Category Archives: Dreams

How to Slay the Demons of Your Fears

I was having breakfast with a friend this morning. She wanted to try out this new restaurant that opened up nearby. It’s interesting how difficult it can be to open and maintain a restaurant. They can be incredibly rewarding, if you open up in the right location, and have the kind of food and environment that people like. There are a lot of variables that go into it. I remember reading a survey a while back, asking people what was the most important thing about a dining experience. I think the quality of the actual food came in third or fourth behind ambiance, and the general feeling of the place. Even McDonalds’ mission statement stresses “experience” over anything else. Experience can be a tricky thing to define. It can be really subjective, many people experiencing the same thing as different. Some people might not really enjoy something, but others can really like this. It’s like when you see this, you can really think to yourself how much you can enjoy this.

My friend was telling me about how she came up with an interesting way to help her toddler overcome nightmares. He is three, and is starting to have scary dreams. She was telling me how her physician told her that some children have more bad dreams than good dreams, so it’s important to develop good strategies to help overcome  fears. She had read a few books on child development, and being an ex kindergarten teacher, she was pretty well equipped to handle these kinds of things, so of course I was interested in what she did.

She said that whenever her son would wake up from a nightmare, she would ask him to describe it. She noticed that the more he described his dreams, the scarier they got. The monsters became meaner, with bigger teeth and hungrier looks in their eyes. Sometimes he would even imagine that they had blood dripping from them. So my friend decided to try something. She gently helped her child change some of the things that he’d experienced in the dream, without really changing the actual content. She changed the meaning behind the content.

For example, instead of having teeth that were dripping blood, the monster suddenly had teeth that were dripping chocolate sauce. Instead of having hungry looks in his eyes, the monsters eyes were red from laughing at a funny cartoon. And instead of having a mean look on his face, it became a look of consternation as he was trying to quietly fart without drawing attention to himself.

I asked her if this worked, and she said that it didn’t take long for her kid to begin to do this on his own. He would wake up, and as he started to recall his dream, he could change the pictures around so it wouldn’t be as scary. She said the trick was to take whatever pictures you come up with, and play with changing around certain aspects of them. You can use it for things other that scary dreams. You can use it on memories, or imaginations of the future, as well.

For example, if you have a particular memory you’d like to change, you can still remember the actual memory the same way, but change the meaning of the content. Like if you remember somebody yelling at you, you might have remembered that it was because you did something wrong, which would in turn cause you to feel not so good. But if you remember them as yelling at you because they were in a bad mood because they themselves got yelled at, it’s not so bad.

She went on to say that you could also play around with changing the actual content. For example, you can take a memory of a teacher yelling at you in front of the class in third grade, and shrink the teacher down in your mind to where she is only three inches tall, and her voice sounds like Mickey Mouse would if he had inhaled some helium. Then when you remember the class laughing in the background, you can remember them as laughing at her, and not you.

I thought that that little three year old is pretty lucky to have a mom that would become so interested in making sure that you can do these things to make your fears go away. I’ll be interested in seeing how much he can turn into a more resourceful person with so many skills to help others.

Feel Youthful Dreams At Any Age

So today I was hanging out with these four junior high school kids. Which isn’t really something I normally do, but sometimes when you find yourself in an odd situation that happens every once in a while, you can use this opportunity to learn something new that maybe you’d forgotten about. Like sometimes when you get older, you sort of forget what it’s like to be a kid, so when you talk to them, they seem to have a fresh and new perspective on things, until you realize that they are really looking at the world through eyes that you’d had before, and you’d neglected to look through for too long of a while.

So I was asking these kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. One kid said she wanted to be a nurse. Ok, sounds good. A job where you can help people, work in a hospital, wear a cool uniform. The next kid said he wanted to be a teacher. So far, so good. Help out kids to learn about life, help them to discover new things everyday. Next kid said he wanted to be a professional soccer player. Now we’re talking.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That was before you learned that you sort of had to be good at what you want to be when you grow up. Because I wasn’t all that great in baseball. In fact, when I was as old as these kids, I didn’t even make the junior high school team. Before you feel sympathy, realize that I was kind of relieved, because by that time, I’d learned that the baseball team was always the last to go home everyday.

