The type of scissors may also be important to the dreamer. Kitchen scissors would, for instance, be more utilitarian than surgical scissors which would suggest the necessity to be more precise. Scissors can also suggest a sharp, hurtful tongue or cutting remarks.
2- Dreaming of sharpening scissors suggests that we need to be more precise in our communication, whereas using blunt scissors suggests that we are likely to create a problem through speaking too bluntly.
To dream of a hairdresser using scissors signifies our fear of losing strength and status.
3- Spiritually scissors can have an ambivalent meaning. They can cut the Thread of Life, but can also represent unity and the coming together of the spiritual and physical.... scissors dream meaning
2- There may be a need for precise information in a situation in our lives.
3- Accurate communication is essential on all levels; physical, mental and spiritual.... grammar dream meaning
To experience something which measures time is often to alert us to the need for measuring our thoughts and activities. When such a symbol is old fashioned as in an hourglass our perception of time and its management may be old- fashioned. We need to use different, and more precise, ways of measuring those activities.
2- When we arc particularly under stress we can be ovciiv aware of the running out of time, that it can bccome an enemy. This is often symbolised as an hourglass.
3- In former times, the hourglass was frequently taken as a symbol of death. More properly it is now seen as a svmbol for the Passage of Life.... hourglass dream meaning
2. Don’t make decisions based only on emotion. ... mathematics dream meaning
2. A mystery reveals itself, news is in the offing.
3. Attention to details, careful planning and precise consideration can achieve important goals.
4. Ability to use good judgment. ... ruler dream meaning
The self, as defined by Jung, is both what we are consciously aware of, and the massive potential remaining unconscious.
The self has no known boundaries, for we do not yet know the end of what the mind is capable of, or what consciousness touches out of sight of waking.
The mass of experience and awareness which lies in the background of our waking awareness is like an inner guiding factor which, apart from expressing precise pieces in the form of remembered facts and events, guides us, if we listen, through intuition, feeling states, dreams or illumination. Its symbols are: a ring, a square area, a great tree, Christ, a shining being or animal, a talking animal, a strange stone or rock, symbols like the cross or mandala, a round table, God, a guru, an elephant, a crowned or shining snake. Here are some examples of the self in dreams.
Example: ‘1 am climbing a tree to get a stone. This stone has special powers that flower. I’m nearly there when I look down and notice that there aren’t any branches on the left side of the tree. This causes me to consider the possibility of falling and that in turn leads to a fear of climbing any higher. I wake with my heart beating strongly, but little feeling of fear.’ Example: 41 lopk into the third square, it was filled with an iridescent blue colour, shining and beautiful to look at, a beautiful substance. I felt it had to do with religion, but I couldn’t quite grasp it.1 Example: ‘I was in a small town with a group of men. We were standing in a small square praying. As I prayed I realised I could fly.’
Awareness of what the self holds is important. It contains what is our own personal wisdom and insight regarding life in general and particular.
It is not full of creeds and dogmas and conflict as are organised attempts to express the spiritual. But it does have its dark side.
To grasp the stone with special powers, understand the significance of the iridescent blue square, or find real uplift in prayer as these dreams depict, we need a clear rational mind which allows intuition and feeling but is not relinquished or lost in the immensity of the self. Touching the vastness of our being we may feel ourself to be vast, all knowing, a guru. In this state, Jung says, a person loses all sense of humour and drops ordinary human contacts. Functionally what happens is that as a defence against meeting our pain and childhood trauma as we enter this vast storehouse of our being, as a way of escaping the self responsibility for our condition, one might fly off into feelings of loving all things, of knowing the mystery of it all, of being the Buddha.
The problem is that while it might be true we are in essence the Christ, or have wisdom, these realisations are distorted by the undealt-with childhood traumas and longings.
See aura; mandala. ... the self dream meaning
Folklore: The promise of happiness, only—be patient!... pea dream meaning
A well-known symbol of differentiation (analysis) and intellectual work.
The saw is changing something rough into something more precise that the dreamer then can use. In many instances, this dream image has something to do with willpower that can be used to bring success.... saw dream meaning
For a more precise understanding of this dream, identify what is written on the card.... business card dream meaning
The system should include the following:
1. Which persons in the dream could represent the animus (the masculine side—primarily in women but also in men) and / or the anima (the female side, primarily in men but also in women) ?
2. Are there people in the dream whom you reject, whom you fight against or hate? Particularly when they are of the same gender, they are likely to represent your own dark and rejected side, the shadow.
3. What is the main symbol, and what is your attitude toward it? It is possible that there is more than one “main” symbol. Access to a clear understanding of the symbol is possible when you characterize it in one sentence.
4. Which objects are important in the dream? What is their objective function in your daily life? What is their subjective function?
5. Try to determine what, in yourself, each symbol refers to.
6. Go over the sequence of actions or situations in your dream once more and ask yourself: Where in my everyday life have such behaviors or situations occurred?
Only after going through these steps, should you attempt to interpret your dream in its entirety. Summarize each interpretation in two or three clear-cut sentences.
This type of system is for those who have very little time in the morning for any extensive and detailed dream work. It could well be called a system for the stressed-out city dweller, which however doesn’t mean that it cannot be an effective and precise way for dealing with your dreams.
For those with more time, here are a few additional suggestions:
1. Before each interpretation, ask yourself: Where have I come from and where am I going? Examine your dream in that connection.
2. Look closely at each detail of your dream.
The small things give important suggestions that are easily overlooked.
3. Look very closely to see if there are objects that appear in an unusual combination. Look for magical and fairy-tale elements: for instance, transformations, breaks in time, or other unusual incidents. This is often the case in short dreams that sometimes seem composed like a still life and where natural objects combine unnaturally to create a certain atmosphere. Arbitrary combinations of familiar things always create unusual images or special atmosphere, and that is significant here. Begin your interpretation with this atmosphere.
4. At the end of each interpretation, ask yourself: Can I transfer what I have learned in the dream to my everyday life? It is best to have a plan on how to immediately integrate these “lessons” into your life.... how to begin dream meaning
For a more precise understanding of this dream, identify who is jailed, who is the jailer, and the location of the key.
If you put a wild animal into a cage, this either represents that you are gaining mastery over your animal instincts or that you are suppressing them. Consider the feeling tone of this dream.... cage dream meaning
For a more precise understanding of this dream, consider who’s voice you hear, the tone, and the words that are spoken.... voice dream meaning
The dreamer is assured of success in the precise matter of the dreamed disappointment... disappointment dream meaning
Try to be more relaxed in company.
See also Manners.... etiquette dream meaning
(2) A crystal may be a symbol of purity and innocence, openness and receptiveness.... crystal dream meaning
If you hit the target it means that you will achieve your goals. Instead, shooting an arrow upward is a sign of great hope and projects, which are likely to be spoiled by excessive ambition. A Freudian psychologist, however, interprets this image as a clear masculine sexual symbol.
A medieval oneiric source claims this dream portends travel, entertainment, and celebrations.
If you dream that an arrow is shot straight through your body it means you have a secret enemy. A broken arrow augurs disappointment in love or business.... arrow dream meaning
If it is not these, the dream of breathing with difficulty signals a moment of fatigue in which you find yourself surrounded by adverse circumstances that drown you. On the contrary, if you dream that you breathe deeply and intensely, the dream reveals a state of well-being in a positive environment that stimulates the development of your personality and your projects.... breath dream meaning
It is a very precise bird of prey who can wait before acting. Both the owl and the barn owl advise you must be alert and open your eyes, it is possible that someone tries to deceive you or to promise something that she cannot fulfill.
The most common belief is that this is a sad dream that predicts gloomy moments and poverty. Sometimes, it even predicts misfortunes.... owl dream meaning
If in the dream you find the thief in the precise moment of stealing, the item being stolen will be extremely important for a correct interpretation.
Gypsies believe that to dream of theft means you have a guilty conscience. However, if you are part of a gang of thieves, it denotes that you trust your friends.... thief dream meaning
Honey.
The medicine that bees offer as a totem connects to this precise, organized structure that they create combined with the effort they expend in creating something so profoundly sweet. When the bee appears in your dream, you are being asked to deepen your willingness to work in a structured manner in order to create enormous levels of abundance and prosperity.... bee dream meaning
The larger the cat, the greater the power of this totem.
The cougar is nocturnal and therefore relates more to shadow elements of things hidden and unknown.
A stalk and ambush hunter, the cougar is associated with the ability to have your presence remain hidden, but take powerful action at the precise moment that action is necessary.
A cougar can also be an older woman who is enjoying her sexual power with younger men, so this may be something to attribute to the appearance of a cougar in a dream.... cougar dream meaning
The symbolic meaning therefore connects with this very precise way of penetrating below the surface of something in a way that leaves no evidence of its presence. In a dream, needles connect to this need or desire.
The type of needle will figure prominently in your interpretation.
A needle that has been used for drug use is an indication that something has happened in the past that is destructive but that has left almost no trace of the original act.... needle dream meaning
The many complex folds of origami represent all of the different and precise thought shifts and changes of mind that may be required in order to achieve some ultimate goal.... origami dream meaning
Clear and personalized messages Before jumping in to discover the hidden messages that filter into our dreams and appear in the dictionary in the second part, it’s best to keep in mind that not all oneiric thoughts can be analyzed with the same pattern. Therefore, psychologists and analysts distinguish between three classes of dreams:
In these dreams, death can mean many different things; for example, some psychologists interpret it as marking the end of a life cycle. This is why we insist on the importance of personalizing the dream interpretation.
Be that as it may, premonitions tend to be hidden in a symbolism that is difficult to decode, since it does not refer to past experiences. They are messages that try to warn us of dangers that face us on the physical or emotional plane. For this reason, eastern cultures have always valued them highly, as we will see later on. Satisfaction dreams Satisfaction dreams constitute the basis for the main theories of oneiric interpretation. They deal with those images in which we fulfill the desires that we cannot satisfy while awake. Therefore, this huge category includes everything from erotic dreams to the worst nightmares. In some cases, a certain satisfaction dream may repeat for years. This means that the person’s subconscious is warning them of the importance of something they may be trying to ignore. The part of this book dedicated to interpretation refers to this type of dreams.
Sexual dreams are not necessarily the result of accumulated sexual tension that needs to be released, but rather they usually refer to inner conflicts and hidden needs, or a desire to enjoy sex more freely.Sexual dreams There are dreams that have the capacity to excite us, intrigue us, make us tremble, embarrass us . . . These are the ones that we never, or almost never, share with others. These are erotic dreams that, generally speaking, have nothing to do with the social or sexual conduct of our waking lives.
“Dreams manifest the desires that our consciousness does not express.” Sigmund Freud
Erotic dreams join other sensations that, in waking life, we probably wouldn’t relate immediately with sex. Therefore, these dreams, which could be violent, passionate, perverse, romantic, etc., tend to refer to inner conflicts and hidden emotional needs. Therefore they belong to the classification of satisfaction dreams.On some occasions, they reveal a fear of intimacy or warn against certain relationships. In others, they illustrate situations and behaviors that we cannot normally exhibit. The dream represents everything through symbols or a strong sexual connotation. Its themes and languages, often dark, can confuse us or make us doubt because each individual has their personal symbols (just like with other types of dreams). It’s interpretation, therefore, should be performed according to the situation of the individual.
Dreams are escape routes for sexual impulses that social conventions repress; in erotic dreams everything seems permissible, so they are the best way to bring our most secret emotional desires to light. For Sigmund Freud, dreams manifested the desires that our consciousness does not express, and that was all.
Dreams contain valuable information about ourselves. But their meaning is often far from what it seems.
On occasion, erotic dreams illustrate situations and behaviors that we can’t experience in real life, whether it is due to social convention or our own beliefs. These sexual dreams act as an escape route for repressed impulses.Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to them because they contain valuable information about ourselves. However, their meaning is often far from what it seems. They may just as well symbolize tension in our daily lives as the desire to have a good time. Erotic dreams and fantasies Erotic dreams are also related to a person’s physical and emotional development. During puberty, for example, these kinds of dreams are very common. Others that are more unpleasant are related to episodes of abuse or sexual assault. In some form or another, almost everyone has had some type of erotic dreams because at the end of the day, they are natural occurrences that are part of our lives.
