The DreamWorker – DreamWorkers.org

Recently I cleaned out my office and came across this article I had forgotten about from our local Long Island newspaper Newsday.  The implications to me back up my belief that dreams can help us in many different ways and that “sleeping on it” when trying to remember or solve a problem certainly can’t hurt.  Here is the first paragraph with a link to the full article.

The Oddity of Dreams / Study with amnesiacs suggests how brain uses various types of memories

October 23, 2000 By Bryn Nelson. STAFF WRITER  

IF PEOPLE CAN’T recall a recent event, will they still

dream about it? According to a new study, the answer-a surprising yes-is

raising a slew of questions about where dreams come from, what they mean and

what role they play in learning and memory…. Read the full article here

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

The same image can have dramatically different meaning for two different people – even identical twins. Also, most generalized definitions do not take context into account. As an example, fire can have a vastly different meaning in a fireplace than it does when a house is aflame. For these reasons, I do not encourage unbridled use of dream dictionaries. They are a good start, and if you are at a complete loss of an association, are better than nothing. But there are too many ways to uncover the meanings in a person’s dreams without having to resort to standardized dictionaries.

In addition, as a dream analyst you are just that, a DREAM analyst. You are not a psychoanalyst, and therefore are not interested in the circumstances surrounding the dream. You are helping to interpret the dream itself; and your focus should remain on that. If you take a person’s circumstances with you into the dream interpretation, you will have preconceived ideas of what the dream means. This is never a good way to start.

Images: Mental representations of objects or persons not physically present. We create them in our unconscious so that we have an inner mental picture of those things that evoke an emotional response. Our images are internalized in infancy, when we experience the world through our five senses, and attach meaning to things that satisfy our senses.

Symbols:               An object that stands for something else. Not only dreams, but everyday life is rife with symbols (traffic signs, wedding rings, etc.)

Universal Symbols:  Symbols that are rooted to the experiences of all humankind, and therefore are common to everyone, regardless of sex, age, nationality, etc. Listed below of some of the most common universal symbols:

House:                   Self

Weather:              Condition of one’s life.

Water:                   The emotions/unconscious

Time of Day:       The time of one’s life or one’s frame of mind (morning = youth = optimism)

What if none of the universal meanings seem to click for a symbol, and it has you stumped on a personal level as well? There is an easy and enlightening way to discover a dream symbol’s meaning. Have a conversation with it, in your dream journal. The symbol may hold meaning not only for that particular dream, but for your whole life as well. Allow yourself to feel the personality of the symbol. Write in an uninhibited fashion. Let the symbol communicate with you as you imagine it would. Do not let yourself form opinions about what you are saying as you are writing it.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Suppose you have a question that needs to be answered or a decision to make.  Dream Incubation is a perfect way to get the answer you are looking for.

Incubation Instructions

·                     While lying in bed relaxed, think about the problem you wish to have answered. Even work on it a little in your mind. Try to figure out what it is you really want. What obstacles are stopping you? What has worked and what hasn’t worked?

·                     Formulate a single, precise, clear question.

·                     Write the question on a piece of paper and place it under your pillow.

·                     As you are falling asleep, repeat the question to yourself and ask that it be answered in your dreams

·                     Record all your dreams that night in your dream journal immediately after each dream.

Aside from the above instructions, you may want to keep the following in mind.

·         Are you really ready to receive the answer?

·         Choose the right night. Make sure you’re not too tired, have had no alcoholic beverages, and you will have time in the morning to take notes.

·         Make sure you fill in your dream journal completely before bed including daynotes, feelings, dream question.

You can use the above method for just about any purpose.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Freud would probably have been indignant at the suggestion that he wasn’t the first to consider dreams as masked expressions of suppressed desires, and to use free association to uncover their meaning. But the Iroquois Indians were doing just that two centuries before Freud ever owned his first couch.