Kind of strange how that works out. You develop these big dreams, then you sometimes realize that your dreams aren’t really based on anything other than a wish. You sort of make your goals based on what you see on TV, which really is just a bunch of imaginary stuff when you think about it. Not that watching baseball on TV is imaginary. It’s just that they only show the fun part, or at least what they think that you’ll think is the fun part. Who wants to watch the part where they stretch and practice and line the field? Unless you really enjoy that, which I guess professional baseball players do, which is why they are professionals, and I didn’t make the junior high school baseball team.

But as you go through life and learn new things, you start to really get a taste for what it is you want to spend your time doing something rewarding, right? I don’t suppose you could be a professional singer unless you really enjoyed band practice.

The thing that struck me the most, is that you can develop a realistic view of life as you grow and learn and experience, and still retain your youthful expectation that you always have the possibility of being able to become something greater than you are. I mean, who wants to stay a junior high school student your whole life?

And the fourth kid said that he wanted to be a taxi driver, which is actually my favorite answer of them all. Because instead of saying something that he thought other people might approve of, he said something he thought would be really cool, for whatever reason it was. And when you can combine your youthful expectation of greatness with saying what’s really on your mind, you got yourself a winning combination. 

Permalink

The Metaphorical Problem Solving Dream

You go to work. Ugh. Your boss says he’s got good news, and bad news. You go into his office, and sit down. Nervous. “What’s the good news?” You ask, pretty sure you’d prefer no news.

I’m putting you in charge of marketing.”
“That’s great,” you say, but obviously you don’t share his enthusiasm.
“What’s the bad news?” You timidly ask.
“The marketing department is being moved to North Dakota.” (If you happen to live in and love North Dakota, pretend he said Ohio.)
“Oh, great.” What else can you say? You’ve made it quite evident for quite some time that you want the marketing job.

That night, you go out to dinner with your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend. Coincidentally they received a promotion as well.

To Europe.

“Come with me!” They exhort.

You have a problem. And everybody you ask tells you something different.

Break up.
Give an ultimatum.
Turn down the promotion.
Tell them to turn down the promotion.
Quit your job and become a ventriloquist.

What on Earth do you do?

Enter Dream Number Three. The Metaphorical Problem Solving Dream.

If you’ve read my other articles on dreams, you know how to remember them, how to use them to release fears and anxieties, and how to use them to look out for danger.

In this article, I’ll tell you how you can ask your brain, (or your higher self, or infinite intelligence,) for advice, and how to listen for and interpret the answer.

The most fantastic part about this, is that most of the time, you won’t even need to worry about dream image interpretation. Because your dream will do it all for you, and give you the answer in the morning. If you do happen to encounter a metaphorical problem solving dream, you can still trust you instinct for the answer, or you can choose to interpret the dream.

Here’s what you do. Just before you go to sleep, ask yourself an open ended question that presumes a positive answer.
For example, “Why am I so stupid?” is an open ended question, but it presumes a negative answer. You want to stay away from those.

Some better questions could be:

What solution would be best for everybody?
How many ways can I solve this problem for the greater good?
How can I solve this problem and still maintain my job and my relationship?

The secret here, is to keep repeating these silently to yourself questions as you drift off at night. Then your brain will work on them as you sleep, and usually you’ll have an answer in the morning. It’s really amazing the way this works. You’ll wake up, and then an idea will just pop into your head that you hadn’t thought of before. It will seem totally obvious, and you won’t believe you didn’t think of it before.

Now if you do happen to have a really crazy dream, it’s because your brain is taking all the images and memories you have stored, and using them to put together a solution for you. It does this anyways, it’s just that you don’t normally remember them when you wake up. So if you do recall a vivid and strange dream, you can play around with figuring out what it means. In the meantime, watch out for that magical solution to pop into your head out of nowhere.

It’s really fascinating how wonderfully the mind works if you just give it simple instructions, then back up and let it help you out. Not only can you solve many problems, but you can create all kinds of good feelings as well.

