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After paying attention to dreams for a while, it becomes apparent that not all dreams are the same. Some dreams seem just a usual bundle of mixed up symbols, weird stories and strange goings on. But other dreams stand out, they seem different. They may still have some element of the bizarre to them, or they may seem perfectly normal, but for whatever reason, they seem to touch us or make more of an impact than the every-night, run of the mill dream.
Some different dreams we can look out for are:
Have you woken from a dream feeling deeply healed?
- Healing dreams. After periods of stress, trauma or loss, we can have a dream that touches us deeply. It may include the appearance of a loved one, a wise elder, an innocent child or a gentle animal, or there may be no actual character, just a special place, a vision, or some words we hear. But the result will be the same. Some how this dream reaches into our hurt and makes it feel better. Even when we wake, this feeling of healing can linger and help us cope with whatever problems have bothered us so far.
- Teaching dreams. These kinds of dreams can help us make sense of confusing times. They may come as an epiphany (the “ah-ha! moment”), a sudden profound understanding or a sense of awakening. They help us realise the lesson to be learned from difficult experiences, the value from a period of struggle or to see the truth when the world seems vague or confusing.
Is your dream trying to teach you a lesson, or showing you how to do something new?
- Guidance dreams. Similar to teaching dreams, theses dreams help us to see the truth, but guidance dreams are subtly different in that they help provide us with direction. We will often wake from a guidance dream with a clear sense of purpose, knowing what actions we must take next. Guidance dreams help provide clarity into how we should live our waking lives, and how we can improve our interactions with other people, often through moderating our own behaviours and beliefs.
- Warning dreams. Like an inversion of guidance dreams, these dreams are an insight as to what we should not do, rather than what we should do. If we are engaged in a risky situation, if we have not realised consciously that we are being deceived, or if we are on a course of action that is leading towards an unpleasant, even dangerous outcome, these dreams will often provide a “wake-up call.” We can usually recognise these dreams as we may wake from them shocked, even a little scared. The important thing to realise is that if we heed the warnings of these dreams, we can create a better outcome.
- Problem solving/practical solution dreams. These kind of dreams are usually very specific, and deal with a problem we have already identified and have probably been wrestling with or fretting over for some time. They can help provide a solution we have been seeking, or they can help us fix something. Often these dreams are not strange symbols, but quite literal, as sudden flashes of insight.
- Creative Inspiration. Like problem solving dreams, creative inspiration dreams will often come after we have been seeking inspiration (either consciously or not) for some time. These dreams are often vivid and highly charged with emotion or energy. The dreamer may actually see the painting, sculpture or other piece of art in the dream, or hear music played, and then try to recapture that in waking hours. Or the dream itself may be an inspiration of colour, imagery, sounds and patterns.
- Prodromic Dreams. These are dreams where we can diagnose an illness that is occurring within our body, and potentially also the cure we need. These dreams are not about psychological or spiritual healing primarily, but about actual physical healing of an ailment, although this may be linked to a psychological feeling or condition, such as anger or grief. (see post on Prodromic Dreams.)
- Lucid dreaming. These are the dreams where we become aware that we are dreaming. It may be fleeting awareness, and then we fall back into the dream, it may be startling so that it wakes us up entirely, or we may maintain the lucidity long enough that we are actually able to control the outcome of our dreams. (see post on Lucid Dreams.)
Has your dream experience been so profound it feels like you have communed with the divine?
- Dreams of the divine. These dreams are immediately recognisable but utterly impossible to ever fully describe. In these dreams we feel we have been touched by God, or communed with the Spirit of our Ancestors, or become at one with the power of the universe. These dreams are extraordinary, and if we are lucky enough to have one or more, it will often be an experience that stays with us for our entire lives. (see post on Big Dreams.)
These different kinds of dreams don’t have to exist in isolation, and one dream may have various features. For example, a dream of the divine might also provide creative inspiration, a problem solving dream might also be a lucid dream, a teaching dream could also be very healing, and so on. But when we do have these dreams, we know they are out of the ordinary, and that dreams have a very real contribution to make to our waking lives.
