you can look at dreams like your own little movies. you are the star, you may play the hero, the victim, or the villain. your subconscious mind is the director, imagination is the writer. the set can be anywhere in the universe, the plot line is surreal, but the special effects are so fantastic you find yourself wrapped up in the story, believing that almost anything is possible. when you wake up, it is like the credits are rolling. normal consciousness slowly returns and you think to yourself "man, that seemed so real". often there is thankfulness that it was not real, as the images can be quite disturbing. Sometimes there is the wish, "If only that had been real..." If only we could bring the treasures we find in dreams into our waking lives. in a way, it is possible.
By exploring the images we observe through dream analysis, we gain the valuable treasure of understanding the secret messages that this other world experience is trying to communicate to our awake self. the best time to look at your dreams is on a sleepy sunday morning, or anytime you have a chance to awaken slowly and really examine the images and themes from your night's adventuring.
If we think about our dreams in a visual sense, we first notice that it is interesting that we can "see" with our eyes closed. try it now... it is not blackness that you see, but often colors. the red color is the most common, and has a simple scientific explanation, you are seeing the light shining through the tiny blood vessels in our eyelids. you may even find that you can see the shapes of these capillaries, and their tiny pulsing movements. that yellow shade could easily be the sunlight filtering through. but how can we explain the swirling colors and geometric patterns we see when the eyes are closed? the shapes of letters, words and symbols that a writer might see, or wasn't that the face of aunt mildred, who died long ago? science falls short when we discuss the powers of the imagination.
the "eyes" we are seeing with now are not the physical eyes at all, but the mind's eye.
throughout history, in all cultures, back to the dawn of time, humans have experienced dreams, visions, and altered states of consciousness. just as long, we have tried to decipher the meaning behind these experiences, often looking to spiritual or supernatural explanations, in fact, these visionary experiences may well be said to be the source of all spiritual inquiry and religion! many places and times would have burned the heretic who suggested that god, angels, ghosts, the devil and his minions were all nothing but images from the imagination and dreams, yet we find these symbols to be nearly universally occurring in dreams. i however, do not propose that this makes these concepts false, no, to the contrary i would avow the radical notion that dreams themselves are as real as our waking life.
just as descartes asked how we know what is real and what is a dream, i would turn that inside out and ask how do we know that our dream life is not real? most humans spend eight out of every twenty four hours in sleep, that is one third of our lives! if a person lives to be 75, they have spent 25 years asleep, and newer research tells us that much of this time is spent in dreams. yet, many people have no memory of their dreams at all. this situation can be improved if a person chooses to devote time, effort and study to remembering and understanding dreams. solving this puzzle can truly help a person comprehend the inner workings of their mind and psychology. it can improve relationships, it can help us understand the nature of existence. many grand inspirations have come through dreams, and many scientific problems have been solved, including the discovery of atoms and molecules. some dreams have even predicted future events. with all these possibilities, it would be foolish to leave this rich ground untilled.
when examining symbols in dreams, it can be useful to use a good book, for much has been written on the subject. a good book to look at is 20,000 dreams, by theresa francis-cheung,
which i have paraphrased a bit in this writing. of course freud and jung also have much to say on the subject, but aside from what you can learn from books, i encourage you to observe your dreams in detail. writing down everything you can remember. then really think about those images and details. freud was big on using free association, jung spoke of archetypes, but your own intuition is often the best guide. what did aunt mildred mean to you? when you saw the snake eating the apple, did you think of eve? when your cousin held the dog turd to her mouth like a cigar, what did that mean? the images can be quite bizarre, but they often hold some metaphor for a circumstance in life. my cousin was really talking some crap last time i saw her. maybe i should call her and see if she is doing ok? when the car is spinning out of control and there are no breaks, does this mean that my life is out of control? when i ran over the pedestrian and she died, did it foretell that i would witness a terrible accident 3 days later? many times the images will fill your head with these types of questions, and life will sometimes gradually sort them out for you. was the dream trying to tell me to pay more attention when i am driving? maybe i could have avoided that fender bender. also when you see someone you know in a dream, it is often important that you tell them the dream. you may have an important message that they need to hear. another way of looking at dream characters is to consider if they may represent aspects of yourself that you should take a look at.
no matter how you look at it, dreams are a fountain of information about your inner life. by looking at dreams, you cannot help but get to know yourself better, and by understanding ourselves, perhaps we can better understand our world. keep dreaming!
Francis-Cheung, Theresa. The Element Encyclopedia of 20,000 Dreams: The Ultimate A-Z to Interpret the Secrets of Your Dreams. London: HarperElement, 2006. Print.
