Early in February, when we celebrated Candlemas, I began thinking about some of the events of the past year. As a dream activist, I had to recognize that we have done quite a lot over the past year to...well, yes, change the world.

The Candlemas candle lighting for peace is an idea introduced to us dreamers by Victoria Quinton, and she has a beautiful display of Candlemas photos up at PeaceTraining.org http://www.peacetraining.org/gallery/index.php

Diana Thompson commented to me in a private post: "I burned a lilac candle, and asked for peace to begin. Thinking back, I wondered if the world was always unpeaceful, and people were less aware of it. So I didn't ask for peace to return, but to begin. The candle had a white interior, lovely."

Diana's words were what got me thinking about peace and the dream reality. I mean, personally, I tend to believe that the world is coming into existence all around me, all the time...as compared with a belief in linear time. So I think that what Diana says is true. There is always un-peace to perceive and deal with, as well as peace. It's a choice.

When I told my friend Lucy that, even though I'm very interested in politics, I was seeing more and more need for political action to take place in the contacts between people, in a very personal sort of way, she quoted the Dalai Lama to me. She said he talks of "inner disarmament."

My own idea is that we are building a world community...and, the case for many of us is that we are building a world community of dreamers. I was talking with Harry Bosma, who has done so much in the past year to build community among dreamers by projects like his More Lucid Dreaming project and the PsiAngels: lovely, fun, free or inexpensive ways for dreamers to get together and just have fun as well as get some work done. "I'm a bit of a reluctant community builder. :-)" Harry said to me, but it seems to me that he's done quite a job, despite his reluctance.

In many ways, I am in awe of all the things that we have accomplished this year. Based on Jeremy Seligson's dream, Peace Trains are making their way around the globe. Jeremy is talking about creating picture books now, of trains children have made in Turkey, Korea, New Zealand, the U.S., Australia, and other places. NickCumbo has created an entire web site devoted to PeaceTraining, www.peacetraining.org.

Through the work of the Aid for Traumatized children project, packages have been purchased in Istanbul, shipped to Amman, Jordan, and taken by car to Baghdad. In a matter of days we've received photos back or Iraqui children smiling over the teddy bears we sent. All because of dreams.

To me, the most amazing thing of all has been how, with the aid of the Internet, the dream community is deepening. Several years ago, I told my friend Kotaro, who lives in Tokyo, that when I was a little girl, I always wanted to have a pen pal. In the days before the Internet, there were little ads in the back of the comic books I read, inviting kids to join pen pal clubs. I never did, but I always cherished the idea of writing to someone who lived in a world far away from mine. Now suddenly I find myself exchanging correspondence with an educator who lives in a city halfway around the world, which was recently bombed by troops from my country.

In one of the pictures sent from the Season Arts School in Baghdad, in the background of the picture, there is a woman standing in the doorway, in the shadows, her arms crossed, watching the teddy bear delivery. I read in her posture a certain contempt, and I thought, "If that were me (if this were my dream?) I would be very angry that people who invaded my country, who maybe killed my husband or child, are now sending teddy bears."

Of course this is my projection, but it breaks my heart nonetheless. I see no way out of this dilemma for myself except to continue to reach out...with my hands, with my heart, and with my dreams. I believe that, in the face of violence (and like Diana I believe there has always been violence) my own dream is to strengthen the community of dreamers, until we can agree that conflicts can be resolved some other way than by mass destruction, and that all people have the right to respect.

I'd like to give a special thanks to Kathy Kelly and the people from Voices in the Wilderness, who connected us with the school in Baghdad. On their web site http://www.serve.com/vitw/ Kathy and others who were working in Iraq before the war to lift sanctions, and who stayed through the bombing of Baghdad, write regular, first person, reports of what they see in Iraq now. Kathy has recently been sentenced to a term in federal prison for "trespassing" at Fort Benning GA to protest the training school for US elite "assassin" troops. This is a type of radical pacifism which challenges me and always has. Sometimes I like to say, "Well, I am just a dreamer, sitting at home by my computer."

In this regard, I am also looking at the community of psi dreamers, which has continued to grow. Psi dreamers are not necessarily dream activists, but there is certainly something about having a precognitive dream that impels people to action. After 9/11, I wrote a paper about dealing with precognitive dreamer guilt. It's still available online Jean Campbell - Dealing with Precognitive Dreamer Guilt: http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/campbell/dreamer_guilt.htm

But it seems to me that the psi dreaming part of the dream community has been growing by leaps and bounds, full of people eager to see what might be possible with precognitive dreams. Now let's talk about dreaming the world! There's no doubt in my mind that people dream predictively some of the time...and that some people are very talented at doing it. I'd love to see more people refine the skills of psi...not just dreaming but awake too, since it seems to me that this is one of the deepest points of connection we have with others in the world. It has been both gratifying and amazing to me to see mutual dreaming pairs appearing on the Internet, like Joy and Ilkin, whose relationship began with mutual dreaming even though they'd never met in the waking world. To me, there is no better indication than this of the connectedness we all share, and have the ability to refine.

I wanted to thank you all, my dreaming friends. When I asked people to join me in a World Dreams Peace Bridge, I had no idea where the bridge might lead, or if it would go anywhere at all. What has developed is a landmark in dream space, a beautiful bridge complete with river and healing Reservoir, a place that people actually visit in their dreams. Who can ask for more in life than to bring the dream forward into all of reality?

Visit our web site at at www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org to learn more about our adventures in dream activism.