I was in a sales meeting and the discussion came up about how much our website should inform and how much it should engage. That night I had a dream where I saw two people. One was a person who pulls you into the feeling, whether it be yours or hers. And it really doesn’t matter because either way you feel emotionally engaged. The other person in the dream symbolized a person who mentally shares the details of a happening. You go away feeling informed.

I awoke from the dream wondering how I was to interpret and use it. The two subjects of inform and engage were clear. But I felt my dream self was asking me to use those two tools more fully. So I lay there at 4 a.m. going back over my interactions of the day before. I realized I went away most satisfied when I attempted to engage the people who only shared information and I sought information from the ones that only wanted to engage.

If I didn’t engage an informing person’s feelings, I would go away with the facts but not the person. And when someone would come full of emotion but give me no foundation to stand on, I would go away with lots of feeling but not a connection to the person. And since I like to go away feeling full connection between me and the other person, I realized my dream self was just pointing out how to make that happen.

So if someone is totally wrapped up in a feeling, a bit of mental excavating may be necessary to get the other half of the picture. Whereas, if they are just mentally expounding on their perception of the situation, emotional excavating may be necessary.

The dream world made clear that by pulling together the emotional and mental fragments of a conversation, a pathway is cleared so the two of you can reach beyond the fragments to the united place in your hearts.