i am doin a research on dreams, meaning and implications. pls help me with materials.

U might want to add more details if you want any reasonable replies. For instance, what "ideas" do you want? The actual dreams people have had and are willing 2 share? or people's view of dreams and belief in them?

Wat seekest thou?

nanaboi:

U might want to add more details if you want any reasonable replies. For instance, what "ideas" do you want? The actual dreams people have had and are willing 2 share? or people's view of dreams and belief in them?

Wat seekest thou?

thanks,
what i need includes the following
meaning and concepts of dream and dreaming
history / origins of dreaming
factors that influence dreams/ dreaming
philosophical and theological implications of dreams
meaning of dreams

Oh! I didnt get to see this

thinking** brb.

@dgreatrock Dreams are all about YOURSELF. They might be about something you think, want, wish, hear, see or experience. We may always want to recall our sweet dreams or share them with our comrades. However, it always happens that we cannot remember right after we wake up.

What can we do then? Here are some ways, try them, they really work!

Try waking up slowly, remain clam and still. Let yourself think for a while. How did you wake up? Were you happy? Sad? Scared? What were you doing that led to your emotions? After affirming this, you can jot down 4 main questions (tips: always keep a pad of paper beside you!)

What was the key image in the dream?

What was the key feeling?

Where was the dream located?

What situation in our waking life does the dream remind you of?

-- www.dreamdoctor.com/wakeupslowly.shtml
They help reveal what the dream generally means, let us remember more later when we are totally awake and can think things more clearly. Moreover, they provide themselves as terse, easy guidelines for something you do early in the morning. Last but not least, one simple yet crucial thing to bear to mind. *Try not to talk after you wake up but keep your eyes closed.

Repeating these steps help immensely on anyone who wishes to remember their dreams.
reams - Practical Meaning
& Waking Life Applications
dreams

Not only do dreams offer a private means to explore inner reality and to gain unique, undeniable, personal experiences, but there is overwhelming evidence that they can be used to improve waking life, often immeasurably, supporting Shakespeare's age-old claim by MacBeth that sleep and dreams " are chief nourishers in life's feast." Dreams offer opportunities for fun, adventure, wish fulfillment, creativity, deep personal insight and healing, and all this at no cost and with no line-ups!

Dream Incubation, Healing & Guidance
As far back as recorded history and probably further, dreams have been employed for guidance and healing. The dream temples of ancient Greece are a classic example where the ill would perform a sacred ritual and sleep in a specialized healing temple. The Greek god Asklepios would often appear in a visionary dream, perform a symbolic operation, and the seeker would awaken healed or having received guidance. Closer to home, many native American tribes such as the Ojibwa of the Great Lakes, have expanded their use of incubation beyond healing. Young adults would embark upon a dream or vision quest into the wilderness as a rite of passage into adulthood and would fast and pray until the anticipated dream was received. Blessed by the dream with guidance or revelations about latent personal talents, the youths would return to the tribe with the responsibility to apply and share their gifts for the benefit of the community.

The process of incubation is the basis for all the applications that follow. Although perhaps a forgotten art in our culture, it is innate and neither esoteric nor difficult, and often operates automatically as we fall asleep with a problem in mind. How often have you heard a friend with a pending decision, problem or question say, "Let me sleep on it"?

To consciously incubate a dream, simply hold your question or problem clearly in mind as you prepare for sleep. Then ask (rather than command) yourself to have and clearly remember a dream which reveals the answer as either an insight, an actual experience, or both. In the morning, record any dreams or thoughts which you have upon waking for later reflection. The answer may be obvious or may not be immediately apparent, but trust that the process is working and try to put any insights you get into practice. This last step often involves drawing upon courage and self-discipline to face personal fears and/or overcome present personal limitations, but is important, as explained by the following analogy: if you ask someone for a gift and they grant your wish, they won't be overly impressed or nearly as generous next time if you lose, ignore or forget about it, so try to maintain a grateful appreciation for having received such guidance and it will likely promote further insight and future success.

"After learning about dream incubation, I suggested to myself to have a healing dream since I'd been feeling drained of energy for some time and had a bad cold coming on, which is unusual for me. I dreamt that the pores of my legs opened and ugly leeches oozed out. I awoke feeling much better. I never did find out exactly what it represented, but it sure worked." (M.S., Palo Alto, CA)

"I'm a triathlete. After an important, upsetting race where I biked and ran well below my capability, I decided to incubate a dream about it. After a week of focusing, I remembered this dream: 'I'm with my coach discussing how I was so tight and cramped during the race. He suggests regular sports massages for the racing season and says he knows a guy who could do it.' When I awoke and phoned him, he confirmed the dream and connected me with his massage therapist. A few weeks later I won my first major race, becoming the New England Long Course Champion. Two weeks after that, I qualified for the World Championships in Hawaii." (R.C., Montreal, QC)

"A new relationship came into my life, except that communication suddenly broke off for a few days, so I asked for guidance from my dream as to whether this relationship would be healthy for me. That night, I dreamt I was trying to talk to my new boyfriend on the phone. The connection kept getting cut off his because his end of the line was made of many small bits of phone wire poorly patched together. The dream confirmed my feeling that keeping good communication with this new partner might prove difficult. On top of that, he even told me when he finally called a few days later that he wasn't yet ready to be close to anyone." (S.L., Montreal, QC)

Resolving Nightmares, Anxiety Dreams & Recurring Dreams
Almost everyone has experienced one or more dreams that contain anxiety or outright fear. These experiences can be quite traumatic or become recurrent. For some, unpleasant dreams or nightmares repeat in actual content. For others, the content may change while the theme remains the same, such as scenes of falling, or of being pursued or attacked, of being late or unprepared for class, a presentation or an exam. Some people even dream of being stuck in slow motion and unable to move, or of being naked in public, to name a few common themes. Research has shown that most recurring dreams are described as being unpleasant. Furthermore, many dream theories converge in their view that this type of experience is associated with lack of progress by the dreamer to recognize and solve related conflicts in life.

