To the collective, dreams bring radical, powerful revelations of cultural and planetary ene rgies, patterns and possibilities. More would be known about how dreams comment on modern Western culture if dreamsharing were common practice, as it was in ancient times and continues to be today in various other cultures. The dream's inherent, unflinching honesty makes it a potential threat to the larger community. To encourage paying attention to dreams is to encourag e and endorse collective awakenings which might be instrumental in destroying the fabric of existing powerstructures. Dreams bring im aginings of change.
D reams can therefore be powerful allies in the process of effecting change.
Conversely, collective apathy is well-served by dismissing the possibility of dreamtime's relevance to waking life. Nuclear destruction is the central theme of the dreams collected by Ortiz Hill. The images are of ashen landscapes, incinerated cities, ecological holocaust, and of the Bomb itself. This portrait is painfuly reminiscent of the heartbreaking images of the tiniest victims of the destruction in Oklahoma City. Ortiz Hill points out that by obliterating any illusion of betude in myself, a self-protective inno cence that keeps me from having to recognize horror,to name it, to experience anger and indignation over it, and to cry out in protest.