Strong Feelings Evoked

Sometimes we’ll awaken from a dream overwhelmed by the strong feelings evoked.  We might be thrilled and awash with relief to discover it was “just a dream”.  Whew!  We don’t live there after all.  On the other hand we might wish we could climb back into it!  We’ve all had dreams that linger for hours or even days.  I can remember dreams that I had a lifetime ago. These sorts of dreams demand our attention but can often be frustrating in their opacity.

A recent Italian study revealed that in an 80 year life span, we spend 20 years of that dreaming. Twenty years of our human existence is spent in pure creativity. We breathe, we eat and we dream. Consider that the dreamer creates an entirely real world in minute detail.

Each dream arouses within us the conviction that we are actually awake and conscious.  This fully awake dream state has precision and detail.  It has shapes that are likely and unlikely, yet realistic enough to make us certain that we are awake.

It’s not the number of dreams you recall, but the depth of work you do with the ones you do. If you recall one dream a year and work deeply with it, you will gain a great deal more benefit that if you recall 100 dreams a year but mindlessly toss them off as “just a dream”.

Collective Dream Themes

There are approximately 34 primary, collective dream themes. Sexual dreams, varying degrees of nudity or exposure, dreams of unpreparedness such as arriving late for a train, bus or plane, falling or teetering on the edge of a precipice, flying under one’s own power, fighting, fleeing, gambling, being chased by a lion or dangerous people, looking in a mirror and finding oneself imprisoned are a few.

There are big dreams and regular housekeeping dreams.  Big dreams signal transitional times in our lives or times of personal growth and change.  They might also tell us important tidbits about our health, relationships or even what is going on with our loved ones that we’re not paying enough attention to.  We don’t have a lot of big dreams.  About 12 in a normal life span.  Consequently you should definitely pay very close attention to these!

Recording Your Dreams

There are many reasons why you’ll be happy you recorded your dreams!  One primary reason is to track your precognitive insights.  Dreams do foretell the future.  How many times have you thought to yourself, “I’ve dreamt this!” Your recorded dreams will offer you great creative inspirations for writing, music, painting or whatever creative endeavours you enjoy in your waking life.

I recommend you use a digital recorder to relay your dreams into immediately upon awakening and transcribe it later when you have some time.  This seemingly laborious process is immensely helpful in helping you to interpret its meaning.

For your written record,

• Remember to give your dream a title, and date it.
• Describe your dream in the PRESENT tense, for example, “I am walking in an old house and as I look out the window I see a black dog peering in at me.”
• Remember to note how you felt immediately upon awakening and how you felt throughout the dream action.  There is a tendency to focus on action and characterization but fail to include how YOU (dream ego) felt throughout the dream experience.
• Don’t forget to include pictures!  Photos, drawings, clippings, online pics – wherever you can find visuals to help you in recalling some detail in the future.

Watch for the direction of the energy. Emotion = energy in motion.  Is it moving forward or backward? Positive or negative?  Progressive or regressive? Young to old or the other way?  From laughter to grief?  Order to disorder? The direction of the energy is represented in the action.

Don’t overlook your dreams. They are powerfully spiritual, and inspirational. Your dreams are the wisest, most objective comment you will ever have about YOU and YOUR LIFE.

Forming a dream study group on your own can be an effective and rewarding way to stay inspired about your dreams.  For a model on how to do that visit my web site on dreams.

My dream dictionary online is free to use and will provide you with some meanings but more importantly offers you an effective methodology for learning how to interpret your own dreams.  Visit my info page as a starting point before going on to look up a dream symbol.