Recently author and noted dream authority Jean Campbell shared dream wisdom with those attending a PreParliament of the World’s Religions gathering in America’s heartland. What we learned may change the way you understand your dreams.
By Kimberlee Otto
The sun comes out from behind the clouds as participants of the “Living Peaceably begins by Thinking Peacefully” event hosted on the College campus of the School of Metaphysics come into a speaker’s tent to be greeted by a smiling gray-haired woman sitting on a bail of hay. Her stature and impish grin make her look like something from Toklien’s Middle Earth.
Jean Campbell is here to teach us how to Listen to the Earth Dreaming. Though there is a stage area set up for her to speak in, Campbell chooses to sit in the middle of the audience and take questions. The first questions focus on precognitive dreams – dreams that “come true”.
Campbell first became interested in dreams when she began to have as a child
precognitive dreams, dreaming of future events and psychic experiences in her dreams “Either I’m nuts,” she says “or I’m psychic. And I don’t want to choose crazy,” she adds with a laugh. She went on to become an author and the director of a parapsychology institute.
After having a precognitive dream about the September 11th, 2001 bombing, she learned that others also had precognitive dreams about the tragedy. Campbell has spent decades researching group, shared, mutual and social dreaming. As chairperson of the Board of Directors for the International Association for the Study of Dreams, she has had occasion to listen to thousands of dreams. Campbell believes that awareness of precognitive dreams and lucid dreaming has been around for centuries, then disappeared or was lost. She tells us that awareness of these kinds of dreams and their importance have only been rediscovered in the last few decades.
“How do we deal with precognition? How do we get accurate information?” Campbell describes her work with psychics in the field of precognitive dreaming. Through this, she came to understand, “I can train the waking and dreaming self to deal with precognition.”
“The question for anyone, at any time (in dealing with precognitive dreams) is what am I perceiving?” Campbell says, adding that people will dream about the same future event in different ways based on what images they are willing to receive.
Campbell is the founder of the World Dreams Peace Bridge (WDPB). The WDPB is a collection of international peace dreamers. After her experience with September 11
th, 2001 Campbell asked a group of dreamers if they wanted to “dream up some peace.” It was from this that the WDPB was created. This is the avenue in which Campbell shares her passion for group, mutual and shared dreaming.
“Can anyone have precognitive dreams?” another participant asks.
“Absolutely!” Campbell exclaims, “We don’t all possess the same gifts and yet we can get to them.
“Inside ourselves we know the answers to all of the questions,” she says in a reassuring tone. “The fact is healing is inside.
“Dreams pay attention to us as much as we pay attention to them,” Campbell states. She instructs the group on how to engage the mind in dreaming by offering three keys.
1. Really listen to yourself.
Pay attention to your feelings when you wake up in the morning and throughout the day.
2. Don’t be impatient with yourself.
Write your dreams down every day and you will learn faster.
3. Diligently practice.
Pay attention to your dreams and be sure to get the message from them everyday.
The concept is astounding for some in attendance, prompting someone to ask “We can have more dreams and more accurate dreams just by wanting them?”
Campbell pauses for a moment and leans back. Then a smile begins to appear on her lips and she says, “Yes!”
There are 20 – 25 people sitting around Campbell leaning in close to hear her every word. As a facilitator for dream work and bioenergetic psychotherapy, she allows for dream discovery to begin with movement. Now it’s her turn to ask a question, “Are you ready to move?’
Greeted by unsure faces, she jumps up and calls everyone to join her. Campbell instructs us to stand in a circle. She asks us to close our eyes and imagine ourselves in a dream state.
Then she asks, “What would you dream if you could pick your dreams?”
Once we have chosen our fantasy dream, we are instructed to imagine ourselves as a character in that dream. “It can be a person, place or thing,” Campbell states. She gives the example of becoming a dream clock.
Next, she directs our attention to our dream bodies by prompting us to ask ourselves, “How do I stand?” She wants us to identify how it feels to be in the dream state. Some of the participants speak out loud their feelings.
She asks each person to take a step to the right, to step into the dream more fully. Again she directs us to ask, “How do I stand?” As we become more familiar with the experience of our dream bodies, Campbell asks us to take a step to the left and come out of the dream, asking the question again.
“It is important that I can walk and stand in peace,” Campbell tells us. All we have experienced is for the purpose of becoming familiar with the dream body while in the waking body. This kind of movement is a part of Campbell’s regular practice with people in discovering meaning in dreams through movement. 
The World Dreams Peace Bridge is an avenue for dreamers to learn about themselves. “The most intimate thing a person can share is a dream,” Campbell tells us.
Another cornerstone of Campbell’s work is the importance of sharing dreams with others. She tells us not to be worried if the other person understands or accepts the dream. It is enough to have shared it,” she counsels.
“How can I see myself if not through another?” Campbell asks. “Each of us is there to aid another to greater self and dream awareness.”
The day is getting late and it is time to wrap up. Campbell has one last piece of wisdom for the. Looking out into the sun she says, “ Dreams work. Dreams are good.
