Dream Designer
Use your Ayurvedic know-how to convert dreams to healing
The articles from Sacred Life Design are solely for educational and entertainment purposes to explain ideas related to Ayurveda and not to be considered medical advice. If you have issues that are of concern, please contact a relevant medical professional.
My dreams have been pronounced this past week. For those that are sensitive and going through a lot of change, whether internally or externally, you may also be currently experiencing life in high density where life on the ground and life amongst the stars are interchangeable. There are powerful healing angels amongst us.
The other night I had the classic dream of forgetting to put pants on. I was out in public, butt naked, and hoping no one would notice. In the morning as I stepped out for the day, I had forgotten something. When I turned around to go back into my guesthouse, I noticed a pair of my underpants at the door. Huh? Did they walk out with me?
Then later that day, the teacher for the Yin Yoga class I was planning on taking took ill and was replaced by a Womb Wisdom class. We lay back in supine butterfly pose (soles of feet together, knees splayed) for at least 30 minutes until we started shaking. We did visualizations during the process, paying attention to each ovary and a final white lotus light that spread from our womb to our entire body. It was not something I usually sign up for but it was profound and something I know I asked for, in an inadvertent way.
When I met with my teacher Dr Vasant Lad in 2011, I had a private session and was told that I had cervical changes. I had the usual pap smear tests done and it came back benign but in the last year I had painful lumps forming around my groin. I made a choice not to get a diagnosis from a western perspective but decided to let it tell me a story. And it did - I had the pleasure and discomfort of reviewing the relationships in my life noticing where unconscious behaviours created mismatched bonds or sabotaged healthy unions, and how important creativity was for me to explore. All second chakra stuff. I also saw the important link between my overtaxed liver and menstrual cycle, and the connection between my intense emotions and my liver.
The lumps are now gone. The spell (or grantha as they call it in Yoga) is broken.
My dream of being nude in public is a classic Pitta dream. Excess Pitta presents as too much striving, intensity, overworking, planning, controlling, sour, pungent and salty foods. The antidote is hydration, chilling out in Nature, reducing the work load, having fun and being playful, allowing yourself to be led. In short, it is introducing more sweetness into your life.
My healing remedy was unconventional but it was fun and magical, and instead of the intensity of “trying to fix a problem” using my mind, the workshop invited me to visualise, which is a powerplay of Pitta. Since one of the home sites of Pitta is in the eyes, of the three constitutions it visualises the strongest and sees colours the brightest. When I imagined the White Lotus it was intensely vivid and I felt its vibrations throughout my whole body. I had discovered through this process how to play with energetics from a Pitta healing perspective. I also allowed myself to be led and spend time with compassion on myself, rather than always be in the habit of problem solving for others.
Vata dreamers
Vata dreams tend towards fear and insecurity - snakes, being attacked, being locked up, running away from something, falling, being active, feeling frozen with fear.
Your psyche is seeking grounding and security. It wants to feel settled. It wants you to feel like you belong and “know your place”. Above all, it wants to take you on a journey of faith - to learn to cultivate a relationship with the divine; the ultimate grounding. One of my favourite quotes during my dark night journey was from the fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” from her book Revelations of Divine Love.
As Vata is comprised of ether and air, She responds to music well. Allow music to be your healing salve - to drench you in good feeling vibration. Allow lyrics to guide you and ground you. Design a playlist as a journal of becoming fully formed in faith.
Pitta dreamers
Pitta dreams tend towards intensity and ambition - failing exams, being nude in public, problem solving, being late, violence, problem solving.
Your psyche wants you to back off from the constant pushing and let in the natural hydration that got burned off in the ambition. Ultimately excess Pitta is trying to tell you that you are loved no matter what you achieve, even if it is for the goodness of all. Let others take over and be open to receiving, literally. Compassion is the ultimate healer, as Oscar Wilde, classic clever Pitta reminds us “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
Comedy is highly underrated as a healing remedy and becoming ridiculously contentious these days. The world appears to be, aptly described by film director Justine Bateman, “the revenge of the hall monitors.” Comedy is how Pitta likes to release their intense minds via the absurd. Personally I love the screwball comedy screenwriting of the 1930’s and 40’s film. There is something cathartic for a constant problem solver to be entertained in clever storytelling.
Kapha dreamers
Kapha dreams tend towards neediness and possessiveness- eating sweets, being immersed in water, arriving late and being slow, finding money, repeating actions.
Your psyche wants you to let go, lighten up and stop the craving. Your stuff, whether emotional or physical, is weighing you down and it’s time to drop the habit of the cinnamon flavoured iced latte. Austerity is like shaving away the unnecessary to reveal who you truly are - a lover. As a template for our times, Alvin Toffler gives sage advice “The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Learning is a wonderful austerity. It is the opposite of comfort because you are never the same after learning; you are inadvertently inviting in change and in the habit of growth, which is a healthy human response to life.