Fear of nightmares from early in life, or other anxieties or misguided beliefs about dreams and the unconscious can block dream recall, but this can usually be overcome by learning about the useful nature of dreams and by recognizing that many nightmares, like a bitter but quite necessary medicine, represent opportunities for healing and insight, and can warn of psychological imbalances that we need to remedy, or of current behaviors or decisions which may soon become detrimental unless we change them, as exemplified in this dream by Stanford University pioneer sleep researcher Dr. William Dement:

"Some years ago I was a heavy cigarette smoker, up to two packs a day. Then one night I had an exceptionally vivid and realistic dream in which I had inoperable cancer of the lung. I remember as though it were yesterday looking at the ominous shadow in my chest X-ray and realizing that the entire right lung was infiltrated. I experienced the incredible anguish of knowing my life was soon to end, that I would never see my children grow up, and that none of this would ever have happened if I had quit cigarettes when I first learned of their carcinogenic potential. I will never forget the surprise, joy, and exquisite relief of waking up. I felt I was reborn. Needless to say, the experience was sufficient to induce the immediate cessation of my cigarette habit."

Fortunately, there exist treatments for nightmares that do not involve medication and which have shown to be remarkably effective. Some of the most effective techniques presently being used in psychotherapy include voice dialogue work, dream lucidity, guided imagery, dream rehearsal.

Dream lucidity is a subject of current research with doctors at Montreal's Sacré Coeur Hospital Dream and Nightmare Laboratory. The lucid dreaming approach for resolving nightmares is demonstrated the following typical integration dream:

"After many recurring nightmares where I'm pursued by some terrifying figure, I learned of lucid dreaming and had the following dream: I'm in a frantic car chase with the pursuer right behind me. Swerving into a lot, I bolt out of the car and run with him hot on my heels. Suddenly, the scene seems familiar and I realize that I'm dreaming, though the parking lot and trees still seem more real than ever. Drawing upon every ounce of courage that I have, I swirl to face my pursuer, repeating to myself that it's only a dream. Still afraid, I scream at him, "You can't hurt me!" He stops, looking surprised. For the first time I see his beautiful, loving eyes. "Hurt You?" he says. "I don't want to hurt you. I've been running after you all this time to tell you that I love you!" With that, he holds out his hands, and as I touch them, he dissolves into me. I awake filled with energy, feeling great for days. The nightmare never returned." (M.R.,San Jose,CA)

A Rich Source of Creativity
Dreams have long proven themselves to be storehouses of creativity and may in fact be the well from which imagination springs. With dream incubation and the new opportunities presented by lucid dreaming, artists, musicians, dancers, sculptors, and inventors are able to dive deep into the source of inspiration and explore the vast reaches of their own creative potential by meeting face to face with the unconscious. The increased clarity and directable nature of the lucid state often enables the dreamer to return awake laden with creative insights.

A few example dream-inspired works are The Beatles' well-known hits "Yesterday" and "Let It Be", Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem "Kubla Khan", Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Other artists who credit dreams as a source of inspiration, include poet-painter William Blake, painter Paul Klee, and screenwriters Judith Guest and Ingmar Bergman, to mention but a few. Many composers to have used dreams for inspiration including Sting, Peter Gabriel, Robert Palmer, Billy Joel, Mozart, Beethoven, Giuseppi Tartini, Igor Stravinsky, Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan), French composer Vincent D’Indy, African composer Joseph Shabalala (Ladysmith Black Mambazo founder), opera composer Richard Wagner, and Tuvan “throat-singers” Huun-Huur-Tu from central Asia, among others. George Frederic Handel claims to have heard the last movements of his famous oratorio The Messiah during a dream.

A Valuable Problem-Solving Tool
The tale is now famous of how, after an embarrassing slump, golfer Jack Nicklaus claims to have solved a problem with his golf swing within a dream, which subsequently improved his game by ten strokes -- overnight! There are undoubtedly plenty more undocumented examples spread over history, but some well-documented ones include the dream-inspired experiment and resulting discovery of the chemical mediation of nerve impulses by Otto Leowi, which won him a Nobel prize, Elias Howe's discovery of the sewing machine, many of Thomas Edison's inventions and Friedrich Kekulé's discovery of the structure of the benzene ring from a hypnagogic dream where he saw a snake-like form swallowing it's tail. Said an excited Kekulé to his colleagues, "Let us learn to dream!"

Physical & Professional Skill Rehearsal
Young children, especially babies, spend more time in REM sleep than do adults. In these stages of intense physical and mental development, some researchers believe we're actually practicing how to talk, walk and perform other physical and mental skills while we dream, suggesting that this may be one of the innate functions of dreaming.