They deserve our time and attention. For example, it’s important to discover when they refer to sexual issues and when they refer to other aspects, because erotic dreams often bring us valuable clues about intimacy with a partner. If something is not right in the relationship, they probably indicate the path to resolution. There should not be any difference between the erotic dreams of men and women, just between different people. However, various studies done in the United States have demonstrated the opposite. While women usually have erotic dreams with someone they know and go all the way from flirting to coitus, men dream of anonymous kinky women that succumb to their fantasies. Obviously this is not always the case, but it is undeniable that a personal relationship is highly valued in the feminine psyche. The masculine, on the other hand, opts for pleasure and domination.
The education one has received, the latent sexism of the collective subconscious, and that of the media are all factors that dreams cannot bypass. These dreams can provoke even decisive, strong women to feel more vulnerable during dreams. Fortunately, as our customs are changing, the dissimilarities between masculine and feminine erotic dreams are gradually shrinking.
Finally, erotic dreams, like all dreams, can hide fears, anxieties, and needs that you repress due to inhibitive situations or a lack of time to face the problem. With the interpretation of erotic dreams, we can find many clues to understand our emotions better.
While men dream of anonymous kinky women succumbing to their fantasies, women usually dream of erotic encounters with men they know.Dreams of duality: masculine-feminine
In this way, when a man dreams that he is a woman, the message is not necessarily about a conflict of identity or sexuality; more likely it refers to a lack of attention to the more sensitive, intuitive side of his personality. Equally, when a woman sees herself as a man in her dreams, her subconscious may be appealing to her more energetic and rational side.
Dreams in which the left (feminine) or right (masculine) side of our bodies are hurt or immobilized (for example, an arm or leg) warn us that we are repressing or denying our masculine or feminine development. It is difficult for us to accept our duality and we reject this aspect that we don’t know how to express.
Dreams of houses
The great oneirologist of ancient times, Artemidorus of Ephesus (second century BC) said: “The home is us”; and the most recent research on oneiric content confirms it. Buildings in our dreams are a reflection of our personality. Therefore you must pay attention to all the details that appear, which give you reliable hints about your desires, fears, worries . . . Each place and element of the house refers to a personal aspect of the self; the kitchen represents our spiritual or intellectual appetite; the oven is the alchemic place of transformation; the basement represents the accumulation of riches; the bedroom, conjugal difficulties, etc.
However, dreams in which different rooms appear can also refer to different areas of real life. If, for example, you find yourself cooking in a kitchen, it may be a reference to a plan that you are “cooking up” in real life. If you find yourself locked in a dark basement, perhaps you feel guilty about something and think you deserve a punishment. Lying in a bed or on a sofa can be a sign that you need a break from your exhausting daily routine.
When the doors of the dream house are shut tight or covered with brick, or there are signs on doors to the rooms prohibiting entry, you should ask yourself what is blocking your evolution in real life. It may be part of your own personality or some basic inhibition.
The buildings in our dreams are a reflection of our personality. “The Splash” (David Hockney, 1966).Many people dream that they discover new rooms in houses that they know well. In general, this points to unknown aspects of their personality that are about to come out; but it can also indicate that they are ready for a new intellectual challenge.
The feelings that emerge when we find ourselves inside an oneiric building are very significant. If you feel brave and curious while exploring every nook and cranny of the house, it means that you are not afraid of what you may discover about yourself, you act assuredly, and face your problems with confidence. On the other hand, if you feel afraid it is a sign of inhibition and insecurity.
A pleasant, organized room reflects mental order and spiritual serenity. If it doesn’t have windows, it is a sign of isolation, fear, and insecurity. “La habitacion” (“The Room”) (Van Gogh, 1889).Nightmares and anxious dreams Nightmares are terrifying dreams that usually stay in our minds when we wake up. They usually occur during the REM phase and, on occasion, are so distressing that they wake you up and torment you for a few minutes. The fear is often accompanied by cold sweats, dry mouth, heart palpitations . . . and the sensation of having lived a terrible moment.
Sometimes, traumatic events that happen to us in waking life (an accident, a robbery, a sexual assault) revisit us in dreams. Our mind needs to free the tension caused by the event and it does it while our consciousness rests.
Worry dreams reflect subconscious doubts and fears about events in our lives that have been saved in our minds but not our conscious memory.These dreams typically disappear with time. If they persist, it may be a major trauma that requires professional help or, at least, and understanding friend to listen; talking about it is the first step to overcoming it.
Many cultures share the belief that nightmares are nothing more than malignant spirits that attack their victims in their sleep with terrifying thoughts. Some research on oneiric content concludes that these scary dreams are more common in childhood, and if they persist into adulthood it usually indicates a deeply rooted problem.
Research in sleep laboratories has demonstrated that often nightmares are triggered by a sudden noise, which detonates a distressing oneiric image. Therefore, for people who suffer from frequent nightmares, it is advisable to wear earplugs.
Worry dreams
Dreams in which we feel worried about something are more frequent than nightmares, and sometimes the pressure we feel to resolve a problem in the dream wakes us up. Once awake, the oneiric worry may seem trivial compared to our real problems, however we should not ignore the importance of these dreams; their analysis will reveal areas of our lives that require attention or make us insecure.
Worry dreams reflect subconscious doubts and fears about events in our lives that have been saved in our minds but not our conscious memory. They deal with minor preoccupations that we haven’t consciously given attention to, but our subconscious has recognized.
According to Freud, dreams that generate anxiety or worry are the result of trying to repress an emotion or desire, usually sexual. Freud also highlighted the importance of finding the source of that worry in waking life, since these worries left unattended can degenerate into worse traumas.
To analyze this type of dream you must pay attention to all the elements that appear in the episode, since it is symbolically giving you hints about what worries us.
Dreams about angels are usually messages of inner exploration. In some oneiric episodes they appear as spiritual guides and protectors that try to show us a path.Dreams of inner exploration: forgotten babies and angels
Dreams about angels or spiritual entities tend to be messages of inner exploration. We see various examples collected in an “office of dreams.”
“I am in utter darkness. I am surrounded by silence and emptiness. Suddenly, a shape appears, white and slender, pure, almost surreal. The features of the face are erased. A pure oval, the svelte body, without a definable sex. There is only the impression of extreme sweetness and deep harmony; but this character causes me such an impression of abandonment that it seems like a cry for help. I wrap it in my arms and want to save it at all costs.”
This is a dream of protections, of contact with the invisible world. In this oneiric episode, the androgynous character is recognized as angelic. This fabulous vision is none other than the person’s angel showing him his ailment, found in the darkness.
In other dreams, angels appear as spiritual guides or personal guardians:
The cartoons of “Little Nemo” (Winsor McCay, 1905) always ended with the images of Nemo falling out of bed. His incredible stories revolved around his fascinating dreams.
“I had died on a golden carriage decorated with blue velvet; to my right, a feminine angel, all white, smiled at me . . . she held before me the reins of two white horses, while ahead of us, an unending path bathed in sunlight opened to us.”
Travel dreams
One of the most pleasant and stimulating oneiric experiences is traveling to a far-off place and waking up with the sensation of having returned from a great vacation. Without a doubt, this often means a deep desire to travel that you have not been able to satisfy; but it can also hold other interesting readings.
On occasion, you remember precise details about places and settings you have never been to. This could be due to photographs, movies, or television reports that you’ve seen and that your subconscious has saved for some special reason.
These journeys coincide, sometimes, with moment in real life when we are about to begin something new (a change of job or location . . .). Just as the landscape and feelings of the dream can indicate our real emotions about this change, the circumstances of the trip are also revealing. If it is a bumpy trip in which it is difficult to get to your destination (because you lost the tickets or bags, or crashed the car . . .), the dream may be encouraging you to weigh the pros and cons of the situation, and warning you about obstacles ahead. Perhaps you are not mentally prepared for the change.
On the other hand, dreams about remote and exotic places are warning you that your lifestyle is claustrophobic and repressed, and that you need a change or to broaden your horizons.
The mode of transportation that you use to travel in the dream is very significant. If you travel in plane, for example, you should ask yourself if you have your feet firmly on the ground or, on the contrary, if you feel more comfortable “in the clouds.” Escapism in real life tends to appear symbolically in travel dreams. Trains are symbols of new and exciting opportunities; missing the train or letting it leave is a clear symbol of a fear of change—and the insecurity that goes along with this. The station, or point of departure, is a symbolic place of transformation. The predicament of not having a ticket or money to buy one is related to some type of deficiency. However, if you manage to arrive at the destination despite it all, the dream is reflecting a certain amount of self satisfaction.
Surrealism was a revolution. The world of the oneiric, the subconscious, the paranoid . . . become a new way of seeing and exploring life. Its influence is still seen today.... different types of dreams dream meaning
ACADEMY
Denotes knowledge, especially of a philosophical and metaphysical nature. Intensive study will favor the dreamer.
ANGEL
An elevated characteristic, like friendliness, compassion, or An elevated characteristic, like friendliness, compassion, or healing, is found in the dreamer’s life. A direct encounter with an angel indicates that you should strengthen said quality.
ARM
Strength and great achievement. The dreamer has power in a particular situation. If the arm appears wounded, it symbolizes that this power grows weaker.
BABY
Something is born, possibly a relationship.
BRIDGE
Transition from one situation or point of view to another. The dreamer is experiencing a positive change in his life and attitude.
BRIGHT STAR
Divinity. Proximity of favorable events and good luck.
BLINDNESS
The dreamer cannot, or does not want to, see the truth about a part of their life. Dreams in which you are surrounded by darkness have the same meaning.
BOOK OR PARCHMENT
Knowledge is near.
CANDLE
It is the human soul. A candle that burns represents a strong soul; one that is dying little by little indicates a weakness of character.
CAVE
A place to take refuge from a threatening or stressful situation.
CHILD
Represents innocence and ingenuity, the desire to learn which benefits intellectual development. Sign of the importance the dreamer places on this virtue.
COFFIN, TOMB, OR CEMETERY
Something has died in the dreamer’s life. Everything will be fine if you accept it and move forward strongly.
COMET
A great change is coming in the life of the dreamer. It will be beneficial, but could bring a sudden loss of something, a disruption, or an unexpected turn.
CORPSE
Something has died and is rotting in your life. You should determine what it is and act immediately to “bury” it.
CLIMBING
The dreamer is searching for greater satisfaction from life. This image is very positive and signifies inner growth and advancement.
CRUISE
Higher spiritual growth and transformation. If the ship moves quietly over calm waters, the dreamer will find little stress in their life. If the waves are rough, on the other hand, it foretells tensions.
CUP or CHALICE
Divine blessing; very positive if it is gold or silver. If it is broken, it means the blessing will be rejected.
DANCING
Happiness and fun in the dreamer’s life.
DAGGER or WEAPON
Personal violence. Denotes that the dreamer is furious and holds feelings of aggressiveness inside.
DAWN, SUNRISE
A new start, either in a relationship or a job.
DAWN, SUNRISE
A new start, either in a relationship or a job.
DEAFNESS
The dreamer is ignoring the good advice of a friend or loved one. Indicates that you don’t want to hear a truth you are being told in real life.
DEMON
Symbolizes the lower passions such as jealousy, resentment, or vengeance. The dreamer should remove these from their life as soon as possible.
DESERT
Spiritual aridity in some aspect of the dreamer’s life. A way of avoiding it is to find a manner of achieving more productivity and spiritual wealth.
DARKNESS
Absence of divinity and saintliness. Ignorance. The more darkness that appears in the dream, the less spiritual illumination the dreamer will have.
DOOR
A barrier that can be overcome with willpower. Closed doors symbolize a lack of the right attitude when approaching a certain situation.
DOVE
Peace in general; pacific resolution of a particular situation. DUST. Humility before the greatness of God. Associated with destiny. It reminds you that you should cultivate qualities of deference and submission.
DRAGON OR MONSTER
Demonic or spiritually negative forces, such as black magic or malevolence. The dreamer should avoid any matter in life related to such aspects.
EAGLE
Imagination and creativity. If it flies very high it represents a greater emergence of these qualities; an eagle nest is safe place to strengthen them.
EARTH
The world is means of life, where all creatures must fight for their existence. Indicates that the dreamer has too many mundane worries.
ECHO
Everything you do echoes and has repercussions in the hidden worlds. Dreams of this kind remind you of said spiritual truth.
