CREATIVE DREAM WRITING WORKSHOP AT THE HASTINGS BOOKSHOP

DREAM WRITING: Workshop with Sarah Janes
WEDNESDAY 16th March // 7pm // Hastings Bookshop, 5 Trinity Street, Hastings, TN34 1HG

ONLY TEN PLACES AVAILABLE

Payment by PayPal: sarah@awakeandaway.co.uk // Ref: DREAMWRITING // Cost: £10

In this class:

- Explore the Tarot as a narrative, dreamwork tool
Taking inspiration from Jodorowsky's psychomagic film - Holy Mountain, we will explore how the Tarot can work as a dream technology for personal growth and self-awareness. Archetypal imagery and symbolic language is the language of dreams and many view Jodorowsky's work as healing art for this reason.

- PGM Dream spells and Asklepion iamata
We will learn about the dream spells of the Greek Magical Papyri and the Asklepion 'iamata'. The iamata were dream narratives that corroborated stories of the dream healer god Asklepios - and his ability to perform healing miracles. Texts such as these help to elucidate the significance of dreams and give them a historical and cultural context. In antiquity is was believed that dreams could be invoked with magical writing and divine images. They were considered to have the power to heal supernaturally, and the contents of a dream could be constructed into an oracle that revealed the future. Ancient dream interpretation was always focussed on the future, this also hints at ancient perceptions of 'self' and the nature of time and reality.

- Dream incubation and hypnagogia techniques
Sarah leads regular lucid dreaming workshops and dream incubation classes. In this session she will introduce you to some simple techniques to help you improve dream recall and memory, hopefully enabling you to become more lucid more frequently. Dreaming is the ultimate creative experience and can be incredibly life-enriching, healing and inspiring. The more you use your dream material in your creative work, the stronger your dream memories become.

- Interpretation and dream story feedback
We will look at historical techniques of dream interpretation, especially with regard to wordplay and punning (which was a mainstay of ancient Egyptian dream interpreters). Looking at our own dream records, we will see if we can find our personal motifs and themes.

- Use dream language and symbols creatively
The best stories get into our dreams and they become our own stories and narratives. Stories and dreams are some of the best ways we have of coming to know ourselves. If you appreciate your dreams, they will reward you.

- History of the dream as literary device
Since the very earliest of times, the dream has been used as a literary device. Dreams likely inspired ideas about otherworlds, spirits and afterlives. We will look at some of the most famous dream texts for homework.

ABOUT SARAH JANES
Sarah Janes has been lucid dreamer since childhood and has written about dreams, dream culture and the anthropology of sleep for a number of academic journals, the Idler magazine and more.

Her first book: Pool of Mnemosyne: An Initiation in Dreams is out later this year with publisher Inner Traditions. This book explores the ancient history of dream therapy and sleep medicine from deepest antiquity through to ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. It also has seven stories in it that are inspired by her own dream incubation practices.

Sarah has given talks on the subject of dreaming at conferences, festivals and events all over Europe and hosts her own online Egyptology lecture series Explorers Egyptology in which she hosts many esteemed Egyptologists and ancient history scholars.

This year Sarah is curating a series of events and talks to coincide with the touring exhibition FEMININE POWER at the British Museum, working on a sitcom about paranormal investigators and developing sleep hygiene/reality shifting workshops for teenagers. She is also currently working with author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake and Guy Hayward at the British Pilgrimage trust to reinvigorate the practice of dream incubation on pilgrimage in the UK.

Sarah also co-hosts a weekly chat show - Consciousness Hour with author and researcher Anthony Peake. Anthony specialises in writing about exceptional human experience and anomalous phenomenon. On Consciousness Hour - life after death, dreams, Near Death Experience and OBEs, psychedelics, altered states, synchronicity, parapsychology and time perception are regular themes.

Alongside Carl H. Smith from the Learning Technologies Department of Ravensbourne University, London, Sarah developed The Seventh Ray, a virtual initiation experience inspired by ancient Mystery School traditions.