“I sail with you on the ocean of my dreams to a far away distant Place of great beauty and tranquility,

Where suffering and pain do not exist, where we give praises for our joy and happiness,

Where our love intertwines with Love for all things.

~ Rumi

 

Ah, the dream world!

We spend one-third of our lives dreaming. Whether we remember our dreams or not is another matter. One thing is certain, and it is that all dreams have meaning and significance. It is thru our dreams that our unconscious mind communicates with our conscious counterpart, sometimes in literal but most often in symbolic language.

In our dreams our subconscious sends us on bizarre adventures, flooding us with intense feelings and meetings with people who may unconsciously be at the back of our minds or in our thoughts. At other times we merely sift thru recent events that happened in our lives, places we have been to and experiences, good and bad, that have bothered us or stayed with us since time immemorial.

On the other hand our dreams may be entirely random, populated with strangers in unfamiliar places, beings and events that have no apparent connection with the earthly realm that we live in. Carl Jung describes it best as a storehouse of the personal and collective unconscious, of imprinted patterns of experiences, instincts and memories expressed as universal images or symbols.

When we do remember dreams we may find their contents disturbing, puzzling or even shocking. The meanings of dreams are best known to the dreamer than any interpretation offered by anyone else, according to Jung. Therefore to understand the dream’s meaning, one must stick as close as possible to the dream images. The symbolic messages reflect our current progress in life, offer guidance or even warn us that we are straying from our path and destiny that, if we paid attention to, could lead us to fulfillment in life.

I had a dream. For the longest time while growing up, it was the same dream. It was more a nightmare that recurred night after night and continued on for many years. I would wake up in cold sweat, shaken and disturbed. It got so bad that I was afraid to close my eyes so I would not go back to sleep, for fear the dream would come back and haunt me again.

In my dream I am drowning and struggling against a strong current. I am clinging to a life raft in the midst of a turbulent ocean. The heaving waves are doing their utmost to loosen my grip and I see people all around me, my family and friends, watching my struggle but passing me by, without stopping to help.

The significance of my dream was made clear to me not too long ago and I knew that I was battling with certain very troubling issues in my personal life. My waking moments were equally tumultuous at the time and life-changing decisions were keeping me in a state of fearful conclusion. As if this dream scene was not horrendous enough, life threw me such a challenging curve from which it has taken me considerable time to recover. The nightmare has not come back since.

Most of us may argue that we don’t dream. However, that is not possible. If you are sleeping, you are dreaming. The challenge is how to remember your dreams?

I’m a firm believer in dreams for guidance, for answers to my most troubling questions, for healing, and even connecting with loved ones. I would like to share how I remember my dreams and the conditioning that I go thru prior to drifting to sleep.

Before going to sleep each night, I tell myself that I would like to wake up at least half an hour before the time set on my alarm clock. I go over my day’s events and issues that are troubling me, and I ask that an answer or solution be shown to me clearly in my dreams.

When I do wake up, which is always the half hour before my alarm rings, I keep my eyes closed and stay with my dream, bringing it to the forefront of my awareness. I don’t move, I don’t open my eyes, don’t check my phone. I leisurely go thru the events that occurred in my dream and people and places that I saw. I’m just very still for the first few minutes until I feel that I have been able to replay whatever I can recall. Very often a specific name of a place or person has come to me and I know that it has significance in my life, and that it is important for me to remember. I will then get up and quickly jot it down on a pad that I keep by my bedside so that I may refer to it later.

I now live my life from a place of curiosity. My life experiences thus far have taught me one thing. It is that by myself I control nothing. I have come to terms with this and I relinquish all control and let go and let God. Every answer I need, the solution to all my problems, and all guidance, is given me often thru my dreams, or thru events and people that I interact with each day.

It is just a matter of setting a clear intention. The Universe will cooperate if you are sincere and clear when asking for assistance and Guidance. This I know for sure…

 

“You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one.”

~ John Lennon