Permalink

Powerfully Use Dreams to Avoid Danger

Have you seen that movie where this guy was about to drive across a crowded bridge, and then right at the last minute, got a wierd feeling and decided against it? Unfortunately for the people on the bridge, it collapsed. But becuase the main character was able to listen to his intuition, he was saved. Have you ever had a feeling, that something was going to happen, and sure enough, it happened?  Wonder why it comes sometimes, and doesn’t come other times? Your intuition is like a muscle. If you don’t exercise it, it will become weak. Unfortunately most people haven’t been taught how to use your intuition so you can use it to protect yourself from bad things in the future.

The best way is to listen to your dreams. If you haven’t read my article on remembering your dreams, or the follow up article on using them to easily release unwanted emotions, you might want to head over and check them out whenever you find the time.

The second kind of dream (after the release dream) is the warning dream. This dream is alerting you to possible danger in the future. Now there are two ways you can look at this. One is metaphysical, and one is based purely on science and biology. Both seem to make sense, so you can choose whichever one you feel most comfortable with.

The metaphysical explanation is that we all are connected to a Superconscious, and It (or She or He) knows all that ever was and ever will be. Many call this God, some call it Infinite Intelligence. When we dream, our minds somehow merge with this and are able to collect information that may help us.

The physical biological explanation can be just as valid. The brain is a fantastic supercomputer whose operational methods are still barely understood by science. As you move through life, your brain is remembering everything you come across. And while you sleep, your brain looks forward, based on your plans and your previous history, and then alerts you (or tries) to any dangers that might come up.

A personal example is something that happened to me last year. I kept having images of Magic Johnson pulling his hamstring during the Lakers-Pistons championship game. I didn’t pay much attention, and a week later I was playing with some kids. Of course, I pulled my hamstring. Now whether that was a superconcious message or my brilliant neurology looking ahead and warning me (I already knew I would be playing with that specific group of kids,) the message was clear: Stretch before you run, and be careful. Of course when I see kids, I immediately get really excited, and I seem to forget about being an adult. I’m sure you know what that’s like, right? All you want to do is play and have fun? Of course I would have had a lot more fun had I listened to my dreams.

The simple way to do this, is after you’ve become proficient at being able to remember your dreams, and you are spending a couple extra minutes checking to see if you can release unwanted emotions, is to pay attention to any images that you don’t understand. Look for actions or events that you don’t remember, or situations that you can’t recall. And keep those in mind for the next few days, and pay close attention to things in your daily life that cause you to remember those images.

Once you easily begin to remember and pay attention to your dreams, they can serve you as a valuable guide in your daily life, not only making sure that you stay clear of danger,  but as you’ve already learned, to release stress and anxiety as well.

Be sure to check back often, because I will be posting more articles on dreams and other immediately helpful topics than you can use to improve your life. And because like many others, you probably like to help people, you can decide to share this site with your friends.

Permalink

Use Your Dreams to Beat Stress and Say Goodbye To Anxiety

This article is first in a series on dream interpretation.  If you haven’t yet, please consider reading the article on how to remember your dreams so you can easily maximize your benefits from this article.

The first, and most common type of dream is referred to as ‘Release’ dreams. These are dreams where you are drifting through them and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to what is going on. These are the most important, and can be the most helpful kind of dream. As you go through the day, you worry about this, stress about that, and create all kinds of emotional worry that doesn’t really offer you much benefit. When you sleep, your brain scans through you recent memory and decides what’s important, and what isn’t. According to Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, the reason these kind of dreams can seem so chaotic is due to the physical matrix structure of the brain. You might have a memory about your neighbors dog which happens to be physically right next door to a memory of something your third grade teacher said. Your brain will decide that both those memories might be taking up valuable space in your brain, so they might get fired off at the same time. As a result, you have a dream about being in third grade, and your neighbors dog is yelling at you for not understand long division.

Because these are the most common, they are naturally the most useful. Simply because your brain is telling you what not to worry about. If you brain has decided you don’t need to worry about something, why should you, right?

