J. M. DeBord - Dreams 1-2-3: Remember, Interpret, and Live Your Dreams

Copyright 2013 by J. M. DeBord

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Hampton Roads Publishing, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Cover design by Jim Warner

Cover image: Midsummernight Dream, 2009 (digital collage), Skogrand, Trygve (Contemporary Artist) / Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library

Interior designed by Jane Hagaman

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

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ISBN: 978-1-57174-702-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

DeBord, J. M.

Dreams 1-2-3 : remember, interpret, and live your dreams / J.M. DeBord.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-57174-702-0

1. Dream interpretation. 2. Dreams. I. Title. II. Title: Dreams one-two-three.

BF1091.D34 2013

154.6'3--dc23

2013026932

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America

VG

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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For my soul mate, Lisa, who made my dreams come true.

I am grateful to many caring and talented people for their contributions to this book. My partner Lisa not only shared her dreams but also her support during the years of work while I wrote and published it. My agent, Lisa Hagan, found the book the perfect home at Hampton Roads and provided the sort of guidance most writers wish they had. My editor at Hampton Roads, Caroline Pincus, deserves heaps of gratitude for polishing the manuscript, recognizing its potential, and turning it into a beautiful book. My mentor Larry Pesavento first taught me how to interpret my dreams. I would also like to acknowledge two users at Reddit, Alyssa Graybeal and Bob H. Howell. Alyssa volunteered her development editing services, and it was a real godsend because she saw ways to restructure the text and present the information better. Bob created the cover for the self-published version of this book after I dropped by Reddit asking for a favor. I am indebted to everyone involved and the Reddit Dreams community in general for their contributions. Thank you!

Before the twentieth century, dream interpretation was a regular part of family, community, and spiritual life for many people. There was no shortage of dream interpreters because everyone, in a sense, is a dream interpreter. Then along came modern psychiatry, and dream interpretation largely disappeared from public view, obscured behind a wall of scientific jargon. These days, dream interpretation is dominated by specialists, psychologists, and gurus who took something that used to be freely available and installed a tollbooth. Now if you want to know what your dreams mean, you probably have to pay someone to tell you. And it ain't cheap.

This is a real shame, because dreams have the power to change lives. They can even play a part in determining the future. And they aren't that difficult to understand once you understand their language.

Dreams 1-2-3 teaches you my do-it-yourself process for interpreting dreams, knowledge that anyone can understand and apply. Experienced dream interpreters have learned a few things by reading this book, but it is written especially for people starting somewhere near the beginning. It is written for you. Welcome to the journey of a lifetime. It is going to change you in many positive ways.

I know that the knowledge in this book will change your life because it changed mine and the lives of the many people I have taught to work with their dreams. The very fact that I am writing these words is the result of a dream come true, in two senses of the word. One, I dreamed of writing a groundbreaking book and seeing it published, and here it is. And two, I had a dream that led me in a roundabout way to actually write it:

I am in a clothing store and decide to buy a jacket for work. The clerk rings up the sale and the price is everything I have in the bank. I forget the exact number, but I remember thinking, that's all the money I have. I cancel the sale and lecture the clerk and a manager about their overpriced jackets.

Clues to the meaning of this dream are in plain sight once you know what to look for. A store is a place where decisions and choices are made. A jacket is a covering that says something about the wearer's profession, identity, and personality. A bank account is where resources are stored. So I interpreted the dream as meaning that the price of some decision I made about my work identity was too high, symbolized by the cost of the jacket matching my bank account balance. Next I connected that idea with my life.

A few days before the dream, I had started working in a new profession as a hotel manager in San Francisco. I thought it was going to be a terrific job, but after a few days of work my dream met reality: The hotel needed more help than I could give it. Working there meant draining my inner resources, symbolized in the dream as my bank account, to wrap myself in a new work identity as a hotel manager, symbolized by the jacket. A jacket covers, and in my dream the jacket I try to buy for work covers the real me, the author and dream interpreter. No wonder the price is so high! I had to admit what I already knew: Following my dreams meant writing this book instead of pouring my energy into a sinking organization.

I started writing Dreams 1-2-3 the day I left the hotel for good, but really it was started twenty years ago when I first learned about interpreting dreams and how they change your life. Seeking help for how to live my dreams, in this case meaning achieve my goals and ambitions, I walked into the office of counselor Larry Pesavento, the author of Toward Manhood: Into the Wilderness of the Soul. Instead of repeating the same advice as everyone else about managing my time and being more disciplined, Larry asked me about my dream life. It seemed a little strange at first, but I'd heard somewhere that dreams have more meaning than we think, so I played along.

Larry showed me that the answers I sought could be found in my dreams, and my life changed in more ways than I can tell you. I gained insights, healed old wounds, broke old patterns, rethought priorities, trusted my feelings, and learned how to create the future I wanted. Now I am living my dreams, literally, and in the process achieving my most important goals and ambitions.

What Larry taught me is the sort of magic you want to bottle and sellor write down and sell, like this bookbut first I had to learn how to explain it. Dream work is a very personal process. You could have a dream identical to mine and it might mean something completely different to you than to me. There is no Rosetta stone for interpreting dreams, no universal meaning for every dream symbol, but there are ways of connecting dreams with your life and discovering what they mean to you, like I showed you with my dream about buying a jacket, and will continue to show you in the coming pages.

Dreams 1-2-3 breaks new ground by making dream interpretation understandable for everyone. You may find it different from other books about dreams in that it is neither scholarly nor New Age-y. I assume you have no prior knowledge about dream work and take you step-by-step through the process, using vivid and informative examples gained from my work as a moderator at Reddit Dreams, a popular online dream forum, and two decades of personal study. We learn best by example, so instead of just telling you what you need to know, I show you through various dreams I have interpreted. With so many examples culled from people of all types, you are bound to run across some that remind you of your own dreams, and with the connection made you will begin to get your dreams. When that happens it's game on!