www.dreamthread.com

Richard Catlett Wilkerson (RCW): Ariadne, your dream program is a rich mix of public offerings, private classes, seminars and a variety of products and services. Could you summarize your dream program for us, especially the Cyber-space aspects?

Ariadne Green (AG): You're right DreamThread is rich with content and services for those who wish to explore the vast potential for personal growth through dreamwork. We have unveiled phase I of three phases of the DreamThread InterActive project. The average person who is wondering what their dreams meant last night, can submit a dream right now through submission script on the site and get back some intuitive insights, as well as ways in which they can use those insights in their daily life. We have two or really three services. A DreamNote, a DreamReport and a DreamCourse. Soon they will be able to receive the DreamNote and Dream Report in an attractive format through software that we are developing. The DreamNote offers the dreamer approximately four insights into the meaning of their dream and ways that they can use the insights to further their personal growth. The Dream Report offers numerous insights and how the insights were drawn from the content of the dream examining each scene, the outstanding symbols and dream action. Techniques for further working with the dream are given as well as other general information on dreams. The Dream Team are intuitives and clairvoyants who have a wide range of dreamworking skills and background in doing dreamwork personally and professionally. Our aim is provide a quality service and to encourage people to use their dreams creatively and consciously. The DreamThread site can be likened to a Dream Temple in Cyber-space. Surfers can enter our temple and be offered insights and creative solutions to their problems and a look at their attitudes, beliefs and feelings to further their psychological and spiritual growth. They can also receive a lot of interesting information on dreams, as well as participate in dream telepathy and incubation experiments. The pilgrimage can be made as frequently as they wish.

(RCW): How did the idea for the DreamThread Web site come about?

(AG): DreamThread was conceived over coffee, a muffin and conversation as many creative projects are on Maui. I had many requests from friends and students suggesting that I do a dream interpretation hotline as I was looking for a way to creatively turn the world on to the magic and wisdom of dreaming. But frankly, I didn't like the hype and circus like promotions of 900 psychic lines. I was techno shy considering myself a mystical purist who never thought that she would be joining the technological world. However, after having my computer for only a short time exactly 3 months, I saw the potential to take dreamwork and shamanism out to the public through educational software. Within 3 months, I had written content material for a CD ROM that I had titled Dream Master and had begun looking for production money. What I found was that to do a fully animated CD ROM would become astronomical in cost and that the popularity of CD ROMS was waning. I had met a lot of people in multimedia production who encouraged me to put something out on the web and to offer the content out there, through cyber-space, as well as a service to people who would like to have some expert help with their dreams. So I contacted the best web designer I knew to design the site and 2 months later I asked Marka to be my business partner. More recently Diane Warwick made a surprise appearance on stage in my dream wearing an Elvis beaded jacket reminding me that it was time to go public with what I was passionate about -intuitive dream interpretation!

(RCW): Shamanism in anthropology has a rather strict definition that applies to various aboriginal or native individuals skilled, as Eliade writes, in healing through trance states. But now the term has come to be used in a wider sense in popular culture. Can you tell us a little about this and what shamanism means to you, especially the term you use "urban shamanism" and how this relates to dreaming.?

(AG): When I first began exploring shamanism it was a personal journey that unfolded through some landmark dreams which opened up my potentials as a shaman/healer. I soon was able to remember how to access these dream states and dimensions by altering my consciousness and connecting with the many guides and allies that I encountered. It was a very natural progression and journey that I surrender to each day cultivating my skills and integrating information that I have been given. As I later explored shamanism through research I did find that some of the interpretations were narrow, but still helpful in looking how the fields of anthropology and psychology viewed shamanism. The question arose whether a psychotherapist from Vallejo California could be a shaman or a lawyer from Washington? My definition of a shaman is not that different from Stanley Krippner's definition. I see the shaman as one who because of an initiation experience or a call to shamanize and subsequent experiences is able to contact non-ordinary reality at will traveling into dimensions of consciousness to retrieve information and healing potentials for others and the community as a whole. There are many roles that a shaman can take and a shaman may serve several roles at once or primarily only one. Some of the roles are as psychotherapist, healer, seer, storyteller, and priest. One of the most important roles of the shaman is as interpreter of dreams and myth. And this is where my focus has been along with the role of the healer.

