Two windows: the I Ching and dreams

For ancient societies all over the world, dreams and divination worked in partnership. Both were messages from the underlying reality of the waking world. It's symptomatic of the modern 'either/or' mentality that we no longer think of asking oracles to help with our dreams, or naturally supplement divination with dream work, and may even ask 'which is better, dreams or divination?'. The two are no more in competition than your two eyes. We need to recapture the sense of many windows on one omnipresent reality, or many signposts on one quest.

In every area of use of the I Ching, it's important to understand that it's not a substitute for knowledge, dedication and care. The ancient Chinese generals used the I Ching - but it didn't make just anyone into a general. The I Ching can offer medical advice - but you might need to be a doctor to understand it. The I Ching doesn't replace dream work, or the fund of knowledge about dream analysis and symbols - but it can bring a completely new dimension to your understanding of your dreams.

No matter what the dream, it always helps to begin by asking what its images mean to you, personally. A dream dictionary might provide a starting point, something to get you thinking more freely. Basically, if the dictionary's account of the symbol makes you feel 'aha!', then it is good. If not, then not. For example, it will be able to suggest meanings for 'mother' and 'car', but what does it mean to you to be in a car with your mother driving? A conviction that you'll get lost? A loss of control? Or peace and security? (Or, of course, something completely different!) By its very nature, the I Ching encourages you to go beyond the image-by-image approach to something more dynamic. Its 64 hexagrams don't so much represent situations, or things, as 64 ways of being, acting and feeling.

Most dreams - unless we have 'incubated' them (that is, asked for them) - act to bring a particular issue into vivid focus. The I Ching not only helps you to identify what that issue is - working alongside traditional dream interpretation techniques - but also sets it in a wider context of inner and outer life. Often, you'll be able to identify a particular part of the reading with the dream (its symbols, or its action, or its atmosphere). By working outward from there, you begin to see how this particular dream relates to your waking life.

Some theorists will tell you that all dreams relate to waking life in exactly the same way: that they all represent problems you've repressed, for instance, or that every symbol and character of every dream is an aspect of you. This is just not true. Dreams can announce opportunities, present solutions, and include valuable information about our current relationships. The I Ching may indeed tell you that the dream about repression - or learning - or unlearning... It evokes the countless subtle relationships between the waking 'you' and your dream experience. You could almost say that it offers you a new way of relating to each dream.

It also enables you to put dream insights into practice. Dreams do often (though not always!) confront us with problems we'd prefer to avoid. The I Ching not only helps to pinpoint exactly what the problem is, it also offers new perspectives and solutions. This is simply part of the nature of the book: every hexagram includes advice on how the energy is moving in a particular situation, and how best to move with it.

We spend most of our waking lives preoccupied with the practicalities of dealing with the outer world. Dream re-emphasises the inner, the heart and spirit. The I Ching - no matter where we start from, the inner dream or the outer issues - brings inner and outer together, showing that the division is an illusion.

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Through personal experience, dream interpretation and I Ching divination become part of a single experience. My own dreams have quietly become populated with the fertile symbols of the I Ching: at critical moments I might find myself crossing a river in my dreams, and recognise the I Ching's ancient symbol for commitment to a new journey. The guidance flows both ways: you might ask the I Ching for help with a dream, or you might receive a dream that casts new light on a reading. This mutual nourishment makes both dreams and divination more personally meaningful - and life becomes richer!

I Ching dream analysis articles