German psychologist and lucid dream researcher Paul Tholey used dream work in his training of the German Olympic ski jumping team. He had the skiers learn lucid dreaming so that they could creatively experiment with new maneuvers, without risk of injury, and gain confidence in the most believable virtual environment available -- the world of dreams.

Dreams are also beginning to be used in this regard for improving business, and professional performance:

"After nursing school, I dreamed how I would manage a cardiac arrest and most anything stressful in my new career. I can make myself dream just about anything that I need to 'practice' before doing it." (C.A., Jacksonville, FL)

A medical student reported this lucid dream: "Before I went to sleep, I was mulling over the ways in which I could present my internship experience to my classmates. While dreaming, and knowing I was dreaming, I wheeled a cart of stuff into the classroom, set it up, and did a wonderful presentation. I saw overheads outlining my talk, slides, posters - everything I would need. When I awoke, it was clear how I should organize and present the material, so I did, and it went beautifully." (M.K., Wildwood Crest, NJ)

Fun, Exploration, Wish Fulfillment, Personal Growth & Illumination
Dreams provide what star trek fans might call a nightly holodeck experience or what hi-tech buffs might see as the ultimate virtual reality, where there is no limit to graphics resolution, computing power or on-line storage. In dreams and in lucid dreams especially, where the world avails itself to the desires of the dreamer, adventure and intrigue are almost guaranteed because the usual laws of physics and of society no longer apply, and many of the apparent blocks set by age, sex, race or religion simply fall away. In dreams we can be the hero of our own adventure, find romance, fly, travel through "solid" objects, breathe underwater, and perform feats free from embarrassment, peer pressure, monetary limits, and even physical handicaps. The boundaries of imagination are the only limits. One can even follow in the footsteps of Tibetan monks who master lucid dreaming as a spiritual illumination stepping stone on the path to enlightenment.

"All my life I've taken wondrous adventures upon the wings of my imagination while dreaming. I have flown many nights, talked to bears, dogs, raccoons, and owls; I have swum with dolphins and whales, breathing underwater as if I had gills" (L.G. Chico, CA)

"I suddenly realize I'm dreaming from the surprise and excitement of recognizing that I've become a salmon swimming upstream! Leaping high into the air, I climb a series of chutes. Then I flip up onto the shore and the flipping sensation feels so odd that I soon awaken." (W.D., Palo Alto, CA)

"Falling asleep, I remember wondering what truly 'knowing myself' would be like. Dreaming, I become aware of this incredible, indescribably powerful 'Love Light'. The thought comes that there is no power like it - it's absolutely non-judgmental, and dwarfs every worry or desire I've ever had. It is peace and simplicity and well-being. It includes sexuality but encompasses far more. Basking in what feels like 'an ocean of grace', I soon realize that I'm not looking at it, but rather that I AM it, recognizing myself." (C.W., Palo Alto, CA)
ream Recall Techniques:
Remember more Dreams



The main barrier to dream recall and to lucid dreaming (realizing during a dream that one is dreaming) is that waking and dreaming memory aren't connected nearly as well as they could be with greater intention, practice and focus. Making a consistent effort to remember and record your dreams will help your waking mind to ally itself more closely with your dream experience. It's also an excellent way to increase imagination, creative and intuitive capabilities which are all intimately connected with dreams. This alone should provide strong incentive.

1. YOU'VE GOT TO WANT IT. First and foremost, you must feel that it will be useful to you, if not extremely valuable. Without this, motivation will soon disappear. More importantly, the desire acts as a magnet which draws your dreams into memory.
2. IT'S A MATTER OF FOCUS AND ATTENTION. Understand that dream recall is an inherent, natural human trait. That is why young children are usually in touch with dreams, as are some native cultures who share their dreams with each other daily. Dream recall is a bit like a mental muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. Without exercise it may shrink, but it is there if you decide to work it out again. So if your recall is poor, trust that it will come in time, and the trust alone will actually help.
3. BEDTIME PRACTICE: Before sleep, reread your dreams from the previous (or more) night(s). This allows you to begin to connect with your dream memory, and is also an opportunity to interpret your dreams and spot connections to the day's events. Then, as you go to bed, clearly ask (rather than command) yourself to remember your dreams when you awaken in the morning or during the night, and remind yourself that it's a simple, natural process. Also, suggest to yourself that you will spontaneously awaken when you need to without using an alarm clock, since it can inhibit recall. This method works well with practice, but you may initially wish to set your alarm for 15 minutes after your suggested wake-up time, just to be safe. Any time you awaken, keep your eyes closed (or shut them if already open) and remain as motionless as possible. If you moved since waking, return to your earlier body position. Gather as many images, feelings or impressions as you can, then rise and immediately record them in a journal (which you keep nearby on a nightstand if you have an elevated bed or on the floor if you have a platform bed) or say them into a tape recorder, no matter how brief or vague they may at first seem. You'll be surprised at how much more you can remember as you write (or speak).
If your next day's schedule allows for the possibility of slightly less alertness and you're game to try something a bit more adventurous, try drinking one or more glasses of water before bed so that your body will automatically awaken you during the night - quite likely just after a dream cycle is just complete. This requires a little more dedication but has it's pay-offs since it gives your waking and dreaming states of mind more opportunity to overlap, and hence triggers better dream recall.
4. BE PLAYFUL, PATIENT, and PERSISTENT. Although most people start having success the first week or two, dream recall is a mental muscle which may require some time to get back into shape. Try to maintain a relaxed and playful attitude of looking forward to your dreams while being willing to let them come all in good time. Trying too hard or being too serious can be limiting factors. Dream recall and motivation tend to come and go naturally in cycles, and also depend upon what else is going on in your life. Once you start on a cycle of focusing on recall, stick with it for at least a few days, because consecutive nights can have an additive effect.
5. A WEEKLY STUDY GROUP with a shared interest in dreams is unmatchable for sustained motivation and inspiration.


