Divination: Making your own Dream Deck.

 Dear Reader,

I am in the process of creating my own Oracle deck. You can make one as well. My Oracle deck is based off of images that reoccur in my dreams. Your deck will be different from mine, but it will be more effective for you. A Dream Deck speaks to you with the symbolism of your deep unconscious Self. The images that your mind creates as you dream can provide you with astonishing amounts of information because our unconscious Self is connected to the spiritual realm and will draw information from there that we need to know.

The first step in creating a Dream Deck is to make a list of symbols and images that come up frequently in your dreams. With the image and symbols, make a brief note as to their meaning. Summarize the concept with the first word that comes to mind as you are considering the image. You'll come back to this in the third step in the process. This word is the 'seed' of the meaning of the image that you will develop more fully as you meditate upon it. Then take your list and a set of blank note cards. Draw one image per card for your deck with the 'seed' word at the base of the image. This serves two purposes. First, it is a verbal cue for your conscious mind to access the unconscious imagery behind the card. The second purpose is to help orient the card in proper directionality for use. You may find that cards have different meanings in different orientations. (This happens pretty commonly in cartomancy.)

Now that you have your cards set up, take each card in turn and deeply contemplate the meaning of the card. Write down the insights that come to you as you are considering your card. Try turning the card into a reversed (upside down) orientation and see if different information comes to you for each card. Remember to keep a record of the insights that come from the cards as you use them. You will find that the Dream Deck will become increasingly detailed and you may be adding new cards to it as time goes on. This is better than making a detailed dream dictionary. (Though building one of those is a good practice.) The Dream Deck allows you to access the symbolism of your personal unconscious mind when you are awake and assess the meanings critically. 

Next week, we'll talk about how you can use your Dream Deck for divination.