As a dream interpreter, I've found that intuition plays a huge part in coming up with a meaning or meanings for dreams. Intuition, however, can go stale if it isn't challenged with new resources that help provide answers.

Challenging yourself just means being willing to look at sources or methods of interpretation you normally wouldn't look at. Simply looking at synchronicities (or "coincidences") brings other resources into your path.

Once you start observing (whether it's something as simple as reading a publication like this and getting some possible ideas or having other things fall across your path with no real explanation), you're on your way to boosting what you can do as an interpreter. Making use of the information you get is the next step, and that's best accomplished by integrating what you've observed into whatever area you store your "intuition information".

A mind exercise that can be used is to envision a place where you store the resources that you use to interpret dreams. For some, it's an actual physical place, with books and notes and other physical representations. For others, it's all a virtual place in the mind, set up similarly. I use both. If something comes across my path, I mentally put it up on a shelf, in a trunk, or somewhere I can go back and retrieve it.

Some may think this "wastes" brain space. But we're told that we only use a small percentage of the brain for actual work. What's the rest for? Well, how about channeling? When we interpret dreams, we *are* channeling information. The source of the channeling may be our higher selves or even guides. Regardless of who comes through there, it's a lot like an airport (which is how I see that brainspace we "don't use").

You can't land a plane without a tower (well, Bruce Willis can) or the other appropriate props, so how can you channel interpretations without a properly staged locale for the information to pass through? Staging the locale is a dynamic process and it requires us to maintain it. At first, it takes effort. Yet, if we train ourselves to naturally incorporate information, then the sweat factor reduces itself considerably. People look to us for insight into their own minds, and if we are stagnant in our own outlooks or methods, our interpretations will be, also. I've tried a few different ways of kicking my intuition when interpreting, and I'd like to share them.

One technique I've found that works with some dreams is having the client draw the images in the dream. For example, I was asked to interpret a dream that involved land, a body of water, and a semi-circular pool beyond both. Intuition led me to ask the person to draw the scenario, and after she did, I held up the picture, which resembled (very clearly) a sunset on the horizon. Without going into much detail here, I can say that based on the circumstances in her life, the semi-circular pool indicated the ending of her relationship (sunset), and the moving toward it her relationship was naturally doing.The chance at having her draw the images worked in this instance because this reading made much more sense than whatever I might have interpreted it as (without the drawing).

Utilizing divination tools can be another challenge to one's interpretative skills. While you probably wouldn't rely on them all the time, using the Tarot to assist in dream interpretation is common enough that a dream interpretation spread is included in the book _Power Tarot_ by Trish MacGregor and Phyllis Vega (and many other Tarot workbooks have them, too). In this particular spread (though I have made my own and they work just as well), cards are drawn for images describing the dream, what the images in the dream itself mean, how they affect your waking life and how to best use the information. I think Tarot cards are useful if you're confronted with a dream that has a "too simple" content, or one that leaves you with no strong impression of any meaning. Whether you read Tarot "by the book" or by intuition, the card meanings can trigger a path for you to make your own interpretation, or they may answer outright what the dream signifies.

A good resource for divination is with a deck known as Soul Cards (by Deborah Koff-Chapin). I can recommend these highly because they aren't traditional Tarot in any way, and since they come with no book of standardized meanings, they enliven an interpreter's mind and vision of the dream.

Whatever method you use to challenge your intuition, it is important to continue to feed it with new resources for it to draw upon. When I interpret, I find the more resources I have to either look at or recall expands the interpretation. Dreams aren't one dimensional and interpretations shouldn't be, either.

Simbilu@bellsouth.net

Simbilu is a writer, tarot card reader, dream interpreter and sacred dance student.