I take a shamanic view of dreaming. Dreams assists us to recognize dimensions in consciousness. Every night we let go of our ordinary reality put on a shaman's suit and fly into other dimensional realities or dreamscapes where we can access information about ourselves and our relationship to the collective, as well as information about the spiritual dimensions. The aim of shamanic dreaming is to become conscious of these experiences and use dreams for ones personal transformation, the transformation of others and as a gift to feed the culture.

In a recent dream circle the symbol of bread synchronistically appeared and came to represent the dreams that we could share with the world as sustenance, hope and inspiration. Breaking bread is sharing the dreams which give us spiritual truths. A dreamer dreamed that she was carrying loaves of bread on the luggage rack on the top of her car to be delivered to many on the journey. Dreamers in my shamanic dream circles often dream for others bringing through information about the state of another's health or psychological happiness. This is one of the roles of an urban shaman, to be a community dreamer. In modern culture, we are skeptical of those who proclaim to be shamans and rightly so. There are charlatans or inexperienced initiates out there. I use the term *urban shaman* to define the shaman who can offer the shamanic perspective to urban culture through unique methods that the culture can relate to. Not everyone can go to the mountain fast and receive a vision. I teach people to see the signs and messages in whatever environment that they are in. I personally receive the answers to my spiritual questions at a local grocery store called Furr's. I make a habit of going there with an incubated question and inevitably receive the answer either symbolically or directly before I leave the store. Furr's is my mountain and I can be seen there wandering around with nothing in my basket just to get my messages. When I was a clinical therapist I might have thought that behavior to be psychotic and a bit grandiose. Now I see it as living in dreaming reality.

(RCW): Speaking of urban shamans, how did you like studying under Stan Krippner?.

(AG): Stanley was first my mentor at Saybrook Institute where I had been enrolled pursuing a doctorate in philosophy of psychology. He has continued to be a friend and inspiration. He is clearly a scientist and I am glad to hear you refer to him as an urban shaman though he claims no such identity or authority. Now as for myself, I tend to see myself as a mystic first and scientist second. Stanley has certainly done more to unify science and mysticism through his research on shamanism than anyone I've met. I had a dream when I first started studying under Stanley that he was driving a Rolls Royce and that I was chasing after it. Well, I certainly was chasing after the best and most prestigious teacher one could ask for. We had the opportunity to have Stanley do two events on Maui while I was still there. One on shamanistic dreamwork and another event which I put together called Boundaries and Your Health: Issues of the Mind, Body, and Spirit. In it we explored dreams around the issues of emotional, physical and psychic boundaries. My aim in hosting Stanley was to bring shamanism to light in modern culture and to promote dreamwork and shamanism as methods which individuals can use for their personal growth and apply in their everyday lives.

(RCW): You have been promoting Shamanic Dreaming workshops and now offer apprenticeships through the Art of Shamanism. Could you tell us a little about what a person would go through in this program and how long the program lasts?

(AG): The Art of Shamanism is a program that developed after years of practicing and integrating shamanic methods into my own psychotherapy practice. I developed the trainings to offer those interested in stepping onto the path of shamanism as healers a way to ground shamanic methods and practices into their life and into their professional practice. I set up the courses originally as five core courses designed to induct the individual into the experiences of a shaman. The courses help them build a solid shamanic practice and discipline. The first course is on animal power acquisition, the second develops skills in shamanic journeying, the third course teaches one methods for soul retrieval, the fourth is on crystals and other shamanic tools, and the fifth course is called Shamanic Healing and focuses on diagnosing through the energy field, x -ray vision, and journeying for shamanic healing. The courses build on each other and offer a rich ground for those who wish to integrate the spiritual dimensions into healing. Because the experiences are initiatory and deal with integrating a great deal of energy and shamanic power it is important that a student be prepared to accept the responsibility and challenges associated with it, as well as the commitment to use the methods to assist others. I am offering the courses in two ways now. I offer one weekend course a month in Taos and am offering two 4 day intensives to complete the trainings for those who need to travel from a distance. Some students complete the program in 6 months and others have taken 2 to 3 years depending on their need and approach to the material and experiences. Shamanic Dreaming is a weekend workshop that offer when I travel and has been sponsored in Europe, Canada, Australia, ,as well as nationally. Those who would like information on the trainings or workshops can request it through the site or by emailing me at ariadne@dreamthread.com

(RCW): What got you interested in dreams?