Are you dreams trying to tell you something?
We have all heard stories of people who have dreamed of a series of numbers, and used those numbers to win the lottery, or of people who have dreamed of impending disaster, and then made choices that saved their lives like changing from a flight that crashed or staying home the day a bomb went off at work. Indeed, there are many cases in history of predicting the future, from people in the bible to President Abraham Lincoln. We call these dreams “precognitive dreams.”
Science cannot explain these experiences, but does that make them untrue?
Dreams of our own personal future may not be as dramatic or as extreme as those life changing examples, but nor may they be so rare. Our subconscious mind has many more capabilities than we are usually aware of, or indeed, than we make use of. One of the great skills of our subconscious mind is to seek meaning in things we don’t understand, and part of the way to do this is to look for patterns in our lives. Our subconscious mind will often see the implications of our choices, the cause and effect going on in our lives, before we consciously realise. Our dreams may indeed be visions of the future if we learn to understand them, our subconscious minds way of saying “if you do this, this is what may happen”. Sometimes this may be a warning, at other times it can be a solution to a problem, or show the reward of our hard work, patience or perseverance.
Where are the signs in our dreams pointing towards?
Another way dreams can help us anticipate the future is by supporting our intuition. in those moments when we just “get a hunch” or “have a feeling,” our intuition is at work. Sometimes our intuition may stem from a half remembered dream, or it may be the conscious recognition of the patterns the dreams have been playing out in our minds for some ways. As we improve our relationship with dreams, so too can we improve our intuition, and increase the likelihood of having those lucky hunches more often.
Sometimes though, it seems even this explanation is inadequate. Sometimes a dream of the future may seem to be a specific message or intention sent to us from another place. This seems to be particularly true when we dream of a loved one. This may take the form of a deceased relative, who appears to warn or give advice, or maybe someone precious who is far away, and needs to share some important information. What exactly is going on here?
There is actually a lot of scientific work going on to explore the connection between human minds. (The links below are a good place to start exploring.) Physics is starting to unravel some of the mysteries as to how space and time can be irrelevant when to seemingly separate things are actually part of the same thing. Who knows if this is happening when are dream of those we love. This can be perhaps more easilly accessed in our dreaming state, when our conscious mind is not in the way to tell us what is impossible!
How can your dreams help you live a brighter future?
But science still has a long way to go in explaining communication with the departed. Perhaps this is one experience we have to interpret purely in our own personal way, and to make the best of what we learn.
Even without being visited by people, alive or no, in our sleeping hours, we can all learn to better cultivate our own self understanding through dreams, and in doing so become the best possible creators of our future.
http://www.monstrous.com/forum/index.php?topic=3032.0;wap2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlocality
Do you need to take a dose of your own medicine?
We have looked in previous posts at how our dreaming subconscious mind may be more in touch with what is going on with our bodies than our conscious waking minds, but I feel this deserves a little more attention.
While science has not been able to prove a definitive link between dreams and the diagnosis of illness, individual experience can be quite convincing. Often referred to as “Prodromic Dreaming,” is when we dream of something before it becomes apparent, and is most commonly used in the case of detecting a sickness before any other symptoms are obvious or before it has been officially diagnosed.
We need to exercise caution when approaching our dreams for diagnosis. Remembering that dreams are often symbolic, dreaming of having cancer may be more a sign of some “cancerous,” behaviour or relationship in our life that is damaging and harmful to us, than an actual sign of illness. However, there are anecdotal cases of people who have dreamed of things such as spots on their organs or shadows in their bodies that have actually turned out to be cancer. The important thing is not to panic, and to look carefully at all the different things a dream may be saying. Dreaming of taking medicine for example, could be an example of us learnign a lesson in life, of having to “taste our own medicine.” Dreaming of a heart attack can be a symbol of a “broken heart” after a relationship ending, dreaming of not being able to breathe can be a symbol of feeling “suffocated” in a relationship or job and so on. (See the various entries for “Dream Symbols: Body Parts” for some other suggestion.)
