Dream a little dream on me
Dream a little dream on me
Forestville woman co-authors a vibrant new tool to help you explore your dreams—and your life
Melissa Grace Chianta didn’t start out to create an oracle deck about dreaming. “The Dreaming Oracle,” published in June 2024, started off more as a lark.
Chianta, a Jungian life coach who lives in Forestville, met painter Cara Roxanne 12 years ago at a dream workshop in Stinson Beach. Both admirers of 20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung, the two hit it off. When Roxanne returned to her native Britain, they corresponded sporadically and kept in touch on Facebook, where Cara began posting some of her paintings.
“They were beautiful, and I just messaged her and said, ‘These would make a great oracle deck!’ And she said, yeah, and then she held me to it,” Chianta said.
The two decided to meet via Skype to work on the project. This was in early 2020.
“And it just so happened that the week that we decided to meet and write on our first card was the week that the COVID lockdown began,” Chianta said. “So we decided, ‘Well, I guess this will be our lockdown project.’ It turned into a way for us to deal with what was happening—the isolation and the fear—and so we met every week to either work on one of our dreams and or write about one of her paintings.”
“It was such a dark time for the world and for us personally,” she said. “I mean, the isolation, having to stay in for that first part of the pandemic, where there was a real fear of even going out in public. It was really amazing for two people who deeply love dreams and the nourishment they provide us, psychologically and on a soul level, to be able to work on those with each other and make something from it.”
It took them four years to finish the 60-card deck and accompanying book, which was co-written and edited by Chianta, who worked in publishing for many years, including a stint as managing editor of Mothering magazine. Roxanne did the artwork and oversaw the printing of the book and deck in Britain.
They unveiled the deck at the International Association for the Study of Dreams Conference, which was held this year in the Netherlands. They gave a well-received workshop at the conference, which they’ll be reprising this weekend at Soft Medicine in Sebastopol.
How it works
“It operates the way any other oracle deck does,” Chianta explained. “Oracle decks are different than tarot decks. Tarot decks have a very ancient system with various suits that mean various things, and it’s all very codified. Oracle decks are more freewheeling.”
“It’s based on the idea of divination—the idea that really you’re working with the concept of synchronicity, which is a concept that Carl Jung brought to the mainstream. There’s some unknown force that you’re working with—that when you hold something in your mind and you pick a card that, there’s an answer at some level for you. It’s going to speak something to you, some kind of insight. One of the uses of this deck is to help you work with your dreams or with your own consciousness.”
Chianta said that The Dreaming Oracle also works as “an introduction to Jungian psychology and archetypes.”
“Especially when working with mythological figures and archetypes and also dream figures, all are seen as part of ourselves,” she said. “So when we look at things that way, then the cards can be used for psychological insight.”
“They can be used in the traditional way of predicting things, but they also go deeper to help you explore what are your hidden thoughts and feelings about things that you’re maybe not so aware of.”
As with tarot, the accompanying book offers several different spreads—that is, different configurations of cards that offer different conceptual windows. For instance, there’s a two-card spread called “The Ego and Self,” which Chianta explains is like the conscious and the unconscious: “Like, what does my mind want? How is my mind perceiving this? And then, how is the larger spiritual energy within me perceiving this?”
“One of the basic tenets of Jungian psychology is that we, through making art and through dream work, can tap into what’s called the Self, capital ‘S’ in Jungian psychology, which is basically the divine within us,” she said. “The idea is that every time we encounter the divine, we learn something or we have an experience of ourselves that may be different than our everyday experience. And the idea is to bring that back into the ego-mind, everyday-reality and integrate it. Every time we do that, we get more and more of our wholeness back.”
There’s also a three-card “Tension of the Opposites” spread. “Another important aspect of Jungian psychology is the concept of the creative tension of the opposites,” Chianta said. “So where there are two opposing forces, there will arise a third thing. And the third thing is often the point of growth.”
The book includes many other spreads based on Jungian principles.
The Workshop at Soft Medicine
Chianta and Roxanne are giving a workshop at Soft Medicine this coming Sunday.
“The beginning part will be about a half hour talk that I will give on the basic components of dream interpretation or analysis from a Jungian point of view,” Chianta said. “Then we will do the sound healing part. And that is especially for people who haven’t brought a dream, because sound healing can usher in images and thoughts that go through your mind when you’re in a more meditative state. So you can work with those as if they were dreams. Or if you bring a dream, it can be a time where you’re just kind of letting the images of the dream float around and sensing your thoughts and feelings about them. It’s kind of just to get you in the dreamy state. And then after a break, the group will break up into pairs, and they will explore. Each person will have 20 minutes or so to explore their dream with the other person offering some ideas or thoughts about the dream’s meaning.”
There will also be an opportunity to make your own dream oracle card to take home.
How to talk about dreams
Chianta said she uses the Ullman method, popularized by Jeremy Taylor, to talk about dreams in a way that helps the dreamer explore a dream’s meaning more deeply.
“One approach I like very much is to say, ‘If it were my dream…’ Like, ‘If it were my dream and I saw, say, Mother Mary in my dream, I would feel comforted and blessed. But what are your associations?’ So there’s ‘If it were my dream,’ but then the main thing after that is to ask questions, like ‘What are your associations with this image?’ because that matters more, right? And that’s part of one of many questions that we'll talk about.”
“You’re never telling someone what their dream means, because a dream is sacred space,” she said. “So you want to really honor that. The dream is a sacred message from that person’s unconscious, and that message is entirely unique to them.”
The DIY Dream Oracle Workshop + Sound Healing is this Sunday, Oct. 6, from 1 to 4 pm. ($45-$75 sliding scale) at Soft Medicine, 186 N. Main St., Sebastopol. Sign up here. You can find out more the Dreaming Oracle at thedreamingoracle.com and about Chianta’s work at her website, thenightisjung.com. You can see more of artist Cara Roxanne’s work here.