Feel confused or don't know the answer? Maybe you should sleep on it

 

What to do, what to do, what to do???  We’ve all had the experience, where some issue just doesn’t seem clear to us, some decision just seems impossible to make, some problem just seems too difficult to solve.  We may have wrestled with the issue in our our minds, maybe tried writing a list of pros and cons, perhaps spoken to friends, family or experts.  And yet some how the way forward still isn’t clear.  We may feel torn, anxious or just at a dead end.  So, what to do?

 

It may seem like a meaningless cliche, but the advice to “sleep on it” is not as useless as it may at first seem.  In our sleep our subconscious mind takes over.  It is the role of this part of our mind to make meaning, to make sense of things.  This part of mind, freed from the normal waking constraints of annoying things like logic, laws and social convention, can also be our most creative.   We know our minds in this state ignore all the usual rules and regulations, or else how else could we fly or breathe underwater, and why else would we turn up to class naked or become another person as we do in our dreams?  It is precisely this kind of free thinking that can solve problems for us.

But dreams aren’t simply random creative ideas, dreams are the way our subconscious attempts to resolve conflict.  If there is something in our lives that is not working, if we hate our job or don’t know how to confront our parents with our true feelings, dreams will try and work it out for us.  The trick is to recognise the answers when they come.

This can be difficult when we have not even admitted to ourselves or recognised exactly what our issue or concern is.  But it is much easier when we know what the problem is, but we just don’t know the answer.  We can actively look for our answers in our dreams.  There are some tricks and techniques we can use to help tis process be more effective:

• Get as much advice, or do as much research as you can while awake about whatever the particular question of concern is.  This is like feeding our minds.  It doesn’t matter if we don’t remember it all or process it consciously, the information still goes into our minds, and when are asleep our subconscious can take over, looking for connections we may have missed, drawing conclusions we couldn’t grasp while awake.
• Think about the problem or question just as you go to sleep.  Write it down, draw it or even say it out loud.  Stating the problem clearly makes it easier to understand the answer.  Give a message to your own subconscious, tell yourself what you need to know and repeat this silently in your mind as you fall asleep.  This can trigger the subconscious to start working on that problem straight away.  It knows where to focus and will take up where you left off when you were awake.
• Think about the question you had as soon as you wake up.  Write down any fragments or images or words that come into your mind, however fleeting and irrelevant they may seem.  Take time to try and remember you dreams clearly, and record it in as much detail as possible.
• Persist and persist!  If the answer does not come after one night, do not give up!  Give it time, let your subconscious grapple with all the complexity, let it also try to formulate an answer in a way that in your waking state will make sense to you.  This kind of thinking is a skill, like any other, that requires time and practice to master.

 

Our subconscious mind may find creative solutions our waking mind can't see

But the rewards are well worth it.  Scientific breakthroughs, ideas for great works of art and literature, mathematical equations – all have come to people who cultivated their dreams to help them understand and resolve waking life issues (see “Famous Dreams” post).  But more simple, and yet more profound breakthroughs can happen for all of us on a very personal level.  It might be whether to leave our job, whether this person is the right one to marry, or how to tell someone that significant secret we have been harbouring.  Whatever it is, if we feel lost, confused, and don’t know which way to turn, we can always find support and guidance by looking within, by listening to the voice inside of us, through the special language of our dreams.  We would all do well to heed the advice, and “sleep on it”