To understand how symbolism may be linking to a body part in order to communicate an illness, it is important for us to recognise our own personal symbols. For example, to dream of blocked pipes might be a symbol of kidney stones or a urinary problem to someone who thinks of that part of the body as being like pipes, but to another person it may refer to a possible clogged artery, if that person thinks of ther vascular system as being like a network of pipes.
Key symbols to look out for when trying to assess if a dream may be about illness include images of things rotting, breaking, crumbling or fading away. Dark spots or patches, shadows, ghosts, imps and demons can also indicate a sickness. In some cases, we won’t dream of our body so closely, but may be informed by a guide that there is something wrong. This advice may come from an angel, a departed relative, a doctor or medical person, or some wise stranger or animal. These dreams may also have other symbols of the medical profession, such as x-rays, potions or pills, ambulances, a red cross, hospitals, beds or surgical knives. Yet still other dreams of illness have no medical symbology whatsoever, remember we all dream uniquely, so it is up to us to learn to recognise the signs.
Another way to recognise whether a dream relates to illness is the feeling we get from it. Dreams of impending sickness may start as a whisper, like a headache before a full blown flu. We know something isn’t quite right, even if we aren’t feeling really bad. These early dreams are often warnings to slow down and rest, to eat healthier, to exercise, or stop some sort of bad habit. When we are left with a feeling of urgency or are quite troubled, this may be a sign action is required quickly.
If we suspect a dream may be indicating an illness that has not yet been diagnosed, I would suggest seeking
Can you hear your body's whispers before they become shouts?
professional advice as soon as possible. It is not necessary to advise your doctor you are there because of a dream. Some doctors may be sympathetic, but others may be skeptical, and it is worth making sure you are at least being taken seriously. Only you can make the call how much you wish to share. If the dream has come after a negative diagnosis, and you still feel troubled, seek a second opinion. No human is perfect, and it is worth checking to see all possible angles have been covered. Sometimes a dream of sickness after a negative diagnosis may just be our subconscious mind working through our feelings of anxiety, but at other times it could be a warning that the first diagnosis was wrong. Again, no-one will know this better than you yourself.
From anecdotal evidence, it seems many dreams that warn of impending illness and that are accurate, are fortunately able to be treated because they have been identified so early. If we suspect something is not quite right, it is usually best to catch it early. Our dreams can be like an early warning system that metaphorically gets us out of the burning building in time.
Sometimes though, these dreams themselves contain the cure. They may contain advice to stop eating a certain food or using a kind of cleaning product that we didn’t know we were allergic to, or they may indicate a herb or combination of foods that will help us feel better. These kind of dreams can be really insightful in helping us to heal ourselves, and often on more than simply the physical level.
Have you awoken to realise you were still dreaming?
Lucid dreams are when we become aware that we are dreaming while we are still asleep. For some people this comes naturally, by accident; for others, it can be a goal they strive towards for many years; and yet for others, it can be something we have never really thought about.
If lucid dreaming is something that we want to achieve, it can be possible to imporve our chances with effort and concentration.
Some of the ways to work on achieving awareness in our dreams are:
- to try and focus on our hands (see: Dream Symbols: Body Parts: Hands)
- to try and recognise that we are dreaming in a false awakening (see: False Awakenings: A dream within a Dream)
- to try and become aware of the edge of sleep and wakefullness that occurs during sleep paralysis (see: Sleep Paralysis: A Special Kind of Nightmare)
- to confront something frightenning in our dreams on the pretext that it is “just a dream” (see: Nightmares: Part 1)
There are other methods to achieving lucidity in dreams, but these are some of the most common ways to start. The challenge within lucid dreaming is always to try and maintain the balance of staying conscious enough to know that you are dreaming, but never to get too excited or over aware so that you wake your self up. But with practice and patience it is entirley possible to become aware in your dreams, and to enhance your overall dreaming experience.
Have you ever had a dream you knew you would remember for the rest of your life?
