Introduction
When I first started this book and well into it's making I lost sight of what was important. I got caught up in wondering if it sounded professional, if people will buy it and if I have recorded and interpreted enough dreams to make me an expert. Then it hit me. That's all a bunch of hooey! We are all experts and what I was fretting over was exactly the point I was trying to make, we don't need to find a dream expert we simply need to learn to trust the expert within.
To dream is to see a rare look into our inner mind and on occasion a look into spiritual forces you and I take for granted every day. According to the new international Webster's Pocket Dictionary a parable is a story with a moral. That is exactly what dreams are. It's finding the moral behind the story That is the ticket to understanding dreams. Dreams aren't about getting fanatical about writing and analyzing nor about what you can spout about Jung and Freud, dreams are about you, your life your opportunities and your adventures, leading you to be the best you can be, even if you choose to sleep in instead of evaluating a dream here and there.
Dream interpreting is a process not an arrival, and that is what makes it so fascinating-theres always something new to learn. If you get excited about your dreams you will get excited about your life and that's where it's at.
I once saw a documentary of the man they call the horse whisperer who talks to horses. Dreams speak to us like horses speak to the whisperer we just need to get down past the halter, and feel the breath and the steam of the beast and listen, listen with all the intensity of life itself and, by George, that horse will run, telling us stories of amazing impact to our lives, making us weep, sing and laugh out loud like children on their birthdays. What we need is not more money or a bigger house but to hear what our hearts want us to hear which is really just a dream away.
If you believe in the power of dreams at all, then you owe it to yourself to learn to decode the parable of dreams.
To dream is to see a rare look into our inner mind and on occasion a look into spiritual forces you and I take for granted every day. According to the new international Webster's Pocket Dictionary a parable is a story with a moral. That is exactly what dreams are. It's finding the moral behind the story That is the ticket to understanding dreams. Dreams aren't about getting fanatical about writing and analyzing nor about what you can spout about Jung and Freud, dreams are about you, your life your opportunities and your adventures, leading you to be the best you can be, even if you choose to sleep in instead of evaluating a dream here and there.
Dream interpreting is a process not an arrival, and that is what makes it so fascinating-theres always something new to learn. If you get excited about your dreams you will get excited about your life and that's where it's at.
I once saw a documentary of the man they call the horse whisperer who talks to horses. Dreams speak to us like horses speak to the whisperer we just need to get down past the halter, and feel the breath and the steam of the beast and listen, listen with all the intensity of life itself and, by George, that horse will run, telling us stories of amazing impact to our lives, making us weep, sing and laugh out loud like children on their birthdays. What we need is not more money or a bigger house but to hear what our hearts want us to hear which is really just a dream away.
If you believe in the power of dreams at all, then you owe it to yourself to learn to decode the parable of dreams.
Clips from Decoding the Parable of Dreams
To balance and enlighten the conscious mind without overloading it, we dream ,often in riddle form. To decipher the riddle and benefit from its insights we first need to remember our dreams.
Eye position and dreams
I would like you to try an experiment. Think of what you ate for supper three nights ago. As you do this, pay close attention to where your eyes are positioned. Your eyes rolled up and to your right, didn’t they? How did I know this? Any police person can tell you how I knew. Police men/women are trained to watch the eyes of a suspect or witness as they speak, for very good reason. When a person is recalling information their eyes will roll up and to their right but if a person is fabricating the response their eyes will roll up and to their left.
Knowing this, I tried positioning my eyes up and to the right. This had little effect on my dream recall. Knowing the majority of dreams are fabricated in the mind, I tried up and to the left, thinking, Uh huh! That would make more sense. The result again was minimal. This confused me. I began breaking dreams down into workable components of remembered incidents, fabrications of the mind and other related factors such as outside influences of inspiration. I thought of REM (rapid eye movement) and how we dream by moving our eyes rapidly from left to right from remembering to fabricating on a sped up scale. I tried this and found some success. As my eyes darted faster, I found they stayed mostly in the mid range of my forehead just above and between the brow line . This area is commonly referred to as the third eye, and is known to be conducive to receiving inspiration. I focused my eyes on the middle of my brow line and like a flash my dream memories came flooding back.
