sleep. We skipped to Track 5, which is extended deep sleep without verbal guidance. Then we returned to Track 4 (extended light sleep), which is nonverbal. From extended light sleep, we moved to Track 6, which leads the sleeper into REM (rapid eye movement/dreaming) sleep. I intended to waken the group at the end of the REM sleep sequences for processing.

The Dreamers

When I do a workshop for the first time, I invite the most knowledgeable people I can find, because they will usually tear the program apart, expose weak spots, and give me a lot of information quickly. My hand-picked participants were people who had done a lot of dream work, came from different belief systems about how dreaming works, did not need to be educated about concepts such as interdimensional travel, and were excited about the prospect of exploring. Only one person was familiar with Hemi-Sync. The group was all women, with an age range of early thirties through seventy.

The Format

The plan was to start at eight o’clock in the evening and end at nine o’clock the next morning. However, at nine they were really on a roll, so more time was obviously needed. They had all arrived early, with their sleeping bags and whatever they needed to sleep on the floor. I intentionally kept them all in one room. My Hemi-Sync equipment is set up for ten people, each with their own volume-controlled headphones. They all gave written permission to tape the workshop and to use the information for research.

The first issue that came up was the fear of snoring. One woman had canceled at the last minute because she was embarrassed about her loud snoring. I polled the group for their preferences on handling snoring. The consensus was for me to nudge the snorer. That did not work because one participant could only take about three breaths before snoring heavily, and the nudging interfered with her process. In future overnighters, I decided to discuss snoring and give a suggestion ahead of time that the sound of snoring (their own and others’!) would take them easily into their appropriate space.

Participants had been asked to bring recent dreams with them. I shared mine from the previous night: I have a new car. I am amazed because not only can I drive it on land, I can fly it in the air and take it into the water. I am so excited, I want to show it to everybody. The symbolism of this dream was obvious to the women. I had a new vehicle (Hemi-Sync tapes) for traveling into different dimensions and I was excited about sharing it with them.

Although these women were seasoned dream workers, for most this was their first time to attempt to dream in a group. Their dreams held clues to their thoughts and expectations about attending the overnighter. One woman dreamed that she and a group of women went to my office, which was high in a skyscraper. She had to go to the bathroom, which was in the basement, so she took an elevator down. Coming back up, she could not find my office and ended up in many different places.

We spent time exploring personal beliefs and favorite ways of working with dreams. By then, they were settled in and ready to start. I chose Human Plus (H-Plus) Sweet Dreams for the first tape, stopping it where the instructions say, and now go into deep sleep. This allowed them to get their bodies comfortable, become accustomed to the headphones, and have the experience of a voice guiding them into sleep. Learning the H-PLUS Function Command-Plus- Theme, Dream, Sleep-- gave them a cue to use at home. We also used the Command before each dream set to reaffirm the intention to remember dreams.

Actuality Versus Reality

It took an enormous amount of food and caffeine-free drinks to supply the energy for the overnighter. I thought I had prepared enough food for an army, but watched in amazement as it disappeared into the bottomless pit of dreamland.

The first formal dream sequence of ninety minutes started with Track 1 (TimeOut CD), which demonstrates the Hemi-Sync sound, introduces the Security Repository Box, and provides a whole-body guided relaxation. On the succeeding sets, I used Track 8 instead because it abbreviates those techniques.

I had imagined how the sequence would go: they would lie down on their blankies, put on their headphones, go into a deep sleep, and have wonderful dreams. I would wake them at just the perfect second and we would process their dreams and images, with many tremendous insights.

HA!!! Instead, they were anxious, restless, moved around a lot, and-when they did sleep- it was a snoring contest. I tiptoed nervously among them in the dim light, furtively looking for any semblance of REM sleep. They later shared that during the first round they wondered (as did I) exactly what they were doing there. They could not get into it and certainly were not having life-changing dreams. At the end of the first ninety minutes, they got up and ate a lot. The second ninety-minute cycle was much better.

The edge was off; they were more relaxed and familiar with the routine. Being tired and having full stomachs helped them go deeper. I continued to sit awake with the group, holding the space while they slept. Feedback the next day confirmed the importance of doing that. When they awoke during the night, they found it comforting to see me sitting there, and could easily drift back to sleep.

