Okay. So, I've been having a mouthful of strange dreams throughout my life. And even though I am only 25 years old, I've really had lots of them - mostly nightmares and lucid dreams. I've read books, articles, I've had consultations with a psychologist, I used to keep a dream journal, but I still can't fully understand what most of my odd dreams are trying to tell me. And I think I never will. I know I have issues in my head, I know I need to clean my subconscious from all the garbage I've been stacking up there. And I am working on it, I really am...
"The Art of Dreaming"
Out of all the literature I've read on dreaming, my most favorite book is Carlos Castaneda's "The Art of Dreaming". This is one of the books which helped me to see the potential for learning and growth that exists within the dream space. The Art of Dreaming describes the steps that an individual needs to take to maintain awareness and control within the dream state. Castaneda writes about Four Gates of Dreaming which are the obstacles to awareness. These gates, when overcome, using certain techniques, can help you gain control over your dreams. The purpose of this post is not to write a review on the book, but to share my point of view about the spiritual side of dreaming and how dreams can show us the way.
The mysterious language of dreams has excited people since ancient times. They were perceived as messages by the Gods and influenced in making fateful decisions, shaping the destiny of both individuals and entire nations. Scientists say, dreams rarely mean what you have dreamed of, and even more rarely they are prophetic. The famous Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Karl Jung, for his years of work, has analyzed over 20,000 dreams and has come to the conclusion that they are the key to our subconscious.
With the right approach, it is possible to extract very important information from our dreams and even to correct our own lives. The main thing is to perceive them not literally but symbolically. They are filled with metaphors that match with different aspects of our personality and suggest to pay attention to them immediately. And still, remember that the content of dreams can depend on many factors, even the posture you are sleeping in. For example, a 2004 study has shown that people who sleep on their left have more nightmares than those who are accustomed to sleeping on their right side. I can confirm for myself, that every time I sleep on my left I have nightmares. Interesting, huh?
What dreaming really is?
Dreaming is a natural process like breathing. It is proven that each person has an average of 5 dreams a night. Those who say they don't dream also dream, they just don't remember it.
They are a natural expression of our imagination and use the most straightforward language at our disposal: mythic narratives. - Carl Jung
Dreams are mysterious and the reason is that consciousness and subconscious intersect during dreaming, the images and experiences of everyday life collide with the hidden wisdom of the subconscious. They carry secret messages that can reveal what is happening in our heads and help us overcome internal conflicts, make the right decisions. Therefore, it is important to learn to decode our own dreams if we want to understand what our subconscious is trying to tell us. And no, Freud's way of decoding dreams is not my way as in my opinion horse riding while dreaming doesn't necessarily represent sexual intercourse.
Why do we dream?
Dreams help us deal with the problems, changes and emotional experiences that accompany them. Some scientists regard dreams as internal "processing of data" of the human mind. According to them, dreaming clears the cortex (the outer layer of the brain) by purifying the overloaded chains. They see it as a biochemical process that cleanses unnecessary data collected during the day. We usually dream more after days of great stress, after traumatic events, after strong emotional experiences - positive or negative. Each and every one of us' subconscious interprets differently events that happen to us. So, in my opinion it is wrong to trust dream dictionaries.
Psychology theories explain that dreams allow you to process the world that you experience while awake. Symbols can arise that represent aspects of your life. You can learn these symbols, write them down, and learn what they represent to you. This will help your subconscious communicate to your conscious mind – and you can make better sense of your dreams. - Spiritual-awakening
Making sense of your dreams will help find out what your deepest fears are, what bothers you most and steps you should take to solve conflicts in your head. For example, I used to work in a hotel for a year and a half where I had day shifts and night shifts. During all my night shifts my main concerns were whether someone crazy will come in, if someone will try to rob me, etc. This was all because I was all alone in the reception during the night. One night I dreamed that there was a fire in the hotel, the doors were locked and the stairs had collapsed so I started burning. A hell of a dream! I had lots of dreams similar to this one and they made me realize my subconscious was trying to tell me that I am really not okay with this job. I had to do something. So I switched jobs and the nightmares stopped. I have a quote from Eckhart Tolle on this and it is my favorite one so far:
Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.
