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Dreams
are as much a part of our lives as everything else we experience.
Not only can they help us to understand ourselves, other people
and those difficult situations in which we so often find ourselves;
they help us solve our problems and help us heal ourselves, too.
By the age of seventy-five years old, on average we will have slept
for twenty-five years and for at least ten of them we have been
dreaming. Sleep is our prime state of existence for
the sleep-state is just as much an experience as the awake-state
because when we are first born into this world we spend virtually
all our time asleep, in `dreamland`.
Slowly but surely we then begin to experience more and more, through
our five physical senses, in the dimension we call `outer reality`.
During sleep we return to our prime state, a state that was interrupted
by us being born into a physical body that seeks expression in periods
of wakefulness, limited by
3-dimension (outer) reality.
Dreams therefore are potential sources of great wisdom and guidance
where we are transported nightly to the `Land of Dreams` with the
help of Hypnos, Morpheus and Hermes and travel and communicate with
the rest of creation. From this source comes our energy and our
inspirations too, which are not received from intellect alone.
There is a broad division between objective and subjective dreams:
the former is usually experienced by people who are psychic; dreaming
about actual events involving real people. These dreams have a distinctive
quality, or feeling to them that is familiar to the dreamer. They
rarely need to be interpreted for they are usually only too clear,
especially when the events in the dream actually come to pass.
I work with subjective dreams, which contain the possibility of
helping the dreamer in some way.
In therapy, dreams often indicate where a person should start in
their work and frequently lead to the main problem. People often
dream about a person or occasion that seems to have been triggered
by a recent event in their life. The unconscious uses actual experiences
and weaves them into a tapestry to portray a message it wishes to
bring to the attention of the dreamer.
It is interesting to discover that as soon as you start to pay attention
to your dreams you are given instructions on how to proceed in many
areas of your life. Dreams can be especially helpful in enabling
people to recognise and accept the many varied aspects of themselves,
some of which may be unconscious. Our essential nature is spirit,
but our personalities are ego-created. This hides from us our divinity
and keeps us enslaved by our egos. We therefore should remove
the blockages that hide our spirituality from our consciousness.
That entails stripping ourselves of all our weaknesses, deceptions,
misconceptions, fears, prejudices and a host of ego-related issues
and it means consenting to be who we truly are. Everything
we are and everything we ever will be is already within as.
But, until we know this and become fully conscious of it, we cannot
begin to remove or reframe any part of it. Dreams can help us detect
the unconscious aspects of our personalities. By identifying the
traits of the people who appear in our dreams, we can catch sight
of our unconscious attitudes, actions, and habits, emotions and
thoughts that may not necessarily express our true selves. We all
have unconscious tendencies that we are completely unaware of operating
within us. The unconscious is the oldest and most primitive part
of the mind and it’s language is disguised in pictures and
symbols. Symbols express what thoughts can`t think and feelings
can`t verbalise. They can embrace and express our inner and outer
life, our past present and future. A picture or symbol contains
a whole idea or concept and can act as the eyes of our inner world.
When endeavouring to interpret the messages in our dreams, we need
to develop and use the functions of emotion and intuition rather
than intellect and sensation. It is best to `feel` into a dream,
or understand its meaning in a flash of intuition.
Universal meanings of various symbols followed by the dreamer`s
personal ones should be considered first. Many books have been written
on universal symbols. The unconscious chooses it`s own symbols that
are familiar to the dreamer. The keys with which to unlock the meaning
of a dream actually lie within the dreamer and clarified when brought
up into the conscious mind. The people who appear in our dreams
need to be examined. In the same way that real people can act as
mirrors in which unconscious aspects of a person are reflected,
the characters in our dreams can reflect facets of ourselves. When
a person is present as himself or herself in a dream, the major
part of his or her personality is represented. However, very few
people always act, think, feel and speak as one whole, integrated
person. Instead, it is as if a person is composed of a bundle of
parts (sub-personalities), like the cast of a small play, each one
portraying a separate role. Dreams can also reflect the various
parts at variance with one another so that the person can become
conscious of the need to bring them together into a more balanced
whole. So, every character in a dream can be observed as representative
of a part of the dreamer. Some are major parts while others may
be quite small ones. Each person contains within him or her a whole
troupe of performers. When recognisable people appear in dreams,
it is helpful to write down as soon as possible after awakening,
everything that comes to mind describing each person. When the various
attributes have been outlined, the action in the dream needs to
be studied to determine how these diverse facets are interacting
with the other characters in the dream and within the person in
outer reality (the awake-state).
Children and babies in dreams may symbolise
either recently developing attributes or recently acquired facets
of the personality, or aspects of the dreamer still at the age level
of the child in the dream that need to be rescued or developed.
Negative or disturbed characters in dreams need to be healed, comforted,
reassured and loved. They, too, are parts of the dreamer. Animals
symbolise instincts and the dreamer can determine what they signify
to him or her personally. There are also masculine and
feminine qualities represented ie. the anima and animus. Some
dreams show the dreamer his or her fears or desires. Some compensate
for areas that are out of balance. Everyone dreams, but not everyone
remembers his or her dreams. So an easy method is needed to help
people to remember their dreams, a method that could become a regular
habit. Very few people seem to be aware that they can ask
for a dream to help them solve a problem, or throw light on a situation
needing clarification.
A method of recording your dreams would be to place a cassette recorder
on your bedside table, close enough to be turned on as soon as you
awake from a dream while it is still fresh in your mind. It can
be transcribed later, at a more convenient time. An alternative
is to place a note-pad, or a dream journal, and a pen next to your
bed. If this would disturb someone by switching on the light, then
a tiny torch would be useful. There are many different types
of dreams and the meaning of a dream always lies within the mind
of the dreamer and is presented by the unconscious mind to instruct
the dreamer about himself or herself. They are highly personal messages
from ourselves to ourselves. When I work with people
on their dreams in `Elevated Therapy`, I purposely limit my help
in supplying possible meanings to the various symbols. I ask many
select and impersonal questions to make it possible
for the dreamer himself or herself to extract the meaning of the
dream sequence themselves, where they are often surprised with the
associations that enter their mind. This encourages them to take
responsibility for their life and what their dreams mean in relation
to it.
In sleep, we return to this Land of Dreams and once we recognise
it, our lives take on an added dimension. The real world is not
what it seems: it is `The Source` that matters for we were there
before we were born, we go there when we sleep and we shall return
there after we have died. “All that we see or seem is
but a dream within a dream”. - Edgar Allen Poe
Michael G Millett Dip.CHP,
MNCH(Reg), MHRS, PNLP, PLH, MNACHP
Is a certified counsellor, hypnotherapist
and psychotherapist associated with The Replingham Clinic, London
SW18.
He holds certificates in Transpersonal
Therapy and Past Life Healing from the London College of
Transpersonal Hypnosis and Healing and is an NLP Practitioner approved
by the Society of
Neuro-Linguistic Programming USA and the Association of NLP (UK).
In addition to his private practice in North West London, he works
with HIV and AIDS sufferers using combination therapy.
He can be reached at Tel: 07000 4 CHANGE / 07000 42 42 64
michael.millett@which.net
Website
http://homepages.which.net/~michael.millett
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