She Rises While It Is Still Night: Dreaming in the Four Worlds of Kabbalah

Author Tamar Frankiel says,

The dreams retold in this book come from nearly two decades of dream experiences. Most, but not all, come from my own dream journals. I don't usually distinguish between my dreams and those of others, however. One reason is to preserve privacy for the dreamers and their friends and loved ones who are dreamed. Another, however, is that dreams are not necessarily personal. Even a dream that clearly alludes to a personal situation of the dreamer may have meanings for other people, hints on how to read dreams, or teachings about mystical cosmology. As Kaplan teaches, dreams do not belong to us.4
In that light, I also want to note that the dreams herein were chosen to illustrate specifics of the various mystical Worlds, so I focus on how a dream represents one type. Many dreams are a mixture of types, as a dreamer's psyche may be touched by different soul energies on the same night. So if your dreams seem more chaotic or scattered than the ones recorded here, don't be discouraged. We learn to sort them out and hear the soul's messages more clearly as we mature in dreaming together.

From the perspective of Jewish mysticism, I write to re-introduce a particular spiritual cosmology known as the Four Worlds tradition, showing how the realities revealed in dreams and the Worlds described by kabbalistic tradition mutually reinforce each other. As I recognized when I first read Kaplan's work, the congruence between the four levels of dreaming and the kabbalistic tradition of the four "worlds" of consciousness is nothing short of amazing.2 For me, it is both confirmation and expansion of our understanding of the hidden dimensions that are the roots of our manifest reality.
By "hidden dimensions" I refer to the metaphor of the "tree of life" which, according to Jewish and other mystics as well as some archetypal psychologists, has its roots in heaven (God, Cosmos, Creator) while its branches reach down to produce fruits on earth. Our existence is patterned on that tree, and we cannot fully live unless we are connected to our heavenly roots. Moreover, each of our lives is a channel for the vitality of that tree. The Four Worlds is one way of describing the fundamental pattern, in four levels. The four types of dreaming are like four channels, within the vast consciousness of soul, that connect us to that pattern. Thus our dreams reflect those deeper dimensions of our very existence, once we begin to open their secrets.3
The path of dreaming has led me to what I knew the mystical path must promise: fullness and wholeness in my life; greater surety, confidence, and faith; the blessings of communities of support, and the promise of future growth. May you find your own way on this path as well.