OBJECTIVES & DECISION

Dreamer's induction

To define objectives in a free and creative way

The Dreamer, together with the Realist and the Critic, are the components of a creative and accomplishing process. The Dreamer is the one who defines the goals, "what" will be done. Freer the Dreamer, more the creations. This induction (originally called 'meditation') of Robert B. Dilts stimulates the freedom and creativity of the Dreamer, with an emotive final. 

You should previously read Your Capacities: Linguistic induction and Creativity: Profile - Walt Disney

Place your body in a comfortable and relaxed position. Sit in a posture and physiology that would really support your ability to dream. If your physiology were able to put you in a state in which you could really let out the dreamer in you, how would you be sitting? What direction would your head be tilted? Where would you be breathing? What kind of muscular tension would you feel in your body?

 What would be the quality of your internal voice if you were really able to dream? Would it be excited and whispering? Or would it be just sound? Maybe it would be encouraging or questioning. Or maybe it would sound very confident. Tune your internal voice to a quality of voice that leads you to your dreams and points you towards them.

And then you can begin to visualize a special kind of dream. A dream for the planet. If you could make a beautiful dream for the planet, what would it be? And since it is just a dream, you needn't worry about whether it is possible or practical. You can dream freely. If you could dream up your own version of a utopia, what would your vision be? How would technology fit into this global dream for the planet? What would happen to war? How would your children be educated? How would people of different parts of the world communicate with each other? In what ways would we use the tools that we have in the service of the planet, and of the people on it, in an ecological and creative way?

 Allow your dream to move you into the future. What would medicine be like? Would people still go to doctors as we have them now? Would there still be hospitals anymore? If you could change the world just by dreaming it, by visualizing it, how would you transform the hospitals and the schools and the companies? What is the office of the future going to look like? Would there even be offices? Or would everybody be connected together through their homes? How would people travel in the future? There's no need to limit yourself by today's technology. Imagine that you live on a planet where anything that you imagine could automatically become reality. The only limit would be the limits of your imagination.

 How would we treat animals and the plant life in the future? Would we need lawyers or therapists? What would be the most important job in the future?

 What kind of music would you be listening to in the future? What would the museums of the future be like? If you went to a museum where you saw artifacts of today, which one would be the most amusing to the people of the future? What could you dream that would change the world the most? Which parts of our lives have the most space to change?

 Imagine you could change the world through something that you yourself did. Dream about what you would do, and what would change in the world.

 And let your unconscious mind continue that dream in the way that is the most appropriate for you - in a way that gives you an inner sense of pleasure, excitement and hope.

 Then, for a moment, allow your mind to shift from the future to the past. Think back over your life and find a time when a dream came true for you. Remember something that at one time had just been a dream for you. Then later on, you discovered that somehow it had come true.

 For instance, twenty years ago, when I was first getting involved in NLP, I had a dream that maybe some day, creative, intelligent, and committed people, would be gathering together sharing a common interest and understanding of the mind and the strategies of the worlds greatest geniuses; and that they would be working together to change the world. By reading this book, you have become a part of making that dream come true.

 There was a time, many years ago now, when my mother wasn't expected to live another six months. I had a dream that maybe it was possible for her to find her own inner resources and heal herself in a way that hadn't been thought possible before. Today, she is another one of my dreams come true. 

My children are certainly a dream come true for me. And perhaps each of you has had dreams that have come true. And maybe if you find one, you will start realizing, "Oh yes, there is another one!" Maybe there are even dreams that have come true that you have forgotten were actually just dreams at one point in your life because they are just normal reality now - another lousy day in paradise.

 And maybe we have an unconscious competence as individuals or as a collective group of people that can make these dreams come true if we could give ourselves the permission to dream them.

 As you look at the world around you, notice how many of the things that you see around you, are actually dreams that have come true; the room in which you are sitting, the electric light by which you may be reading, the chair upon which you are resting, the book you are holding in your hand. All of these things were at one time just a dream in someone's mind, but now they have come into being.

 We live in a world of dreams which have come true. Perhaps you yourself have helped others to make their dreams come true. Maybe you are somebody's dream that came true. Perhaps your parents dreamed of you before you were born. Perhaps you have entered someone's life at the very moment they needed someone like you.

 So cherish your dreams. Cherish those dreams that have come true. And as you return to the present at the rate of speed that is the most appropriate for you, maybe you can feel yourself standing in that exciting position, on the threshold of a new dream. Behind you are the dreams that have come true. Ahead of you are the new dreams that give your life meaning.

Robert B. Dilts

In Strategies of Genius, Volume III

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