Author Rosemary Guiley shared her expertise on dreams and their interpretations as the guest on Tuesday night. Dreams arise from the oldest part of the brain and take place in their own kind of dimension or "dreamscape," she said.

"On a mass scale we are all connected through consciousness," said Guiley, who believes that dreams can affect the path of the future. Towards that end, she has become involved in a Dream Activism Group, formed after 9-11 as a side project at the Association for the Study of Dreams. The goal of the activism group is "to get people to dream together in a positive way at the same time," and two dates are set aside each month, she explained.

Guiley said people can use "incubation" techniques to induce certain types of dreams, or dream experiences. For example, "tonight I dream the awakened heart," is one affirmation she suggested saying to oneself before going to sleep. Interestingly she noted that mugwort "the dreaming herb" can be placed in a cotton sachet under one's pillow to encourage vivid dreams.

Dream Animals

Rosemary Ellen Guiley has explored the fascinating terrain of dream animals. "Animals are the dream world's greatest teachers," she writes in an article from her website. She suggests that animals that appear in our dreams represent the unconscious and as such can reveal material from deeper or higher layers of our being. Certainly animals have played a major role in mythologies and religions throughout the ages, and these associations and symbols can reverberate in our dreams. James Hillman, the author of Dream Animals, refers to these creatures of our psyche as "archetypal eternal images." These inhabitants of our imagination, he says, are unpredictable, and cannot be "captured" into a single meaning.

Guiley believes dream animals can point us towards traits that we need to develop. "Whether they seem to be friend or foe, dream animals are our spiritual allies, guides and teachers," she writes. Meanwhile in the humdrum waking world, my cat seems to be saying nothing more than, 'get away from that computer and open up a can of cat food!'