ELDER
Eternal wisdom, especially religious. The dreamer should seek this quality in their life.
EYE
A human eye represents that the dreamer has a correct judgment about some matter or situation. If the eye is wounded or blind, it means the opposite.
FALLING
The dreamer is falling in a lower level of consciousness and feels negative emotions such as rage, pride, or fear. Without exception, it is a negative symbol.
FISH
Abundance and material blessing in the dreamer’s life. Money,
FISH
Abundance and material blessing in the dreamer’s life. Money, properties, and other possessions will increase.
FIRE
Divine judgment of the imperfections and bad acts of the dreamer. Fire also indicates a need for exhaustive moral cleansing and self purification.
FIRMAMENT
Divine order in the universe that translates to the dreamer’s life.
FLYING
Freedom from mundane worries. Also means that you should use your imagination to experience a greater sensation of freedom when facing trivial problems.
FOUNTAIN
A good emotional state, vitality. The more water that flows, the greater capacity you have to express positive emotions, such as gratitude and compassion.
FUNERAL
Something has died in the dreamer’s life; a job, a relationship, or even an important belief.
GAZELLE
Precise and elegant decision that the dreamer should make. A very positive symbol.
GARDEN
Liveliness in attitude and beliefs. Reveals an excellent perspective and spiritual growth.
GENITALS
Generative capacity, the dreamer’s potent creativity.
GETTING LOST
The dreamer has gone astray, has diverted from the soul’s mission and his purpose in life. You must regain your spiritual orientation, above all.
GIANT
Egomania, pride, and arrogance. The dreamer or someone close to them is behaving ungenerously.
GOAT
Great ability to overcome and resist. The dreamer needs to develop other elevated qualities such as imagination or esthetic sense.
GREEN FIELDS
The dreamer’s life is full of vitality and good intentions.
HAIR
Virility and sexuality. If it is thick and voluptuous, it denotes sensuality; the opposite if you lose it. Brushing your hair is a sign of vanity.
HEBREW ALPHABET
Each of the twenty-two letters has a specific meaning. In dreams, they indicate elevated communication.
HIGHWAY
Symbolizes the road or life journey. If it is well traveled, it means the dreamer enjoys a close relationship with others. If the opposite, it denotes loneliness.
HORIZON
The near future. A clear horizon represents good luck; a hard one, on the other hand, indicates problems.
HUNGER
Physical or emotional deprivation. The dreamer feels some
HUNGER
Physical or emotional deprivation. The dreamer feels some bodily or personal need unsatisfied.
ILLNESS
The dreamer lacks balance in their life and soon could experience physical or emotional disorder.
JEWEL
Divine illumination. The more beautiful or brilliant it is, the greater the spirituality that will shine in your life.
JOURNEY
The present path of the dreamer. If the setting of the dream seems strange, it indicates a new situation or challenges. The presence of companion is a good sign; their absence denotes isolation.
KING
Power and divine judgment. Emphasizes the importance of these qualities in the dreamer’s life.
KISS
The taste of the transcendental soul. Whether consciously or not, we experience said condition in some aspect of life.
LAMB
Submission and sweetness. A shepherd directing his flock signifies that you are taking special care with a certain situation.
LAMP
Spiritual knowledge and wisdom. The Zohar speaks of a lamb of darkness, which is associated with evil and discord.
LEG
Resistance, especially in journeys by foot. Signifies that the dreamer has the strength necessary to successfully resolve a problematic situation.
LIGHT
Divinity, saintliness, and wisdom. This is a superior symbol.
LIMP
Inability to resolve a certain situation, caused by yourself or by external circumstances.
LION
Courage and spiritual strength. Traditionally, the lion also represents the Jewish community. The image of a lion nuzzling its cubs indicates that you give courage to others.
MARKET
Sustenance of human existence. Indicates your worries about how to earn a living.
MAKING LOVE
Ecstasy of the soul when it refers to a union with God.
MOON
Fantasy, intuition, and receptiveness in the soul of the dreamer. Traditionally, it is related to other hidden aspects of the soul, like imagination and creativity. Equally, it is associated with femininity. MIDNIGHT, however, represents a time of mystic study and contemplation.
MORNING
State of spiritual satisfaction and happiness. Also associated with physical pleasure, well-being, or healing.
MOUNTAIN
Place of divine inspiration and revelation. Indicates that the dreamer needs to find this place in real life.
MOUTH
Human speech and the capacity to create harmony or conflict. The dreamer should pay attention to the effect their words cause. The dreamer should pay attention to the effect their words cause. A wounded mouth symbolizes a lack of communicative skills.
NIGHT
Judgment and dark qualities. Night is usually associated with demonic forces and emotional negativity.
OASIS
A place of rejuvenation and replenishment. Indicates the end of the feeling of spiritual sterility in the dreamer’s life. It is a positive symbol.
PALACE
Dwelling of the divine. The dreamer should seek more consciously the sacred side of daily life.
PLANETS
Subtle, hidden forces in the life of the dreamer. Traditionally, the vision of this symbol was astrological and it was believed that it exercised a concrete influence on our daily experiences.
PLAYING AN INSTRUMENT
Exaltation and spiritual pleasure; also, experiencing the sacred through an esthetic activity.
QUEEN
Divine love and compassion. Her oneiric presence confirms the importance of these characteristics in the dreamer’s life.
RAINBOW
Protection and divine security. A hopeful and encouraging symbol for the life of the dreamer.
RIVER, STREAM
The vital spirituality is flowing correctly. Soon a positive change or great experience will arrive.
SNAKE
Deception and malevolence, disguised as sincerity and attention. Warns that there is someone or something in your life that may be dangerous.
SINGING
Gratitude. The act of singing, whether it is the dreamer or other people, means that you will soon have something to be grateful for and to celebrate.
SKY
The spiritual world; the intangible, pure, subtle, and mystic part of life. A cloudless sky signifies clarity; if it is clouded, it means there is confusion.
SLEEPING
Ignorance, passivity, and withdrawal. In its most positive interpretation, it represents waiting without hurry. Falling asleep symbolizes loss of consciousness and acuity.
STAIR
Character development and personal growth.
STAGNANT WATER
Blockage in the life energy, especially in the spiritual sense.
STRONG WIND
The force of change. To dream of this element means your life will undergo a complete metamorphosis. Hurricanes indicate that said change will be very violent.
STUDY
Acquisition of knowledge, above all spiritual. It is a positive dream that indicates the dreamer is above all spiritual. It is a positive dream that indicates the dreamer is developing internally.
SUN
Will and intention. The sunrise represents the birth of something new in your life. The sunset indicates that some matter is ending. Traditionally it is also associated with masculinity and it’s most characteristic traits such as stubbornness—in a positive sense as well as negative.
TEETH
Physical vitality. Losing teeth is a warning to the dreamer about their health.
THIRST
Spiritual desire. Represents that the dreamer is not receiving the spiritual satisfaction they desire.
THRONE
Physical manifestation of the divine. Indicates that the dreamer must be more conscious of the sacred side of their body.
TREE
Life and spiritual knowledge. A flowering tree also represents deserved success; a bare tree denotes a lack of achievement.
TRIPPING
Impatience and too much hurry in daily matters. You need calm and balance to avoid the possibility of a serious fall.
TURTLE
Good luck in life.
UNOPENED LETTER
The dreamer did not heed a very important message. It is necessary to pay attention immediately to any communication received in real life.
WAKING UP
The dreamer is recovering clarity, acuity, and personal energy to complete some personal matter.
WAVY OCEAN
Pride and arrogance. This dream indicates that the dreamer must cultivate humility.
WEDDING
Spiritual compromise, possibly related to a field of study, training, or an effort in the long term.
WILD
The absence of civilization. A place of power and potential danger.... a brief dictionary of dreams from the kabbalah dream meaning
You have come to terms with a relationship and have completed the healing process.
Your dream is a sign for a commitment to a person in your life or a project that you are working on.
Someone has power over you and are making you do things that you do not necessarily want to do.
You are in a growth process. This may involve a project on which you work in your personal and professional life, which will bring you glory and success.
Dreaming about eating jackfruit ripe and good is the symbol of your aura in the world. You shine and it shows. As a sexual symbol it announces a period of fertility and conception.
Eating a jackfruit is a hint for fruitfulness, growth or new beginnings. You need to think about and possibly act upon. You need to concentrate on the more important things in life.
Eating a jackfruit is a signal for your need to sort out unresolved issues from your childhood. You need to get a new perspective of some situation. You will find yourself surrounded by grief and misfortune. The dream points to your need for spiritual enrichment. You don’t need to be afraid to ask for assistance or to depend on others from time to time.
Dreaming about eating jackfruit is more common than you might think. This dream can occur at different times in your life and have different meanings depending on your current state. The place that jackfruit will occupy in your dream will give you more precise information about what comes out of it: the more he will be present, the more important his role will be. The fantastic world of dreams can sometimes be difficult to decipher.
Dreaming about eating jackfruit suggests that you will be able to do positive and sensible things in the future. Eating jackfruit in your dreams is a sign of abundance, growth and financial gain. You are in a growth process that is going in the right direction.
If you are dreaming about eating jackfruit not ripe it means you are dodging a situation. You are going too fast in your projects. You are putting the cart before the horse. Take the time to think about it and ask yourself the right questions. You need to work harder and longer to achieve your goals.
Professionally speaking, by dreaming about eating jackfruit ripe means you want to affirm your position. You feel in full possession of your faculties and nothing can stop you. Be careful not to be overzealous, however.
Eating ripe jackfruit in dream is structure, rules, power, authority and control. You are just going along with what everyone else is doing. You wished you had a little more time with them. This dream is about a developing awareness. You need to back off of a fight or situation.
Dreaming about eating jackfruit means that, in your relationship, everything seems to be fine. You are blossoming both sexually and emotionally. The same applies to your partner. You arouse the jealousy of those around you.
If you dream about eating rotten jackfruit, it indicates that you have missed an opportunity. Rot symbolizes the regret of unfinished action. You feel sadness, which makes you lose confidence in yourself and your abilities.
Dreaming about eating a jackfruit means that in a relationship, you get bogged down in routine and need to break this vicious circle. There is a lot of unspoken and regret that gnaws at you from the inside. You need joy, laughter and sexual madness. You need to have fun. Take action in your life and conquer your soul mate.
Seeing jackfruit is a message for satisfaction and contentment in your life. Your goals are in sight and you will soon be greatly rewarded. You feel exposed. The dream signals your body and the way that you are moving about through life. You are keeping up an appearance.
Seeing jackfruit in dream expresses your ability to navigate through life’s twists and turns. You are ready to make a fresh start. You need to take in what you learned from the past and incorporate it into your present life. The dream is a clue for your ability to enjoy the simpler things in life. You may be undervaluing your support system and overlooking those who have helped you along the way.
Dreaming about eating jackfruit is quite common and affects all of us. In the world of dreaming, many parameters must be taken into account when interpreting your dreams.
The sensation felt during this experience will reveal a lot about yourself.
It is interesting to relate this element to the other symbols of your dream for a more accurate interpretation.
For example, if in your dream, you eat jackfruit in a swimming pool, it shows your ambitious and open-minded side, but if you eat jackfruit in your living room it highlights your reserved side. So feel free to cross-reference the informations. ... jackfruit dream meaning
MYSTIC EVENTS HAPPEN MORE FREQUENTLY DURING SLEEP. Mystic and spiritual experiences tend to occur at night for several reasons. First, logic is placed on hold as you sleep, allowing the mind and soul to explore deeper depths and recesses of awareness. Second, there are no demands, no need for food or drink, and no enticements from electronic toys. As you drift into a peaceful sleep, your unfettered spirit is free to confer with the soul and explore what else is out there. Can anyone prove that mystical events take place during sleep? No, but dream enthusiasts regularly record fascinating examples, like the following.
DIVINE GRACES OFTEN HAPPEN DURING SLEEP. Some dreams are not dreams; they are experiences of divine grace. Whether you actively seek a blessing or it arrives as an unexpected gift, the divine hand at times sprinkles love, healing, and transformation as you sleep. As the New Testament bible phrase goes, “Seek and you will find, ask and you will receive.” One way to recognize a dream that is a sprinkle of divine love is by the results. The dream brings a jolt of energy that leaves no doubt you have been touched by amazing grace. You feel a combination of shock, upliftment, joy, and transformation, though a precise description is beyond words, say those who have had this experience.
