Hi Joanne,

Thanks for your inquiry about how dreams can be used as a form of adventure or entertainment.

The Odyssey -or- Dreaming of Adventure

History is replete with this idea.  The literary beginnings for Western civilization are found in Homer's tale of the Trojan War Illiad and later Odyssey. Homer used dreams as a literary device to serve the purposes of the Gods. The ancient Roman philosopher Cicero On The Republic features the dream of Scipio which can be viewed as a disembodied soul who is able to travel through the universe. Some have called  this phenomena, astral projection, others such as Robert Munroe Journey's Out of the Body call it out of body experiences and yet others call it remote viewing. Remote viewing was a phenomena that apparently the US military (The Stargate Project) was very interested in for a while. Danid A. Morehouse Psychic Warrior reports about the American "intelligence communities" uses of remote viewing. The IIDR sends "greetings"!

I prefer to call the phenomena of lucid dreaming, a sub-variety of Dream Vision, which has clinical psychological and pragmatic value in treating patients who have been traumatized and suffer from nightmares caused by the trauma.

As a stage the dream has been a durable experiential device, playing itself out in all generations and all places. We can think of Dante's Divine Comedy Dream Vision wandering with his guide though hell on his way to heaven and salvation. Mohammed the founder of Islam, experienced a "magic carpet" ride, a Night Journey that would in part set the stage for our present religious and political scene and the dilemmas the planet is faced with. Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol is viewed as a morality tale and features Ebenezer Scrooge a man devoted to the dream of avarice and the accumulation of wealth. Dreams of remorse and redemption are induced by frightening spirits who provide a guided tour of his life venturing towards death. The three dream guides of past, present and future are a time honored literary device. Dreams not only poetically transformed Scrooge (see film clip) but were also intended to transfigure the spirit of Victorian England. Adapted for film and television, Christmas Carol in it's variety of personifications is not the only story that perennially returns to Christmas TV screens every season.

Set on Christmas Eve Frank Capra's enchanting It's A Wonderful Life (view video clip) features a man George Bailey down on his luck who contemplates suicide until his guardian angel rescues him and grants him his wish of never having lived. The angel guides George through the community of Bedford Falls whose landscape has been nightmarishly transformed into a place where little humanity exists. An alternate world, an alternate stage where slums, pawn shops and adult entertainment dominate the communities scenery. A very different place and dream because George was not there to make the heroic sacrifices he did for those he loved. George whose day dreams of far away adventure which were forfeit to make a difference for the spirit of family, friends and neighbors, was later echoed in the sentiment of President John F Kennedy's aphorism; "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." (Listen to Kennedy's dream). From the perspective of a woman's spirit of adventure, we can think and turn to such classics as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (see the Disney's version) or perhaps The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland's iconic make believe adventure song Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The dream interpretation Dream within a Dream posted at the IIDR website speaks of the modern adventures of dreaming you are asking about. However....

From my own perspective I am caught in a moral dilemma (read my interpretation, Consciousness Raising Industry sent to the IIDR).  We, have far too many problems on the world stage of our planet playing themselves out daily. We need to focus our resources and energies on solving the tragic problems and misanthropic nightmares that continue to haunt the planet and the Global Village as we speak such as the warped realities of; war, hate, crime, genocide, prejudice (such as anti-Semitism), abuse, starvation, inadequate health care, slavery .... Whether you have a religious, a pragmatic or other psychological bent, the question remains; given these social problems and nightmares, is there salvation, is there hope for the enterprise of our planet? Said otherwise, is there a brighter utopian dream or a darker nightmaric future coming for our children's dreams?

• International Institute f... May 7th '08