After developing this technique I happened to be attending a traveling hypnotist show with a friend. As the show began I was surprised to hear the hypnotist asking the participants to look up and to the middle. I found myself chuckling silently at how long it had taken me to reinvent the wheel and amazed no one else had made the connection before. When you think about it, it only makes sense. After all, both hypnosis and dream recall rely on accessing information stored in the subconscious mind, so why would dream recall be any different?
Knowing this, I tried positioning my eyes up and to the right. This had little effect on my dream recall. Knowing the majority of dreams are fabricated in the mind, I tried up and to the left, thinking, Uh huh! That would make more sense. The result again was minimal. This confused me. I began breaking dreams down into workable components of remembered incidents, fabrications of the mind and other related factors such as outside influences of inspiration. I thought of REM (rapid eye movement) and how we dream by moving our eyes rapidly from left to right from remembering to fabricating on a sped up scale. I tried this and found some success. As my eyes darted faster, I found they stayed mostly in the mid range of my forehead just above and between the brow line . This area is commonly referred to as the third eye, and is known to be conducive to receiving inspiration. I focused my eyes on the middle of my brow line and like a flash my dream memories came flooding back.
After developing this technique I happened to be attending a traveling hypnotist show with a friend. As the show began I was surprised to hear the hypnotist asking the participants to look up and to the middle. I found myself chuckling silently at how long it had taken me to reinvent the wheel and amazed no one else had made the connection before. When you think about it, it only makes sense. After all, both hypnosis and dream recall rely on accessing information stored in the subconscious mind, so why would dream recall be any different?
How dreams affect us
We have all awakened at one time or another in an unexplainably bad or good mood. This is a strong indication something emotional happened in the dream world concerning issues we have not yet dealt within our waking world. Because the subconscious stores information mostly as images and the conscious deals mostly with language, somewhere in the translation dreams become fragmented. This is why we are often left with only glimpses of emotional memory instead of full dream recall. Strangely enough, it isn’t just our emotions that are affected by dreams. Science has proven depressed people experience REM less often, and over time those who experience infrequent occurrences of REM actually loose brain mass (Guiley, p.13). This further validates the THEORY THAT (extent) dreams do play an important role in balancing our overall wellbeing.
Why we forget
We all go through dry spells from time to time when we cannot remember dreaming, but we all dream. Even those who believe they have never dreamed experience REM nightly. People who feel they do not dream, with the exception of physical problems and medication interference, are usually people who have shut themselves out from experiencing anything other than the physical realm. But what about those who used to remember and now go for months without a single remembered dream? A friend of mine who used to dream in vivid detail , for no apparent reason,suddenly stopped remembering her dreams. It had been months since she could recall even a portion of a dream. During this time her daily life had become quite complex; as a result she had subconsciously put the dream world on hold. When her life began to settle down her dreams slowly returned.
So why do we have a natural tendency to forget our dreams if remembering them is beneficial? The reason for not having full dream recall is because our minds naturally dilute our dream memories as we regain consciousness in order to maintain a healthy distinction between our waking and dream worlds. In the process of making sure the distinction is clearly defined, some people loose the ability to remember dreams and need to be retrained how to remember. As unfortunate as this may sound, there is a harsher alternative. Could you imagine what it would be like to have little or no distinction between our waking and sleeping world? Occasionally we have all, for a fleeting moment, woken from a dream convinced the dream was not a dream but an actual event. After gaining consciousness we realize it was all “just a dream.” But what about those who do not experience a second wake-up call, clearing the confused line between fantasy and reality? What about the person who wakes up and continues to believe what they dreamed did occur in this space and time? There are those among us who live each day having difficulty telling reality from fiction, and fantasy from reality; they live in a tangled web of ideas somewhere between the waking and dreaming worlds.
Recent research has concluded a lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin simulates brain peaks ,while the subject is awake, identical to that of the dreaming mind. This condition is known as the “waking dreamer”-a term also used to describe schizophrenic sufferers. Because of this, research is now being conducted in hopes of one day discovering the key to eliminating this type of mental illness. Although we are a long way from achieving such a lofty goal, this research does give us hope for the future while giving us a tiny glimpse into the importance of dreams. For those of us who have been blessed with the ability to distinguish dreams from the waking world, let me assure you, exploring dreams is a perfectly safe and controllable method of gaining insight into ourselves.