DREAM EXAMPLE 1 OF DIVINE GRACE IN A DREAM: CALL IF YOU NEED ME. A young woman drew on her deep faith as she struggled through a difficult job situation. Focusing on her work, she tried to keep a good attitude despite the constant bickering among her coworkers. However, by evening, she often collapsed into tears. One night she dreamed that she was flying through the air on a carpet. As a soft evening breeze flowed through her hair, the carpet landed on a mountaintop. A beam of light appeared from the sky, revealing a phone number in gold letters, one at time, with the numbers 777-7777. As each seven appeared, she was zapped with energy and joy. She felt as though her cup of love was overflowing, and then she woke with a start.
Recognizing seven as a mystical number in many traditions, she knew that God had smiled on her efforts to remain positive in a difficult situation. From that day forward, she sailed through her work days, shrugging off the discord. To her astonishment, within six months the troublemakers had left and were replaced by new associates who had kind and positive personalities. The unseen hand not only bestowed a healing grace on her, in a dream, but its effects also spilled over into her life, transforming a difficult workplace into a pleasant environment.
DREAM EXAMPLE 2 OF DIVINE GRACE IN A DREAM: JUST ASK. Over a one-year period, a man fervently sought to renew his spiritual path and experienced several dreams of amazing grace. These divine zaps encouraged yet shocked him, leading him to wonder if his night-time experiences were a fluke or could happen to anyone. One night, he prayed, “God, if someone seeks your favor, do you always respond? Are you really there?” That night a booming voice answered in a dream, “If you or anyone wants my help, you just need to ask.” Like a strong wind that makes its presence felt, the message left him uplifted and joyous beyond words.
The Great Spirit had answered his question, leaving no doubt that God invites anyone to communicate and to ask for what they need. Such graces are often remembered as dreams. Some dreamers recount a direct physical healing; others speak of emotional healing in a dream as an answer to their prayers. Dreamers with these experiences describe feeling embraced by a divine love so strong that their lives are permanently altered. Most have a hard time finding words for their experience. However, all agree that there is an astonishing healing effect of the “love that surpasses all understanding” which they experienced, and say that it does not dim with time.
NIGHT MEETINGS WITH THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED ON. Loved ones who have died often appear in the dreams of family members and friends. The body of the deceased loved one often appears younger, whole, and full of life. Some say hello, others simply smile. Such nocturnal contacts hint that life is eternal. The encounters feel real and bring joy and consolation to the dreamer.
If your heart remains connected to a deceased loved one, they may say hello in a dream communication soon after passing or sometimes, years later. Such a visit by a deceased love one is remembered as a dream and may be a response to your feelings of loss. The person visits to assure you they are still alive in eternity, and in spirit. Such across-the-veil meetings are consistent with teachings about heaven and the afterlife that most religions mention but do not describe in detail.
Many believe the next realm of life is not far away in time or space, which allows loved ones who have passed on, to drop by. Mystics suggest that a bond of love makes it natural for a departed loved one to touch base from time to time, and bridging the gap between from afterlife to the dreamer is easiest during sleep.
DREAM EXAMPLE OF A CONTACT WITH A DECEASED LOVED ONE: TREAT HER RIGHT. Most dream visits by the dearly departed are marked by few words, though on occasion the deceased person may speak up. A striking example came from a father who died suddenly, about two years before his beloved daughter’s wedding. A few weeks before her wedding day, the groom, who had never met her dad, told the bride’s family about a dream that startled him. He described a dark-haired man with high cheek bones who said, firmly, three times, and each time louder than the last, “Take care of my daughter!” By the third time, the young man stammered, “Yes, sir,” in response, in the dream.
The family laughed, recognizing the man in the groom’s dream as the bride’s father who had passed on. The dream brought back fond memories of how protective her dad had been toward his baby girl. Leaping across the veil, her dead father introduced himself to the groom. Though the husband-to-be was a fine young man, he reminded him that he wanted the best for his little girl. When there is love, family ties are eternal.
ASTRAL TRAVEL DURING DREAMS. Mystics claim that the soul can leave the body at night, during sleep, to take short jaunts. The experience is called “astral travel,” also known as astral projection or an “out-of-body” experience. During astral travel, the sleeping body stays put while the soul soars out into the world and beyond, remaining connected to the body via a mystical thin, silver cord. The silver cord allows the soul to find its way back to its sleeping body.
TYPES OF ASTRAL TRAVEL. Anecdotal accounts report astral treks that give glimpses of other heavenly realms. Or, they can be journeys related to near-death experiences whereby a person dies or comes close to dying, visits the afterlife, but revives and lives to relate their experience. Astral travel can also happen during sleep—as a dream that is a mystic experience—remembered as a dream.
ASTRAL TRAVEL DREAMS. Some dreams of soaring down familiar streets at night, high above trees or buildings, may be experiences of astral travel. Ditto for dream scenes of enthusiastic chats with friends or associates that continue conversations that may have begun earlier in the day or renew a friendship, as a chat between friends. Astral travel dreams often depict real streets, people, and places that you recognize, and when you return from such night travels, the body may feel a jolt as it lands.
DREAM EXAMPLE 1 OF ASTRAL TRAVELS: A NIGHT VISIT WITH A FRIEND. A young woman who was concerned about a friend’s health dreamed that she was flying through the air and hurtling over familiar city landmarks during the night. Fully aware of where she was, she soaked up the scene of glowing streetlights and deserted city roads. She arrived at her friend’s home. Watching as the friend slept peacefully, she was assured that her friend was okay; the dreamer had accomplished her mission. She then realized that she had been away from home for a long time and was separated from her body. The awareness made her wake up with a jolt, as if her soul had landed back in to her body with a thud.
DREAM EXAMPLE 2 OF ASTRAL TRAVELS: A NIGHT STUDY SESSION. Teachers with an interest in dreams report dream experiences of “night study sessions.” Such dreams depict conversations with enthusiastic students that are a continuation of a topic that began in class, earlier in the day. The dreams feel real, like experiences of astral travel shared by a group, spurred to gather once again because of a mutual enthusiasm for a topic.
DREAM EXAMPLE 3 OF ASTRAL TRAVELS: JOURNEYS TO DISTANT LANDS. Dreamers report jaunts to distant lands to visit loved ones for a brief soul connection. Such an experience is common among twins separated by distance, or between married couples where one spouse is on deployment in a distant land. Details of conversations that take place during such a night visit may be forgotten, but the intense awareness of the connection they made with a loved one remains.
UNCHARTED TERRITORY. Such examples suggest that astral travel can be initiated by a concern for a loved one, a shared enthusiasm, or a longing for a loved one. Such heart links may initiate astral travels that are remembered as dreams. Mystics have described such experiences for centuries, which leave some to wonder how much we have yet to learn about uncharted soul horizons.... not all dreams are dreams: mystic experiences remembered as dreams dream meaning
Dreaming Lens: Were you dancing? Was someone else dancing? If you were dancing, were you dancing with anyone else? Who were you dancing with? Did you know the person? What kind of dance were you doing? Was it couples dancing, or was it a group dancing? What kind of music was involved, if any?
Personal Focus: Dancing is an elaborate mating ritual. It is a socially acceptable behavior that is designed to escalate toward intimacy and sex. Even dancing alone is a sensual experience that celebrates the ability to move in space. This results in a sensual experience of one’s body, signaling a readiness for sexual expression. Dancing in a dream relates to this need for connection to the celebratory experience of bodily desire.
When dancing, each partner responds to the other in an opposing manner. This is most apparent in ballroom dancing where the actual steps taken will be done in reverse by each. The same could be said of free-form dancing, in that a vibrant dance experience often relates to how well the two dancers play off one another. In group dancing, such as ballet or modern dance troupes, the symbolic conversation expands to the idea of poetry in motion.
If you are one of the dancers, you may need to masterfully integrate the energetic qualities of the person with whom you are dancing. If you are watching others dance, then you may need to incorporate the qualities of the pair that is dancing. A modern dance club atmosphere is likely a call for abandon or a cry for freedom of expression. Partner dancing indicates a demand for the working together of the disparate elements represented by the two who are dancing. A more free-form style of dance may point to a need to let go of control whereas more precise movement may indicate that a level of discipline is required. Watching a dance performance likely connects to a need to be more expressive with your body and/or your relationship to sensuality.... dancing dream meaning
2. Growing in God;
3. Heaven;]
4. Abundant;
5. Faith;
6. The way God measures it to you; Gen. 49:26; Jer. 31:37; Mal. 3:10.
• Precise Measurement
- Correct application of the word; 2 Tim. 2:15.
• Same Measurement
- Correct balance of the word.
• Measuring Self Against Others
- Comparing scripture with scripture; 2 Cor. 10:12.... measure dream meaning
carrying a: support from one you thought was a foe.
big: current relationship is material y satisfying but emotional y cold.
small: wil have to face trouble from your negative reactions to another’s actions.
label on a, putting a: short-lived conflicts ahead; expect a surprise.
mailing a: children’s actions wil cause enough difference of opinion to become arguable.
opening a: your luck wil be affected by its contents.
preparing a: marriage wil last forever, if you take infinite care.
receiving a: there is someone in pain who loves you dearly.
empty, an: deeds must be done first, then the reward.
from children: profit from an unexpected source and your precise opinions.
refusing to accept a: be firm in your rejecting participation in the actions of others. ... package dream meaning
broken, a: hidden pain denotes the flaw in upcoming deal; correct it or get out.
buying a: wil be persecuted for questionable conduct before it gets out of the box.
cutting yourself with a: must control your conflicting emotions.
killing someone with a: disagreeable events must be rebel ed against.
yourself: your inner calm and contentment do not balance with outer world.
of a: danger wil be encountered in confusion with a loved one.
straight, a: your precise execution of your work may be old-fashioned.
sharpening a: meet adversity at the point of its inception.
using a: warning of a coming quarrel if you don’t confront the signs.
dull: confusion and il -temper of loved one can be rectified by you.
electric: easy actions can falter for lack of attention. ... razor dream meaning
hearing a: wil have much hard work ahead.
from a friend: wil be amazed at the similarity to your thoughts.
performer: are doomed for disappointment as an appointment is suddenly cancel ed.
reading a: wishes wil not be realized through unjust criticism being taken for fact.
selling a, to a magazine: beware of being seduced by disorder; be precise.
telling a: your efforts must build upon each other to a climax.
writing a: arguments within the family over who first acknowledged your bril iance. ... story dream meaning
See Ear, Radio.... tape recorder dream meaning
If seen as a chalice, it always indicates something extraordinary (it is not just a simple mug or a glass used every day!). It may either represent suffering or death (the “hemlock cup” of antiquity, for example) or the search for a higher goal (legend of the Grail and the magnificent interpretation by Emma Jung in her book The Legend of the Grail As Seen in Depth Psychology).
A chalice holds the liquid that is the equivalent of our emotions and needs.
The image of the chalice implies that these emotions and needs are spiritual in nature. Figuratively speaking, it is a matter of nurturing the soul and cultivating the emotions. That was precisely the task of the search for the Grail in the Middle Ages. In Christianity, the chalice is connected with the heart and blood of Christ.... chalice dream meaning
If you begin to trust your unconscious (which means trusting Nature), each previously horrifying or disgusting part of your unconscious will show itself in a new light, as something vou need for personal fulfilment. Putting vour consciousness
into the unconscious - becoming aware of it - means putting more and more light into the darkness.
If a star or other bright light appears in the blackness, this may be seen as a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, that is, as a symbol of the ‘illumination’ - new wisdom or insight - that may be achieved by dwelling a while in the unconscious and making its better acquaintance.
(2) Black (particularly for white people) may symbolize evil.
If so, bear in mind that, as a general rule, what appears in your dreams is always some part of you, and that the so-called ‘evil’ (and therefore repressed) parts of you are really evil only if, because of neglect, they become rebellious, or if you let them take control away from your conscious self. These ‘evil’ things are transformed into good things - creative, and bringing fuller life, happiness and wholeness - when conscious and unconscious interact and establish a harmonious working relationship.
