My father started asking about my dreams as soon as I could speak, and my mother encouraged me to draw my dreams even earlier. Even though my father was an ordained Unitarian Universalist Minister, the saints of our house were Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Our sacred texts were fairy tales from around the world and Bulfinch’s Mythology. Our hymns were the stunning singing of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and the British folk rock of the 1960s, which brought traditional storytelling songs from the British Isles back into the hearts of the beat generation.

I grew up on Pleasant Lane in Marin County, California, in a quirky home built by an immigrant named “Frenchy” in 1868. I still remember combing estate sales and flea markets with my dad as he searched for the old glass fuses that our house still used. We had a printing press in the basement, and that’s where my father’s first publications (and many of his friends’) were born, under the name “Dream Tree Press.”

We always had at least four cats, and at one point ten. My mother and I also fed all the strays, and animals were my first friends. Being the only child of two hyper intellectual and very introverted parents, I didn’t have a lot of options to play with kids my own age, so I learned to read quickly, being the only kid in kindergarten who was reading at a third grade level. I grew up in a house that was wall-to-wall books, so there was always something new to read. In fact, when my parents died, author and dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley trucked out 8 tons of books from their small ranch home in Fairfield, where they moved in 2008. My father’s library will be preserved in Kelly’s Dream Research Library, which he is building just outside Portland, Oregon.

Our house was also a dream community gathering space. During the day, my father’s one-on-one clients would tramp down the 82 steps from the street to our lopsided little house, walking through my mother’s elaborate garden and ringing the doorbell. It was my job to let them in, offer them tea or water, and show them the way down yet more stairs, into the converted basement where my father sat with clients. As I played with my dolls, I would hear shrieking, crying and laughing as he worked their dreams with them. His clients would then resurface, looking dazed and grateful, and disappear until their next session. In the evenings, our house would host dream groups of various sizes. Again, I remember hearing fights and tears and uproarious laughter, as I curled up with one of my many cat friends, while reading a Tintin comic, or playing a game on my Nintendo.

At fifteen, I hosted my very first dream group among my peers at Unitarian Universalist camp. I remember not even being nervous, because I knew exactly how to host this kind of circle. It was in my bones. I loved sharing with my friends in this way, since I often had trouble connecting on other levels. With no siblings, I had to grow up very quickly in order to feel seen or heard in my house. Needless to say, my high school friends weren’t talking about Jung and Campbell. But when I found the Renaissance Faire, I found peers that I could connect with, since I knew so much about British history and mythology. My world started to open up and become larger.

As I grew up and left home, the language of dreams was still the best way to speak to my father. Whenever I shared about other struggles – be it boyfriends, frustrating jobs, or problems with my housemates – he seemed lost and disinterested. This was challenging, and yet a strange blessing as well, because he was so open and free with his deep teaching and transmissions around how to be the best dream worker I could be.

Throughout my teens and twenties, I was a teaching assistant for many of my father’s workshops, as well as other incredible dream teachers like Kelly Bulkeley and Fariba Bogzaran. I learned Dream Theater from the lovely and kind Jessica Allen (may she rest in power). I started making my own dream artwork and my final show for my Masters in Arts and Consciousness from John F. Kennedy University included a whole series of my own dream art. No matter where I roamed and what kind of work I was doing, the power of the unconscious and its inexhaustible gifts was always a part of me. I continued to work my own dreams (with my father, mother, and others) and I began to build a side business of offering my own dreamwork skills to other people, groups and institutions.

I am so proud to continue my father’s legacy through my own dreamwork offerings which include online groups, one-on-one work and teaching for both the Chaplaincy Institute and Morbid Anatomy Academy. I am grateful for all his blessings. Rest in power, Dad. Rest in power, Mom. I will always love you.

~ Tristy Taylor, August 2022