HARNESS THE POWER OF YOUR DREAMS
TO help you examine your own dreams, professor Robert Stickgold, of harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine, says:
DREAMS explore possibilities. They connect things our waking brain wouldn’t normally put together. It’s important to realise that dreams don’t solve problems, but they can suggest solutions.
When we dream, our mind wanders freely, without some of the inhibitions our brain imposes in waking life, and it often finds loose or weak — but potentially valuable — associations between things we’d never think of otherwise.
You don’t even have to remember the dream for that process to be useful; waking life can be influenced by your dreams without you consciously knowing.
It can be helpful to examine your dreams. There’s no point consulting dream dictionaries since everyone’s dreams are personal to them. Your teeth falling out, for example, doesn’t have one ‘meaning’. Try this technique instead:
KEEP a notepad or smartphone by your bed. When you do remember a dream, lie in bed with your eyes closed and give yourself a few minutes to recall as much as possible. Only then, open your eyes and write down or record everything you remembered, even if it’s just an isolated image.
NEXT, ask yourself some questions to help explore what the dream may mean for you. How did you feel in the dream? What was its central emotion? When was the first or last time you felt this way?
THINK of the dream’s setting.
Does it remind you of anything? Now think of the people in your dream. What were they doing? Who or what else do they remind you of? Can you see parts of yourself in these dream characters?
WHAT were the main images in the dream? What kinds of associations come to mind when you think about these images now?
WHAT was on your mind when you went to bed? Given your answers, does your dream remind you of experiences or concerns in your life?
TAKEN as a whole, what do the answers suggest about who you are and who you want to become, and how you view and interact with the world around you?