NB It is only Judaism, Christianity and Islam that have a thoroughgoing dualism of good and evil, and a matching moral dogmatism. In the earliest known forms of religion, and in traditions (such as the Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist traditions) that have not cut themselves off from their early roots, good and evil are opposite but equally necessary’ components of reality; and in mystical traditions (including Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism) even God is described as a coming together of opposites - good and evil, but also masculine and feminine.
(3) A person dressed in black may represent vour shadow.
(4) A black-skinned person (if you are white-skinned) may represent either the shadow or closeness to Nature.
(5) A black animal probably represents some unconscious repressed drive or emotion.
If the animal is fierce, this possibly means that something yrou have repressed is now urgently pressing you to give it your conscious attention and let it have some expression in your w aking life.
(6) Blackness (as in a black night, etc.) may simply signify’ diminished visibility, in which case the meaning of the dream may have something to do w ith a loss of orientation in your life. Do vou feel you don’t know’ which w’ay to go; or that you don’t hav e the energy’ or will to go in any direction? If so, make a pact w ith v our unconscious to die effect that, if it will tell you where you have the potential - and the need - to go, you will respond accordingly in your life. Then pav close attention
to the dreams that follow. (If you go the next few nights without dreaming - or, more precisely, without recalling any dreams - this probably means that you are backing out of the pact and setting up a defence against what you fear your unconscious might have to tell you.)
(7) Black may symbolize despair or deep depression.
If so, follow the advice given in (6) above.
(8) In many parts of the world black is associated with death.
It is possible, therefore, that this is what the colour signifies in your dream. Bear in mind, however, that death in a dream may refer to something internal: the ‘death’ - or the giving up - of something within you (for example, some irrational fear, or other negative attitude or emotion).
See also Death.... black dream meaning
Once upon a time not so long ago, an inventor was struggling with a major problem. His name was Elias Howe, and for years he had been trying to solve this problem, so that he could complete a machine he was building—a machine that would in time change the world. He was missing a small but vital detail, and, try as he would, he just couldn’t figure it out. Needless to say, Howe was a very frustrated man. One night, after another long day of fruitless work on his project, he dreamed he had been captured by fierce savages. These warriors were attacking him with spears. Although in the dream he was terrified he would be killed, he noticed that the spears were unusual looking: each one had an eye- shaped hole at the pointed end. When Howe woke up, it hit him like a brick: he had actually dreamed the answer to his problem. His nightmare was a blessing in disguise. He immediately saw that the eye of the spear could be an eye in a sewing needle, near its point. Elated with the discovery, he rushed to his laboratory and finished the design of his invention: the sewing machine. The rest, as they say, is history.
The list of what dreams can do for you seems endless. We’ve touched on a few of these benefits of dreaming in the preface and introduction. Now let’s go into a bit more detail. I want you to get really excited about your own dream potential. And, once you realize the possibilities, I think you will.
FAMOUS DREAMERS
The history of dreams is filled with stories of famous people who have called on their dreams for help, or who have received help unexpectedly from their dreams. Here are a few more interesting stories to illustrate the point:
The physicist Niels Bohr, who developed the theory of the movements of electrons, had a dream in which he saw the planets attached to the sun by strings. This image inspired him to finalize his theory.
The great Albert Einstein reported that the famous theory of relativity came to him while he was napping—a good reason for taking frequent naps!
Author Richard Bach, who wrote the bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, was stuck in a writer’s block after writing the first half of his now-famous novel. It was eight years later that he literally dreamed the second half and was able to complete his book.
Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman told reporters that his classic film Cries and Whispers had been inspired by a dream.
Another writer, the well-loved British author Robert Louis Stevenson, was quite dependent on his dreams for ideas that he could turn into sellable stories. Stevenson has related in his memoirs that after a childhood tortured by nightmares, and his successful efforts to overcome them, he was able to put his dreams to work for profit.
A born storyteller (though he started out as a medical student), he was accustomed to lull himself to sleep by making up stories to amuse himself. Eventually, he turned this personal hobby into a profession, becoming a writer of tales like Treasure Island. He identified his dream-helpers as “little people,” or “Brownies.” Once he was in constant contact with this inner source, his nightmares vanished, never to return. Instead, whenever he was in need of income he turned to his dreams:
At once the little people begin to bestir themselves in the same quest, and labour all night long, and all night long set before him truncheons of tales upon their lighted theatre. No fear of his being frightened now; the flying heart and the frozen scalp are things bygone; applause, growing applause, growing interest, growing exultation in his own cleverness . . . and at last a jubilant leap to wakefulness, with the cry, “I have it, that’ll do!”
Stevenson wrote his autobiography in the third person, not revealing that he was the subject until the end.
Stevenson further states that sometimes when he examined the story his Brownies had provided, he was disappointed, finding it unmarketable. However, he also reported that the Brownies “did him honest service and gave him better tales than he could fashion for himself,” that “they can tell him a story piece by piece, like a serial, and keep him all the while in ignorance of where they aim.”
Stevenson’s Brownies are a perfect example of dream helpers just waiting to be called upon. A particularly famous example of the work of Stevenson’s Brownies is the tale The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As he explains:
I had long been trying to write a story on this subject, to find a body, a vehicle, for that strong sense of man’s double being, which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature. [After he destroyed an earlier version of the manuscript . . .] For two days I went about racking my brains for a plot of any sort; and on the second night I dreamed the scene at the window, and a scene afterwards split in two, in which Hyde, pursued for some crime, took the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his pursuers. All the rest was made awake, and consciously, although I think I can trace in much of it the manner of my Brownies.
Although Stevenson did the “mechanical work, which is about the worst of it,” writing out the tales with pen and paper, mailing off the stories to publishers, paying the postage, and not incidentally collecting the fees, he gave his Brownies almost total credit for his productions.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a British poet, was accustomed to taking a sedative derived from opium (legal in those days). One afternoon after taking a dose he was reading and fell asleep over his book. The last words he read had been, “Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built.” When Coleridge awoke some three hours later he had dreamed hundreds of lines of poetry, which he immediately set to writing down. The opening lines of this poem—one of the most famous of all time—are:
Unfortunately for posterity, after writing only fifty-four lines of the two to three hundred he had dreamed, Coleridge was interrupted by a caller, whom he entertained for an hour. When he returned to complete the poem, he had lost all the rest of what he had dreamed! In his diary he noted that it had disappeared “like images on the surface of a stream.” Even so, he had written a masterpiece. This true story, however, emphasizes the need to record dreams upon awakening, a subject we will take up in chapters 5 and 6.
Not only artists and writers give their dreams credit for their ideas and inspirations, but many scientists as well (as we saw in the examples of Bohr and Einstein). Psychologist Eliot D. Hutchinson reports numerous cases of scientists receiving information through dreams and says of dreams that “by them we can see more clearly the specific mechanism of intuitive thought,” and that “a large number of thinkers with whom I have had direct contact admit that they dream more or less constantly about their work, especially if it is exceptionally baffling . . . they often extract useful conceptions.”
I personally can attest to this statement, as it mirrors my own experience writing books. For example, when I began work on this book about dreams, I noticed that my dream production immediately doubled; and I have had Stevenson’s experience of “little people,” whom I call my “elves,” and whom I write about extensively in my book for teens called Teen Astrology, telling about how they came to my rescue when I was quite stuck (see chapter 9, pages 249– 252 in that book).
One of the most astonishing as well as fascinating stories is that of Hermann V. Hilprecht, a professor of Assyrian at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. It seems to be a characteristic of those who receive dream help that they have recently been working long and hard and are frustrated. In Hilprecht’s case, he was working late one evening in 1893, attempting to decipher the cuneiform characters on drawings of two small fragments of agate. He thought they belonged to Babylonian finger rings, and he had tentatively assigned one fragment to the so-called Cassite period of 1700 B.C.E. However, he couldn’t classify the second fragment. And he wasn’t at all sure about the first either. He finally gave up his efforts at about midnight and went straight to bed—and had the following dream, which was his “astounding discovery.”
Hilprecht dreamed of a priest of pre-Christian Nippur, several thousand years ago, who led the professor into the treasure chamber of the temple and showed him the originals, telling him just how the fragments fitted in, all in great detail. Although the dream was long and involved, Hilprecht remembered it all and in the morning told it to his wife. In his words: “Next morning . . . I examined the fragments once more in the light of these disclosures, and to my astonishment found all the details of the dream precisely verified in so far as the means of verification were in my hands.”
Up until then, Hilprecht had been working only with drawings. Now he traveled to the museum in Constantinople where the actual agate fragments were kept and discovered that they fitted together perfectly, unlocking the secret of a three-thousand-year-old mystery by means of a dream!
How did this happen? Clairvoyance? Magic? Who was the priest? How was it that Hilprecht seemed to make contact in a dream with someone who had lived so long before him? We will never know the answers to these questions; but we do know from the professor’s own words that this is exactly what happened to him. (It makes you wonder whether Professor Hilprecht was in the habit of paying attention to his dreams!)
No doubt one of the most famous dream sources of scientific discovery was experienced by the German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé, when he was attempting to understand and model the molecular structure of benzene. Like Professor Hilprecht, Kekulé had been searching for the answer for many years and was totally immersed in the problem. He told of a dream he had while he napped in front of his fireplace one frigid night in 1865:
Again the atoms were juggling before my eyes:
My mind’s eye, sharpened by repeated sights of a similar kind, could not distinguish larger structures of different forms and in long chains, many of them close together; everything was moving in a snake-like and twisting manner. Suddenly, what was this? One of the snakes got hold of its own tail and the whole structure was mockingly twisting in front of my eyes. As if struck by lightning, I awoke.
This dream led Kekulé directly to the discovery of the structure of benzene, which is a closed carbon ring. A dream had presented a realization that served to revolutionize modern chemistry. Later, reporting his discovery to his colleagues at a scientific convention in 1890, he remarked, “Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then we may perhaps find the truth.” Not the sort of comment one generally expects from a scientist!
Here is the story of another scientist. Otto Loewi, who won the 1936 Nobel
Prize in Psychology and Medicine for his discovery of how the human nervous system works, credited this discovery to a dream. Prior to Loewi, scientists had assumed that the body’s nervous impulses were the result of electrical waves. However, in 1903 Loewi had the intuition that a chemical transmission was actually responsible. But he had no way to prove his theory, so he set the idea aside for many years. Then, in 1920, he had the following dream:
The night before Easter Sunday of that year I awoke, turned on the light, and jotted down a few notes on a tiny slip of thin paper. Then I fell asleep again. It occurred to me at six o’clock in the morning that during the night I had written down something most important, but I was unable to decipher the scrawl. The next night, at three o’clock, the idea returned. It was the design of an experiment to determine whether or not the hypothesis of chemical transmission that I had uttered seventeen years ago was correct. I got up immediately, went to the laboratory and performed a simple experiment on a frog’s heart according to the nocturnal design:
Its results became the foundation of the theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse.
Interestingly, Loewi had previously performed a similar experiment, which combined in his dreaming mind with the new idea, creating the successful result. This is an excellent example of the ability of dreams to combine with previous dreams, or with actual events, to produce fertile new ground.
These are some of the stories of famous people who have used dreams to solve problems, enhance creativity, and even make money and win important prizes. They are all evidence of the vast human ability to make use of dreams. As you draw upon your own dream life and develop skills in both dreaming and interpreting your dreams, you will become an advanced teen dreamer. Think of your dreams as a school where you are continually learning new skills and developing new aptitudes, reaching ever higher levels of achievement.
As you pay conscious attention to your dreams, and then use your dream symbols in your waking life, you will be integrating yourself, creating the greatest artwork of your life: your whole and unique Self.... what dreams can do for you dream meaning
Dreams and their purpose
Consider dreams like home movies that each person produces in response to their daily experiences. These movies are meant to clarify certain situations and support the person. With sufficient knowledge, they can become a sort of spiritual guide, since oneiric thoughts are a window to the subconscious where, frequently, hidden feelings and repressed needs are stored without us realizing.
Even then, there are people who question the importance of dreams. Some scientists, for example, believe that the content of dreams is simply a random mix of the many electronic signals the brain receives. Others, however, find all types of messages in even the simplest dreams, and end up distancing themselves from daily reality in favor of oneiric activity.
Neither extreme is advisable. Each dream is undoubtedly a journey into the unknown, but, at the same time, modern psychology has allowed us to understand a good part of their structure. One of the conclusions drawn from the study of dreams confirms this: dreams can be a priceless aid to the imagination, but above all when it comes to solving problems. You just have to know how to listen to them, because their content tends to have a direct relation to the emotional challenges you are experiencing.
