Dreams free soul, Sufi author says.
Reflection, prayer and meditation on reveries can lead to God.
Printed in The Oregonian, 6/12/99, by Nancy Haught
A woman who had a hard time being still, or quiet, had a dream.
She stood before several shallow, muddy puddles of water. But in the distance she could see deep pools of beautiful clear water. She picked her way between the puddles to the pools and dived into one of them.
"She felt completely refreshed and renewed," says Anne Scott, recounting the woman's dream. "When she looked around, she thought that this was the most beautiful place that she had ever been. Then she realized that she had been trying to get there for a long time, but there had been no maps or guidebooks to show her the way.
"Dreamwork is like an inner map," Scott says, describing her Sufi approach to dreams. Scott, whose spirituality is rooted in Judaism and Christianity, has been influenced by Buddhism and awakened, she says, by Sufism.
Scott, 48, of Sebastopol, California, is the author of "Serving Fire: Food for Thought, Body and Soul." She will be in Portland June 25-26 for a lecture and workshop.
Specifically, she belongs to the Naqshbandi order of Sufism, named for a 14th-century Sufi master. They are sometimes called the "silent Sufis" because of their belief that God is most accessible in silence and their subsequent devotion to silent meditation. In Naqshbandi thought, dreams are a form of guidance on the path of love, Scott says.
"It really is a way of looking at dreams in much bigger context," she says. "Not just trying to solve problems or improve yourself, but having to do with the heart trying to listen to something very deep and very real inside oneself and putting that in the context of an inner or spiritual journey."
Scott is trained in Sufi tradition, but she welcomes dreamers from many religious traditions to her lectures and workshops. Her dream work has helped her understand the ribbon of mysticism that runs through many religions.
"It has opened up something for me, the real definition of mysticism, which is a direct relationship to God," she says. "Sufis see this relationship as a relationship of love, between lover and Beloved." Sometimes dreams are the only way this love can be expressed. She encourages people to write down their dreams and then reflect on them or pray about them.
"The reflection is so important," she says. "This really is not an invasive approach to one's unconscious. It is a natural unfolding of something. When you listen to your dreams, you listen to something within you. You become attuned to your heart, the whispers of the heart."
Of course, having a dream and understanding it are different. The dreamer, not the teacher, holds the key, says Scott. It is her task to ask questions of the dreamer, helping him or her to sift the images until they exclaim, "Oh my goodness," or "Why didn't I see that?" Scott expects to hear a few of those exclamations at her Portland workshop.
She usually gives a lecture, followed by a question-and-answer session and a discussion on dream work. She invites participants to bring dreams that they would like to discuss but does not require them to do so. She ends her meetings with a silent meditation, encouraging participants to practice their own tradition or sample hers - the Sufi silent remembrance of the name of God.
Real solace can come in silent meditation, she says recalling her nearly 15 years of experience with it. "For me, silence has been an anchor. No matter what's going on in my outer life. Silent meditation stabilizes me so that I'm not caught up in all the whirlwinds going on around me. "
I know people who experience it as a sense of taking a drink at a well," she says.
Or diving into a deep pool of clear, beautiful water.