Once upon a time, when we were children, Alice tumbled down a rabbit hole, Dorothy and Toto walked into Oz and Wynken, Blynken and Nod sailed off into a sea of stars. Dreams and imagination flew at high mast, as the clear and brightly colored banners of childhood.

Nowadays, in a dreamworkers' group, I'll listen to adults tell their dreams and it sounds like the sparkling night sky has been covered with storm clouds, smothered with low-lying tule fog or enveloped in black forgetfulness. Where did the stars go? What happened to the swinging moon, the soaring comet and the sweet Milky Way?

Dreamwork can clue us into the reasons why the sky closes in. Conflicted dreams are sure signs of psychological wounds and psychic trauma extending back even to infancy. Our abused and neglected child of the past is still alive in us and influences us in the present. Because that child speaks through dreams, dreamwork interpretation techniques can unlock the seeds of conflict.

It is the task of the recovery process to diagnose and heal past abuse, to "recover" the child and make it whole. For some, this merely means a return to what passes for normal in our culture. In dreaming terms, it is a shift from nightmare to the usual, mundane dream.

But the recovered child has been called The Inner Self. The Divine Child. The Magical Spirit. The Creative Child. Recovery actually means going BEYOND the norm.

For those engaged in this creative process, it will involve the "uncovering"of other seeds, like artistic ability that, through development and training, can blossom into marketable talent. It is not presumed nor guaranteed that everyone who recovers his or her Creative Child will become the next Michaelangelo, but that possibility is not dismissed, either. Everyone from the doodler to Dali is honored for re-accessing his or her core spirit of creativity.

I wish I could say I see the same thing happening in terms of the Magical Spirit of Dreams, but I don't. The focus on dreamwork as healing the hurt and fixing the flaw leaves out something very important. While this sort of dreamwork hogs center stage, the Creative, Magical Child is left standing, waiting in the wings.

With the possible exception of the lucid dreaming community, there is little recognition that dreaming is an art, capable of development and training, Some would and have argued against such an active approach. Rather, the emphasis is on dreams as a "natural process." Everybody dreams, let's leave it at that.

My response would be: everybody breathes. That's a natural process, too, but does it mean that no one can or should develop and train breathing? Tell that to the opera singer, the scuba diver, the meditator or the mother-to-be in labor. There are many useful and creative reasons to take a proactive approach to breathing and our society is capable of honoring them all.

So why can't our society do the same honor to the art of dreaming?

As I value helping my physical children to achieve their dreams, so I value the worthy cause of helping my Creative Child of Dreams blossom. I want to liberate the Inner Spirit of dream; to release her genius. I want to return her true royal heritage. I want to see her have every chance to achieve her richest potential, to be the magical, super, wondrous self I know she can be.

So let's blow the lid off the creative glass ceiling-to soar above the limits of mundane, waking ego constraints to the heights of a magical dream life of the Inner Child of Dreams.

Let's take back the starry night.