Each dream is a journey to the unknown with an implicit personal message. Although it is the content of the episode that determines our emotional state, dreaming in black and white indicates a possible lack of enthusiasm or nostalgia for the past. These dreams are an invitation to live with more intensity and enjoy the present.
Still from the film Viaje a la Luna (Méliès, 1902).
It is known that in times of crisis, our oneiric production increases significantly, both in quantity and intensity. Should we consider this “surplus” to be positive? Yes, as long as one makes an effort to remember and interpret the dreams, since, as we will see further on, they have a valuable therapeutic potential.
For example, if a couple is going through a critical phase, remembering and analyzing usually helps them understand the subconscious reactions they have to the situation. In other words, dreams are an excellent tool to get to the bottom of emotional conflicts. Knowing the causes is an essential step to resolving the problems, regardless of what course you take.
The English psychologist David Fontana, whose books have been translated into more than twenty languages, said it clearly: “In listening to my patients’ dreams in therapy sessions, I have observed how, often, these can take us right to the root of the psychologic problem much quicker than other methods.” Although, we shouldn’t fool ourselves: dreams are a mystery that can rarely decipher everything. But if a certain level of interpretation helps us understand ourselves better, what more can we ask for? From a practical point of view, our own oneiric material can be very useful.
In dreams, relationships with others are a recurring theme. The people that appear in our dreams, especially strangers, represent facets of ourselves that the subconscious is showing us.
Well-known writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe, and Woody Allen have had faith in this, acknowledging that part of their works have been inspired by dreams. The discoveries of Albert Einstein or Niels Bohr (father of modern atomic physics), among other celebrated scientists, had the same origin. In any case, these examples shouldn’t confuse us: no dream can tell you what path to follow through symbolic images without the intellect to decipher them.
Prosperity, precognition, and pronostics
What’s more, judging by some documented cases, we can even reap material gain from dreams. There is proof of some people that had premonitory dreams managing to earn significant sums of money thanks to their oneiric “magic.” The most spectacular case was in the fifties, when an Englishman named Harold Horwood won a considerable number of prizes betting on horses. His dreams transmitted clues as to the winning racehorse to bet on. Unfortunately, these types of premonitions don’t come to everyone. However, anyone has the opportunity to discover the greatest treasure of all—knowledge of one’s self—through their dreams.
We’ve all experienced the feeling of having lost control of our lives at some point. We might feel like others are deciding things for us or that we are victims of our circumstances.
Our “dream-scapes” contain valuable information about our desires and concerns; they could also function as a forecast of some aspect of our future. According to ancient tradition, dreaming of stars predicts prosperity and spiritual wealth. “Starry Night” (Van Gogh, 1889).
However, many psychologists disagree with this. That is, they argue that daily events are not coincidences but rather meaningful deeds that reflect the inner state of the individual.
Dreams and thoughts
According to these experts, luck is a pipe dream, something that does not exist, since that which we consider the result of coincidence is none other than the natural manifestation of our thoughts and attitudes. We are basically creator, not passive receivers or victims of the events that unravel in our lives.
An example that illustrates this idea perfectly is the story of the old man who threw rocks into the sea. One day, someone asked if he ever got bored of the simple game. The old pebble thrower stared at his questioner and gave an answer he’d never forget: “My small stones are more important than they seem, they provoke repercussions. They will help create waves that, sooner or later, will reach other other side of the ocean.”
What does this have to do with dreams? It’s simple: as we’ve just seen, we are the only ones responsible for our daily experiences, no matter how hard that is to believe. Therefore it shouldn’t be too difficult to take control of our lives; we just have to listen to the messages in our interior, that is, our oneiric thoughts, of which we are ultimately the authors.
Visualizations
In this way, thanks to dreams, our two existences—conscious and unconscious—can work together to make our lives more creative and free. An important part of this process is getting to know and understanding better the process of thought. One of the most beautiful and commonly used visualizations in yoga reminds us of this: “In the bottom of the lake of our thoughts is a jewel. In order for it to shine in the light of the sun (the divine), the water (the thoughts) must be pure and crystal clear and calm, free of waves (excitement). If our water is murky or choppy, others can’t see this jewel, our inner light...”
In the bottom of the lake of our thoughts is a jewel...
But it’s not that simple: it’s often difficult to discern the connection that unites wakefulness with sleep, between what we think ourselves to be and what our oneiric fantasies say about us. In any case, if our search is passionate and patient, constant and conscious, it will result in the discovery of our true Self. Therefore the interpretation of dreams cuts right to the heart of the message conceived by and for ourselves (although not consciously). It is important to learn to listen to them (further on we will discuss techniques for this) when it comes time to unstitch their meaning and extract the teachings that can enrich our lives.
The rooms in our dreams reflect unknown aspects of our personality.
In this way, when we have to make an important decision, we can clear up any doubts through a clear understanding of our most intimate desires. Although it may seem like common sense, this is not that common these days, since most people make decisions at random, out of habit, or by impulse.
The meaning and psychic effect of some deities in Tibetan Buddhism can be linked to the monsters that are so popular today.
Dreams allow creativity a free rein and free us from worry, sometimes resulting in surreal images that would be impossible in waking life.
Put simply, the idea is to find your true identity and recognize your wounds, fears, and joys through dreams. Never forget that the subconscious, although hidden, is an essential part of our personality. Dreams are fundamental for understanding the Self, since they are a direct path to this little-known part of ourselves. Their symbolic content allows us to recover repressed emotions and gives us a map to the relationships that surround us.
Nightmares that put us to the test
Sometimes the messages they bring us are not so pleasant and take the form of nightmares. However, although it may be hard to accept, these nightmares are valuable warnings that some aspects of our life are not
in harmony with our deepest Self and thus need our prompt intervention. Nightmares are proof that self discovery is not always pleasant. Sometimes it’s necessary to feel this pain in order to find out what you really are and need.
On the other hand, dreams give creativity a free rein because, when we sleep, we are free from our day-to-day worries. Therefore, even if you don’t consider yourself a creative person, keep in mind that all the scenes, symbols, and characters that appear in your dreams have been created solely and exclusively by you.
It’s often very helpful to record dreams in a notebook (we will explain how further on) in order to later analyze them and apply their teachings to daily life.
It is quite the paradox; the human being awakens their most intimate reality precisely when they are sleeping.
Carl Gustav Jung, who dedicated his life to studying dreams, developed this metaphor: “People live in mansions of which they only know the basements.” Only when our conscience is sleeping do we manage to unveil some of the rooms of our magnificent house: rooms that may be dusty and inhospitable and fill us with terror and anxiety, or magnificent rooms where we want to stay forever.
Given that they all belong to us, it is reasonable to want to discover them all. Dreams, in this sense, are a fundamental tool.
How to remember dreams
At this point, you’re probably thinking, “Sure, dreams are really important, but I can’t use them because I simply don’t remember them.” That’s not a problem, there are techniques you can use to strengthen your memory of oneiric thoughts. Techniques that, when applied correctly, allow us to remember dreams surprisingly well.
The use of these methods is indispensable in most cases since people tend to forget dreams completely when they wake up. Why? Because, according to the hypothesis of Sigmund Freud, we have a sort of internal censor that tries to prevent our oneiric activity from becoming conscious material.
Sometimes the message of dreams turns unpleasant and takes the form of a nightmare...
However, we can laugh in the face of this censor with a few tricks. The most drastic is to wake up suddenly when the deepest sleep phase (REM phase) is just about to end, so that you can rapidly write all the details of your mind’s theater in your notebook. Waking suddenly will take this censor by surprise, stopping it from doing its job. The best time to set the alarm is for four, five, six, or a little more than seven hours after going to sleep.
If your level of motivation is not high enough to get up in the middle of the night and record your dreams, there are alternatives that let you sleep for a stretch and then remember what you dream with great precision.
First of all, it’s helpful to develop some habits before going to bed, such as waiting a few hours between dinner and going to sleep. Experts recommend avoiding foods that cause gas (legumes like green beans, raw vegetables, etc.) and foods high in fat.
You must also keep in mind that, like tea and coffee, tobacco and alcohol alter the sleep cycle and deprive the body of a deep sleep (the damaging effects of a few glasses on the body does not disappear for about four hours).
What is recommended is to drink water or juice, or eat a yogurt, more than two hours after eating, before going to bed. There are two main reasons for this: liquids facilitate a certain purification of the body, and because, most interestingly for our purposes, it causes us to get up in the middle of the night. As we said, this will catch the internal censor by surprise and allow us to record our dreams easily.
Relaxing in bed and going over the events of the day helps free the mind and foster oneiric creativity.
Yoga exercises, such as the savasana pose, are great for relaxation, restful sleep, and a positive outlook.
Relaxation
It’s important to surround yourself with an environment that stimulates oneiric activity. You should feel comfortable in your room and your bed. The fewer clothes you wear to sleep, the better. Practicing relaxation techniques, listening to calming music, or taking a warm bath a few minutes before getting into bed will help relieve stress so that you enjoy a deep restorative sleep.
There are good books on relaxation on the market, both autogenous and yogic; we recommend one of the most practical, Relajacion para gente muy ocupada (Relaxation for Busy People), by Shia Green, published by this same publishing house. However, the real key is to concentrate on remembering dreams. When you go to bed, go over the events of the day that were important to you. This way, you will increase the probability of dreaming about the subjects that most interest or worry you.
So, let’s suppose you’re asleep now. What should you do to remember dreams? First, try to wake up naturally, without external stimuli. If this isn’t possible, use the quietest possible alarm without radio. Once awake, stay in bed for a few moments with your eyes closed and try to hold your dreams in your memory as you gently transition into wakefulness. Take advantage of this time to memorize the images you dreamt. The final oneiric period is usually the longest and these instants are when it is most possible to remember dreams.
Remember that it’s best to write the keywords of the dream immediately upon waking. It is convenient to keep a notebook on the nightstand and reconstruct the dream during the day.
The dream notebook
Next, write in the notebook (that you have left beside your bed) whatever your mind has been able to retain, no matter how absurd or trivial your dreams seem, even if you only remember small fragments. This is not the moment to make evaluations or interpretations. The exercise is to simply record everything that crosses your mind with as much detail as possible. Giving the fragility of memory, it’s okay to start off with just a few key words that summarize the content of the dream. These words will help you reconstruct the dream later in the day if you don’t have enough time in the morning. Ideally this notebook will gradually become a diary or schedule that allows you to study, analyze, and compare a series of dreams. Through a series of recorded episodes, you can detect recurring characters, situations, or themes. This is something that’s easy to miss at first glance. One important detail: specialists recommend you date and title each dream, since this helps you remember them in later readings.
It’s also interesting to complement your entries with relevant annotations: what feelings were provoked, which aspects most drew your attention, which colors predominated, etc. An outline or drawing of the most significant images can also help you unravel the meaning. Finally, you should write an initial personal interpretation of the dream. For that, the second part of this book offers some useful guidelines.
While we dream, there is a sort of safety mechanism that inhibits our movement. Therefore, sleepwalkers don’t walk during the REM phase. This protects us from acting out the movements of our dreams and possibly hurting ourselves. Still from the Spanish movie Carne de fieras (Flesh of beasts) (1936).
As we’ve seen, there are a series of techniques to remember dreams. This is the first step to extracting their wisdom. Now, given that oneiric thoughts are a source of inspiration for solving problems, wouldn’t it be great to choose what you dream about before you go to sleep? Rather than waiting for dreams to come to us spontaneously, try to make them focus on the aspects of your life that interest you.
How to determine the theme of dreams
Let’s imagine that someone is not very satisfied with their job. They’d like to get into another line of work but are afraid of losing the job security they enjoy. On one hand, they’re not so young anymore, they should take the risk to get what they really want. But they don’t know what to do. They need a light, a sign, an inspiration. In short, they need a dream. But not just any dream, a dream that really centers on their problem and gives answers.
However, if you limit yourself to just “consulting your pillow,” you won’t get the desired results. There is a possibility you will be lucky and dream about what you’re interested in, but more likely you will dream of anything but. If we are really prepared to dive into that which worries us most intimately, we can direct our dreams to give us concrete answers. Just like the techniques to remember dreams, the process is simple: before sleeping, we must concentrate on the subject of interest.
