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Language of Dreams
by Bonnie Moss(c)2007

Dreams take us not into ourselves,but out of ourselves. .. Richard Jones

Dreams hold us in fascination. It's an experience that takes us to another realm of existence. We try to make sense of it upon waking,that is if you can remember the dream. It's not just you and I who marvel at the series of images and events .

Scientists, researchers and psychologists have their own questions: when do dreams occur? What is the purpose of dreaming? Parapsychologists believe that dreams serve as channels for psychic communication. You and I know that dreams transport us into a world that defy logic, transcends time, space and physical barriers.

Our dreams are our own stories, a series of stories that are real in the dream world. We mingle with our long departed loved ones,alive and very much part of our lives; celebrating with us, struggling with us, talking to us, touching us. We meet long forgotten friends or acquaintances. We meet strangers.

We move in and out from one scene to another, travel to places we only fantasize about, or what about the terror you felt during a nightmare? In dreams, we meet faces, we confront danger, we enjoy a celebration, we experience success or failure, we have adventures .

Yet, how many of us think about what that dream meant. Was there a message? Do you remember any symbols? What of the people in your dream? How did you feel when you woke up?

NATURE OF DREAMS

Sleep is essential to dreaming. This is not about lucid or active dreaming, or induced altered states to trigger dreams. This is not about monitored dream states in a laboratory setting. This is about the ordinary dreaming state we all experience. Dreams that visit us in our sleep, our experience, our adventures that can go from the bizarre, to the sublime and to the ridiculous and to disconnected events.

Sleep is a time to step back from the real world, from the anxieties, from the confusion, from the passions, from the logical part of us, from reality. In sleep, we drift into a world that is spontaneous, requires no logic, no analysis, no express cerebral activity. In our dreams, we do not have to exercise judgment or be judged.

Does the soul travel during sleep? What kind of world awaits us when we go to sleep and enter the dreams state? Are dreams inspired by God, by some beings, by spirits from our past? What about evil or tramp spirits that are believed to roam the world? Was the dream an extension of that movie we watched?

How can our spirit or soul mingle within a world totally different from our conscious world? Strong emotions find their way into our dreams. So do our innermost fears and insecurities. What about shadows? Some events in our lives cast a long shadow. Our deepest secrets may reveal themselves in another context in our dreams.

Freud and Jung were famous for their exploration of dreams.They had different approach to dreaming. Freud stated that dreams do not reflect reality,is as varied as thoughts in the waking state. He had a regressive approach to dreams. Jung believed that the dream psyche passes a wealth of contents and living forms equal to or greater than the conscious mind. He took the progressive approach. Jung spent years exploring his own dreams, thus providing useful information on the correlation of symbols to dreams.

There is an increasing interest in dream interpretation and working with dreams. There is a connection between our dreams and our regular lives in the regular world. Could we stop and make some relevance of our dreams and our reality? Dreams provide access to our inner world. This makes it worthwhile to explore and try to understand our dreams, and perhaps find a connecting bridge to our reality, discover those hidden creative talents, unleash those suppressed feellings in a positive way.

Dreams may have a message to help us confront our demons, our deepest pain , or remind us of forgotten joys. Dreams can also be precognitive,that is, it may warn the dreamer of the potential of unpleasant events. Dreams may at times reflect suppressed or unexpressed emotions and passions and highlight sexual tensions.

A closer look at dreams may be helpful to one's spiritual development or hint at lack thereof. Some of the experiences in dreams convey wisdom,happiness and beauty as well as pain and sorrow. Are you interested to find out what your dream meant? You've heard about dream journals.This requires patience, perseverance and dedication.

ELEMENTS OF DREAM INTERPRETATION In his book : Let Your Body Interpret your Dream, Eugene Gendlin has these pointers as a guide to dream interpretation:

Experience and experiment with your dream, focus. It is not about trying to intellectualize the dream, but to experience the dream and to feel it. Listen to the stirrings within, be open to change, be forward moving.

Associations: Feeling- what did you feel in the dream, what in your life feels like it? Yesterday,what did you do yesterday? What preoccupied you?

Drama- place- what was the main place in the dream, have you ever been in a place like that? How did it feel?

Character -Who was the most important character? Were there unknown persons? Who do these people remind you of?

Working with characters- What part of you is in the dream, what feelings arise when you consider a particular character. What adjectives can describe that person, be that person,imagine yourself to be a particular character. How would you feel and act.

Can the dream continue? Vividly visualize the end of any important scene. Watch and wait for any change in images and feelings.

Decoding techniques

Symbols - think of symbols, what was that thing, what is it used for?It could be a house, shapes, colors, animals- endless symbols.

Body analogy- Was there any object in your dream that can be an analogy for the body?

Why would the dream make these changes?

Developmental Dimensions

Childhood -what childhood memories are related to your dream

Personal growth- how are you trying to develop?

Sexuality could the dream be about your current feelings or actions towards your sexuality

spirituality- creative or spiritual potentials might the dream reflect

It is believed that Gendlin 's use of the body association in dream work has some precedent in the Gestalt method. He takes it a step further with the bodily sense and awareness. As strange as our dreams are at times, dreams are real to us in the dream state. It is present and vivid , yet difficult to remember when we wake up. We are puzzled about having been in another world in our sleep. The intensity of the relationships and events which we actively take part in are forgotten.

Dream becomes a forgotten language.

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