So why do we have a natural tendency to forget our dreams if remembering them is beneficial? The reason for not having full dream recall is because our minds naturally dilute our dream memories as we regain consciousness in order to maintain a healthy distinction between our waking and dream worlds. In the process of making sure the distinction is clearly defined, some people loose the ability to remember dreams and need to be retrained how to remember. As unfortunate as this may sound, there is a harsher alternative. Could you imagine what it would be like to have little or no distinction between our waking and sleeping world? Occasionally we have all, for a fleeting moment, woken from a dream convinced the dream was not a dream but an actual event. After gaining consciousness we realize it was all “just a dream.” But what about those who do not experience a second wake-up call, clearing the confused line between fantasy and reality? What about the person who wakes up and continues to believe what they dreamed did occur in this space and time? There are those among us who live each day having difficulty telling reality from fiction, and fantasy from reality; they live in a tangled web of ideas somewhere between the waking and dreaming worlds.
Recent research has concluded a lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin simulates brain peaks ,while the subject is awake, identical to that of the dreaming mind. This condition is known as the “waking dreamer”-a term also used to describe schizophrenic sufferers. Because of this, research is now being conducted in hopes of one day discovering the key to eliminating this type of mental illness. Although we are a long way from achieving such a lofty goal, this research does give us hope for the future while giving us a tiny glimpse into the importance of dreams. For those of us who have been blessed with the ability to distinguish dreams from the waking world, let me assure you, exploring dreams is a perfectly safe and controllable method of gaining insight into ourselves.
How to remember dreams
Like any talent, dream recall becomes rusty when not used. The best way to remember your dreams has to do with how you awaken. If you are awakened with a start, your fight or flight response kicks in and your brain automatically gets rid of anything it assesses as a danger. The best way to wake up is by alarm-a familiar yet not too gentle sound. In Silvia Brown’s Book of Dreams , author Silvia Brown recommends setting the alarm a half hour before you have to get up, and then allow yourself to doze. This works because when we first begin to sleep we tend to fall into REM, the stage where dreams are most vivid and most likely to occur. By setting the alarm to awaken you and then dozing will increase the likelihood of waking up in REM and therefore in the middle of a dream. If you are awakened too gradually however, your mind will have too much time to adjust to daily thinking patterns, which includes deleting dream memories.
Dream images vs. language
The second step to remembering your dreams is to retrain your mind to recall images without trying to rationalize them into words alone. It's only natural to want to think in terms of language vs. images but you must train your brain to work compatibly with both. The difference between our regular way of thinking and linguistic thinking isn’t something we’re conscious of, yet there is a marked difference between the two forms of thought. As you read these words you are thinking linguistically; you are actually forming the words in your head. When you think, “I’m hungry” the words I’m hungry do not enter your head. The purest form of linguistic thinking is making mental lists such as what we do when we go for groceries. Unfortunately, when first attempting to remember dreams, most people tend to make lists. In the beginning, if you can’t seem to get away from linguistic thinking, staying away from lists will help.
Thinking in an active voice while trying to visualize the dream also helps. For example, instead of thinking, “I saw a cat,” try to visualize larger chunks of the dream in active form like “I see a cat running through a narrow doorway.” This will trigger the image of the cat and what was happening instead of the word cat. The beauty of dream visualization is you don’t need to be some kind of meditation guru to do it. It isn’t even necessary to be able to see in vivid detail. The extent of visualization skills you will need to recreate the dream in your minds eye is no different than the ones you automatically use to recount your steps after losing your keys (even though I still can’t find my keys, but that’s beside the point).
Thinking in an active voice while trying to visualize the dream also helps. For example, instead of thinking, “I saw a cat,” try to visualize larger chunks of the dream in active form like “I see a cat running through a narrow doorway.” This will trigger the image of the cat and what was happening instead of the word cat. The beauty of dream visualization is you don’t need to be some kind of meditation guru to do it. It isn’t even necessary to be able to see in vivid detail. The extent of visualization skills you will need to recreate the dream in your minds eye is no different than the ones you automatically use to recount your steps after losing your keys (even though I still can’t find my keys, but that’s beside the point).