It’s also best to write in your notebook all the events and emotions of the day that were most important before you go to sleep.
Once your impressions and theme to dream have been noted, concentrate on the subject that most bothers you. Think about it carefully; propose questions and alternatives, “listen” to your own emotions. It’s best if all possible doubts are noted in the dream notebook. This way you’re more likely to receive an answer.
In order for it to be an effective answer, the question must be well defined. The fundamental idea of the problem should be summed up in a single phrase. Once you’ve reflected on the problem, it’s time to go to bed. But the “homework” is not finished yet. Before going to sleep, you need to concentrate on the concrete question. You need to forget everything else, even the details. Just “visualize” and repeat the question, without thinking of anything else, until you fall asleep.
Oneiric thoughts are a source of inspiration. Annotating and analyzing them carefully fosters a process of self discovery.
Writing a dream notebook
You should always have a notebook and pen near your bed to write down dreams the moment you wake up. Don’t forget to always write the date. What details should you include in this kind of diary? As many as you remember, the more the better.
Dreams are “signs,” messages from our subconscious, and the study and interpretation of them helps resolve the problems that worry us.
Nocturnal sleep puts us in touch with the deepest level of being, which allows us to approach our problems with a wider perspective. And induced dreams tend to be easier to remember than other oneiric activity.
When we dream, we enter a marvelous world that escapes the laws of spatial and temporal logic.... what are dreams for? dream meaning
What happens when we sleep?
Why do we sleep? The answer is not as simple as it seems. We sleep so that our body can rest, we think at first. However, science has not been able to prove concretely that sleep is necessary for physical recuperation of the body. Experiments performed on rats have proven that when deprived of sleep, these animals die.
But human nature is not as simple as that of rats. Everyone knows people who barely sleep. The most extreme case, published in some scientific magazines, is that of a man who claims not to have slept since contracting a serious illness. In a similar vein, some individuals with a highly developed spirituality are able to remain conscious all night. We’re not referring to a student during exam time drinking coffee or taking stimulants to stay awake more than twenty-four hours straight. We’re talking about people who can achieve advanced levels of relaxation through deep meditation.
It is known that anxiety and lack of concentration increase considerably after a night or two without sleep. One theory related to sleep affirms that we sleep to conserve energy. However, another suggests that we rest to conserve our food stores, since when we lose consciousness, we repress the hunger mechanism.
How much do we sleep?
Sleep at different ages
In the course of his life, a person has, on average, 300,000 dreams. As we age, both the time we spend sleeping and the time we spend dreaming decrease gradually.
Newborns sleep almost all day, alternating hours of sleep with short spells of wakefulness. By one year of age, they sleep fewer sessions but for longer in total: they have cycles of 90 minutes of sleep followed by another 90 minutes of waking time. Gradually, the child will sleep more at night and less during the day. By 9 years of age, most need between 9 and 12 hours of sleep a day.
The average for an adult is between 7 and 8.5 hours. But after age 70, we return to the sleep phases of childhood and sleep fewer hours continuously.
There are arguments that even claim we have slept since ancient times in order to appear a less tasty snack for nocturnal predators (when we sleep, our body looks like a corpse).
There are theories to suit everyone, but we shouldn’t forget the fundamental: for almost all of us, sleeping is a relaxing and pleasant experience that lasts between six and eight hours each night, an experience that is utterly necessary to “recharge the batteries” of our bodies.
It’s no coincidence that we choose nighttime to sleep. In the darkness our vision is reduced, the world becomes strange, and as a result, our imagination runs wild. Our minds remain occupied with images (that is, dreams). At night, our eyes don’t work, but we have a need to create images. If for some reason we are deprived of sleep, the following nights our dream production increases, since we spend more time in the REM phase (the period of sleep when oneiric thoughts are most active). Therefore it seems evident that we need dreams to live.
Some ancient civilizations believed that dreaming served, more than anything, to be able to dream. They were convinced that oneiric activity wasn’t the result of sleeping, but rather the reason for it. Some scientists, however, don’t share the theories of our ancestors when it comes to the reason behind our dreams.
There is a scientific school of thought that asserts that oneiric thoughts are simply a neurophysiological activity that comes with sleep. According to this theory, when we sleep we generate spontaneous signals that stimulate the sensory channels in the mind. The brain transforms these signals into visual images and induces the dreamer to believe that he is living real experiences.
Up to that point, perfect. But, why do dreams have such an interesting narrative? Why do they so often express metaphoric language? Why do they narrate stories that directly affect us? There is no concrete or scientific answer to these questions.
Percentages of REM sleep
Cold-blooded animals never dream; the cold temperatures at night cause them to hibernate and all their vital functions, including the brain, slow down. Only when the sun comes out or the temperature rises to an acceptable level do they recuperate all vital functions. The only cold-blooded animal that has shown signs of dreaming is the chameleon.
On the other hand, we know all warm-blooded animals dream, since REM-phase activity has been detected in all of them. Birds dream only about 0.5% of the time they spend asleep, while humans dream up to 20% of the time. There are exceptional cases, such as that of the Australian platypus, that never dream.
Other theories suggest that dreams serve to eliminate unnecessary facts from memory, since we can’t store everything that happens every day. According to this thesis, at night we erase the “archives” we don’t need, just like a computer. The sleeping mind tests the process of erasing in the form of dreams, which would explain why they’re so difficult to remember. There are obvious limitations to this theory if you keep in mind that, occasionally, oneiric thoughts work creatively (they go beyond the information that we give them). These don’t have much to do with the merely “hygienic” function that the aforementioned scientific community claims. Often, dreams don’t eliminate the useless leftovers of daily experiences. Quite the opposite: they give them a surprising new shape, so when we wake up, we can reflect more deeply on their meaning.
The phases of sleep
Even though we don’t realize it, when we sleep at night we pass through four different phases of sleep. Each phase is distinguished by the deepness of sleep. That is, when we are in phase 1, it is a fairly light sleep; during phase 4, we reach maximum intensity.
When we go to sleep, we enter a period in which we gradually pull away from the exterior world. Little by little, our sleep deepens until finally (phase 4) our breathing slows and becomes regular, our cardiac rhythm slows down, and our body temperature decreases. Therefore the body’s metabolism also reduces its activity.
More or less an hour after falling asleep, your body has already gone through the four phases. At this point you begin to go back through the levels until you return to phase 1. This brings along an increase in respiratory and cardiac rhythm. Parallel to this, brain waves once again start to register an activity close to that of consciousness. You are therefore in a moment of transition, demonstrated by the fact that at this point the body tends to change position.
All signs indicate that any noise might wake us. But that’s not the case: since your muscle tone has been reduced, this is actually the moment when it’s most difficult to regain consciousness. At the same time, your eyes begin to move behind your eyelids (up and down and side to side). This ocular phenomenon, which anyone can observe easily, is known as the REM phases, which stands for “rapid eye movement.”
Certain areas of the brain are associated with different functions and human skills, translating external sensory stimuli into a well-organized picture of the world. In dreams, those same stimuli produce different reactions. If a sleeping person hears a sound or touches something repulsive, those stimuli will probably be integrated into their dream before they wake up.
The REM phase
The REM phase is particularly important for those interested in dreams. All studies indicate that during this brief spell (from five to ten minutes) we typically experience the most intense oneiric activity. Some of these studies, done in a sleep laboratory, have observed that eight out of ten individuals relate very vivid dreams when woken up right at the end of the REM phase. These periods alternate at night with what we could call non-REM phases, that is, periods when no ocular movement is registered.
How many times do we reach a REM stage at night? It is estimated that each cycle is repeated four to seven times. As the hours pass, each phase gets longer. This way, the final REM stage might last twenty to forty minutes. On average, an adult enjoys an hour and a half of REM sleep each night, although for older individuals it may be less than an hour and a quarter. Babies, on the other hand, remain in the REM phase for 60 percent of the time they spend asleep.
In any case, let’s make this clear: not all dreams are produced during this period. It has also been demonstrated that humans generate images in other stages. However, these are dreams of a different quality, since during the non-REM phases, our oneiric activity tends to generate only undefined thoughts, vague sensations, etc. Nothing close to the emotional content that characterizes dreams produced in the REM phase.
The oneiric images produced in the most intense phase (REM) are more difficult to remember. One method to remember them consists of waking up just after each REM phase.
As we’ve commented already, those who wish to read their dreams have to first do the work of remembering them. If we want this work to be 100 percent effective, we can use a method that, although uncomfortable, almost never fails: wake up just after every REM phase. If you want to try this method, set your alarm (without music or radio) to go off four, five, six, or seven and a half hours after falling asleep. You can be sure that if you wake up just after one of the REM phases you go through each night, you will enjoy vivid memories.
This is the process used in sleep laboratories, where oneiric activity is studied through encephalographic registry of electrical brain activity.
The people in the study—who are volunteers—sleep connected to machines that register their physiological reactions (brain waves, cardiac rhythm, blood pressure, muscle activity, eye movement, etc).
At certain points during the night, these reactions indicate that, if you wake them, they will be able to tell you what they dreamed. This is because the phase that produces the most intense dreams (REM) is characterized by a physical reaction easily observed: the rapid movement of the eyes of the dreamer.
With this method, sleep laboratories can collect proof of precisely
when subjects are dreaming. And given that oneiric images are difficult to remember, the lab techniques have been a great advance in dream research. Some experts assert that thanks to the scientific advances of the second half of the twentieth century, we have learned more about sleep processes in the last fifty years than in all the history of humanity.
What do we dream?
A wide study done in France on the subject of dreams produced these results:
Hypnagogic images: between waking and sleep
As we’ve seen, throughout the night our sleep is divided into four distinct phases. But what happens just before we sink into the first phase? Are we still awake? Not exactly. In the moments when our mind decides between wakefulness and sleep, we begin to lose contact with the world around us, without the characteristic physiological changes of sleep.
This intermediate point has been called the “hypnagogic state” by psychologists. This is a period when, despite the fact that we’re not asleep, our brains generate images that can sometimes be very beautiful. In some ways, these images rival those found in our dreams.
Hypnagogic images of great visual beauty evaporate like bubbles when we wake up and are barely remembered.
However, the hypnagogic state cannot be considered a truly oneiric state. Among other reasons, the scenes produced in this phase are unrelated to the episodes with a more or less coherent plot that characterize dreams.
In the hypnagogic state we produce unrelated images that hardly connect to each other and that, unlike dreams, are not linked to our daily experiences. This phenomenon occurs not only before sleeping but also in the moments before waking up, when we are not yet conscious enough to be aware of them.
Sometimes, before falling asleep we also experience a curious sensation of floating or flying, or we may see very sharp scenes, with a clarity comparable to that of real visual experiences. These types of images, like dreams, evaporate like bubbles when we wake up and we barely remember them, which is a shame because their beauty slips from our minds. In any case, unlike oneiric thoughts, the hypnagogic state is little use for understanding the messages our subconscious wants to send us, and we should value it more for its beauty than its transcendental content.
Salvador Dali, painter of dreams.
To remember them you must not lose consciousness during the apparition. That is, you must observe the process of the hypnagogic state without falling asleep. It seems simple but it is not, because you must submerge yourself in sleep while the mind remains aware of the events happening in its interior. With a little luck, we can see some of the marvelous “paintings” of our private museum.
The surrealist artists of the 20s and 30s knew all about this. This is how Salvador Dali, fervent lover of hypnagogic scenes, turned to what is known as “the monk’s sleep.” He went to bed with a large iron key in his hand. With the first dream, the key would fall to the floor and he would wake up suddenly. In his mind he recorded the hypnagogic images he would later transfer to the canvas in his masterful style.
The seven “chakras,” or centers of subtle energy in the ayurvedic hindu medicine (1).
The nadis according to Tibetan tradition (2).
The meridians of traditional Chinese medicine (3).
If you have difficulty retaining the hypnagogic state, try centering your attention on a concrete point. For example the “third eye” of the yogis (that is, between your eyes), in the area of the heart, or in the top of the head. These three positions are, according to the philosophy of yoga, the centers of subtle rather than physical energy in the human body. You need a place to direct the mind. Another trick to hold attention without effort is to think abstractly about the name of the object you wish to see. This doesn’t mean you have to “create” the images; you just have to induce its appearance during the hypnagogic state. Entering through meditation is also very useful and beneficial.
