The Art of Awakened Dreaming By Rita Rivera-Fox

The ancient Toltecs were Master Dreamers. They knew that they were dreaming all the time even when they were awake. They understood that the function of the mind is to dream and that this dream is not real - it is only an interpretation of life. What was real was is found in the Nagual, or the invisible…the silence within each one living. The world of form that they saw with their eyes was only one way of perceiving life and there were many other worlds or dreams that were possible to experience.

Living in their ancient pyramid city of Teotihuacan in the heart of Mexico, the Toltecs communed with the source of life by going into silent dreaming states deep within their bodies. From this point of perception, they learned that the mind projects images that come from a collective “program” and all humans were programmed the same way. This program does not convey “life as it is” but rather places conditions, judgments and fear onto life. The humans believed their program was real and began to dream a dream of fear. In other words they fell asleep, even though their eyes were wide open.

The Toltec Master Dreamers were charged with helping their fellow beings awaken to the erroneous nature of the mind and its beliefs. To awaken inside a dream, meant that the world was not always as it seems. They knew it was possible to wake up in the dream and once again experience the truth of being one with all that is. Today, we also have the opportunity to awaken from the dream and live life with eyes and hearts flung wide open to all of creation.

Many people are called today to embark upon a journey of self discovery, one that it is motivated by the desire to live life from a truer and more authentic place – to awaken to a life filled with more happiness and love and with less reaction and fear. This desire to become self aware is growing and more and more people are turning within to discover that the content of the programmed mind is still what creates the false dream of mankind. To live life more fully from the heart creates the need to see how the mind works. The process begins by becoming aware of the unreal or false nature of the mind and by seeing what we create when we are “asleep with eyes wide open.” Once we have this awareness, we become powerful dreamers - Dreamers who awaken to Life and embrace all creation.

We are creating in every moment, and the magic tool we use for creation is the word: the words that we use with ourselves and with other people; the words that we use to describe ourselves and the world around us. Our power to create is so strong that whatever we believe comes true as does what we think and speak. We can put ourselves to sleep with our words or we can inspire ourselves to come to attention with words. Our thoughts are so powerful they have the potential to manifest in whatever direction we choose. So what is it that we have created as individuals and as a species? What are the results of your thoughts? This question is easy to answer by simply looking at our personal lives and the dream of mankind. What is present in your life right now is the result of what you have mastered. Is your life filled with happiness, friendship, and abundance or have you limited your creation with beliefs and concepts that limit the flow of these things?

We can begin practicing self awareness by observing our thoughts and beliefs. Be aware that these then create the interpretation of what the world brings us. After all, thoughts and beliefs are the raw material we use to craft our daily experience of life. While a thought is not real and it does not have substance, it is still very powerful. Choosing which thoughts we will continue to support or which thoughts we begin to challenge is the first step in crafting our lives as a masterpiece of art.

As we perceive the world, it might seem as though the world determines how we will interpret what we are experiencing. This is an erroneous belief. By taking responsibility for choosing how you perceive and interpret the world at large is the first step in changing the quality of your life. The power comes from the choice. But how can we begin to exercise this power? Learning to choose a new interpretation of events in your life is where practicing the art of choice becomes most apparent and the rewards are the greatest.

We have accepted many collective agreements about how an experience should be interpreted. All we have to do is look to the media, conversations with co-workers, family or friends, and there are ready-made interpretations of everything that is going on in our lives – with both personal and global events. Opinions are freely shared. Soon we are agreeing with how someone else is seeing an event without ever asking ourselves “Is this how I see this situation? Is there another way to interpret this? Does the way I’m looking at this circumstance contribute to creating happiness and overcoming fear in my life?”

These collectively shared interpretations often come from a very limited and fearful point of view. These days there is much uncertainty in the events of the world - war, global warming, rising gas prices. And that uncertainty is creating a lot of fearful stories and reactions. If we respond with fear to what is happening globally, we are not making the best choice on our own behalf. When we create fearful conclusions and stories to what we are presented with, we give this type of energy to our lives. This energy creates the emotional quality that then colors our existence. Our combined fearful responses have the power to manifest the very circumstances that frightens us. The results are that we feel helpless and powerless in a constantly changing world. This is how we lose our happiness.

The power to challenge the interpretation of what our mind says about current events, whether personal or global, comes from exercising the power of choice. First, we use our awareness to see how we are interpreting an event. If the story we choose creates anxiety or distress in the body, or steals our happiness, we can decide to withdraw our agreement and support of it. Consciously choosing our interpretation means that we begin to challenge the old existing points of view and then have the freedom to pick anew. These old points of view usually reflect our lack of faith in the divine order of life or our lack of faith in our own resilience. By making an active choice about how we want to tell our story actually changes the quality of our life experience.

We can significantly alter the quality of our lives by becoming aware of the beliefs we have about ourselves. So many of the thoughts we fill our minds with daily are based in erroneous concepts about ourselves. Often the stories our thoughts create speak of self rejection and self doubt and drain the joy of living from our hearts. If we believe that we are “less than” someone else or doubt our divine connection we create a personal reality or dream that reflects this erroneous thinking. The result is we don’t feel so good. Our emotional states are directly related to the thoughts that created them. By learning to reinterpret our personal stories we learn to shift the emotions we are creating and we begin to enjoy life as it is, and leave judgment out of our new interpretation.

To re-interrupt simply means to ask yourself a few important questions. In other words, you question that constant voice in your head. When you face a challenging or emotionally charged situation, ask yourself the following:

What is the story you are telling about what is going on? How are you interpreting what is happening now (or what had happened before)?

1. Do you believe that your story or point of view is absolutely true?
2. How does it make you feel?
3. What if you don’t believe your story or interpretation? How do you feel then?
4. What if you don’t really know what everything means?

Taking a few moments to become aware of what is going on in the internal dialogue in our minds, and then questioning that dialogue to see if a new choice or another way of looking at the situation is possible, can result in shifting our awareness. Going one step further and not agreeing with the voice on our head, knowing that it relies on old ideas, old memories, and old structures is how we awaken ourselves from an old dream. When we support these old forms less and less, we can create an openness to new ways of seeing the world and yourself - ways that can increase the openness of your heart. The simple action of consistently observing the process of thinking will begin to transform the way we think. This then results in a new experience, or sensation in our bodies – potentially one of more peace, joy, and happiness.

Emotions that enhance our experience of life come from our truest, most authentic self. This is the part of us that is accessed when we rely less on thought and more on feeling. Love, or the experience of being one with what created us, results in an enhanced emotional experience of life. We are interacting with that force all the time. What brings us our greatest happiness is our allowing that love to have a clear channel to flow out of us and into the world that we are creating. This is only possible when we challenge our fearful stories and choose to not believe everything we think. While we may not have control over the events occurring in the outer world, we certainly do have the ability to choose our response to it with awareness. What do you choose? How do you want to live your life?