Lucid Dreaming Techniques

Here's a brief look at some of the best techniques for bringing the light of lucid awareness to your dreams. This isn't meant to replace a committed, consistent effort, or reading books on the subject such as Creative Dreaming , or Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, but perhaps it can serve as a jumping off point for those who want to efficiently focus their efforts without delay. Some techniques are less suitable to a regular daily work schedule, however, the more you can focus on the various techniques and lucid dreaming in general, the more frequent will be your lucid dreams.
[ Master dream recall: No other practice is more effective. The main barrier to realizing when one is dreaming is that our waking and dreaming minds are not connected nearly as much as they could be with simple intention, practice and focus. Making a consistent effort to remember dreams will help your waking mind to ally itself more closely with your dreaming awareness and will also allow you to become more familiar with your personal dream content - characters, settings, feelings or sensations that seem odd (though only after you awaken) because they're often not a usual part of your waking experience. This will then allow your waking reasoning and reflective capabilities to be more present in dreams so that you recognize unfamiliar or unlikely surroundings or feelings while you're still actually experiencing them in a dream. Success with lucid dreaming is most likely if you recall one dream or more per night, in fact you may already be having lucid dreams and simply not remembering them. So, to increase dream recall: As you go to bed, clearly ask yourself to remember your dreams when you awaken in the morning or during the night. When you do awaken, keep your eyes closed (or shut them if already opened) and remain as motionless as possible. Gather as many images, feelings or impressions as you can and then rise and quickly jot them down in a notebook (which you keep bedside), no matter how brief or vague they may at first seem. You'll be surprised at how much more you begin to remember as you write. This is also an excellent way to increase intuitive capabilities, since dreaming and intuition are closely related.
[ Arise during the night: Research has proven that morning naps after a period of wakefulness are extremely productive times for lucid dreaming. This is for (at least) 3 reasons: (a) We have more REM (dream) activity per sleep cycle as the night progresses (i.e. more dreams, more chance of a lucid dream), (b) There's much less time between when we fall asleep and when REM sleep begins than at the start of the night (about 90 minutes compared to 5-20 minutes during a morning nap), so we have more chance of bridging the wake-sleep "forget-as-you-pass-by" barrier, (c) we tend to sleep more lightly (with much less or no deep sleep) as the morning approaches.
This technique probably requires the most motivation, but also provides the best pay-off. Week-ends or vacation are a particularly good time to try it. The best method is to arise either 1½ or 3 hours (1 or 2 sleep cycles) earlier than usual, stay awake for 30-90 minutes, and then return to bed for the remainder of your postponed sleep. During the period of wakefulness, it's important to "get awake" to some degree. Some of the best activities for this period are: taking a midnight walk (lots of fun!), love-making, and especially meditation (vipassana technique is particularly good). Ideally, anything that brings or maintains presence of mind.
[ Visualization (MILD) technique: This technique is extremely effective, although it can be difficult to focus upon since it's practiced while falling asleep. The basics are: Before going to bed, use the autosuggestion method for promoting good dream recall and the occurrence of lucid dreams, and then (ideally) use the following technique on a previous night's dream: When you awaken after any REM period, arouse yourself and recall as many dreams as possible using the dream recall methods. Before returning to sleep (while sitting on the side of your bed is best so as not to doze off before finishing the technique), tell yourself "The next time I'm dreaming, I want to remember that I'm dreaming", then imagine you are back in the dream from which you just awoke, remembering it step by step, scene by scene, except that this time you see yourself recognizing that you're dreaming (ideally when something odd occurs) and carrying out some planned activity (see below). Then lay down, and focus upon your intention followed by the visualization as many times as you can until you fall asleep.
[ Stay present as you drift asleep: As you lie ready for sleep, especially after waking during the night, focus upon your breath and simply observe any thoughts that arise, without getting caught by them. If you do, and later "snap back", focus right back on your breath.
[ Autosuggestion: As you go to bed, or if you awaken during the night, put yourself in the frame of mind of genuinely expecting that tonight or sometime soon you will become conscious within a dream. Clearly convince yourself in a friendly, assured (rather than pressured) way, and then let it go like a baloon. The Lucidity Institute's "Trance Induction of Lucid Dreaming" cassette can be helpful with this.
[ Plan a lucid dream activity: Realizing that you are dreaming is exciting - the thrill is great, but can also awaken you, especially if you're not sure what to do next. Imagine you've really been focusing for three weeks and all of sudden you realize you're dreaming, only to awaken from excitement. It's quite common - unless you have some specific activity to focus on right away. To continue past those first few moments of lucidity, plan in advance something specific to do in your next lucid dream. Many people choose flying, but the options are truly limitless. Let your imagination take you. The best activities for maintaining a lucid dream are those that engage you in the dream scenario.
[ Perform reality checks as a habit: Always Test First and then Decide when you have even the slightest inclination that you might be dreaming. In this way you won't miss valuable lucid opportunities. Also, throughout the day, ask yourself as often as you can remember, whether you are dreaming, and perform a test to find out. This may seem silly, but it will carry over by habit to the dream state, and you will be very glad (for once) when you find that your check has bounced! The best test is to read some text, look away and quickly look back. If the words change - you are dreaming! It helps to try to get the words to change. A digital watch is excellent for this. If there is no text nearby, look at your hands for a good 5-10 seconds to see if they appear wavy or odd in any way - as they most often do in dreams.
[ Be patient and persistent: Although many people experience success the first night or during the first couple of weeks, lucid dreaming is a skill that requires time and focus to master. In this regard it's more like learning a sport or musical instrument rather than learning to ride a bike where you get it from one day to the next for good. Try to maintain a relaxed and playful attitude of looking forward to your dreams while being willing to let it happen all in good time. Trying too hard or being too serious can be limiting factors. Dream recall, lucid dreams and even motivation all tend to come and go naturally in cycles, and also depend upon what else is going on in our lives. Continued practice of these techniques over at least a few months is more likely to bring mastery than a few intense but sparse attempts - a weekly study group of people with a like interest is unmatchable for sustained motivation and inspiration. Once you start on a cycle of focusing on some of the exercises, stick with it for at least a four or five days, because consecutive nights seem to have an additive effect.
[ Keep your life in balance: The subtle energies, ideology and realizations connected with lucid dreams and related experiences are very powerful and often of profound waking influence, at least psychologically. The approach of "as-much-lucidity-as-possible-as-fast-as-possible" is strongly discouraged. Such an approach can bring great imbalances and even unnecessary calamities into your waking life. There’s no need for fear, but do remain aware of this important point. Remember that trees stand as tall and withstand storms only as deep as their roots go, so stay grounded and maintain a healthy outward daily focus. To help regain balance if trouble arises, eat and sleep well, and maintain social connections. Other suggestions include getting a massage, going for extended exercise outdoors, and focusing on simple day-to-day tasks and therefore removing your focus from dreams and inner life for a while.


