Exploring the frontiers of gay consciousness with Don Kilhefner

Pay attention to your dreams—they are leading you somewhere: When I was 35 I had two dreams that changed the course of my life. Up until that time I paid absolutely no attention to my dreams. I hardly even knew I had dreams, those I remembered I gave no attention, and no one had ever talked to me about the importance of listening to my dreams.

Then, in the mid-1970s, while I was living with 10 other gay men in a politically-active gay liberation collective in Highland Park from which much of the development of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center originated, I had the following dream one morning: I am driving up Figueroa St. in Highland Park on my way home from the Center to the Collective when, about two blocks ahead of me, I see a Highway Patrol roadblock checking cars. I woke up confused and perplexed.

At the time I didn’t give the dream a second thought and went about my busy day. When I was in my late 20s and early 30s my life in Los Angeles was taken up with organizing and community building, and life was very busy 24/7. Dreams? No, thank you.

On the day I had the above dream I was coming home in the evening from the Center to the commune driving up Figueroa in Highland Park when I spied a Highway Patrol road-block about two blocks up the street. In a nanosecond I pulled my truck over to the curb where there was a little park and nonchalantly walked to the toilet and then sat on a bench in the park. About an hour later the roadblock was ended and I drove home all shook up.

At the time I had warrants out for my arrest from early anti-Vietnam War resistance work I had done in Washington, D.C., and organizing with the revolutionary Gay Liberation Frontin Los Angeles. I did not want to be stopped by the police. Whew! That was close. Had it not been for the dream earlier that day I might have been caught. All of a sudden dreams piqued my curiosity. It felt like something or someone was looking out for my safety and welfare, and it was communicating with me through my dreams.

I now know it was a precognitive dream—a dream that prepares us, a heads up, for what is to come sometime in the future. If we only paid attention to our dreams we would know that pre-cognitive dreams are not a rare occurrence.

Shortly thereafter I had the following dream: A shadowy figure wearing a robe presents me with the Book of Knowledge to look at. It’s a large, leather-covered, ancient-looking book. The entries are listed alphabetically in columns like in a dictionary. Using my right forefinger as a pointer I slowly go up and down the columns oohing and aahing at all the wonderful wisdom the book contains. When I get to the “D’s” my finger goes to the entry “dreams” and I cannot move it. I remember taking my left hand and placing it on top of my immovable right hand and pushing as hard as I could to dislodge it. I simply cannot move my right hand with its forefinger pointing directly at the word“dreams.” I woke up confused and perplexed.

As a result of these two dreams I began reading about dreams and going to lectures on the subject by Gnostic Bishop Stephan Hoeller. I started individual Jungian psychotherapy. I decided to go back to graduate school to secure a second M. A. degree and a Ph.D. degree in psychology, became a licensed Jungian psychologist, studied the world’s major dreamwork traditions, and began facilitating dream groups for gay men. Currently, I spend four days a week deep-listening and dialoguing with creative gay men and others about their dreams, visions, and imagination. But it all started with dreams about a roadblock in Highland Park and my finger pointing at the word “dreams” in the Book of Knowledge.

I share this part of my life’s journey with you in order to say from personal experience that your dreams are very important and they carry profound intelligence. They know the acorn-in-you has the innate possibility of becoming a mighty oak tree even though the acorn is unconscious of this fact. The scholarly way of saying this is that dreams are teleological—they know what your purpose for being is in this incarnation, even if you do not, and they are trying to get you to that destination. The words destiny and destination come from the same root word. Dreams know that you have an appointment with destiny and they work ceaselessly to get you there on time. If you do not keep that appointment there will be profound disappointment in all aspects of your life. Some of you are probably feeling right now the disappointment of an appointment-not-kept—a life unlived.

Maybe you are also saying to yourself right now, “So what can I do about my dreams? I’m just a sales clerk or auto mechanic or high school student.” Here are some no-cost or low-cost action steps you can take:

Keep a dream journal. Write down your dreams in as much detail as possible as soon as you wake and date them. Otherwise, if you are like me, you are likely to forget them as the day goes on.

Talk with someone about your dreams. Throughout the world dreamwork is usually done with someone else. If you are in psychotherapy, tell your psychotherapist you want to make a little space to talk about your dreams. Or share the dream with your best friend or partner. Many times just in the speaking of the dream and talking about it with another person, the dream will open up for you.

Read about dreams. A good start would be Inner Work: Using Dreams and Creative Active Imagination for Personal Growth and Integration by gay Jungian analyst Robert Johnson. This paperback is good for beginners or seasoned dream tenders. Use only the first half of the book on dreams at first. Robert Bosnak’s A Little Book of Dreams is also quite useful.

Join a dreamwork group. There are several in the Los Angeles area. In the West Hollywood area contact info@guidancetochangeyourlife.com or brian-gleason@sbcglobal.net. In the Pasadena area contact dougcthomas@sbcglobal.net.

Dreams are an easy way to reconnect with yourself—your creativity, your purpose, your source of power, and your sense of imagination and adventure in life. Listening to your dreams is essential for transforming the conventional ego-driven life into a genuine spirit-led life. In one way or another dreams are treated as sacred in virtually every culture in the world. As the great Lakota visionary prophet Black Elk stated in the spiritual classic Black Elk Speaks—“dreams are wiser than men.”

Don Kilhefner, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychologist in West Hollywood. He can be reached at: donkilhefner@sbcglobal.net.