As important as being sober, conscious and communicating in a straightforward, understandable manner, one of the keys to building community and building intimacy with others, not just a partner, is the opportunity to experience transcendental states in a group setting. Activities that promote access to ourselves, our deeper desires and expressions of ourself in the context of the community.

The Dream-In Practice:

The practice was developed by Anthony Columbo, a multi-media artist who was in residence at the Resonance Project in Hawai’i. The Resonance Project, organized by Nasim, was mainly focused on creating a new scientific understanding of physics. The community that formed around his ideas and the work of the Resonance project was fertile ground for many who were drawn to cutting edge scientific inquiry, expanding consciousness and community living.

At Resonance, Anthony developed the concept of the Dream-In with inspiration from native peoples around the world who regularly sleep, and dream together. In tribal culturals, the walls of separation between individuals is much thinner and people are able to connect psychically with each other to a much greater degree than in western, industrialized cultures. Rather than using cell phones and computers to communicate, many less-industrialized peoples seem to have developed sophisticated biological communication technologies That is, they have discovered, developed and retained the ability to communicate non-verbally without reference to space or time.

Said another way, these people can join consciousnesses even from great distances apart. This has been proven both anectdotally and scientifically. Yet since most scientists and industrialized people are not conscious of their capacity for this type of communication and consciousness, and the exact physical processes responsible for the connections are not easily understandable or reducable to a materialist model, this type of communication is not studied much.

By sleeping and dreaming in a group, we allow ourselves to go into a very receptive, creative state in the immediate presence of others. Even without dreaming or co-creating consciousness, the act of sleeping in a group can be deeply healing and inspiring for individuals. Almost all other mammals that are tribal in nature, sleep in groups. In some tribes, they have developed such a tribal consciousness that two people or more will be have intersecting dreams concurrently. That is, they are in the same dream at the same time. When you consider this, the idea of a hierarchy of waking state over dreaming state dissolves.

For in the dreaming state, we are powerful beyond measure, only limited by our consciousness. So when we open to our dreaming, we greatly increase our capacity for consciousness which increases our ability to create in the waking state. For mammals such as whales and dolphins, of which we are close relatives, there is not such a distinction between the waking and dream states. They are always in motion, in community, and whether asleep or awake they retain consciousness and conscious control over their responses to their immediate environment.

Our linear world has sacrificed creativity and inspiration for precision, accuracy, efficiency and control. While this has allowed us to manifest many incredible things on the physical plane, it has not come with a balanced, or concurrent development of other aspects of our consciousness. Efficiency, control, and hyper-rationality has diminished our access to creativity.

In the Dream-In, we set an intention of value our creative selves, the part of us that is not focused on productivity and efficiency. In dreaming, there is limitless possibility and no limits of time or space. When we can dream it, we can be it. Without access to dreams, we are locked in a limited, sterile cage of the known.

For people to experience joy and lightness in being, it is imperative that we value our creative selves and have experiences of playing with others. The dream-in is one way we can play, as adults, together with each other.

For many adults, play has been highly reduced, often to the point of non-existance. Adults watch children play. Adults may play sports but this is often more in the context of competition than creativity. Competition is another manifestation of the rational values of efficiency and productivity.

Or adults may play sexually, usually in the context of a orgasm/release focused interaction. To play and create with no goal other than joy, expansion in consciousness and creative connection helps to reverse the impact of hyper-rational thinking which, at it’s roots, is based in fear. Fear of scarcity of time, food, resources, mates, etc. When we are assured of our needs being met we have more openness to play. Yet, many people are so conditioned to be in fear that they act more in accordance with conditioned behavior than the reality of abundance that surrounds them.

For me, I remember having anxiety years ago at the thought of non-productive time. I was working a regular, daily job, and when Saturday morning came, if I didn’t have a plan for the day, i often went into fear and reactivity. I didn’t have a plan and I was so identified with productive activity that my reason for existence was challenged. I
Was very uncomfortable with free time, unstructured time.

I was so focused on achieving, winning, surviving, and so wanting appreciation for my hard work, that I sacrificed my enjoyment of my reward of free time. Have you ever known people like this? They seem much happier working than anything other time?

The Dream-In Practice:

Gather a group of people together who have a shared desire to sleep and dream in proximity to each other. Set up a space where everyone can be comfortable in a bed or a mattress on a large open floor. Set intentions to dream and to remember and record dreams. One of the most useful ways to remember dreams is to set the intention, spoken out loud, before one goes to sleep. The group can chant or sing a song that reminds us to “awake” during our sleep, to value our dreams and our visions, and to stay connected with each other.

Often people at a dream-in, will go into fear of intimacy or fear of sexuality and want to sleep by themselves. By making an agreement that the sleeping space is to be non-sexual and by encouraging people to become conscious of and communicate their fears, people can often transcend their conditioning and fears of sleeping in a group setting.

By setting an intention of have a non-sexual event, but one that is highly intimate, we help to make distinct in our minds the difference between intimacy and sexuality. So many people refer to sex as “sleeping together” that when we think of sleeping together we automatically think of sex.

By having experiences like dream-ins and other times when we can explore sexually in the context of a group, helps us to open more fully, and become more intimate when we are not in a sexual state. And by opening more fully when we are not being sexual helps us to be more open when we are sexual.

Said another way, when we free ourselves sexually, we also free our selves of sexuality. We free ourselves of our obsession and fear of sexuality which is only one way of connecting with others. Then our relationships and communities can have a much firmer foundation.

By having explicitly sexual group or community events, we give permission to have events that are explicitly non-sexual. By merely banning group sexual events, we drive the sexual urge underground and make every event charged with sexuality.

Upon waking, everyone can record their dreams and is encouraged to stay in a meditative state. Then when people are awake and available they can share their dreams with each other. The process of revealing ourselves in this way is another way of practicing intimacy.