Freudian and Iroquois dream beliefs run surprisingly parallel – both were convinced that forbidden wishes were expressed in disguised form in dreams, and if those wishes weren’t satisfied, the mind would punish the body through physical ailments (a.k.a., psychosomatic illness).

That is where Freudian and Iroquois beliefs diverge, however. The Iroquois were not satisfied with just dream interpretation – they advocated actually acting out your dream during your waking hours, no matter how bizarre or otherwise socially unacceptable that would be. For instance, if one lived in Iroquois Society, it would have been perfectly acceptable for a person to parade around nude with a pig tied to his back if he had a dream about it the night before. In our culture, such an enthusiast would reach Bellevue before a higher plane of self understanding.

Make Dreams Come True (Less the Strapped Swine)

Obviously, acting out a good portion of our dreams would land us in jail, or, at the very least, in hot water with our parents or spouses. However, when chosen selectively, certain dreams lend themselves very well to acting out.

A dream that offers an answer to a confounding predicament, or one in which you find your way around a blockage will bear constructive results when acted out. If you find acting out a dream is not as simple as it sounds, working with a group will often yield exceptional results.

Acting Out Dreams with a Group

When acting out dreams with a group, you must be even more cautious about which dreams to use. Good sense dictates that a dream should not be chosen if it could be harmful to another group member. While using other dreamwork therapies, it is often preferable to study dreams that feature great details and a good number of scenes. In this case, you will want to avoid dreams that have an innumerable number of characters.

1.                   The dreamer recounts the entire dream.

2.                   The group members take turns asking clarifying questions.

3.                   The dreamer assigns each group member a role as a character or element.

4.                   The dream is enacted with the dreamer as himself.

5.                   The dreamer has dialogue with the characters as he chooses, even changing the ending. After the dream has been acted out, everyone should discuss their feelings about the performance. In this way, the dreamer can glean new insights into his own dream.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

All of us have experienced nightmares at one time or another – and that enormous wave of relief when we look around our dark bedroom and gush to ourselves “Oh! Thank goodness, it was only a dream.” Unfortunately, when you close your eyes at night, the odds are considerably against having only pleasurable, or even uneventful, dreams. A study has shown that 64% of our dreams are connected with some level of apprehension – ranging from awaking with a mild sense of uneasiness and not knowing why to being drenched in sweat and too terrified to go back to sleep. It is helpful to go over the different degrees of intensity in connection with frightening dreams:

Night Terrors afflict primarily children. Unlike most other dreams, they occur during the non-REM sleep stages, and are very brief; usually consisting of a single scene. The child awakes screaming, but does not remember what scared him. Naturally, night terrors can be very traumatic to a child. Thankfully, most children outgrow them.

Nightmares cause anxiety severe enough to awaken the dreamer in distress. The dreamer has clear, detailed recollection of the scary dream, which is usually of some length (15 – 20 minutes is the average). Common nightmare themes include falling, drowning, being chased, and getting lost.

Bad Dreams are the most common type of frightening dreams.  Not scary enough to leave you crying or shaking, but certainly quite disturbing. Examples would include being nude in public, having to take a test for which you are unprepared, or hurting someone else. It is worth mentioning here that often physical illness that is not yet apparent to you or your doctors will show up in a bad dream. Be on the look out for, say, dreams of a house with a broken furnace (gastrointestinal problems) or a car with busted headlights (glaucoma or cataracts). Anything that seems somehow to represent a physical problem may be worth checking out, particularly if it is recurring. Of course, any blatant, anxiety-causing dreams of your being ill warrants a check-up.

The best way to deal with a nightmare is to turn it into a lucid dream, or to re-enter the dream. In those ways, you can not only change the ending to a better one, you can confront your fears head on and banish them. Sometimes just making the decision to “kick some nocturnal butt” is enough to narrow the point spread in your favor. Another way to go from underdog to top dog is to turn a dream foe into a friend through conversation. That dream act can bolster your self-worth in your waking life. The  Senoi actively fought their demons in their dreams.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

A dream journal will do you little good if you can’t remember any dreams to write in it.

