[Marion Khoshuei]

I often pose a question to myself, as I’m getting ready for bed, and last night I was particularly frustrated/exasperated, so my question was ‘What’s life for?, What’s it all about? What’s the ultimate goal?”

So, in the dream, I am in a town (Bishop’s Stortford, only it’s nothing like the real town) trying to find how to get to a nearby woods that I really like (also not real, I have been there at least twice in dreams tho).
As I walk down a street, I see a town map noticeboard thing. There are two green areas on it, and I go to the nearest, but its just a park. I realise I should have checked the name of the other green patch on the map, so that I could ask directions. But rather than waste time trying to find the map again, I approach someone and ask if they know the woods, “Oh yes, that’ll be Chalice Woods” and other than making an effort to remember the name of the woods, I don’t remember any more of the dream, I must have started waking up.

Unusually, I distinctly remember the place name that I was told. Chalice is an odd word, and the fact that I could actually remember it made me think it must be significant, so I start with that. What is a chalice, oh yes there’s that wooden chalice fragment in Wales, that’s supposed to be the remains of the Holy Grail, Chalice Wood, wood chalice! So Chalice wood is a metaphor for the Holy Grail, which in turn is a metaphor for the meaning of life, so perhaps my dream is saying that life is about searching for the holy grail, but breaking it down into what is actually happening in the dream, it’s simply showing me as looking for the meaning of life, which of course was my question.

[Jane Teresa Anderson]

Hello Marion,

While this is a space for students – not for me – I do have to jump in here with a first comment! Last week someone asked me if I had a blog about Dream Incubation. “Yes,” I said, quite confident that surely I would have written about this as a blog. (I knew I had covered the topic in books.) It turned out that I hadn’t, so I promised that Dream Incubation would be the subject of my next blog, for JaneTeresa.com, which will go up two weeks today.

Meanwhile, I’ve been re-reading my 1998 book, The Shape of Things to Come (Random House), which is about precognition in dreams, synchronicity, and much more. I have been invited to be part of a presentation on ‘Prediction, time, and dreams’ so I thought I’d reconnect with the examples I gave in the book. While reading, I came across a passage about a Dream Incubation experiment I asked people to do back in my dream research days. I thought the passage would make an excellent inclusion in the blog. One of the things that came up was that many of the people who did the experiment had a similar experience to yours: their dreams reflected either their question or their conflicts about performing well/getting the task done etc.

Yesterday my husband, Michael, was wearing his ’42’ teeshirt, a design based on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. (For anyone who is confused at this point, the book suggests the answer to the meaning of the universe is 42.)

Lastly, I haven’t quite finished reading The Shape of Things to Come. My next chapter, this morning, is the one about a seacrh for meaning.

As to your fabulous dream, I’m going to leave that to the forum community to engage with you!

[Marion Khoshuei]

Love that sychronicity!
I’ve had a bunch of interesting dreams since I wrote that and my reply that disappeared into the ether.
Some about predictions, some about ‘dream incubation’ and and one suggesting I buy your book(s?).
As I started this thread mentioning dream incubation, I figure this is a good place to write the follow up dreams.

In the first one, I am a young boy, wowed by the Scarlet Pimpernel/Richard e Grant’s ability to get rich people to gift him Roll’s Royces. The man is explaining to the boy, how he does it, starting with remembering their names, ‘the key thing is remembering their names, they really love it when you remember who they are’ then keeping notes on them, what they do, what they like, etc. and shows the boy one of those plastic pages that go in a file, absolutely filled with pages of his notes, then, in return for just a simple meal, (but delicious, as represented by one of my dishes, licked clean) they shower him with gifts, particularly Roll’s Royces, which he loves, as does the boy.

Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, I did almost no ‘dream incubation’ prior to that one, but had thought it would be fun to get another dream that would be a bit harder to interpret, and so, fun to write up here, and that’s what I got in return.

[Marion Khoshuei]

The second one, is all about espionage and intrigue. I don’t know how come me and my parents are going to the same conference as a lot of diplomat types, but one of them has an important dossier in his briefcase, which the others want to get hold of or stop him delivering, except they don’t know which one has it, but the ‘spy’ gets wind of this, and hides the briefcase under a big boulder. (Two accomplices lift one end of the rather flat boulder while he shoves the briefcase as far under as he can.) At some point he found a new species of plant and put that in his briefcase too, and I am actually more concerned with rescuing the plant than getting the dossier safely out of the way. I am also worried that the boulder shows that it has been moved as it is wobbly now, but there is some kind of disturbance on the other side of the group, and I use the distraction to get the briefcase out, without being seen. I quickly stash the briefcase in the back of my Dad’s car in a pile of blankets (irl, my car often has a pile of bedding in the back). The dream is almost finished now, except that as we make our getaway, I realise I’ve left my glasses behind. Dad points out that we can’t go back now, and gives me an older pair, but they’re a bit smeary, and I blink and quint as I put them on . . . and wake up to find that I am actually wearing my (regular) glasses!

On reflection, I think this was the dream that I got when I wanted a harder to interpret one, but I really don’t spend much time on ‘incubating’.

[Jane Teresa Anderson]

Hi Marion,
Thank you for buying The Shape of Things to Come. I’ll leave your dreams for students to respond to, but I thought I’d pop in here to give the link to the promised blog on Dream Incubation.
Dream incubation blog

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