At the end of that set, they journaled without talking and then we processed while they were still in a relaxed, quiet state. Then they got up, took a bathroom break, and (surprise!) ate a lot.

Outcome

I had expected to work with individual dreams, with an opportunity for personal growth and expansion. After the third set, it became apparent that we were also working with a group consciousness. There was an intermingling of dreams, quite different from the first two cycles. No one had a story dream; instead images, feelings, thoughts, and colors would bubble up. Each one was addressing their individual issues within the group process. Seeing this happen was a revelation and an absolute gift.

The main themes that emerged were the need to own their personal identities and the fear of moving forward, frequently related to finances. Their feedback indicated that spending the night in the Dream Temple gave them the courage to act. The disparate dream details formed a cohesive mosaic. I asked those who were willing to track their dreams for at least a few days afterward.

One woman’s dream started out in black and white (unusual, because she always dreamed in color). She was in a ghetto-like area and in charge of all of these children. There was no furniture or anything, just barely enough food. There was so much poverty and yet she was happy. She looked out a window in the dream and saw an absolutely green place that resembled an outline of San Francisco. She said, My goodness, that is so beautiful! What is the name of that? and was told, That’s your home. That’s where you came from. Her soul’s desire was to quit a high-powered job and work with starving children. She had assumed there was no way to do that.

Doing the dream cycle, processing the results, and snack breaks took most of the night. Everyone did three complete cycles. Two people opted to go a fourth round. After completing the final cycle, the energy in the space was soft and gentle, although some women were having heavy, volatile dreams. The energy had a protective, domelike feeling, much like the golden roundness of the saucer I drew in my vision.

Outside Impressions

I had asked a number of people who had never been to my home to see what they could view or pick up, or what they dreamed about it during the overnighter. One person’s e-mail response following the first round was: This is weird. I couldn’t get in. I saw your place [and she described it], but I could only get so close and no closer.

That perception was interesting, because before we started our first set, a woman in the group suggested surrounding the space with white light for total protection, which they did. My only explanation for this report from an excellent remote viewer is that she bounced off the shield.

To explore the possibility of overlapping dreams, I had asked a number of friends who were unaware of the evening’s plans to record their dreams. One of them replied: Well, I had a dream. It was a group of women and I’m pretty sure you were there, and it felt like you were talking. I was thinking now this is really important. I need to write this down. But it was like, We don’t want any outsiders. It was a yucky dream because it felt like I’d been invited and then when I got there, somebody shut the door.

Possibilities

Although the time in deep sleep in each set had been increased as the night wore on, I was betting that everyone would be grouchy the next morning. Not so. We dug into a huge breakfast, and then dug into the dreams. The participants worked at amazing levels. By the time they left that day, it was as though they had been friends forever. That sort of bonding happens in Institute programs, but this happened in a much shorter time frame.

This brought thoughts of many interesting possibilities. There is something about sleeping in the same room, sleeping the same cycles, that seems to lower the usual ego defenses and opens avenues of communication that are blocked in normal, waking consciousness.

Could the TimeOut CD be used by organizations? How about scheduling an overnighter for top-level execs with a clear intention of bonding, solving problems or creating new ideas? And what a tool for couples and families! They sleep in the same house every night, but without a clear intention or the skills to fully utilize this rich dimension of the human experience.

The lucid dreaming tapes that TMI is developing can open a new door that is extremely important at our current stage of consciousness evolution. Different dimensions of consciousness have always existed, but the ability to navigate them at will-with a clear intention-has been confined to a limited few.

It is possible that the dream life is an alternate reality, a sourcing opportunity, with wisdom and richness just waiting to be explored. So, gather your group, program your TimeOut CD, and join me tonight in the Dream Temple!

Joan Lundgren, PhD, director, Interdimensional Insight Institute, Walnut Creek, California, is a transpersonal psychotherapist, licensed marriage and family counselor, researcher, and writer. She brings her background in business, psychology, and spirituality together to counsel, teach, and write.

She has used Hemi-Sync tapes to conduct individual research on a variety of topics, including the psychological and spiritual development of women during midlife and beyond. Dr. Lundgren has been a member of The Monroe Institute Professional Division since 1996.