Dream theater is one of my favorite things in my Active Dreaming workshops. Sometimes the energy of a dream is so lively we can’t wait until the full dream report has been shared with the circle; we have to start casting the characters from the dream and have them perform while the script is still being shared by the dreamer. Thus we avoid the risk that the dream will become merely a text and the energy dissipated in dry analytical discussion.

Indigenous dreaming cultures (like those of all our ancestors) understand well that we want to bring energy from the dream world into the phsyical body as rapidly as possible through dance, movement, mime and performance. Children love dream theater, which can give them a safe way to express what needs to be expressed about the dynamics of a family situation or the challenges of growing up. The child inside each one of us loves this kind of drama too.

As we practice it in my Active Dreaming approach, described in detail in my book Dreamgates, dream theater is always fresh and original, with ever-renewing gifts and surprises. The first step is to get the dreamer to cast all the characters and elements in a dream, including the trash bin, the movie ticket, the hind end of the donkey, the broken door (because everything is alive in the dream) – and her own dream self, so she can watch herself from a witness perspective. Then we do a rehearsal, reproducing all the action and dialog of the original dream.

Next, the dreamer is invited to improve and add to the script. She may want to carry the dream forward – in a second performance, in which she will take the star role – to healing and resolution. In the role of her dream self, with all the elements of her dream “constellated” around her in the performance space, she can improvise and allow her dream improvise to make up their own lines as they interact with her. In this way, spontaneous dream theaer becomes the pinnacle of improv.

At the end of the main production, the dreamer interviews her dream characters, who speak to her from the roles they played – as the headless Meat Monster, as the pistol he produced, as the ally who wrestled the monster to the ground, as the Wise Woman who released him from his earthbound state, as the child he terrified (in the recent dream play in my retreat at Mosswood Hollow depicted in the photos that accompany this piece).

Real magic is the art of bringing gifts from another world into our physical reality. Dream theater is one of the best ways I know to accomplish this, when you have brought together the right group in the right space.