Dream journals
Once you begin to see parts of the dream in your mind's eye, you’re ready to record it on paper. To keep track of these notes you will need a dream journal, which doesn't have to be anything fancier than a pen and paper. There is nothing formal about it; my dream journal looks more like hieroglyphics made by a cave woman before her first cup of coffee. But nothing else matters as long as you can read it.
Most of us do not have the luxury of lying in bed and writing down our dreams in detail before starting the day. The alarm rings and there are kids to get off to school and ourselves to work, et cetera. So what can realistically be done? Only a few key phrases need to be scribbled down before you go about your morning routine. Even hours after you have forgotten your dream, those few words will trigger memories. Like falling dominos, one memory will lead to the next. As you begin to write you will find yourself recalling more than you ever thought possible.
If you can't remember your dreams, try recording how you felt when you woke up. Paying attention to how you feel can convince the dreaming mind to open the gateway just enough to sneak a peek. Once you are able to remember parts of the dream you will need to write the most important parts down in key action phrases. For example: Dog running, cat chasing et cetera, while leaving a space after each phrase. This will allow you to fill in the blanks later. You may want to label your dreams by date and title for easy reference. Be sure to including any impressions or feelings you received during and after the dream.
The most important thing to remember when writing dreams is to write how you felt about each area of the dream as a metaphor. For example; If you had a dream of climbing a tree, you may feel like you were climbing like Jack in the bean stalk. Suddenly you realize you have been worried about a fall in the stock market and how much harder you are going to have to work in order to retire. Climbing a tree and the stock market made no sense when you woke up, but as you wrote the words, and metephor, the connections appeared as if they had always been there. Your brain made the leap from the hard work of climbing a tree, to a bean stalk, to hard work at a seemingly endless job, leading you to wonder if you can retire when you originally planned. This technique works the best when the conscious mind is still groggy enough for the subconscious to play charades with.
Most of us do not have the luxury of lying in bed and writing down our dreams in detail before starting the day. The alarm rings and there are kids to get off to school and ourselves to work, et cetera. So what can realistically be done? Only a few key phrases need to be scribbled down before you go about your morning routine. Even hours after you have forgotten your dream, those few words will trigger memories. Like falling dominos, one memory will lead to the next. As you begin to write you will find yourself recalling more than you ever thought possible.
If you can't remember your dreams, try recording how you felt when you woke up. Paying attention to how you feel can convince the dreaming mind to open the gateway just enough to sneak a peek. Once you are able to remember parts of the dream you will need to write the most important parts down in key action phrases. For example: Dog running, cat chasing et cetera, while leaving a space after each phrase. This will allow you to fill in the blanks later. You may want to label your dreams by date and title for easy reference. Be sure to including any impressions or feelings you received during and after the dream.
The most important thing to remember when writing dreams is to write how you felt about each area of the dream as a metaphor. For example; If you had a dream of climbing a tree, you may feel like you were climbing like Jack in the bean stalk. Suddenly you realize you have been worried about a fall in the stock market and how much harder you are going to have to work in order to retire. Climbing a tree and the stock market made no sense when you woke up, but as you wrote the words, and metephor, the connections appeared as if they had always been there. Your brain made the leap from the hard work of climbing a tree, to a bean stalk, to hard work at a seemingly endless job, leading you to wonder if you can retire when you originally planned. This technique works the best when the conscious mind is still groggy enough for the subconscious to play charades with.
A good way to find the subconscious meaning of symbols is through a process commonly used in psychology known as free association. Free association, is the process of writing or vocalizing everything that comes to mind when you think of a particular object or word, or in this case a dream image. To do this, try writing the dream’s symbol and drawing a circle around it. Relax, then write all the thoughts coming into your mind relating to the object or scenario no matter how silly they might seem. Draw circles around each of these thoughts connecting them with lines. When you have finished, ponder this evolving diagram using intuition to find how it all links together. If you cannot seem to find the meaning of a symbol after free associating, don’t sweat it, just put a question mark beside it and move on.
Eventually as you look back over your dream notes, the words written from your many dreams will start to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle making your symbol’s meaning apparent over time. Robert Bruce, author of Astral Dynamics, suggests keeping an index of these personal dream symbols and their meanings. In this way you will build a dream dictionary, which like your dreams, will be tailored to you and you alone. Only after gathering as much information as you possibly can, should you begin to delete what doesn’t apply. This leads to the next step-knowing what to cut.
