• to simply highlight certain bits of content;

• to display in-depth associations with dream content, according to their layers of meaning;

• or to create timelines of how internal and external reality interact.

The core of Inner Guide Mapping is a set of Category Symbols to represent different types of experience, such as dreams (in general), lucid dreams, synchronicities, accidents/mistakes, insights, media influences... All 38 Category Symbols fall into four larger categories: External Events, Internal Events, Qualities, and Connections...which determine the background shape of the symbol (roundish square, triangle, oval dot, or small swirl).

To represent a single event, I arrange the appropriate Category Symbols on the page, then add Content Images to depict the specifics of the event. Content Images are completely ad hoc and may come from anywhere--clip art, stick-figure drawings, pictures cut out of a magazine, or, simply a written word or two. I also add a brief text label to each event.

So the actual content will stand out, I keep the Category Symbols mostly monochromatic. And it's not always necessary to use both Category Symbols and Content Images for each event.

4/2/96, "Blue Sentence" - the dream represented in a circle map

"Quite suddenly, a sentence beginning with the word Now materializes out of many small, triangular, peacock blue pieces. It’s about four or five lines long, set fairly narrow, and it hangs in the air at a slight angle away from me. Then, even more suddenly, it disappears. The feelings are surprise and delight. The blue is quite beautiful. I'm disappointed that I don’t get a chance to read the sentence."

Note: I often use the cube as a Content Image to represent the physical plane. It's a traditional association based on the cube's three-dimensionality. I combine a series of increasingly "substantial" cubes to represent the concept of manifestation--coming from thought or possibility into physical reality.

The map: Within the center circle is the dream, represented by the Category Symbol for a Short Dream (the pillow with the short line in it), and some of its characteristics (the muscleman is the Category Symbol for forcefulness, the lightning bolts represent Suddenness, and there's both Joy and Sadness).

The next circle out represents associations triggered directly by the content, and the next circle after that is associations triggered by the first associations. From the repetition of my Content Image for manifestation at the outer circle, I see that there's much about this dream that speaks about manifestation. (And, in fact, I had the dream very soon after asking my dream mind for "manifestation lessons.")

I’ve been using Perelandra flower essences for more than a year now, and my chiropractor has mentioned a couple of times that another member of his practice works with many essences, in a system called Three in One.

I have not previously taken the time to follow up on this.

I decide this time to give her a call, although I know I won’t be able to talk to her right away, because my chiropractor has told me she’s out of town.

While out of town over the weekend, I dream: “The whole family is in the house in Quincy [where we lived when I was in elementary school]. I’m looking out the back window, where the diningroom would be....It’s a big, two-story room with two-story windows, and a two-story atrium behind where the kitchen would be.

“...my attention almost immediately goes to the deciduous trees, with large oval leaves (elms?), filling the atrium, pressing against the windows...”

In the afternoon, I get into a silly but heated argument about which version of a story from my childhood is more accurate. Working on “Quincy Atrium” later, I realize there were “two stories” in the room in Quincy.

The day after I get back from out of town, I receive a call back from the Three in One practitioner. Feeling guilty and depressed over the intensity of the argunent I had on 3/2, I make an appointment with the practitioner for the next day.

During my appointment, I am introduced to Three in One. It uses perhaps a couple dozen different sets of essences, of which the Perelandra essences are just one. So there are a total of a hundred or more essences for which I am kinesiology-tested, in groups.

The issue of concern that I’ve presented is the confrontation I recently had. Out of all of the available essences, the one and only essence I test positive as needing for my emotional healing is Elm.

I see now how well the timing of this introduction-previously delayed by my own inertia and the practitioner’s unavailability-has turned out to be just right for my needs.