Dreams IV

Have you ever been called a dreamer? Told to get your head out of the clouds? What exactly is a dream? According to Oxford Dictionary a dream is a train of thoughts, images or fancies passing through the mind during sleep.

Do your dreams seem like they are real, conscious experiences? Does the fact that we can sometimes remember our dreams make them more of a conscious rather than an unconscious process?

According to Sigmund Freud our dream's content consists largely of what we fear, home for and expect.

There are two kinds of sleep: Quiet sleep and Active Sleep (REM). Quiet sleep is associated with growth, repair, restoration, relaxed body and an idle brain. We've all heard of REM (rapid eye movement). This state of sleep is also associated with muscular twitches, a paralyzed body, highly active brain and dreaming.

You are not confined to dreaming only within the REM state. If you get eight hours of sleep, break it down to the first two hours are the wishful dreaming stage, the next four hours are the precognitive stage, and the last two hours are the venting state. The area you are most likely to remember is the precognitive stage. The venting stage is where we let go of all the unnecessary stuff we heard, saw, felt, tasted or smelled the day before. This is a very necessary stage of sleep.

If you've ever known someone who hasn't slept for a few days, you'll notice how twitchy, probably paranoid, and most probably aggressive they act. They aren't anything personality-wise like the person you know. It's because their brain is overloaded with "stuff"! They've been unable to vent out anything that's come in over that period of time. It's like a house filling with smoke and none of it seeping out - it's a disaster. This is why it is extremely unhealthy for people to go for long extended periods of time without sleep.

According to sleep study experts REM sleep gradually increases throughout the night and reaches a maximum about the time to awaken. REM sleep happens every ninety minutes or so throughout the night.

How often do you remember your dreams? Studies show that the average person remembers their dreams once or twice a week. According to Stephen LaBerge, PHD. ninety-five percent of most dreams are forgotten. We all dream every night and in REM sleep alone - five cycles per night x two dreams per each REM cycle - that's ten dreams each night x seven nights is seventy dreams. And you're lucky to remember one or two of them!

Sigmund Freud believed we didn't remember our dreams because they contained so many taboo thoughts. Francis Crick believed that the content of our dreams is what the brain is trying to unlearn and shouldn't be remembered. LaBerge proposes that humans might have been protected from dangerous confusion (believing our dreams were real) by the evolution of mechanisms that made forgetting dreams the normal course of affairs.

I, along with LaBerge, personally like to believe that I dream to find out who I am beyond who I dream I am.

The interpretation of our dreams can expose our personality and become a rewarding practice. If our dreams can tell us about our personal concerns, how to work through our challenges, or what our true personality is, doesn't it make sense that our dreams are worlds that we have created from the contents of our minds? If dreams are our most personal, most intimate creations, doesn't this also lead to the belief that they are most revealing in who and what we are, as well as who and what we become?

I have to disagree with LaBerge's statement that dreams don't send us a message. I interpret the dreams I remember and am impressed with the messages that I am able to discover within them. I use dream interpretation with my clients, and I have found that once they are able to dig deep within the dream and use the interpretation method they are taught in order to understand, that they, too, find a message there that will assist them in working on their challenges or making changes in something they are doing.

Have you started recording your dreams? Have you stopped to try to figure out what message your subconscious is trying to tell you? If not, why don't you give it a shot? You might be surprised what you learn.

Happy dreaming,

Namaste

Sue