I have mentioned in various entries that we should pay attention to all our dreams (see “Resist the Urge to Judge”) as they all have important things to teach us, and sometimes it is the very things that seem trivial or that we would prefer to ignore that contain the most valuable lessons. As we learn to respect and listen to everything our dreaming mind has to say to us, like a shy wild animal that we seek to befriend, gradually our dreams will come out into the open, revealing themselves to us and sharing their secrets. All dreams can be helpful. All dreams are valuable.
But that does not mean all dreams are the same. As we learn to work with our dreams, to pay attention to the small, the shadowy, the vague and elusive, we enter into a realm of our minds that is far from small or vague. We enter our subconscious. And our subconscious is vast, expansive and awe inpsiring. When we enter our subconscious we can commune with our deeper self, our higher self and sometimes something even more.
Sometimes amongst the dreams of driving the car, running away, of friends, family, animals and other strange scraps and obscure fragments of dreams, we are lucky enough to have a big dream. We know a big dream when we have one. Big dreams stand out from other dreams as the sunlight stands out from a candle. Big dreams exult us. Big dreams inspire us. Big dreams fill us with awe, wonder and reverence.
Big dreams can defy our attempts to describe them
Big dreams often defy our attempts to describe them, as mere words seem so inadequate to capture a sensation that seems to transfuse our very being. These dreams may create a sense of us travelling through space, of flying to heaven, but even more than that, we may feel a sort of expansion, as though we become one with the universe, as if our body dissolves or the boundary between what we think is of as “self” versus what is “other” kind of fades away. Big dreams seem to connect us with something far greater than ourself. This dream may not have a story, characters or even a sense of place. It could be that even describing the feelings that you have in this context does not do justice to the sensations you experience in a big dream.
But as amazing and as exhilarating as they are, big dreams are not for the chasing. Even the most inexperienced dream worker can have a big dream. They are not the preserve of any dream elite, they do not come because we practice, or because we apply discipline or method. Big dreams can come to anyone, anywhere. They are a gift to all humanity. Big dreams allow us all to be visionaries or poets. They may come when we seek, or are in need. Or they may simply come for reasons we will never entirely consciously understand.
We may have only one big dream in our life, or we may be lucky enough to have several. But when you do, you can be sure you will remember it. Big dreams stay with us forever. It is no understatement to say that big dreams may even change our life permanently. And for that we should be eternally grateful.
What do you want to hold onto, and what do you choose to let go?
Dreaming of our hands is actually not as common as many other parts of the body, but when we do dream of our hands or anothers, it often seems to have an unusually strong significance. Dreaming of hands is often a sign of self awareness, of taking control of our own life and destiny, or or of making an impact through our own actions on another person or the world around us at large. The unusual act of actually looking at your own hands in a dream is used by some to achieve lucidity, that is, to realise that they are actually dreaming.
The process works by “programming” your mind when you are awake, so that you remember to look at your hands in a dream, and follow that with the intent that when you do so this will trigger your awareness and remind you that you are alseep.*
Our own hands in dreams are often taken for granted, many times simply functioning as tools which we use to make things happen, though we tend to focus more on the action and result than how we made this happen. If we stop long enough to notice our hands in our dreams, it can be a sign that we are becoming aware of our own influence, or lack of it. Dreaming of another person’s hands can often feel very intimate. The two profound symbols of another’s hands in a positive context are of “holding hands” and of the “helping hand.” Both of these images require us to let someone else into our lives, to be open to love, affection, consideration or assistance. For this reason, hand dreams can leave us with a lingering feeling of happiness and warmth long into the day. These dreams may indicate that we are receiving assistance, affection or support from another in a waking life, but in many cases they are a symbolic representation that we are learning how to help our selves, that we are being kind to our selves where once we may have been a harsh judge, that we are befriending a part of ourselves that once we may have ignored or rejected, or even that we are healing a part of ourselves that once was sick and neglected.
