Welcome to Awaken in the Dream

If you’re someone who’s awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality and looking for wisdom, community, and support, you’ve come to the right place.

A Flash in the Dark

In 1981 I was sitting in meditation when, just for an instant, a bolt of lightning flashed through my brain. Within hours, I began to recognize that this life is a shared waking dream that we are all collectively dreaming up moment-to-moment into materialization. Ecstatic at what I was realizing, I began acting so unlike my normal conditioned self that a friend brought me to a hospital, afraid I was going crazy. Though I was let out after three days, the experiences that began to unfold were so overwhelming that I was hospitalized a number of other times during that first year. I was diagnosed as having had a severe psychotic break and was told that I had a chemical imbalance and had manic-depressive illness. I was put on lithium and at times, Haldol (an anti-psychotic). I was told I would have to live with my illness for the rest of my life.

Eventually, I became one of the lucky ones, able to extricate myself from the medical and psychiatric establishment. Little did the doctors realize I was taking part in some sort of spiritual awakening/shamanic initiation process, which at times mimicked psychosis but in actuality was an experience of a far different order.

That’s what brings me here—and, I believe, what brings you here, too.

What Is Awakening In the Dream?

In ancient wisdom cultures, it was understood there were certain individuals whose “craziness” was the sign of a passage into a higher consciousness. They realized that the person needed to be both honored and supported in their process. They knew that the person who passes through this process successfully and becomes an accomplished shaman, healer, or teacher, returns bearing incredible gifts and blessings of wisdom and healing for everyone.

If you’re someone who’s awakening to the dreamlike nature of reality and looking for wisdom, community, and support, you’re in the right place. “Awaken In the Dream” is written through the perspectives of quantum physics, alchemy, shamanism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, mystical Christianity and the work of C. G. Jung. It’s my attempt to help others awaken both to the grave realities of our world and to its inherent magic and literally limitless possibilities.

When we recognize that we live in a magic-filled universe, we realize that we don’t have to create magic, but rather, simply allow the intrinsic magic of the universe to reveal itself. If this is indeed the case, let’s do an experiment, and see if in the joint co-operative venture of writing (my job) and reading (your job) this article, we can indeed let the inherent magic of the universe shine through our shared endeavor.

The Awakening

The word “Buddha” literally means “one who has awakened to the dream-like nature of reality.” The Buddha wasn’t teaching that this universe was like a dream, he was pointing out that our universe is a dream, a waking dream we are collaboratively dreaming up into materialization.

It’s no coincidence that I had been doing Buddhist meditation for over a year when that lightning bolt went off inside of my brain. I felt like Alice falling through the looking glass, finding myself “drafted” and playing a role in a deeper, mythic process, what Jung would call a “divine drama,” where everything was permeated with a deep symbolic meaning.

In 1993, after many years of struggling to contain and integrate my experiences, I started to teach about what I was realizing. In addition to forming the “Awaken in the Dream” group—a long-running community that’s helped countless people awaken to the dreamlike nature of reality—I’m also in private practice, assisting others who were spiritually emerging and beginning to wake up to the dreamlike nature of reality. In a dream come true, today psychiatrists consult with me and send me patients.

This Substack is my attempt to share what I do with this great community of curious seekers. In addition to sharing works-in-progress and excerpts from previously published essays, I’ll also be hosting live monthly “Ask Me Anything” events for paid subscribers. They’re your invitation to get close and go deep on the topics that mean so much to all of us. I hope you’ll join me here, and that what you find here gives you perspective, support, and most of all hope.