Before jumping in, a few notes to frame the course and show you how to use it.

  1. This is the opening course in a series on Imaginal Literacy. If you’re interested in the imaginal, but iffy about dreamwork, there are two things I can tell you. One: Almost everything I say about dreams in this course can also apply to any other imaginal content — meditative imagery, inner narrative, etc. If you really can’t connect with dreams, feel free to approach the material in a way that makes sense for you. Two: I really truly encourage you to give it your best shot, working with dreams. They’re the single best training ground for Imaginal Literacy that I know of. I decided to make this course about dreams specifically — rather than more general imagery — because I really believe working with dreams is the best starting point.
  2. The main parts of the course are Our Views, Our Practices, and Our Tools. Everything you need is there. The pages in The Tool Shed help you to deepen the elements of practice and take them in new directions. Treat it like you would a tool shed — just take out what you need when you need it. You don’t have to go through systematically or in any kind of order. Just try out what looks interesting.
  3. Practice more than you consume. Whenever you read about a practice or a frame I present, take some time to try it out, feel your way through it. Only come back to the course after you feel like you’ve either got a good idea of the practice territory, or if you feel like you aren’t getting anything out of it and need more context.
  4. If you happen across an interesting range of experience that pulls at you, but feels outside the domain of the course — FOLLOW YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE, forget the course and come back to it later. The course is only worth anything inasmuch as it gets you into your own transformative experience.
  5. On pages with both text and video, they both cover the same material, but in slightly different ways. This is meant to give you different angles on the same material. I suggest going through the course one time with either only text or only video, and then going back after some practice to look at what you didn’t see the first time. This approach helps to integrate the material much more thoroughly, giving you time to mull and build experience before doubling back to see something familiar in a new way.