It has been proven that all of us dream.   Many people mistakenly insist that they do not because they have no recollection of dreaming.  There are several common reasons why dreams are not remembered:

• Especially traumatic dreams from childhood may block adult recollection of dreams.
• We don’t want to acknowledge unpleasant aspects of ourselves or experience painful dream feelings.
• Very deep sleepers often have problems remembering dreams. This is because it takes these people a long time to become fully awake, and our most productive dreaming is done just before waking up. By the time they are awake enough to remember a dream, they can’t.

The Recall Checklist

• Keep a dream journal by your bed
• Record the daily information before going to bed (date, daily occurrences, etc.)
• Upon awakening, write whatever is on your mind
• Write even brief segments of dreams, This may trigger more recall
• Concentrate on your feelings upon awakening
• Move slowly into the dream position to re-trigger the dream
• If you must use an alarm, use the alarm, not the radio
• Set the alarm for the middle of the night. It may wake you during or after a dream
• Drink a lot of water before bed. This may wake you in the night during a dream
• Stay relaxed, patient, and persistent
• Take a midday nap. You may dream during it.
• Use your dream journal every day to let your mind know you want to remember

The Incubation Method for Better Recall

During the hypnogogic state, that suggestible time between wakefulness and sleep, tell yourself repeatedly “I will remember my dreams when I wake up.”

Also try:

• Setting your alarm 30 – 60 minutes early to catch those important dreams during that productive early-morning dreaming period.
• If you awake sensing you just had a dream, but can’t remember what it is, go back to the position you were in when you had the dream, relax and drift back into a dream-like state. Try to immerse yourself in the feelings and images you had when you first awoke.
• Call up images of the important people in your life one by one. One of them might have been in your dream and will, hence, trigger a memory.
• If you are drowsy and relaxed, but still can’t remember that dream, invent one while in this close-to-the-unconscious state. The dream exercises will also work with the made-up dream.

 If all of the above suggestions fail, stop trying for a while. Once you take the pressure to remember off yourself; you may be more successful. After a few weeks, try the incubation method again.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

There are quite a few dream-like experiences that may or may not be part of dreams. We shall call these experiences sleep phenomena.

REM Sleep - In 1953, REM (Rapid Eye Movements) were observed, and it was finally proven that everyone dreams, even if they don’t remember it. During periods of REM sleep, dreamer’s eyes move back and forth, as if watching a movie. That is not surprising, since dreams are mostly a visual experience. It is interesting to note that in blind persons, even those who were not blind from birth, dreams are made up of other sensory experiences. During an average night, a person’s mind cycles through a 90-minute pattern of REM and non-REM sleep five or six times. Toward morning, the amount of REM sleep increases.

Paralysis and Light Sleep - During certain phases of sleep, muscular reflexes in the limbs disappear. Occasionally, this unconscious knowledge makes itself known in a dream where the dreamer is paralyzed. Often the dreamer awakens to find they, indeed, are unable to move. This is, of course, only temporary. Reflexes return almost immediately.

The Curb Jerk - A myoclonic jerk is a sudden leg contraction that occurs during light sleep. This muscle spasm is exactly what happens when we step off a curb. We wake up suddenly with the feeling we’ve done just that – tripped off a curb and almost fallen.

The Falling Syndrome - The terms “falling asleep” and “dropping off to sleep” have their roots in very real sensations. When first going to sleep, we sometimes we feel as though we are falling through space (not to be confused with flying, which is associated with excitement). This is due to the conscious mind sensing an altered state of awareness.

False Awakenings - This is dreaming that you are awake. This is very common. In the morning, the false awakening often seems quite real, and you can not tell for certain whether you actually woke up during the night or not.