(AG): What got me interested in dreams? That's an interesting question. I remember people telling me their dreams and expecting that I had the answers as a teenager. I guess at some point I woke up and realized that I was Ariadne and had been given a thread to offer to others. My mother actually saw my destiny named me Ariadne and then baptized me on the martyr saint day of Ariadne quite by accident. If there is such a thing. I think the universe force fed me dreams. It didn't even feel like a choice or an interest that I took. It was my nature and an expression of who I was. Anyway I think it was Dorothy Gail in the Wizard of Oz who woke me up to the creative and magical power of dreams when she sang "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and took her journey into Oz. I recognized through that myth that our life is a dream journey that we embark on and that the yellow brick road of our dreams can take us to find what was always in our own backyard.

(RCW): What are your favorite books on dreams and dreaming?

(AG): I had probably worked with my own dreams for 10 years before I read a thing. But since then I of course I've read few or more like a hundred. I have some favorite books. One the Kin of Ata Is Waiting For You , DreamWork: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams by Jeremy Taylor, Dreamtime & Dreamwork: Decoding the Language of the Night edited by Stanley Krippner, and Shamanic Dreaming by Robert Moss. I tend to take a shamanic perspective in approaching dreamwork. Experience is the best teacher. I tell my students work with your dreams for eight weeks before you read a thing.

(RCW): There is a page on DreamThread called DreamGathers, which appears to be a global dream incubation project focusing on collective events. Can you tell us more about this and to participate?

(AG): Yes, we are really excited about this project. We consider one of our roles to be the gatherer of dreams which are bringing inspiration and information about the collective during this time of planetary transformation. We have put out a call for dreams over the next two months on the Halle Bopp comet and have posted the dreams along with interpretations on the site. We feel that this is a way that we at DreamThread can nourish culture and the dreaming community at this time. Anyone can submit a dream to DreamGathers using the dream submission script and noting that the dream is for DreamGatherers. If anyone has a dream about another event that they would like to send they can do so in the same fashion and by noting what event the dream is related to.
On the DreamDiscover page you have an interesting division of dreaming realms. The lower world being the place of deep mysteries, the middle realm being our physical world and the upper dreamworld being the spiritual realm.

(RCW): How did this model develop for you?

(AG): The model that I developed for looking at dreams in the Dream Master material was drawn from the model for shamanic journeying and was a natural evolution and integration of my experience with my own dreams and my travels into the many dimensions through shamanic journeying. Although, I believe that there are many more dimensions that can be traveled in, the 3 world division is one that explains the shaman's movement through worlds simply and also offers a way at looking at the types of dreams, their source and the elements within them. I sought a way to explain dreaming from a shamanic perspective and a way for those learning about the nature and elements of dreams a clear way to differentiate their dreams through adopting the shaman's perspective. Surprisingly, when I met Stanley Krippner he presented a similar model to what I had created for Dream Master. A case of parallel creativity or dreaming. In the design of the CD ROM I conceptualized a labyrinth with three dimensions or levels to embark on an "edutaining" journey through content on dreams. Dream Master is an animated shaman like character who interacts with the dreamer on their journey through the interactive experiences. He represents the shaman within who holds the wisdom of the ages and the ability to understand the nature of dreaming in a dreaming universe. The Dream Master lives in each one of us. At the center of the labyrinth is a dream journal program to assist the dreamer to work with their own dream material. As I mentioned earlier, the production of Dream Master will not planned until Phase III of our multimedia plan, but I have made available a tidbit of the content in our DreamDiscovery pages.

(RCW): What kinds of questions might a person ask to decide if DreamThread is a program to pursue?

(AG): I think Dream Master would say something like, "Well its about time. I've only been waiting at this dream temple tapping my foot since 600 BC waiting for Ariadne to wake up on the island of Naxos and to give you the darn thread. So take it. Journey for yourself now. Then you decide if it was worth the trip"

You can email me at ariadne@dreamthread.com or 

ariadne@la plaza.org
Snail medicine mail me at: Ariadne Green
Box 5844 NDCBU
Taos, NM 87571
Or call at: (505) 758-9356
Dreaming in the light,
Ariadne