Nightmares ?
Bad Dreams, or Recurring Dreams ?
Lucky You!
nightmares
Drawing by Catherine MacIntyre


The above title may seem odd, if not a complete contradiction. Why would anyone suggest that nightmares or anxiety dreams might be helpful? If you're in the half of the population that has experienced an anxiety dream or nightmare within the last month, then this may even be what you're wishing you could get rid of, right? Some people who had nightmares or recurring dreams early on in life even manage to block their dream recall entirely in order to stop being upset by such experiences. This unfortunate view of "bad" dreams as things to avoid is precisely the reason for the above title and for this article. An avoidance or denial approach is much like putting a Band-Aid on a car's blinking oil light because the light seems annoying. Of course, fifty or a hundred miles later, it would be greatly preferable to have understood the warning. Obviously, it's even better not to have the light blinking, but if it does, then it's important to do something about it since it's there for a good reason. One certainly wouldn't be very wise to disable it. Though perhaps not obvious, the simple fact is that most nightmares and almost all recurring dreams are similarly trying to provide an extremely valuable service to the dreamer. If we block them, we are likely missing their immediate benefit; if we remember but ignore them, we may well be missing the vital message that they are trying to bring us about our life.

Almost everyone has experienced one or more dreams that contain anxiety or outright fear. For some, unpleasant dreams or nightmares recur repeatedly; for others, the content may change while the theme remains the same, such as scenes of falling, or of being pursued or attacked, late or unprepared for a presentation or an exam, stuck in slow motion, unable to move or scream, or naked in public, to name a few common themes. This type of experience, when unpleasant, is usually associated with lack of progress by the dreamer to recognize and solve related conflicts in life.

Though it has been scientifically proven that we all dream every night, fear of nightmares or other anxieties or misguided beliefs about dreams and the unconscious can block dream recall. This can usually be overcome by learning about the useful nature of dreams and by recognizing that the majority of nightmares, like a bitter but quite necessary medicine, represent opportunities for personal healing through much-needed emotional release. They are often indirectly warning us about current behavior patterns or psychological imbalances that we need to remedy if we don’t want such unpleasant dreams to repeat, or worsen. Sometimes, such imbalances or patterns resolve themselves as the dream percolates into waking thought and we unknowingly respond and make adjustments in our life. But if we block, deny or ignore such messages from the subconscious for too long, then it usually speaks ‘louder’ to get our attention often by bringing related events, which I call daymares, into our waking hours. These daymares show up as sickness, accidents, relationship difficulties or other unfortunate personal circumstances that force us outright to deal with the issue at hand. Interestingly enough, such events often have repeating themes as well, such as recurring relationship patterns, for example.

Psychologist Ernest Rossi has put forth that one important function of dreaming is integration: the combining of separate psychological structures into a more balanced and comprehensive personality. Renown psychologist Carl Jung observed that portions of our whole personality which we knowingly or unknowingly judge become disowned, and are frequently projected outward in dreams, taking the form of aggressors, devils, monsters, intimidating animals or natural events (e.g. tidal waves), and so on. Jung referred to these symbolic figures as "the shadow". Whether we become aware of such elements of our shadow through nightmares or daymares, re-accepting these judged and disowned portions of ourselves is the message and the awaiting gift.

