This article is about a new dream network and the book that inspired it. The network already exists, and is called Gate of Horn: A Global Issues Dream Network. The book, called The Harmonic Convergence Book of Dreams, is still being written (proof, if anything is, of the timeless aspect of the dream state). Harley Swiftdeer (a Cherokee shaman), in the famous Hopi Prophecies (really a product of the Twisted Hair Society, an ancient intertribal medicine society of the Americans), said that on August 17,1987, "144,000 Sun Dance enlightened teachers will totally awaken in their dream mind-bodies", and more to that effect. This, along with the writings of Tony Shearer and Jose Arguelles, was a major inspiration for what came to be called "Harmonic Convergence".
Since this seemed to be a prediction of a mass initiation into lucid dreaming, I decided to help make this prophecy self-fulfilling by sending out a call for dreams people had on or near Harmonic Convergence, or about the Harmonic Convergence either before or after, under the assumption that we might be in the middle of a mass outpouring of guidance for peacemaking and planetary healing, a mass shamanic dream. So far I've received over 50 dreams from about 35 dreamers. I'm looking at them on the basis of the hypothesis that they are all facets of One Big Dream, dreamed by One Big Us. (Deadline for submissions to this project is the end of March. Please include a stamped self-addressed envelope, the place and date you had the dream, and any interpretation you wish to add.)
The parallelism-of-motifs in the material I've received is really striking. The dreams about crystals, UFOs, and aliens weren't surprising, but the amazing number of people who dreamed about horses and octahedrons (two pyramids base-to-base) leads me to believe that somebody (possibly us) is trying to tell us something. I am now sifting this dream material, along with any interpretations the dreamers wish to add, on the assumption that our Higher Mind could be sending us symbolically coded data that we might translate, via interpretation and strategic brainstorming, into concrete projects for dealing with our massive global problems. As the shaman dreams for the survival, healing, and enlightenment of his or her tribe, so a network of shamanic dreamers might perform the same service for the Big Tribe, the Mahasangha of all humanity and all sentient beings presently sharing this planet. (I would call this grandiose were it not for the grandiosity of the threat to our survival.)
With this basic concept in mind, I attended the Global Family Conference in Novato, California in October of 1987. There I heard Barbara Marx Hubbard talk about the Soviet-American Citizen Summit (which happened this February, and gave a chance for U.S. transformationalists and peacemakers to huddle with the major Soviet intelligentsia in many fields) and met Carmen Boutet, originally from Panama. Carmen (being a Cancer) perfectly mirrored my Sagittarian stream-of-ideas and a Global Dream Network was born called Gate of Horn. What she said was, "Why don't we dream, in network, like the Senoi do it, on a different issue each month, incubating dreams on the New Moon, and seeing the issue we're dreaming-to-heal as healed each full moon?" To which I added the idea of spending the whole two weeks of the waxing moon opening to guidance in both the dream state and meditative trance, and then spending the two weeks of the waning moon letting go of that particular concern, turning inward, becoming receptive, and returning to Source. To seeing the issue in question as healed, I added, "Let all pertinent dreams be mailed, on the full moon, to me".
At the conference, Carmen told me a dream she'd had that morning. In her dream, she saw a fish, but she remarked to herself that this was a very amazing fish, since it could live in the air with no difficulty at all. It was silver, but had a row of scales along its side which were golden, like suns. "What do you think this means?" she asked. "Well", I said, "a fish that can live in the air might mean that something from the unconscious depths can take its place in our waking lives--the air representing intellect as well as spirit--and the union of silver and gold, moon and sun in the image, seems to mean the same thing; a union of conscious and unconscious, or the potential for unconscious energies to be worked with in a conscious manner". "That's true!" she said.
The Egyptians believed that delusive dreams came through the "Gates of Ivory, while true dreams arrived through the "Gates of Horn". So I decided to call our network "Gate of Horn", and united the Horns of Isis with Carmen's fish-of-the-air to make our logo.
Our first Global Dream Issue, for December, 1987, was, "How can we prevent the militarization of space?" One of our members, Valerie Felice, dreamed of "an extended-family-sized group of people traveling around Russia, and sitting down to eat in fellowship with Russian families". So I thought, "What if groups traveling to Russia were to do just that; sit down and eat with Russian families? I see it happening. Russians and Americans are sitting down together, over food, and doing un-prompted brainstorming on just what will bring peace. Part of it could even be videoed. It would make a great program". And I had a few images in the borderland between waking and sleeping, using the Global Dream Issue like a mantra. I saw two chubby silver rockets which were also scientists, and looked like early Russian experimental devices, relating to each other. Idea: Should we try to make contact on a citizen-diplomat level with Russian rocket scientists? I also saw "lasers shooting themselves". Idea: We should publicize the idea that there is no way we can create an impenetrable missile shield with orbiting lasers because they will always be vulnerable to ground or ship-based lasers, if not to other satellites, so the whole thing is a pipe dream. Finally I saw this: a world televised peace ceremony taking place in space, a ritual link-up between the space shuttle and its Soviet equivalent; a look down at and mutual blessing of the earth.
These dream images and the ideas based on them will presumably have been presented to at least some of the delegates of the Soviet-American Citizen Summit in Washington, DC by the time this article is published. (Next goal: An ongoing strategizing team.)
So the possibilities of a Global Issues Dream Network--especially if it includes lucid dreamers--are many: Reception of specific or symbolic guidance for peacemaking and planetary healing, which can then be turned into strategic plans and put into practice in alliance with the active peace movement; working through potential negative world situations in the collective dream state so they don't have to happen; seeding positive events through the "magical" use of group dreaming; and other things I haven't thought of yet.
But there's another side to creative dreaming; the spiritual side. Just as much as we need to deal with world problems, we need to be enlightened. We need to return to God. It's our lack of enlightenment, our alienation from God, that has created all our problems in the first place. So I'll end with a dream I had recently that says something about both the technical and the spiritual possibilities of Gate of Horn.
I dreamt of a beautiful half-naked Egyptian dancing girl who looked like Isis. She was an oracle, and part of her dance was to give a jewel (the one I saw looked like a ruby) to each person in her audience. These jewels, however, were not her answers to people's questions. Each person first had to return to her the jewel she'd given. Only then would the true answer be forthcoming.
Jewels, like pearls, represent elements of wisdom or crystallized insight and values. The ruby red color relates these insights to material plane concerns. Yet the jewels are not the answers given by the oracle, but the price we have to pay to be open to those answers.
The Egyptian dancing girl is Wisdom. She is telling us that nothing we own is valuable enough to buy her wisdom and that our very impulse to possess wisdom is really a gift from Her. But this gift must be sacrificed. Our attachment to the material world has to be given up if we are going to be receptive to oracles on how to deal with material concerns. And our attachment to our already known, possessed, crystallized jewels of wisdom must be sacrificed if we are going to learn anything new.
In terms of Gate of Horn, we can learn at least three things from this dream. The questions we ask of Divine Wisdom are already gifts from Her; already oracles. We need to keep sacrificing the obvious outer meanings of the answers we get so we can hear deeper and deeper questions. The answers that come to us--whether or not we are guided to work with them in terms of material conditions--must not be seen as possessions, but as gifts to be constantly rededicated to the Source of gifts, to bring us closer to that Source, dream by dream, project by project, step by step.
Those who wish to join Gate of Horn should send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: (...)