Sleep Walking and Talking - Sleepwalking is also known as somnambulism.  It occurs when the action in a dream is actually carried out. This occurs much more often in children, only because they are less self-conscious and more nimble. Adults usually sleepwalk only when they are worried about something or are ill. Sleep-talking is when the conversation in a dream is carried out aloud. It is possible for a person to talk with a sleep-talking person, but the responses received may not make sense.

Recurrent Dreams and Serial Dreams - are similar, but not quite the same. A recurring dream is having the same dream continually, while a serial dream is a series of different dreams that are based upon a common story line or possibly a continuation.

Telepathy and Teleportation - Telepathic dreams are those in which “news” (happy or sad) is transported to you in a dream before you are informed through more conventional means. Teleportation is when the dreamer is actually seen (either in a dream or as a ghostly vision) by the person they are dreaming of.

Flying Dreams - Seventy percent of persons have experienced this, but experts are at a loss to explain the mechanism supporting it. Some say this reflects ancestral memory when, according to Darwin, our ancestors were birds. Physics maintain that dreams of flying are astral-projection, a state in which our spirits leave our bodies and fly free.

Prophetic Dreams and Premonitions - The difference between a prophecy and premonition is that a prophecy is made about something the prophet had some degree of knowledge about, no matter how little or far removed. In a premonition, the person could not have had any knowledge whatsoever about the subject of the premonition. Premonitions are only called premonitions when they have actually come true.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

Why do we sleep?

It was once believed that the sole purpose of sleep was to rest and repair the body. Researchers proved this theory incorrect when it was shown that resting, although not sleeping, for 24 hours will rejuvenate the body just as well. Then it was suggested that it was the brain that was resting, since sleep-deprived persons feel disoriented and mentally disturbed. Actually, the brain is more active asleep than awake, though in a different way. Two distinct sleep states were observed, usually referred to as deep and light.  We now know that the primary purpose of sleep is to dream. Dreams are vital to our well-being, since they permit us to view our hopes, fears, secrets, and mundane problems in new ways. If we are to incorporate our dreams’ messages into our lives, then we must learn the language of dreams.

What are Dreams?

Dreams are experiences during sleep using any of your five senses. Most remembered dreams, however, are visual. These experiences are very real to our mind and can produce psychological and physiological responses in a sleeping person. Dreams are not consciously controlled by us. Later on we will discuss lucid dreaming. During this type of dreaming, brain activity is extremely close to what it would be if you were to actually do what you were dreaming about.

Do we all dream and why?

For the most part, yes, we do.  Some of us just don’t remember.  (See our dream recall handout)

Some scientists say that dreaming is merely a by-product of sleep and serves no purpose.  Kind of like static from a radio or television which is not tuned to a station.  However many believe in one of numerous reasons for dreaming.  The most popular being that dreams are our brains way of processing the days information and other items we are thinking about.  Some also believe it is a way for our subconscious to communicate with us without our critical thinking process blocking the message.

Are all dreams symbolic?  Why?

Symbolism it is thought is used by our brains to prevent us from going crazy during our dreams.  They are too traumatic and even more so if they were all real.  Your dreams will fall into one of three other categories:

Literal Dreams - are just that. There is little mystery surrounding these dreams. They are to be interpreted literally. Your dog is your dog (not some animalistic aspect of yourself), and if you are kneading dough, it does not mean that you are in need of money. It is simply a reminder that you promised to make a loaf of bread for the church bake sale.

Symbolic Dreams - Symbolic dreams represent feelings. It is easier to express feelings with symbols rather than words or literal enactment’s, so that is what your unconscious does. In these dreams, situations and objects are not to be taken literally. This is sure to be a relief; since symbolic dreams usually sound utterly ridiculous when told to someone as a simple narrative.

Literal – Symbolic - These dreams contain a mixture of literal events, with feasible scenarios and symbols. The majority of dreams are accounted for in this category, which shows that both the intellect and the heart contribute to a dream.

Can someone else interpret my dreams?

Probably not accurately unless the person knows you very well.  However, someone else can help guide you and act as a dream partner.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts