Someone in my “I Ching and the Practitioner” course asked about Chinese dreamworking. Though delving into the subject fell a bit outside the scope of the I Ching, I thought it’d make an interesting closed-circuit blog entry.
My mother’s specialty is dreamworking and oneiromancy. She works primarily through the realm of dreams. Allegedly. The lawyer in me, I think, or maybe it’s just the enduring skeptic, feels compelled to add “allegedly.” This rambling does not come from a place of personal expertise, because I’ve always been the opposite of my mother. I am not a dreamworker. I would say I don’t dream at all, or at least I rarely remember my dreams. I don’t receive prophecies, divination, or forecasts of any kind through my dreams. No–that’s not entirely true, but it’s true enough for me to assure you that I am no expert. So I’m speaking from a point of neutral, outsider observation, as the daughter of a shamanic dreamworker.
By the way, she would never identify herself as a shaman. She doesn’t use anything to identify herself. Others, however, when she isn’t around, or when describing my mother, may use certain terminology. But she would never call herself anything other than “wife, mother, daughter” those kinds of titles. I’m the one taking the initiative to say “shaman” because it’s descriptive of what she does. You’ll see what I mean.
benebell wen 