Dreams

WHAT DO DREAMS TELL US?
by Rita Milios, MSW

Dreams - those bizarre bits of jumbled pictures that come to us when we sleep. Are they merely mental flashbacks of our day's activities or could they be more? Could they contain information " valuable information" that is helpful to us for solving problems and gaining guidance? Yes, our dreams are one of our most valuable mental resources. They contain messages - messages from ourselves to ourselves.

Dreams will often come to give you a "state of your state of mind" message. They may come to say, "You're doing fine. Hang in there." Or the message may be, "You've gone off in the wrong direction. Take a close look at your life and make some adjustments."
Like intuitions, dreams come from your inner, subconscious mind. Dreams come in many forms - creative dreams, precognitive dreams where ones "sees" a future event, problem solving dreams, intuitive dreams, and simple "logging in" dreams where one can catch a glimpse of their mind's "filing" of daily information.
Reoccurring dreams are especially important because they are a message that your subconscious mind is desperately trying to get you to pay attention to. Your subconscious will patiently give you the same message over and over for years until you finally "get" it.

WHAT DO DREAMS TELL US? Dreams allow you to become aware of your mental programming. They let you see how it is affecting your life. Sometimes a dream will give you a message that an old attitude or belief is no longer working for you. A dream may suggest a new attitude or belief that would work better, or will sometimes give you a little pat on the back, a little encouragement. Often, dreams come to warn you that you need to be more aware of a certain situation in your life. And often dreams come to present you with solutions to problems you have been working on but could find no conscious solution to.

Dreams tell you how you really feel about yourself and others, and the situations in your life. They give you your personal perceptions of reality (and this may or may not be consistent with objective reality).

Dreams tell you about your self-image, when and where you feel in control of your life, when and where you don't. They tell you about situations where you feel that you have been "good," and where you feel that you have been "bad." Each of these facets of your self image is represented in your dreams.

HOW TO REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS To get the help available from your dreams, you must first remember them. It usually takes an average of five weeks to learn to recall your dreams. But by following some simple, easy steps, almost everyone can begin to remember their dreams and reap the benefits of these important messages.

- Give yourself a pre-sleep suggestion. Just before you fall asleep, say to yourself several times, "I am going to remember my dreams."
- Keep a pad and pencil by your bed to down any memories or scraps of memories about your dreams.
- Upon awakening in the morning, do not jump right out of bed. Stay in bed a few minutes and mull over any thoughts or images that may be floating around in your mind. These may remind you of a dream.
- Give dreams a name or "theme." This "classifies" the dream and helps you remember it. It also helps you to bring up any associations connected with it.

INTERPRETING YOUR DREAM MESSAGES What do your dreams mean? The best and most accurate interpretation of your dream will come from you, through your intuition. Your dreams are part of you, your subconscious. Who better to know what your subconscious is telling you than you yourself?

Start by asking yourself, what does each dream image mean to me? How do I feel about the image? Dream therapists generally agree that a dream image reflects your own personal attitudes and feelings. So, for instance, while dreams of snakes for most people would represent something they are afraid of, for a person who keeps reptiles as pets, a dream of snakes might represent friendship or companionship.

Once you have identified the general feeling or attitude that the dream image represents, ask yourself how this feeling or attitude may be manifesting itself in your life today. (What is happening currently in your life that is making you fearful?) Use this method of discovery even when you dream of friends, family members or acquaintances. Remember, dreams are messages from yourself to yourself, and they are most often about yourself, your feelings, your concerns, etc. Assume that all dream characters, even people you know, represent aspects of yourself and are there to represent a feeling or attitude. The question you should ask yourself is: How do you feel about the friend or family member?, not why are you dreaming of them.

By looking at your dream images as aspects of yourself, you can most often identify the feeling or attitude associated with the image and uncover the dream's message. But when interpreting a dream message, if you don't intuitively feel that it is right, it probably isn't. On the other hand if the interpretation elicits the response, "Yes! That's it!" it probably is accurate. A true interpretation always feels right. More importantly, it can tell you a lot about yourself and which areas of your life may currently be in need of attention.

Adapted from Tools for Transformation, by Rita Milios. Order Tools for Transformation in the Bookstore section of Rita's website at www.ritamilios.com.