So, we truly are lucky to have such nightmares, since they provide a natural ‘pressure-release’ therapy for the psyche, and especially since they may even provide what amounts to an early cure if we listen to, make an effort to understand and then act upon the valuable insight that dreams try to bring us. The goal is still to put an end to nightmares and recurring dreams, but by evolving them into more beneficial scenarios, and not by blocking, ignoring or denying them.

Resolving Nightmares

Fortunately, there exist treatments for nightmares that do not involve medication and which have shown to be very effective. Some of the most useful techniques include dream rehearsal, dream lucidity, guided imagery and mainstream therapies such as gestalt, psychosynthesis, focusing, or other such methods.

One approach is lucid dreaming where one recognizes during a dream that one is dreaming, hence gaining a degree of conscious control. This approach is demonstrated by this woman’s dream:

"After many recurring nightmares where I'm pursued by some terrifying figure, I learned of lucid dreaming and had the following dream: 'I'm in a frantic car chase with the pursuer right behind me. Swerving into a parking lot, I bolt out of the car and run with him hot on my heels. Suddenly, the scene seems familiar and I realize that I'm dreaming, though the lot and trees still seem more real than ever. Drawing upon every ounce of courage that I have, I swirl to face my pursuer, repeating to myself that it's only a dream. Still afraid, I scream at him, "You can't hurt me!" He stops, looking surprised. For the first time I see his beautiful, loving eyes. "Hurt You?" he says. "I don't want to hurt you. I've been running after you all this time to tell you that I love you!" With that, he holds out his hands, and as I touch them, he dissolves into me. I awake filled with energy, feeling great for days.' Not only did the nightmare never return, but more importantly, I now find myself much better at facing unpleasant situations at work and in my personal life. Following what I learned in the dream, I'm much better at standing my ground and expressing my feelings when needed and appropriate, whereas before I would usually avoid or run from such situations." (M.R., San Jose, CA)



Rainbow ruler


Suggestions for Common Nightmares and Recurring Dreams

It has been extensively demonstrated that various nightmare and recurring dream themes are quite universal, even cross-culturally, and that such situations can be transformed into positive and even pleasant experiences. The key to such evolution is a change of perspective, often accompanied by a new emotional response to the situation such as taking on an attitude of acceptance, curiosity and exploration to replace the existing reaction of fear or judgment (as in the dream example above). When these types of dream are connected with deep traumatic waking events, such as abuse, war, death, etc. the evolution of the dream into a more positive form may understandably take longer and require more waking attention and focus.

Though there is no unerring rule as to what any given dream might be about, a good rule of thumb is to re-experience the feeling of the dream and find out where this same feeling shows up in our waking life (often alluded to by the setting of the dream, though perhaps figuratively). This is the rule of associative logic - the dream associates to our life, and sometimes to our past, by a specific feeling.

I have no intention of providing an absolute dream dictionary (since dreamers and their experiences relating to specific symbols are so individual) and have no illusions about prescribing instantaneous solutions or cures, however a great number of people have gotten a lot of help and insight by learning about universal nightmare and anxiety dream themes which they are also experiencing. Here are some of the most common themes (with positive outcome examples for each scenario) and suggestions about what the dreamer might look at in waking life:

· chase or attack: The pursuer usually represents a fearful aspect of our shadow, and hence an exaggerated version of a denied or inhibited portion of our own personality that would benefit us if integrated and appropriately expressed. (ideal outcome: standing our ground, facing and dialoguing with our pursuer, and eventually, acceptance and embrace)

· falling dream: Am I feeling heavy, unsupported, worried about something? How can I feel freer, lighter? Also: do I need to be more grounded? (ideal outcome: feeling safe, landing, floating or flying)

· car out of control: Is life too hectic, out of control? How could I slow down, act more peacefully and "enjoy the ride"? Is there an important choice (i.e. turn) coming soon in my life where I need to be slow in order to turn safely in the best direction (ideal outcome: driving well & within speed limits, walking peacefully, taking more quiet time to clearly contemplate important upcoming choices so that we don't go off track or crash)

· unprepared or late for an exam: Am I feeling unprepared for some upcoming event or deadline? Unconfident about my performance? Am I worrying needlessly or do I actually need more preparation in order to feel confident and do a good job? (ideal outcome: feeling assured about oneself, performing well, making sure to schedule wisely in order to peacefully meet a deadline)

· stuck in slow motion, unable to move or make any noise: Where am I feeling stuck in life, like I’m getting nowhere or unable to voice my true feelings? What can I do to change it? (ideal outcome: relaxation and acceptance, and eventually, peaceful action & self-expression)

· embarrassed to be nude or scantily dressed in public, though nobody seems to really notice or mind: Where in life am I feeling unconfident, embarrassed, unskilled? This type of dream is usually pointing out, by the fact that the other characters in the dream don’t really notice, that we are the only one viewing ourself this way, and usually mistakenly so. (ideal outcome: comfortable with oneself as is, confident)

· personal injury, dismemberment: What part of my life—not usually the physical body—have I been neglecting, mistreating, forgetting—i.e. dis-membering as opposed to remembering? (ideal outcome: healing)