Eventually as you look back over your dream notes, the words written from your many dreams will start to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle making your symbol’s meaning apparent over time. Robert Bruce, author of Astral Dynamics, suggests keeping an index of these personal dream symbols and their meanings. In this way you will build a dream dictionary, which like your dreams, will be tailored to you and you alone. Only after gathering as much information as you possibly can, should you begin to delete what doesn’t apply. This leads to the next step-knowing what to cut.
Types of dreams
To find the purpose of dreams we first need to conceptualize what (it is) dreams do-by categorizing. All dreams fall under four categories. Each has its own purpose , often found overlapping within any given dream.
1. Processing - Processing dreams examine, sort and classify real-life events, to make it easier for us to handle circumstances and interactions with others. They are the brain’s way of processing what happens to us during our waking hours. These dreams often appear jumbled, abstract, and parable like, and seem to jump from scene to scene without any apparent connection.
2. Anxiety - Anxiety dreams are the body’s way of relieving stress through dreaming about imminent dangers, problems or conflicts. We do this in order to create a safe outlet for releasing anxiety and stress.
3. Fantasy - Fantasy dreams play an important role in creating mirror images of hidden thoughts, where feelings and desires paint pictures of what we would like to see come true. Through this type of dream, we derive feelings of wellbeing, accomplishment and pleasure that may otherwise be lacking in our lives.
4. Inspirational - Inspirational dreams are messages transferred to us by our higher power to further our soul’s journey.
1. Processing - Processing dreams examine, sort and classify real-life events, to make it easier for us to handle circumstances and interactions with others. They are the brain’s way of processing what happens to us during our waking hours. These dreams often appear jumbled, abstract, and parable like, and seem to jump from scene to scene without any apparent connection.
2. Anxiety - Anxiety dreams are the body’s way of relieving stress through dreaming about imminent dangers, problems or conflicts. We do this in order to create a safe outlet for releasing anxiety and stress.
3. Fantasy - Fantasy dreams play an important role in creating mirror images of hidden thoughts, where feelings and desires paint pictures of what we would like to see come true. Through this type of dream, we derive feelings of wellbeing, accomplishment and pleasure that may otherwise be lacking in our lives.
4. Inspirational - Inspirational dreams are messages transferred to us by our higher power to further our soul’s journey.
Determining your dream type
Knowing which category your dream falls under is the first step to interpreting dreams. Determining the type of dream you had makes it easier to understand what a dream is trying to say. So how do we go about getting past this first hurdle? It actually seems harder than it is. It all hinges on something you and I are very familiar with. How easily you determine your dream type has to do with how in touch you are with your emotions. It is amazingly easy once you get the hang of it. It all has to do with how the dream made you feel.
Some symbols are easier to pick up on then others, such as dreams about being pregnant, or giving birth are almost always signs of new creative beginnings; these therefore are classified as inspirational. Other symbols are not so easy to interpret without classifying. For example: the symbol of a person dancing would be interpreted quite differently in each of the following types of dreams. If the image appeared in a processing dream, it could simply be a reproduction of an image you saw on TV or something that ties in with an event your mind is trying to reckon with. In this case the image would take on a curious feel. If the same image appeared in an anxiety dream, the connotation would be much different, taking on an almost horror-movie type feel. Now if the dream were a fantasy dream the dancer would probably end up looking more like Brad Pitt or Sharon Stone. Then again, if the dream was inspirational in nature, a freeing feeling would be with you as the dance symbolized the dance of life or some such deep meaning resonating with you and leaving little room for outside interpretation.
As you can see, if you are not able to determine the area your dream fits under it is easy to get mixed up and come up with a wild interpretation not fitting the dream or the dreamer at all. Here is where logic comes into play. Like any decision in life, determining your dream type is best made with a blend of logic and emotion. There needs to be a basis for acting upon what you believe the dream is telling you, especially when it comes to inspirational dreams. After all, the “I dreamed it therefore it must be revelation” attitude can be a messy business. So before we get any further I would just like to clarify a few things. Inspirational dreams can mean a great many things to different people, and whether I or someone else interprets your dream or it is self interpreted, a level of responsibility still lies with the dreamer. People have done crazy and horrifying things in the name of inspiration and even for dreams believed to be messages from above (which unfortunately makes it necessary to have to mention this at all), but if for any reason you believe you are God’s chosen or feel the need to strap on your tennis shoes to join an alien race in the night or think your dog is part of the CIA, for gosh sakes close the book and see a therapist-I wish you all the best.