Of course, as with any dream symbol, there can also be a negative image. We may be noticing our hands in our dreams for the first time because they are empty, which may lead us to think what have we let go of, given up on, or given away that leaves us feeling “empty handed.” Hands can also be used to strike, to hold back and to push away. These kind of dreams invite us to question what controls or restrictions are we inflicting on our lives that prevent us from achieving what we want, or going where we choose. In short, how are we jeopardising our actions, and acting as our own worse enemy?
Hands in dreams can leave us feelingwarm and happy well after waking
As with all symbols, looking at the ways we use words around hands can help us make sense of what they mean in our own personal context. Some suggestions include:
- If the hands are actually red, it may imply to be caught “red handed.” This may cause us to question if there is something in life we feel guilty about, a behaviour we don’t feel proud of and may wish to stop before somebody knows. Or maybe we secretly want to be found out, to bring an issue that we are afraid to speak about into the open
- If you are looking at the back of your hand, it could mean there is something in your life you “know like the back of your hand”, or wish that you did!
- Shaking hands is often a sign of making a deal (maybe you have made a pact with your self, or made a commitment to your self) but it can also mean a greeting, introduction or parting (maybe some new aspect of your personality is becoming apparent to you)
- To bite the hand that feeds you is to show an attack against something that is actually supporting you
- Something that is “handy” is easy and accessible, just as to “get a handle on things” can be understand them and start to control them more easily
- To “get the upper hand” can be to gain an advantage in a certain situation
- To be “even handed” implies to be fair
- To be “open handed” suggests honesty and generosity
- To “give someone a hand” can either be to offer help, or to show appreciation, as in a “round of applause”
- To “put one’s hand up” can mean to volunteer, or offer to speak up
- The “laying of hands” can be a profound healing, maybe at a physical level, but maybe a more emotional or even spiritual level
- A “hand-out” is often something given for free, but may imply charity, pity or a sense of lack
- To do something “by hand” (raised by hand, fed by hand, made by hand etc.) implies a high level or personal involvement, and therefore may also mean a great degree of care, interest, craftsmanship, love, authenticity, time, uniqueness, effort and be the counter to “machine made” or manufactured. (Of course, hand made in this context can also imply lower quality, not as modern, and being foreced due to budgetry constraints. Only you will know what a hand made dress or birthday card means to you!)
- As Ben Harper said, ”We can change the world with our own two hands”
While hands themselves can have symbolic meaning our dreams, just as in our waking life, our hands can tell us things by what we do with them. We communicate with our hands, we wave goodbye and hello, we gesture to come closer, to follow or to move away. We make things with our hands, we shape the world, our lives, we create and we control how things work. And with our hands we touch others, be it in kindness, with passion or to inflict pain. Our hands in dreams can reveal to us how we treat ourselves, and what we are doing to shape and control our own mind, influence our relationships and build the life we want to live.
*(I first came across this in “The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castenda, but I don’t know if he pioneered the process)
If you’ve ever had the experience that you get up as usual, maybe go to shower, have breakfast or start
Are you really sure you have woken up?
getting dressed, only to notice something is not quite right – maybe all the towels in the bathroom have changed colours, there are only spare car parts in the pantry or you mysteriously seem to have forgotten how to do up your buttons, then you may have had a “false awakening.”
Also known as “a dream within a dream,” false awakenings are characterised by a belief that you have woken up and started your day, only to realise that you are in fact dreaming. It is not unusual to have multiple false awakenings in one session.
Although they can be confusing and frustrating, false awakenings can provide a useful trigger to understand how we change consciousness throughout sleeping and dreaming. False awakenings give us the opportunity to question how we know dreams from waking life, how we define reality and what assumptions we make about the nature of consciousness. Some people use false awakenings to become “lucid” or aware in their dreams. Other people believe from this state they can astral travel. Whatever your belief or approach, false awakenings do at the very least show that sometimes at least, our own mind is able to fool us quite convincingly!
If you find your self in a situation where you aren’t sure if you are dreaming or not, look at a digital clock (like a clock radio beside the bed) or a digital watch, then look away, then look back. If you find the numbers have moved in a surprising way, you can be pretty sure you are dreaming. Another good test is to try and read something. For some reason that no-one yet seems to be able to explain, it appears that no-one can read continually and accurately in a dream, or at least, not when they are aware they could be dreaming. If the letters sneak around and change into fanciful shapes and movements, you can rest assured you are in a dream. (By the way, if anyone knows more about the the reason you can’t read in dreams, please let me know!)