· trapped, locked in: Where am I feeling trapped in life? How might I open myself up to a new perspective, and explore new courses of action? (ideal outcome: breaking out, exploring new rooms or places)

· drowning, threatening waves, tsunami (tidal waves) or flooding: Am I blocking, denying or feeling overwhelmed by my emotions? How might I better acknowledge, accept, and feel these feelings — which often include vulnerability? (ideal outcome: swimming, surfing, breathing underwater)

· helpless, abandoned, or crying baby, monkey, bunny or small animal: Have I been taking care of my "inner child"? Is there a creative project or relationship that I have forgotten or abandoned that needs my attention? Maybe I need to laugh more, play outdoors, express my creativity, be more spontaneous, or enjoy more personal warmth and intimacy? (ideal outcome: caring for baby or animal, playing, simply having more fun)

Precognitive Dreams, Premonitions & Warning Dreams

Though they are generally symbolic of psychological processes, some dreams and nightmares are intended as guidance or warnings on a very practical level. For example, if you were to dream about the brakes failing on your car, it might help to ponder whether you are figuratively having trouble "slowing yourself down" in your life, however, it would also be very wise to check the actual brakes on your automobile in waking life.

Assuredly, not all precognitve dreams are about dire events, though when they are, such nightmares or anxiety dreams warn of current behavior trends, courses of action, or decisions which may soon become detrimental unless we change them, as exemplified in this dream by Stanford University pioneer sleep researcher Dr. William Dement:

"Some years ago I was a heavy cigarette smoker, up to two packs a day. Then one night I had an exceptionally vivid and realistic dream in which I had inoperable cancer of the lung. I remember as though it were yesterday looking at the ominous shadow in my chest X-ray and realizing that the entire right lung was infiltrated. I experienced the incredible anguish of knowing my life was soon to end, that I would never see my children grow up, and that none of this would ever have happened if I had quit cigarettes when I first learned of their carcinogenic potential. I will never forget the surprise, joy, and exquisite relief of waking up. I felt I was reborn. Needless to say, the experience was sufficient to induce the immediate cessation of my cigarette habit."

Somehow, dreams have access to information above and beyond the physical senses, both in terms of geography and time. Exactly how this is possible is an extremely interesting question, both for the individual who has such experiences, and, in general, for the scientific community—where a solely objective investigative approach often misses a lot of valuable clues about the nature of reality, especially when it comes to the realm of subjective experiences such as dreams. My view is that the state of consciousness from where our dream experiences arise is not the same as the "normal" physical waking state (which varies a great deal also), and so perceptions which come to us from such a state (and similarly with meditation, and even day-dreaming and deep states of creativity) arise from a framework beyond our physical one, and hence come from outside our normal framework of time and space. Therefore, it is actually no great surprise and even somewhat common (especially with dreams) that we can sense, through a faculty other than the five physical senses, information which, within the physical world is either ahead or long past in terms of time, unavailable to us in terms of physical location or geography, or unknown to us though others in our life are aware of such information.

Catholic Bishop Joseph Lanyl dreamed of the assassination of the arch-duke of Austria, François-Ferdinand de Habsbourg. In vain, he tried to reach the arch-duke to warn him of the assassination which occurred June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo — the event that triggered the first world war.

A few days before his assassination, American President Abraham Lincoln, who was very attentive to his dreams, dreamt of his own corpse laid out in a room in the white house. Martin Luther King also seems to have had a precognitive dream about his death a few months before his assassination.

A day before the Titanic's demise, a woman on the infamous ship dreamt of the horrible event that was to occur the next day. She told her husband, who scoffed at her worries and ignored her pleas. However, the dream so affected her that she secretly prepared herself the night before and had all her children sleep in their warm clothes in order to be ready at a moment's notice. During the night, when the ship struck the iceberg, she and her children managed to escape and be rescued. Her husband, sadly, went down with the ship.

That it is possible to know about future events not only courts the disbelief of skeptics, but also often scares people who have such precognitive dreams. Such experiences are actually somewhat common, so people's apprehension is rather unfortunate, because the cultivation of such dreams can really be a beneficial skill, much like a natural talent in music or writing or dance, and can truly become a helpful gift developed both for the benefit of the dreamer and for those around him or her, as shown by this dreamer's premonition:

"I had a dream where my father had blood pouring out of an eye from an accident involving the machine he was working with, and I knew he had lost his eye. Upon awakening, I immediately phoned my parents and asked my father what he was planning that day. He said he was going to work in his workshop with his drill and circular saw. Hearing this, I strongly urged him and eventually got him to promise to wear safety goggles while he was working. Then I spoke to my mother, told her the dream, and convinced her to keep a close eye on Dad. That night, Dad phoned in disbelief to tell me that a piece of wood had flown off the saw right at his eye and shattered the safety glasses. He was very grateful and admitted to me that it was truly a miracle that his eye was untouched." (S.B. Montreal, Qc)

So instead of wishing you sweet dreams, which you’ve heard many times before, I will go one step further, with your greatest fulfillment in mind, and wish you truly pleasant nightmares.