One good way to handle these dreams is to pay attention to the images that you remember upon awakening. What do they remind you of?  How do those things make you feel? And what do those things remind you of? It’s important to ask yourselves these questions when you are still in the groggy waking up state while you are still blinking the sleep out of your eyes. It might not be natural at first, but as you practice this, you will get better.  The key here is to accept whatever images come up in those first few moments. These are the things that your brain has decided are not important enough to worry about. So whatever images and feelings associated with those images come up, simply choose to release them.  And if you happen to think about them later in the day, just remind yourself that your brain already decided that you don’t need to worry about those things any more, because they have already been taken care of. You can choose to free up your thoughts to think about better things that will help you to get what you want out of life.

And when you decide to release your anxiety about things that are no longer important, you will notice that you will naturally decrease your stress. And when you do that you will start to notice less and less anxiety, which will lead to you not only to improve your physical health but to improve your mental health as well.

And all it will cost you is a few minutes of focused releasing every moring. You can do that, right?

Please be sure to check back often, because as most people are starting to realize, the more you improve yourself everyday, the happier you will become.  And one good way to do that is to share this with others.

Permalink

How to Find The Treasure of Your Dreams

There you are, drifting, floating, experience something so incredibly ecstatic you wonder how you didn’t discover this before. Everywhere your eyes drift you find something to enjoy gazing at. Every sound you hear allows your ears to create a feeling of pure love. Suddenly everything starts to fade. The images are pulled away, feelings of bliss and peace slowly turn and spin until there is nothing but awkward confusion, and there is something else, something just out of reach. What? Huh? Where…?

Aw, crap. You wake up. You were dreaming. It was a great dream. Why did you have to wake up? What was it about, anyways? Oh well. You roll over, and go back to sleep. Maybe in the morning you might be able to remember something about the dream, or perhaps only that you’d had one.  Perhaps you share with many others the trait of never being able to remember your dreams. “Do you have dreams?” Your friends may ask. “Uh, yea, but I never remember them.” You answer.

Well, if you don’t make the effort to remember your dreams, you are missing out on perhaps one of the greatest tools around for you to receive insights that can give you an edge not only in your relationships, but in your goals, your future, and even your direction towards the afterlife.

There are several theories as to why we dream, the meaning of dreams, what causes dreams.  It’s generally agreed upon that there are five types of dreams.  I’ll cover those in another article. For now, let’s discuss the importance of getting into the habit of being able to easily remember your dreams.

Despite all the varied theories as to the purpose of our dreams, there is plenty of evidence of them being helpful to people in the past. Robert Louis Stevensen is said to have been able to harness his dreams to come up with stories for his wonderful novels containing deep psychological and moral significance. Kekule, the German Chemist, was able to discover the chemical formula for Benzene during a dream of a snake eatings his tail. Even the invention of the modern sewing machine, by Elias Howe, was inspired by a dream of hostile natives throwing strangely shaped spears. 

So how can you tap into this power?  Firstly, as you realize that dreams contain powerful information, you will naturally be more inclined to recall them when you wake up. And the more you get into the habit of taking a few moments when you wake up to review the nights dreams, the more they will stand out in your mind.

Next is to create a dream journal. For now, you don’t need to worry about how to understand your dreams, the only important thing now is that you learn to remember them. The easiest way is to create a dream journal. Nothing complicated. Just whenever you wake up, jot down a few ideas from your dreams. Simple facts. The situation, people, what was happening. And make sure to thank yourself. That way you can more easily get into the habit of being able to remember key parts of your dreams.  This skill will naturally get better over time as you learn how rich and wonderful your dreams are. Once you can harness the ability to remember your dreams, the next step is to find out what they mean. More on that later. For now, just focus on spending a few minutes a day on something that can naturally turn into a lifelong and powerful resource.

Remember to check back for more articles, or link or share this site because I will be posting more about how to interpret your dreams. You will be amazed at how well being able to remember them will help you so much this can feel like you have a spiritual guide coming to you every day with a helpful message.

Permalink