Sometimes, the hypnagogic scenes are not as pleasant as we would like, but we must confront them in order to strengthen our ability for self-control. If they persist, try following the previous advice. Think abstractly about the name of what you want to see, resisting the temptation to construct it in a certain way from the conscious mind.
The main advantage of the hypnagogic state is that it brings us progressively closer to our deep Self . . . and all that helps to understand and better benefit from dreams.
The same subject can have very different meanings depending on the circumstances and personal situation of the dreamer.... why do we dream? physiology of dreams dream meaning
The technique of “lucid dreaming”
Broadly speaking, this type of dream permits the dreamer to consciously participate. That is, realize suddenly that they are dreaming and that they can use the elements of the oneiric scene to their advantage or whim. In this aspect, lucid dreams have a greater potential for creativity; it is the ideal occasion to invent, conceive, and formulate without any type of limit or restriction. The main course of these dreams are the curative properties they offer. The life of any individual can be improved by sleeping, since making direct contact with unconscious material makes it easier to discover oneself and progress interiorly.
But what is a lucid dream? You may have experienced it before. You are sleeping and your mind enters into a dream in which a stranger, for example, yells at you to go home. The inverosimile of the situation makes you suddenly say to yourself: “This is a dream.”
Lucid dreams are very stimulating, above all because they allow the dreamer to control their reactions within the oneiric episode, even if it is a nightmare.
Experts define this phenomenon as “prelucid oneiric activity.” But this situation can manifest in a much more evident form. In this case, you not only know you are dreaming, but you can also use your conscious to change the dream as you wish. In the example given, you could ask the stranger who he is, or why he is throwing you out of your own house.
It must be said, however, that oneiric lucidity is not common, even though surveys have reported that 70 percent of people claim to have had this type of dream at some point. It is possible that many are confusing lucid images with prelucid ones, in which they only had the vague sensation of dreaming.
Keeping the conscious awake for a long time as you navigate your oneiric oceans is complicated. When one has lucid dreams, normally you either wake up shortly after, or quickly fall back into an unconscious state. Lucidity is only intermittent. And once you’ve had a dream of this type, it could be years before you experience another one. This exceptional character is why many people consider lucid dreams to be the most stimulating, above all because they allow the dreamer to control their reactions within the oneiric episode, even if it is a nightmare.
Unfortunately, not much is yet known about this type of oneiric process, although it is believed to occur more frequently in the early morning hours, since this time period makes it easier for the individual to realize that the mind is conceiving something improbable or outright impossible (for example, seeing yourself lift an airplane with one hand).
Are lucid dreams beneficial? Of course, since the individual who experiences them, upon realizing their mind is conscious, has the satisfaction of the sensation of freedom increasing as their self-control does. In this sense, some experts go beyond and claim that when one has learned to control oneiric events, it is much easier to solve daily problems and face anxiety. Lucid dreams, therefore, can contribute to our spiritual growth.
In another way, their potential can help us to treat the most terrifying nightmares. Lucidity allows you to face the threatening images in order to understand them, not obliterate them. According to some psychologists, such as the reputable American analyst Gayle Delaney, the best way to deal with a nightmare is not to turn it into a pleasant dream. Quite the contrary, those who dream lucidly have a better option: directly ask the oneiric characters that so terrorizes them what it is they want, or what they represent.
This experience can not only help transform the evil figures into friendly characters, but also allows one to discern what parts of the dreamer’s personality are represented by the original threatening images. With proper training, the individual will report feeling more secure and confident upon waking.
How it all began
The term “lucid dream” was coined by Frederik Van Eeden in 1898, using the word “lucid” in the sense of “mental clarity.” So we can say that a lucid dream is one in which “the dreamer becomes conscious that they are dreaming.” This definition, given by the researcher Celia Green in 1968, is the most widely accepted today. In any case, the
study of this type of dream has been ongoing since Ancient Greece. In the fourth century BC, Aristotle makes the first written reference to a lucid dream in his Treatise on Dreams: “When one is sleeping, there is something in the conscious that reveals that what is present is nothing more than a dream.”
In 415 AD, Saint Augustine used the story of a lucid dream to justify life after death. Later on, in the seventh century, Tibetan Buddhism studies the yoga of dreams, in which the monks train themselves in lucid dreaming as part of their spiritual development. Despite these precedents, the study of lucid dreams, as we understand them today, does not emerge until the nineteenth century, by the hand of Marquis d’Hervey Saint Denys. This researcher published the book Los suenos y como controlarlos (Dreams and how to control them), in 1867. In this, he demonstrated that it is possible to learn to dream consciously. This fact converted him into the founder of the first line of study on lucid dreams, although his discoveries were put into doubt by many researchers afterward.
In lucid dreams we are conscious that we are dreaming.
The sensation that time has passed, in a normal dream, is due to the sudden change of setting. In a lucid dream, however, the critical sense of the dreamer makes them question passing of time they did not live. Much more systematic and objective than Saint Denys, was the English psychologist Mary-Arnold Forster (1861–1951). In her book, Studies in Dreams (1921), she describes techniques of lucidity and control over dreams she herself experienced. The researcher was especially interested in “learning to fly” in lucid dreams, a practice which she had done since childhood.
Another very important aspect of her work was her nightmare therapy. She learned to recognize that her terrifying dreams were “just dreams.” So she helped many children overcome their nightmares through lucid dreaming, teaching them techniques to change an unpleasant dream to a pleasant one. The fact that she criticized many Freudian theories, especially those about pretending and censorship, relegated her brilliance to obscurity. It wasn’t until many years later that the true value of her discoveries was recognized.
Meditation is a good resource to stimulate lucidity in dreams.
Through the techniques of lucid dreaming, we can overcome nightmares by transforming them into pleasant and agreeable dreams.
The lucid dream, today
Modern research on lucidity has advanced a lot in the last fifty years and has come to dismiss old theories. Traditionally, it was thought that dreams happen in a moment, although long stories occurred within them. However, after studying in a lab the subjective experience of the dreamer, in all cases the estimated time of the lucid dream was very close to the real time (LaBerge, 1980–1985). The sensation that more time has passed is due to the sudden changes of scenery during dreams. In 1982, a study by psychologist Stephen LaBerge and William Dement demonstrated that, in the lucid dream, respiration was controlled voluntarily. They confirmed it with three lucid dreamers, who could breathe rapidly or hold their breath during the experiment without suffering any alteration of the dream.
On the other side, one of the most common themes of lucid dreams is sexual activity. LaBerge, Greenleaf, and Kedzierski (1983) completed a pilot experiment on the physiological response in lucid dreams of a sexual nature. The experimental protocol required the lucid dreamer to make ocular signals at the following moments: when he entered lucidity, when the sexual activity of the dream began, and when he experienced orgasm. The investigators discovered that the body reacts the same sexually during a lucid dream as it does while awake.
The situations, characters, or objects that are present in dreams but impossible in real life are precisely those that awaken the dreamer’s critical sense and brings them to lucidity. “The Meaning of Life,” Hipgnosis.
Meditation is also a good resource to stimulate lucidity in dreams. Before going to bed, find a quiet place and sit in a straight chair or on the floor with your legs crossed. Close your eyelids until only a faint fringe of light enters your eyes, or close them entirely if it won’t make you sleepy. Then, try to relax for five minutes (as you practice, you can lengthen the sessions). Concentrate in a single stimulus, focusing your attention on a specific spot. When you finish the exercise, go directly to bed, trying not to lose the relaxation you attained. Meditation will help you concentrate as you sleep, allowing you to recognize the incongruencies in your oneiric thoughts. This is the starting point of lucid dreaming.
Another method for inducing this type of dreams consists of proposing to complete some sort of assignment while you sleep. When dreaming, you will try to finish this job, something that will remind you that the activity you are doing (if you do in fact dream about what you proposed to) is nothing more than a dream.
A variation of this technique (also implies taking on a task) consists of leaving a glass of water in the bathroom and eating something very salty before going to bed. If you follow this method, you are likely to be thirsty but, given that your body is reluctant to get up and go to the bathroom, the displacement will end up incorporated in your dream. The coincidence will make you realize you are dreaming.
When in daily life, if a person, feeling, or thought appears repetitively, there is a greater chance you will dream of it. The content of dreams is always influenced by the content of your day. The more often you do a certain task, the more likely it is to appear in dreams. Therefore, if you ask yourself “am I dreaming?” frequently, you will end up asking this question in dreams. The problem comes when the sensation of reality in dreams is so strong that it tricks you. It is necessary to repeat the reality test we show later on.
Dr. Consuelo Barea notes that there are two primary techniques to induce lucid dreaming at night. It has to do with self suggestion and direct entry into dreams without losing consciousness, which comes from Tibetan yoga.
The number of times that stimuli repeat in a dream has a great impact on the content. However, the same happens with the quality of these stimuli. An event that impresses you, that hits you hard, that causes a big impact, is much more susceptible to appearing in your dreams, even if it only happened once. The way in which people talk to you or in which you receive information can be very suggestive and enter directly into your unconscious.
The prospective memory is a variation of this ability. It consists of giving yourself an order, forgetting it, and then completing it when the opportune moment arrives. We see an example of this memory in people who are able to wake up without an alarm at the hour they want. When the order of oneiric lucidity is given intensely and with force, it can directly reach the unconscious. Some people are able to have a lucid dream just by hearing about it for the first time; this seems interesting, but it’s more useful to educate one’s prospective memory, so that one knows how to give the order effectively.
The process of training in lucid dreaming requires a gradual increase in oneiric experience. It is possible to advance suddenly to a much higher level of lucidity and control but, if this happens by chance, without having worked for it, you will not be able to maintain this achievement. Advances remain fixed when you work for lucidity, persisting with the techniques for induction. Then, the accomplishments are incorporated with your normal oneiric repertoire. In this way, you can reach a point where, in non-lucid dreams, you still act spontaneously, following the lessons learned from lucidity. For example, if you train yourself in lucid dreams to confront an oneiric character that terrorizes you, you will end up responding bravely to this person automatically, even if you are not having a lucid dream.
When in daily life, if a person, feeling, or thought appears repetitively, there is a greater chance we will dream of it; this happens because the content of dreams is very influenced by the content of our waking day. “El voyeur” (The voyeur) (Carles Baró, 1996).
This practice will give you the keys to discover all that worries you in waking life and ends up represented in worry dreams and nightmares. Upon practicing with oneiric lucidity, you will learn to reap maximum benefit from this source of inspiration and creativity.
In the box we show the steps to follow to train yourself in lucid dreaming. The information comes from the studies of Dr. Consuelo Barea that appear in her book El Sueño Lúcido, (The Lucid Dream), published by this same editorial.
Practicing lucidity gives us the keys to discovering everything that worries us and stalks us in nightmares.1. Development of induction techniques. Practice some of the techniques described earlier with the intention of having a lucid dream (for example, self-suggestion). You can practice it during the day, before going to sleep at night, or in the morning before a morning nap.
2. Gradually increase the level of oneiric astonishment.
The objective is to reach Level 3 through practice of the prior techniques.
3. Reality test. Once you’ve reached at least Level 1, you must get used to practicing the reality test in a dream. This can be visual, of laws of physics, or temporal. To do so, question for a moment the reality or coherence of that which you are seeing or what is happening, according to your notion of time and space. If you find something strange in the evaluation of one of these factors, it will set off an alarm for you.
4. Prolongation of lucidity. Once you’ve reached lucidity, you must extend the time as much as possible to better obtain more information. The way to do this is by internal dialogue with the people in the oneiric scene, and with the thoughts you have during the dream.
5. Control. When you’ve achieved lucidity for a while and it seems like it will continue, you can begin to practice control:
The Kabbalists associate dreams with the central symbol of their tradition: the Tree of Life. “Tree of Life” (Gustav Klimt, 1909).... lucid dreaming dream meaning
baking bricks of: your flexibility does not stop special interests from harming you.
white: good business prospects if your ethics remain pure.
building a house of, bricks: your home is based on shaky foundations.
putting a room atop: sheer wil power is needed to overcome obstacles.
of: own ideas are too easily manipulated by others.
sculpting with: your ideas are precisely defined.
working with: are stuck with a pliable destiny shaped by events. ... clay dream meaning
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