It’s become popular to say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get really good at anything. If this is so, dreamers have a distinct advantage, since we can practice while others merely sleep, and can practice again, during the day, by tracking the dreamlike symbols of the world around us while others simply go to and fro. This requires us to understand that dreaming is a discipline – a fun one, but a discipline nonetheless, requiring practice, practice.

What are the core elements of daily practice, for an active dreamer?

1. Keep a journal.

2. Share your dreams with a partner, using our Lightning Dreamwork technique. This is a fun, fast way to open a space for each other to tell our stories, receive helpful feedback, and guide each other to take action to embody energy and guidance from the dreamworlds in our regular lives.

3, Always do something with your dreams. Dreams require action!

4. Go back inside your dreams, though our Dream Reentry technique, to recover missing details, clarify messages, talk to dream characters, move beyond nightmare terrors, find lost soul – and become a conscious citizen of the multiverse. Dream Reentry is explained in my book Active Dreaming and demonstrated in my DVD series Way of the Dreamer.

5. Develop a state of “poetic health” (as Baudelaire described it) by noticing the rhymes and resemblances of the world around you. As you recognize and play with the dreamlike symbols of everyday life, you become an active dreamer – and you are chalking up those 10,000 hours of practice even faster!