The New Jersey Drones Mystery And Its Connection To Natural Dreamwork

I have been following the currently-still-developing story of New Jersey’s “drone invasion” with interest. As of the time I am writing this, it’s been less than a week that the story has made it into the mainstream national or local news, despite the phenomenon being witnessed by many in NJ for almost a month, and globally for much longer than that.

I am interested, in part, because I live in New Jersey. I witnessed anomalies in the air twice myself this past week. My Ring app is blowing up with notifications from neighbors sharing videos. For the first time in my life, I have been having conversations with childhood friends and family about UAPs and “aliens” on a level that feels almost …shall we say … secular? What I mean by that is the conversation is not as loaded as it typically has been with the question of whether or not UFOs or aliens are “real.” I am still being met with skeptical stares by some, but most seem more willing to be in conversation about the possibility of the “Phenomenon”, now that unidentified aerial phenomena are being reported on their Ring apps.

Who knows how I will feel about all of this in a week or a month or a year, when our Future Selves (hopefully) know more about or understand better what is going on in the skies over our heads. However, I am writing this article precisely to reflect on what it’s like to be in a state of such uncertainty about something potentially paradigm shifting, and what I have noticed about my own and others’ reactions to this potentially paradigm shifting phenomenon. And, of course, ultimately I want to reflect on how both connect to dreams, dreamwork, and healing.

If you read the comments section of any YouTube video on the NJ drones, you will get a pretty good picture of the various ways human beings (or at least those of us in developed Western countries) seem to meet high strangeness.

Some claim to be scared. Others are angry. Some are demanding we “shoot one down.” Others are preparing for “first contact.” There are those who think the drones are foreign adversaries, and others who believe their “ours.” There are people who think it’s all a maneuver by the outgoing US government to topple the incoming one and there are others who believe it’s a plan by the powers-that-be to either gauge the public’s reaction to Disclosure or prepare the public slowly for Disclosure. Hardly anyone is saying it’s simply Walmart or Amazon scouting for new delivery routes, but I did watch a video of one former government official who posited that.

Friends are asking me what I think “they are.”

I have some thoughts or ideas or leanings about what “they are”, but what’s been more notable to me is how my thoughts, ideas, and leanings have seemed to change as the days pass. I have been curiously noticing this week how it feels in my body and in my nervous system to witness unfamiliar vehicles fly in the sky behind my house, or to cautiously discuss the topic with two of my close friends over text, or to watch a NewsNation interview with a former State Department analyst who willingly discusses the possibility that the drones are an example of “mimicry.” (The idea that UAPs / non-human intelligence can and do disguise themselves as human-made drones or vehicles.)

I’ve been trying to notice how it feels to share Instagram reels about drone sightings with my dad, who was my first “friend” when it came to paranormal interests or how it feels to hear my teenager insist we are all “delusional.” This morning, I noticed that it felt somewhat affirming to read a NY Post headline that uses the word “gaslight” in reference to our government.

I’ve also noticed how little fear I feel, and wondering if that is dissociative or the opposite: an embodied shifting toward equilibrium now that finally the world outside, in some small part, seems to be resonating more closely with my inner experience, my inner knowing that there is more to our reality than what we perceive day-to-day with our five senses or what we are told by our trusted leadership, whether that’s in government, on the news, or in academic institutions. Admittedly, there is something very satisfying about a topic that has been so taboo for most of my life finally being spoken about at the dinner table or at the proverbial watercooler.

I feel grateful for the time and ability to reflect on how all of this is making me feel. I understand that it’s a blessing to be able to have this time — not all potentially paradigm-shifting scenarios would allot me the time and space to tune into my feelings. (I have had many a “bad dream” that barely left me time to pack a bag before fleeing the scene from a potential alien invasion.)

I credit my personal dreamwork and my healing work over the past few years for this ability to tune into how the uncertainty of this week is impacting my nervous system, my sleep, my conversations with others, my attention, and my felt sense of being in my body, or not. It’s through the slow and deliberate tuning into my heart and body that Natural Dreamwork invites me to do that I have become alert to how reactive I am to “the strange” or “the unexpected.” 

In dreams, I am not as receptive to “the stranger” as I like to think I am in waking life. I started to notice how my reactivity to “the stranger” not only keeps me from knowing people as they truly are, but prevents me from relating to people in a way that could be nourishing or helpful to me or them. Recently, I wrote about one particular Natural Dreamwork session that made me realize just how quickly my mind and stories take over when I am confronted by an unexpected stranger in a dream, especially if the stranger appears in an otherwise relaxed or homey place – such as “at the back door” or “at my car window.” When we are met with the unexpected in our own backyard – as some of us in New Jersey have been with unidentified flying objects over our heads – our reactions can be even more extreme. In the above-mentioned dream, for instance, I see an unfamiliar woman standing quietly on my back porch and I immediately grab a knife from the kitchen counter to defend myself.

There is a lesson for us this week in how we respond to mystery, how we react to strangeness, how we behave when we believe we are being lied to by the authorities, and how the reactions of those around us to all of the above make us feel and behave.

One conspiracy theory I’ve read in the YouTube comments is that this is a mass psychological experiment. Perhaps it is, even if it turns out it was not executed as such with intention. And perhaps, rather than being distracted by the implications of such a conspiracy, we would each do better to observe our own emotional well-being during these times as those of us who are paying attention continue to be met with information that’s difficult to digest or fit inside our assumptions about reality. There are those of us who choose, at times, to not pay attention. Indeed, there is a lesson in that for all of us, too. As there is yet another lesson for those of us hyper-focused on it.

We will need this kind of attunement in the coming months and years—even if the drones turn out to be “nothing.” 

In our nightly dreams, we are quite often met with scenarios that don’t make sense, with characters who seem out of place, and with events we don’t have the experience yet to process or respond to with grace, ease, compassion, or skill. When we work our dreams with Natural Dreamwork, we get clued into how our conditioning and our beliefs lead to a lot of reactivity. By re-entering strange dreams and slowing them down, we can begin to notice how much our assumptions and stories drive our decisions and behavior.

Using our dreams and dreamwork, over time, we can learn how to slow down, and to question our assumptions before reacting. Instead of reacting, we can tune into what it feels like to be met by the stranger or strangeness. We can sit with that feeling and feel what arises next. Notice that in our body. Notice how that feeling is familiar from waking life, or not.

I don’t know about you, but for me, for a while now, it’s felt as if we are living in strange times.

In my experience, our dreams try to prepare us for this. They invite us to practice it. Sometimes such dreams are precognitive, and sometimes not. They don’t need to be in order to show us who and how we are.

For me, meeting this kind of strangeness in waking life is exciting. It’s also, at times, overwhelming and stressful. Sometimes, when I sit in my cozy chair and attempt practicing stillness (which is hard); and I consider the implications of this all leading to a paradigm shift — such as Disclosure — it feels both terrifying and awe-inspiring. But admittedly, it’s still difficult even for me, a “believer”, to imagine how it will feel to inhabit in my body a world I have only ever experienced in dreams.

Dreamwork has not magically transformed me into an individual who no longer reacts to stress or overwhelm, or who never allows assumptions or beliefs to drive my decisions. Like everyone else I am a work in progress and will be until the day I die.

However, during a week that has felt a bit dream-like, I have found myself better equipped to meet the strangeness of it all as a result of already practicing it with my dreams and I wonder how I will feel (and react) as it continues to unfold.

(A version of this article was originally published on jenmaidenberg.com)