The Healing Power of Dreams

The Healing Power of Dreams

"The dream is an attempt to make us assimilate things
not yet digested. It is an attempt at healing."

Carl G. Jung

"When we set out to interpret a dream, it is always helpful
to ask: what conscious attitude does it compensate? Dreams
...provide a view of the dreamer's situation and mobilize the
potential of the personality to meet it. Dreams are our most
effective aid in building up the personality."

Anthony Stevens

Introduction

In our life paths, there are times when we need to heal. Just as there are many wounds from which one may seek to heal, there exists a plethora of therapies, remedies or medicines with which to treat the many grievances or injuries you may have.

In this article, I will address a personal self-study form of healing, that of recording and studying, or deciphering, the dreams your unconscious brings you while you sleep. If you don't usually remember your dreams, but would like to, this first article covers some suggestions to help you with that. Before you read on, let me admonish you to, first of all, be patient with yourself. Secondly, it is advisable to believe in the saying, "If you think you can, you will." For some understanding and healing to occur, you must do your part in bringing an honest commitment and determination to the process.

It is a noble endeavour, to heal the self. Only with this undertaken can one, then, bring some compassion, help and understanding to others. But do not expect to heal overnight, all at once, or once and for all. It is an ongoing spiraling process, and you will heal until the end of your days. Isn't that a blessing?

Why Are Dreams Important?

What is your meaning, your purpose, your destiny? Not many people can answer that in twenty words or less. And with good reason. Life is grand and our understanding of it is infinitesimally small. Nevertheless, we each have inside of us a 'knowing' of what we'd like to be, to become; a Life Dream, so to speak.

It may not be the same for everyone, but it is a common theme in the life of every human being. We all seek it, whether we know it consciously or not. Binding us together in our common seeking is the world in between, that inner state that skirts both our conscious reality on one side, and the unconscious dimension on the other.

This world of dreams is the go-between with specific ‘characters’ playing messenger duty. They are the typical personifications that appear quite commonly in dreams, the archetypes. In dreams these personages breathe life and meaning into our deepest desires, giving them a reality we may only glimpse at in our waking state, if at all.

How to catch your dreams

Is there a guaranteed way to assure that you will remember your dreams in order to decipher them, as this article suggests? I’m afraid not, but there are ways to encourage you to remember your dreams and to record them so they are not lost once you do remember them. Here are some suggestions and helpful methods for you to try:

1) Even if you don’t think you do, you dream, just like everyone does every night. So accepting this fact and working with it is the first step. Two things must happen if you wish to remember a dream vividly: one, you must wake up during or just after your mind has been engaged in a dream cycle, and two, you must remember as many of the images as you can and store them in your long-term memory ‘bank.’ To do this, you “give voice” to your dream images, accessing your left-brain’s use of words to describe them as best you can and in as much detail as you can. By thinking in words what you’ve just dreamed in images, you will better remember the dream. To make yourself wake up in or at the end of a dream cycle is more tricky. This requires some planning on your part. Here are some ways that I’ve found to be very helpful and successful.

2) It’s important to get a good night’s sleep. Sleep research has shown that it is near the end of a natural night’s sleep of eight to nine hours that the richest and longest REM cycles occur. Rapid Eye Movement stages are directly associated, but not exclusively, with dreaming states. This means that if you only sleep four or five hours, you are more likely than not depriving yourself of a large amount of dreaming, as well as a well-deserved good night’s rest.

3) Enlist the help of your unconscious mind. Just because it’s for the most part hidden from our awareness doesn’t mean that we can’t communicate with it. Au contraire. Before you drift off to sleep, gently ask your psyche out loud to please give you vivid dreams and to help you remember them. If there is a problem bothering you or an issue that needs to be worked out and you can’t find a solution, ask your psyche for help. This technique is now called Dream Incubation. Its purpose is like turning your television antenna towards the direction the signals are coming from; you may not get the messages, but your chances of receiving them are increased significantly.

4) Set your alarm clock a half- hour earlier than you usually wake up, or an hour and a half later than usual. Your body has settled into a pattern of providing for you 4 or 5 cycles of dreaming, which occur at regular and predictable intervals all through the night. One of them happens about 30 to 45 minutes before you wake up. Getting up early will interrupt this last dream cycle and you’ll have a better chance of capturing the dream before it is gone.

5) To enhance your chances of remembering a dream as you wake up, or as you move your body at the end of a dream cycle (we always make some body movements to adjust our position right after a cycle ends, as we come out of our paralysed state into a mobile state), become conscious of the dream images you’ve just experienced. Move as little as possible from your original position in which you just came out of the dream, for the body, too, remembers. Try not to open your eyes and don’t pay attention to outside noise, as that will distract you from the atmosphere of your dream and draw you away from it quickly. Remain still, and just... remember the feel, the people, the objects, and the questions of your dream. Name them, give them words so your long-term memory can grasp and keep them.

6) Get your dream written down on paper or keyboard as soon as you can. Keep a journal of dreams by your bedside, or a notebook with pen or pencil. I go to my computer as soon as I get up, open my Word program, and type away. Train yourself to write with your eyes closed, if you must, to write while still in bed. It can be done; I learned. Or keep a tape recorder to summarise the dream, then later write a more elaborate description. Whatever method you find works best for you, using written words to record your dreams will eventually be a catalyst to trick your psyche into further detailed remembering. Adopt the habit of writing as soon as you wake up or get up, even if you only remember a snippet of your dream; it may trigger your mind to remember more. And as you go about your day, if more of the dream comes to the surface of your awareness, add it to your journal.

7) Keeping a Dream Journal is a very important aspect of understanding your dreams, and not, as you may suspect, for the obvious reasons. Apart from being a record of your dreams, there is also a direct correlation between writing – putting your thoughts to paper or keyboard – and the mysterious world of your unconscious. As you write your dreams in a journal, you are accessing the area in your brain where dreams are born and reside. It’s like opening the door to the source of the imagination.

As you write the images in words, the very formulation this entails triggers your personal unconscious to come on board, so to speak, and to respond by throwing out – or bringing up – more associations and more images for you to ‘look’ at through your writing. It’s almost a magical process, this part of Dream Deciphering.

In my next article, we will explore some meanings of common dreams, the importance of dream symbolism, and the meaning of symbols as they relate to your personal experience.

Cheers,
Ramona

This literary work is © 2011 Ramona Savoy Johnson, All Rights Reserved. Do not copy, store or reproduce in any manner, by electronic or mechanical means, without my written permission. Thank you.