Dreaming As a Spiritual Practice
Welcome back to our two-month series of guest posts on contemporary spiritual practices. Today’s writer is someone whose journey inspires me and whose gifts of tarot reading and dream interpretation have served me personally in the past. Amber Ambrose is deeply plugged into the current of aliveness on this planet, something I recognized about her after spending just a few minutes in her presence. No surprise, then, that Amber manages to be plugged in even when asleep! Dreams are, of course, powerfully present in nearly every spiritual text the world over, but until hearing from Amber I did not seriously consider that my sleeping life might be a place to cultivate meaningful conversation with the Divine: a beautiful opening that I hope you, too, will experience after reading this post. xoxo, Nishta
I awoke this morning to a tsunami of emotions, spilling onto my pillow through fat, salty tears. My 5:35 AM alarm had jolted me out of a deep sleep and a vivid dream where I had just reunited with a loved one that had been separated from me in a theme park.
This loved one—who I’ll refer to as “Alex” to respect their privacy—is heading into their 40s in waking life, but showed up as an 8-year-old child in my dream. We hugged and vowed to ride the rollercoasters together, but what I remembered most was the intensity of the love I felt for this person. It was so strong, words would never do it justice. In fact, just reliving the feeling through this essay brings a thick lump back into my throat that threatens to erupt yet again.
Confused, half-awake and sobbing, I realized I was no longer in my dream world and back in waking life, and yet the sorrow I felt was so deep, I let it flow for a few more minutes. Here in my bed, I was safe from judgment and unwanted attention, and yet, the dream had a happy ending.
A few hours later, as I allowed the emotional waves to crest and reach a state of calm, I was still consciously unsure why this dream had triggered so much grief. But as I eased into the mundanity of a Tuesday morning, I received a text message from a mutual connection of myself and “Alex.” This connection let me know (without having a clue about my dream) that Alex was having an emotionally challenging time. And lightbulb! The explanation of my intense feelings that accompanied the dream.
This prompted me to reach out to Alex, which prompted a beautifully open and honest conversation, which prompted the well of love that I’d felt in the dream to spill into my real life, which I believe had a healing effect on both myself and on Alex. Synchronistically, the song that began playing on Spotify immediately after I hung up the phone was, “My God Has A Telephone,” by the Flying Stars of Brooklyn NY. The lyrics were incredibly appropriate for the conversation that had just taken place…on the phone.
This is only one tiny example of how dreams act as a bridge between the infinite version of Self and the finite version of self, offering a healing, nonjudgemental space of absurdity and symbolism. As dreaming has become more important in my life, I’ve also learned that one of the foundations of interpreting them is to release all judgment created by the “rules” of waking life to any behaviors, feelings or energy that would make me feel ashamed, embarrassed, wrong or “bad.” The language in dreams is truly symbolic. Some of the most taboo symbols are the most powerful, because they show us what’s living in our shadow, waiting to be excavated.
For example: Sex equals a desire for intimacy and deep connection. Excrement and urination (I used to have a recurring dream where I could never get privacy in a bathroom!) are all about letting go of things that no longer serve us. Nudity is all about exposure and vulnerability. Masturbation can be translated into a desire to learn how to find personal satisfaction. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, the language of the Universe is not words, it is purely symbolic.
This perspective on dreams has been honed over time, just before I began a secondary spiritual awakening, activated by the events surrounding COVID-19. In the fall of 2019, I was running a content marketing business, attempting to raise two beautiful daughters, maintaining a marriage, and frankly, running on empty most of the time. It is in this time period that a specific and memorable dream rocked my world, and helped me truly understand the power I held within my subconscious. Parts of this dream continue to unfold in my waking life even still today, five years later.
It began inside a complete void of darkness, from which a single thought, “God is a black woman” emerged.
From there, in my dream state, Oprah Winfrey magically appeared standing at an altar, embodying the subconscious’ interpretation of this thought. It reminds me of putting a phrase into an AI program, and having the program interpret those words back into symbols. Appropriately, Gayle King was by her side. (For context: I’d also recently found an opening in my spiritual curiosity through Oprah’s program, Super Soul Sunday, that I’d never been able to access within the confines of a traditional church.)
At the time, I had no idea how this dream was an indication of my new journey into the Divine Feminine aspect of God, which had never been offered to me through traditional religious channels. A former Catholic living in a very Christian, Caucasian, masculine-god focused society, this dream was not only prophetic, but incredibly healing; it prophesied the years of work I’ve spent awakening to the conditioning I’d internalized of shame, guilt and loathing related to simply being born a woman, of the glaring omission of close female friendships in my life at the time, of the inherited racism that I wasn’t even conscious of until I had the time and space to face my own internal reality and everything that was swimming around in the swamp of my shadow.
This began a path of healing the beliefs that were silently living inside of me, driving my daily decisions and enabling a crippling codependency. It also opened me up to my current path of reading tarot professionally, of becoming a leader in the local Spiritualist church, of true and lasting happiness that I never thought would be possible for myself.
Dreams are so much more than a mental cache clearing. They are not meaningless. They are powerful. They are truthful. They are where we can face parts of our unhealed ego with the eyes of our loving spirit. They can transform our lives in profound ways. All we need to do is pay attention, and make sure we get plenty of sleep.
Amber Ambrose is a professional tarot reader, creative writer and intuitive living in Houston, TX with her family of two daughters and lovingly supportive husband. She's proud to lead at the First Spiritualist Church of Houston as a music director, lecturer, medium, service leader and sometimes-meditation guide. She welcomes any and everyone to also join the community of the Wild Ministry (which she co-leads with local spiritual practitioner, Mary Kathryn LeMaster) for monthly community labyrinth walks and contemplative nature-based practices. You can learn more about her tarot services, Wild Ministry and upcoming events at AmberAmbrose.com.