Now for those of us who can distinguish reality from fantasy lets continue. I have never had an inspirational dream steer me wrong, but some dreams can be misinterpreted as inspirational. I once had a very convincing dream I had cancer. I don’t have cancer but I did fear it for a few years after my mother passed away from the disease. The dream bothered me so much, I went for a physical which turned out just fine. If I had insisted, however, the dream was inspirational I would still be running from doctor to doctor in attempts to find this nonexistent cancer. Because I checked the dream with reality by going for a physical I was able to determine the dream to be an anxiety dream and not an inspirational dream at all.
When your dream interpretation is correct, you will know it. A feeling of remembrance will come over you as if suddenly recalling something long forgotten. It will feel like hearing a word you were searching for-that was just on the tip of your tongue but not quite there yet. If we continue to pay close attention to what our dreams are saying we will once again be guided, warned and even amused in ways only dreams can offer to us.
Some symbols are easier to pick up on then others, such as dreams about being pregnant, or giving birth are almost always signs of new creative beginnings; these therefore are classified as inspirational. Other symbols are not so easy to interpret without classifying. For example: the symbol of a person dancing would be interpreted quite differently in each of the following types of dreams. If the image appeared in a processing dream, it could simply be a reproduction of an image you saw on TV or something that ties in with an event your mind is trying to reckon with. In this case the image would take on a curious feel. If the same image appeared in an anxiety dream, the connotation would be much different, taking on an almost horror-movie type feel. Now if the dream were a fantasy dream the dancer would probably end up looking more like Brad Pitt or Sharon Stone. Then again, if the dream was inspirational in nature, a freeing feeling would be with you as the dance symbolized the dance of life or some such deep meaning resonating with you and leaving little room for outside interpretation.
As you can see, if you are not able to determine the area your dream fits under it is easy to get mixed up and come up with a wild interpretation not fitting the dream or the dreamer at all. Here is where logic comes into play. Like any decision in life, determining your dream type is best made with a blend of logic and emotion. There needs to be a basis for acting upon what you believe the dream is telling you, especially when it comes to inspirational dreams. After all, the “I dreamed it therefore it must be revelation” attitude can be a messy business. So before we get any further I would just like to clarify a few things. Inspirational dreams can mean a great many things to different people, and whether I or someone else interprets your dream or it is self interpreted, a level of responsibility still lies with the dreamer. People have done crazy and horrifying things in the name of inspiration and even for dreams believed to be messages from above (which unfortunately makes it necessary to have to mention this at all), but if for any reason you believe you are God’s chosen or feel the need to strap on your tennis shoes to join an alien race in the night or think your dog is part of the CIA, for gosh sakes close the book and see a therapist-I wish you all the best.
Now for those of us who can distinguish reality from fantasy lets continue. I have never had an inspirational dream steer me wrong, but some dreams can be misinterpreted as inspirational. I once had a very convincing dream I had cancer. I don’t have cancer but I did fear it for a few years after my mother passed away from the disease. The dream bothered me so much, I went for a physical which turned out just fine. If I had insisted, however, the dream was inspirational I would still be running from doctor to doctor in attempts to find this nonexistent cancer. Because I checked the dream with reality by going for a physical I was able to determine the dream to be an anxiety dream and not an inspirational dream at all.
When your dream interpretation is correct, you will know it. A feeling of remembrance will come over you as if suddenly recalling something long forgotten. It will feel like hearing a word you were searching for-that was just on the tip of your tongue but not quite there yet. If we continue to pay close attention to what our dreams are saying we will once again be guided, warned and even amused in ways only dreams can offer to us.
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To read more excerpts, or to buy the EBook or printed version from only $5.95 CLICK HERE
To contact the web site administrator email: flowerlight@netscape.net
