A metaphor I have found helpful in learning how to maintain a number of options is that of sowing seed. When a seed is planted, it is helpful to water it (i.e., add energy to it) a little, but then it must be left alone. Then the sower returns from time to time to fertilize it and water it some more. It usually would not do simply to stand over the seed and continuously pour water on it. Further, the sower does not depend solely on the successful sprouting of one or two seeds, but plants a crop. Some of the seeds may never sprout, but some are bound to. If the sprouts eventually do not bear a nourishing fruit, they can be plowed back into the soil to fertilize it for a new planting. This horticultural rhythm can be applied to questing.

I have found that "unconscious" puns can sometimes provide powerful metaphorical communications to us on the essence of the Senoi philosophy as it may be applied in our culture. A favorite pun I was "given by my spirit guide" in a workshop is: "How to Have More: Re-Quest."

I am making two assumptions. First, by accepting experiences in the dream universe at face value while still dealing with them in an active and successful manner, and yet not attempting to assign additional meanings to them consciously, a person may accept more waking life events at face value as well. Consequently one might forego the frequent tendency in our culture to distance oneself from affective experience by over-intellectualization. Secondly, assuming our mind can operate in either a verbal/linear mode or a metaphorical/intuitive mode, it is possible that the majority of a Westerner's defenses or "roadblocks" to growth are linear in nature, particularly in the form of rationalizations. By resolving conflicts metaphorically, we may in some way be bypassing this linear "resistance." Given this hypothesis, I have noted a "filtering through" process whereby an individual acquires intellectual understanding of the dream world events some time after having completed the dreamwork. This phenomenon appears to occur through association rather than by deduction and has been described by a large number of participants as quite pleasing and preferable to analytic interpretation.