Recurring Dream & Nightmare Resolution Exercise:
Re-scripting a dream

Select a nightmare or upsetting dream which you’ve recently had (especially if it happened this morning!) and either from the recurring dream suggestions above or on your own, re-design a different ending to the dream. Choose something which leaves you feeling empowered, free and confident, and great about the new scenario, instead of the way you felt during or after the actual dream. Before lying down to fall asleep tonight, sit in a comfortable position and relax your body and mind completely for a couple minutes. It may help you to alternately tense and relax different parts of your body, and witness instead of concentrate upon any thoughts which cross your mind. Let it all go until tomorrow. Then, once you’re calm and quiet, mentally visualize or remember the dream you’ve selected for this exercise, running through as though you were watching a video, except at the point where things begin to turn unpleasant, replace the old ending with the new empowering one you created earlier, and imagine it as vividly as you can, "making it up" as you go if you need to. Make it a special point to experience the new feelings of confidence, freedom and empowerment that your new ending gives you. Then give yourself the clear suggestion that not only are these new thought patterns now spreading into your waking life, but also that tonight or some time soon you may have just such a dream, which includes the new, more fulfilling ending. You may even suggest to yourself that you will recognize the dream as a dream, while it’s happening, in which case you can consciously direct it as you feel appropriate towards a more uplifting outcome.

Dream Research, Sleep Disorders & Science of Dreams

In 1953, Eugene Aserinsky of the University of Chicago noticed that the eyes of sleeping babies moved beneath their eyelids at certain regular intervals. This led to the discovery of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep periods, which occur at roughly 60-90 minute intervals throughout the night and which contain the dreams which are the most vivid and most often remembered. Since then, EEG (electroencephalogram) recordings, which monitor brain activity during sleep, have been used to map the various stages of sleep. These states are classified roughly into sleep onset (hypnagogia or stage 1), non-REM sleep (deep sleep or stages 2,3, and 4), and REM (or paradoxical) sleep.

Nightmares, Anxiety Dreams & Recurring Dreams
Almost everyone has experienced one or more dreams that contain anxiety or outright fear. These experiences can be quite traumatic or become recurrent. For some, unpleasant dreams or nightmares repeat in actual content. For others, the content may change while the theme remains the same, such as scenes of falling, or of being pursued or attacked, of being late or unprepared for class, a presentation or an exam. Some people even dream of being stuck in slow motion and unable to move, or of being naked in public, to name a few common themes. Research has shown that most recurring dreams are described as being unpleasant. Furthermore, many dream theories converge in their view that this type of experience is associated with lack of progress by the dreamer to recognize and solve related conflicts in life.

Fear of nightmares from early in life, or other anxieties or misguided beliefs about dreams and the unconscious can block dream recall, but this can usually be overcome by learning about the useful nature of dreams and by recognizing that many nightmares, like a bitter but quite necessary medicine, represent opportunities for healing and insight, and can warn of psychological imbalances that we need to remedy, or of current behaviors or decisions which may soon become detrimental unless we change them, as exemplified in this dream by Stanford University pioneer sleep researcher Dr. William Dement:

"Some years ago I was a heavy cigarette smoker, up to two packs a day. Then one night I had an exceptionally vivid and realistic dream in which I had inoperable cancer of the lung. I remember as though it were yesterday looking at the ominous shadow in my chest X-ray and realizing that the entire right lung was infiltrated. I experienced the incredible anguish of knowing my life was soon to end, that I would never see my children grow up, and that none of this would ever have happened if I had quit cigarettes when I first learned of their carcinogenic potential. I will never forget the surprise, joy, and exquisite relief of waking up. I felt I was reborn. Needless to say, the experience was sufficient to induce the immediate cessation of my cigarette habit."

Fortunately, there exist treatments for nightmares that do not involve medication and which have shown to be remarkably effective, such as those being taught through The DREAMS Foundation and researched at the Sacré Coeur Hospital Dream and Nightmare Laboratory. Some of the most effective techniques include voice dialogue work, dream lucidity, guided imagery and dream rehearsal.

Sleep-Related Disorders
Other than nightmares, there are various sleep disorders which affect significant portions of the population. Insomnia, the inability to fall asleep or get enough sleep, affects up to 20% of people. It is often triggered by stress and results in worrying that inhibits proper sleep. Sleep apnea, actual lapses of breathing during sleep (mainly during REM sleep), is another common disorder often connected with obesity and/or intense snoring which results in excessive sleepiness during the day. It is harder to diagnose outside of the lab because the patient's asleep while it happens and has little way of knowing about the source of the trouble (though devices have now been developed for home diagnosis). Sleep Paralysis is relatively common though rarely as a severe disorder. It occurs during sleep when a person partially awakens but is completely unable to move for some period after waking. It can be somewhat frightening, though there is no particular danger involved.

Parasomnias are a class of disorders which include nightmares (which often occur during long REM periods), sleep walking and sleep talking, bed-wetting, body rocking during sleep onset and teeth grinding (which all occur during non-REM sleep, the latter often being identifiable by worn down teeth or a sore jaw). Night terrors are also in this class, and differ from nightmares in that they occur during non-REM sleep and are usually very intense so that the sleeper awakes in panic, often screaming, with heart pounding, and with less recall of dream content.

Narcolepsy, often connected with sleep paralysis and vivid, frightening dreams at sleep onset, is characterized by irresistible daytime sleep attacks and collapsing at the onset of strong emotions (known as cataplexy) while remaining conscious (and so should not be confused with fainting).

thanks, i am so very gratefull!

please can i have more?