If you do have a false awakening (or many), you can look at it as an opportunity to examine your preconceptions, to engage with your dreams in a new interesting manner, and maybe even find new clues as to how your subconscious engages with your conscious mind. If you are lucky, you may even stay aware in your dream long enough to enjoy it!
This painting by John Henry Fuseli is believed to depict a woman experiencing "Hallucinatory Sleep Paralysis"
Imagine the feeling: You have gone to sleep normally enough, but for some reason that you aren’t quite sure of, you have woken up. It is dark, but somehow you can sense a shadowy presence, right there in the room with you. You want to move but you realise you are paralysed. The frightening creature seems to be sitting right on your chest. You are terrified, it has a strange sense of threat and foreboding, even evil. You want to shout and scream for help but no sound escapes your lips. In sheer panic you struggle to move, to get away, but it is useless. Finally, in terror, you manage to move and the creature vanishes. Sitting up in the dark, heart pounding, breath coming fast, you feel confused and disorientated, a strange vibrating in your ears fading away. You wonder, was that just a dream?
This experience is known as “Hallucinatory (or Hypnagogic/Hypnopompic) Sleep Paralysis,” (or HSP) and is considered a “sleep disorder.” Technically, it is not a nightmare at all. The theory is that the paralysis is caused by waking while in the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stage of sleep, which is when we most commonly dream. In order to stop our bodies from acting out our dreams, our brain paralyses our bodies (except for our eyes) while in this stage. So the theory goes, when we for some as yet unknown reason, wake before our brains or bodies are ready to, we may find ourselves paralysed and this induces a sense of panic. Fair enough. But I have yet to find a convincing explanation as to why this paralysis is accompanied by hallucinations. (There is a theory being developed regarding the amyglada of the brain and predatory fear response here: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/intruder.html)
But this is where it gets confusing, and why it can be so disturbing to experience. Because it is not a dream. The person experiencing the Hypnagogic Sleep Paralysis has actually woken up. They are actually paralysed. And when they sense a presence in the room, or on the bed, or sitting on their chest, this is a hallucination and not a dream. Yet even if you know it is a hallucination, it doesn’t make the experience feel any less real. Which is kind of like a dream. Confusing, right? Terrifying to most as well.
Speaking as one who has experienced Hypnagogic Sleep Paralysis, I can attest to the extreme malevolence of the presence in the room. This was no mere scary creature. This was evil intent manifest. This was not something that intended to kill me, but something that would obliterate my very soul. And to experience this and know it was not a dream! Manifest evil is not something I am given to commonly contemplating, nor have I grown up with religious fear of hell. So this image and theme came as a disturbing revelation.
I have attempted to research this experience, and am somewhat reassured by how common it is. HSP is described in various cultures through-out the world, appearing in myths, legends and stories variously as a hag or witch who jumps on your chest or back, an evil imp or demonic creature, ogre or spirit. Invariably, they are described as one who “crushes,” “leaps upon,” “presses,” “chokes,” or “steals breath.” (For more details this site has lots of examples: http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/night_mare.html) The theory today is that we use a cultural reference to try and make sense of whatever the scary presence is. So if we live in the Caribbean and have a culture of witches, we will think of the presence as an evil witch hag, if we have a strong religious background we may interpret the visit as a demon, a fallen angel or even the devil himself, traditonal Europeans oftne thought of the presence as a ghost and Africans as a demon. There is even the belief now that the experience of alien abductions is in fact an experience of HSP, and that people exposed to information about aliens and space travel will use this cultural reference to make sense of their experience. This is not something people do consciously, or on purpose, but happens at a very subliminal level, where our perceptions of reality, and the foundations of our beliefs are formed.
