Sometimes a source of comfort and encouragement comes in the form of a song. This is not surprising, music carries a resonance that goes beyond words. A song can magically bypass the thinking, label-making brain and bring us in touch with the Divine.

If you have been following my blog, you will know how fascinated I am with dreams. For many years, I have written them down, sometimes analysing them or allowing them to inform my practise as an artist and also guide me along my spiritual path. To put this dream in context with my life, I had been experiencing artist block, and just a general lack of confidence and direction in my arts practise. I was working on a painting with a kind of frustrated energy, painting then painting over things, changing composition and colour endlessly. It felt like I was going round and round in circles with no sense of agency or purpose. I was hovering dangerously close to full blown depression. This dream occurred in one of those lucid moments that happen just before waking up fully.

The Dream

I was in a dark closet, playing a motivational tape by one of the teachers from ‘the Psychic Teachers’ podcast I used to listen to. There was ivy all around me. The teacher said, very clearly, “I am going to play a song and just really listen”. I recognised the song, it was ‘Dream Weaver’. My first reaction was how left field it seemed, it had never been one of my favourites or one I had connected to anything. As I heard the song I felt the presence of Jesus- a very real and palpable presence. Then I woke up.

The Investigation

I knew I needed to look into the symbolic content of this short dream. It had such a lucid and clear feel to it, like Spirit took an opportune moment to shoot an arrow into my psyche in the short moments where I was open enough to receive it. The first thing I found was the backstory to the song by Gary Wright:

“In 1972, my friend George Harrison invited me to accompany him on a trip to India. A few days before we left, he gave me a copy of the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Needless to say the book inspired me deeply, and I became totally fascinated with Indian culture and philosophy. My trip was an experience I will never forget. During the early ’70s while reading more of the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda, I came across a poem called God! God! God!. One of the lines in the poem referred to the idea of the mind weaving dreams and the thought immediately occurred to me, weaver of dreams… Dream Weaver. I wrote it down in my journal of song titles and forgot about it. Several months passed, and one weekend, while in the English countryside, I picked up my journal and came across the title ‘Dream Weaver.’ Feeling inspired, I picked up my acoustic guitar and began writing. The song was finished in an hour. The lyrics and music seemed to have flowed out of me as if written by an unseen source. After the record was released and became successful many people asked me what the song meant. I really wasn’t sure myself and would answer ‘it was about a kind of fantasy experience… a Dream Weaver train taking you through the cosmos.’ But I was never satisfied with that explanation, and as years went by I began to reflect on what the song actually meant and then it came to me: ‘Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night…’ was a song about someone with infinite compassion and love carrying us through the night of our trials and suffering. None other than God Himself.”

(Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/gary-wright/dream-weaver)

Needless to say, these words comforted and blessed me beyond my ability to express. Even the way the song came together for him gave me so much encouragement. The alchemy and co-creation we get to participate in with God, it is truly wonderous.