“I appreciated everyone’s insight and honest comments. I thought many of the heartfelt conversations revealed a real need for open dialogue. I wonder how much of that would have occurred in a face-to-face meeting.”

—Rev. Bruce Frogge, pastor

 

Dreams, Journals, and Spirituality

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February 9-27, 2009
Presenter/Facilitator: Alan Filippi, M.Div., BCC
12.0 contact hours

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"Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer is himself, only they are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer's consciousness. I do not understand my own dreams any better than any of you, for they are always somewhat beyond my grasp and I have the same trouble with them as anyone who knows nothing about dream interpretation. Knowledge is no advantage when it is a matter of one's own dreams."

Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice: The Tavistock Lectures. (1935). In CW 18: (retitled) The Tavistock Lectures. pg. 122

"The art of interpreting dreams cannot
be learnt from books. Methods and rules
are good only when we can get along
without them. Only the man who can do
it anyway has real skill, only the man of
understanding really understands."

"The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man" (1933).
In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. pg. 327

These quotations from the Collected Works of Carl Jung and other sources are meant to entice you to consider this learning module. We will playfully interact with the dream and one another through the three weeks and hopefully will have stimulated you to work with the dream further after this module has ended. They may raise some initial questions at the outset and that is also welcomed.

Dreams reveal so much to us if we give them a chance. They reveal the forgotten depths of the human being and even give us glimpses of a spiritual world that surrounds one as totally as the physical one. Let me tell a story.

Walking through the atrium at First Christian Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, I overhead a conversation from a distance between a good friend of mine who was one of our counselors and the Interns(six of them). Jay was talking about dreams and stated that everyone dreams. When I heard that I knew I was going to have a good time. I chimed in: "I don't dream". He said: "Everyone dreams". Again I said:"I don't dream and have never recalled one - ever." "Yes you do, Jay said, and you don't even know it." Well, that was the end of the conversation for me as I headed back to my office. It did get me to thinking. Two days later I happened to be in a local bookstore and saw a copy of Morton Kelsey's (who was not unfamiliar to me) Dreams: A Way to Listen to God. I purchased a copy and went home and read it through in one sitting (it is a short book). I reread it several more times to make sure that I understood the author's perspective and by then I was hooked. I sat out a pen and paper and two nights later I recalled my first dream and have been working with them ever since.

Through the years I have been disappointed how the dream has been forgotten in the Christian Church. So, it is my intention that this seminar help restore a rightful perspective to the dream in spirituality and to provide a framework and some tools to work with them. A part of that perspective is provided in the context of journaling. I have been journaling since 1976 after attending an Ira Progoff Journaling Workshop. It is within its pages that I have been sustained in darkness and given a thread to find my way back into the light. A place where I could come to clarity and insight and be stimulated in my journey toward a loving God. A place where I could ask questions without incrimination as well as record dreams and have the raw data to work with rather than leaving that to the fate of my memory. So I will provide some basic framework for those who have never given consideration to journaling as a setting with which to work with dreams and much more.

Before stating the objectives of this seminar let me add that an understanding of the dream can add a new vitality and dimension to the religious life of the ordinary person.

At the end of this seminar you will able to:

1. Express a new appreciation and understanding for both journaling and working with dreams with regard to exploring spirituality.
2. Reflect on the meaning of a dream, especially in light of the Early Church tradition, and to identify where the dream originates in terms of personal context and history.
3. Use newly acquired tools for working with dreams and the symbols through which dreams speak, especially in connection with spiritual experience.
4. Access a variety of resources available for understanding dreams and doing dream work.

Facilitator: Alan Filippi, M.Div., BCC

Alan is a Staff Chaplain at Penrose Hospital/Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs, Colorado. On staff since 1990, he is involved in Critical Care Chaplaincy in the ED and Critical Care Unit at Penrose Hospital, which is part of Centura Health and Catholic Health Initiatives. Alan has an M.Div. from Texas Christian University and has been working with dreams and journaling since attending an Ira Progoff Journaling Workshop in 1976.

 

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