If you have experienced Sleep Paralysis coupled with the extreme hallucination as I have, you find the scientific attempts to “explain away” the experience somewhat dissatisfying. As one who believes in the value of dreams, the rich rewards from knowing ourselves deeply and exploring our inner worlds, to have such a significant experience be explained as “simply a hallucination” feels disappointingly hollow. It is the same as someone saying to me when I have an exhilarating lucid dream of flying that it is “just a dream.” Well yes, on one level it is. But it is also something much more. I am looking for more insight. Why does the hallucination accompany the Sleep Paralysis? Why is the hallucination the same for hundreds of thousands of people around the world over countless generations, regardless of culture, religion or belief system? What does it mean? How can we learn from it? What does it have to do with my psychology and physiology? Science and psychology is still really in such early stages of undersatnding sleep and dreams, that these and many other questions seem to remain as yet unanswered.
We do know that certain triggers seem to bring on HSP experience, so there a few things you can do to prevent them from returning:
- Don’t go to sleep on your back
- Try and reduce stress, a major trigger for HSP
- Try and keep a regular sleep pattern. Overtiredness, late nights and irregular sleeping hours may be a contributing cause
- If you are having an attack and can’t move, try moving small muscles like fingers, toes, tongue or even your eyes instead of entire limbs. This can be enough to break the episode.
- Speak to your doctor. Some medication has helped some people, so this may be an opiton worth exploring if your sleep is being disrupted frequently and causing you to function ineffectively during the day
- Find places to talk to people about it, or write to me here! The terror usually dimishes in the light of day, but knowing how common and widespread this experience is can be very reassuring!
As well as the sites listed through-out this article, the following links may prove useful:
http://www.nightterrors.org/dis.htm
http://www.camresearch.net/showabstract.php?pmid=10487786
http://sleepparalysis.researchtoday.net/about-sleepparalysis.htm
It is quite distressing that often when we have a nightmare, it doesn’t occur in isolation, but recurrs with a frightening persistence. As if having one nightmare wasn’t bad enough, but to have them frequently! It just doesn’t seem fair! But it makes more sense when you realise why you are having these bad dreams. When something is not quite right in our life, or in our mind, there is some level of us that wants to put things right. This is our subconscious. While consciously we may not want to admit that something is not right, because that would mean facing up to it, and that might mean getting hurt, humiliated, risking shame or a sense of failure, our subconscious refuses to let us forget, and will keep trying to send a message to our conscious mind to do something about it. It will keep shouting and shouting until it is heard. One of the strongest ways for our subconscious to make us pay attention to it is by giving us nightmares. These images are so intense and so startling that we can’t ignore them.
The sad thing for us Westerners is that we live in a society that does not in general place a great deal of value on dreaming, so we are not encouraged to value them, to discuss them, or to learn how to work with them. When this means we miss out on the opportunities for growth and delight dreams can give us, this is a shame, but when it means we can’t manage our own nightmares, it is a far more serious affair. As we grow into adults our dreams should mature with us. As we become more skillful, balanced and wise with years, so too should we dream in a more balanced and rewarding manner. But studies show that in Western society the dreams of anxious adults do not differ much from those of children. We still feel anxious and afraid, we are still pursued – maybe not by a big hairy monster as child would be, but perhaps by a vicious knife wielding bandit, and we all still dream of being attacked by wild animals. As adults we differ hardly at all from children in our response to these threats as well – we flee, we run, we get stuck, we are eaten, hurt, trapped. In short, we remain victims.
To stop having adult nightmares or bad dreams, we need to face up to what we are afraid of, we need to honestly admit to ourselves what is not working in our lives, we need to really grow up. It is hard. Our society does not encourage talking about our fears, it judges perceptions of failure, and we don’t teach our children the skills they need to work on their own inner selves so they can mature into self-aware adults. So the only thing we can do is start learning now.
We can learn how to overcome our fears, even in our dreams
Facing a scary threat in a dream can be a very difficult thing to initiate. This is especially so if we aren’t practised and confident with working with our dreams! That is why confronting the thing in waking life is often an easier way to start. Try imagining your dream when you are awake. Sit somewhere comfortable where you won’t be disturbed, and play the dream through your mind like a movie. Remember, you are the director of your dream, so tell yourself you don’t like the ending, and imagine a new one for yourself.