I couldn't be totally there and there was no way to change it and to have only day shifts so I just left.
Dreams give us answers!
Dreams help us make the right decision and, in a mysterious way, lead us into a world of wisdom, inaccessible while we are awake. Many scientists and discoverers, during dreaming, have come to insights that have changed the lives of mankind. Einstein's theory of relativity, the periodic table of Mendeleev's elements, Niels Bohr's theory on the structure of the atom, Otto Loewi's theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse - all of them came as a result of dreams .
Reason can't create something new in principle, it only arranges familiar things in a new way. But in a dream, we touch the wisdom of the subconscious. And the subconscious, besides keeping all memories, has access to Universal Energy (sounds strange, but yes), to the source where the new is born. So in our dreams we are told the most correct solutions for us, and if we pay attention to them, they can tell us the way.
Lucid dreams
A lucid dream is a dream during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream characters, narrative, and environment. - Wikipedia
Lucid dreams help us understand the principle of intent in managing reality. These are dreams where you dream and realize that you are dreaming. Interestingly, these dreams can be managed, the person himself can be the director of his dream and do everything he wants without limitation. Of course, this becomes possible when the dreamer realizes that he is dreaming and when he knows that in his dream he can do whatever he wants … Because even after realizing that you sleep, you can still be a slave to your own imagination and fears.
For lucid dream I can also speak from personal experience. I learned about them from Vadim Zeland and Carlos Castaneda. I realized I had such dreams, but I did not know I could control them. And when the next time I happened to dream consciously, I remembered that "here" I can do everything. I wanted to fly and I flew, I wanted to see a park with many flowers and I found myself there. The feeling was amazing and I didn’t want to wake up. Most often in these dreams I fly.
Usually in both sleep and life, we find ourselves in a life-line according to our thoughts and expectations. If we don’t wake up in the dream and don’t realize that we are the director, we start playing the role of a passive victim - we are afraid, run away or we fight someone. But if we wake up in the dream, we realize and take everything in our hands, we can overturn the script and switch to another more favorable life-line.
In spiritual practices, this conscious dream is called sleep with moments of enlightenment, and it is defines as a way to connect deeper with your soul as a process of spiritual evolution. There are many techniques for triggering sleep awareness, in Eastern practices it has been turned into art. Vadim Zeland writes that a conscious dream can be induced purposefully, if we teach our mind to ask "Is that really true?" And if you are stubborn enough, you will soon wake up in your sleep. I have not mastered this technique and don’t think it is necessary. It happened to me spontaneously several times.
Other way of realizing you are dreaming is described in “The Art of Dreaming” by Carlos Castaneda. As I wrote at the beginning of this post, according to Castaneda there are gates we need to open in order to gain full control over our dreams. The first thing is the stabilization of the dream body, which occurs when you are able to see your own hands in the dream. Once you can look away from them and then back to them several times in your dream, this gate has been resolved. I will only talk about the first gate as I have not mastered the next ones.
Conclusion:
No matter what most of the people I know say or think, dreams are not just meaningless fantasies. Think - however well you can visualize something, you can never create such a bright image in your mind, such sensations and experiences as in your dreams. Perhaps, as Vadim Zeland says, in our sleep we are peeping in different sectors of the space of variations.
Thank you for reading!
Please feel free to share your opinion in the comments so we can discuss.
Sources:
- Castaneda, Carlos. The Art of Dreaming. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
- SpiritualAwakeningProcess
- Spiritual-Awakening
- 10 Dreams That Changed Human History
- Vadim Zeland on Lucid Dreams - in Bulgarian
Images:
Pixabay