Another useful method you can adopt while awake that may have a carry over effect to helping deal with nightmares, is to actually do in waking life what you can’t do, or what you need to do, in your bad dreams. This often means learning a new skill, which can be confronting, difficult, frustrating or embarrassing at first, but the commensurate feelings of ease, satisfaction, confidence and pride that you should feel upon mastery will make it well worth the effort. Nightmares of sharks? Try swimming with them in a safe tank. Have a nightmare you are lost and can’t read a map? Try learning orienteering, how to read a map and use a compass. Have a nightmare someone is hurt and bleeding, and you can’t help? Go on a First Aid course and learn how to treat wounds. It may sound simple, and even silly, but actions such as these send a clear message back to our subconscious – it lets our deeper self know we have heard the message, we are listening and we care enough to do something about it. That is a very strong message indeed. It can even be enough to stop our subconscious from shouting so insistently at us, and go back to a normal tone, breaking the repetitive cycle of bad dreams. At the very least, actions such as these give our mind an alternative to work with. Instead of thinking of sharks as something that always eat us, when you have been with them safely your mind now has a clear, conscious (and no doubt very emotion charged!) image of you being with sharks and them not eating you. In fact the more emotion charged these images are, the deeper they are likely to penetrate our mind, and the stronger and more effective they can be in helping us imagine a new and happier outcome. The greater the fear, the greater our exultation can be on overcoming it.
Tomorrow, looking at a special kind of nightmare…
The first step in making nightmares go away is to face up to our fears
Firstly, let me apologise to my regular readers for my absence! I have been travelling and have not had regular access to the Internet, but I am back now so stay tuned for many more interesting installments on dreams and how we can work with them! If there is a particular kind of dream, dream symbol, or process for working with dreams you would like to know more about, please leave a comment and I will do my best to address them.
So now I think it is about time we started looking at some of the more disturbing aspects of dreaming. Until we are able to understand and work with nightmares, there will always be a major obstacle for us to access the real value and opportunities that dreaming can provide. Fear of dreaming can paralyse us in our internal explorations, but it is these very nightmares we must learn to deal with to move onto the next stage in our dreaming life, and indeed our personal development.
The main thing to remember about nightmares is the same as most other dreams. All the things you are afraid of in your dreams are really only parts of your self. If you are being chased by a monster or wild animal, it is only are part of yourself you are running from. If something or someone is attacking you, it is only a part of you attacking yourself.
Knowing this does not necesarilly make the nightmares go away, but it does give us clues as to how we can make that happen. The simple answer is, we must learn to face our what we are afraid of. We must confront our demons. As you get ready to go to sleep, prepare yourself mentally to face your attacker. Remember it can’t really hurt you, the fear comes from not wanting to recognise what is really going on. In the first nights it may be hard to do, but persist. With time you should be able to stand up to what it is that scares you. In the early days you may also find that even though you face up to whatever it is that scares you, when you do it still catches you, or eats you, or whatever. That is okay. This is still progress. The important thing is not to stop now – you have just proved that you can change something in your dream by facing up to the scary thing instead of running. This is a major achievement.
As you keep exerting your conscious control to make your dreams change for the better, eventually you will find yourself winning in these situations. You may kill the creature, you may transform it into something harmless or laughable, you may put it to sleep or feed it so much food it can’t move. All these things are sure signs the nightmare is turning. Ultimately, you should be able transform your enemy into your friend. The creature may change shape or age, it will go from something threatening to a kind and helpful guide. This is a sure sign you are integrating the different aspects of yourself into a more unified, less conflicted person.
The outcome of this will not be simply less nightmares and a better night’s sleep, but a new sense of confidence and creativity and wholeness in your waking life. Address the deeper conflict that causes your nightmares, and chances are your whole life will feel brighter. I will write more about how to prepare for nightmare conforntations tomorrow.
