WHY DO WE DREAM

DREAM INTERPRETATIONrnSo you’ve had a dream that you’re naked while you’re sitting at the table filled with family and friends at a holiday gathering. They’re all looking at you expectantly. It’s so intense it wakes you up. Now you’re awake and wondering what in tarnation that dream was about. “Naked” dreams are pretty self-evident in their meaning. In all likelihood, you’re feeling anxious and guilty because you’re harboring a secret about yourself that you’re unwilling to share with family and friends. Maybe you’re an accountant but make extra money by spinning around a pole at a stripper club. Maybe you’re gay but haven’t had the courage to come out of the closet. If the dream has twists and turns and permutations all over the place, then you can bet that in real life, your “secret” is generating all the twists, turns and permutations suggested in the dream. Your psyche is sending you this dream to persuade you to share this truth about yourself to family and friends. It's time to take off your clothes (defensive facade) and reveal your true self. WHY WE DREAMrnEveryone dreams. Some of us remember these mental shenanigans. Others don’t. Whether you remember or not, they still perform their magical function in our lives. I believe if you remember, record and interpret them, you are one step ahead of the pack, because you have taken an active role in your spiritual and emotional growth by understanding yourself better. IT CAN BE SHEER TORTURErnDid you know that sleep deprivation is one of the easiest ways to torture a prisoner… because lack of sleep means you can’t dream, and when you don’t dream, you can get crazy and whacko. Besides, it’s sheer torture to be sleepy and exhausted and not be able to sleep. Dreams are a necessary way for the mind to process the thoughts and feelings that a person experiences just before falling asleep… in a similar way that the stomach and intestines are necessary for the body to process all the food it’s taking in. IT CAN RESOLVE ISSUESrnSo… things are bound to happen to you during the day, and you respond to these events with fear, hope, desire, anger… or whatever… and your mind reshapes these experiences into stories and images during the sleep state in an effort to resolve the issues of the day. If the human psyche didn’t have a method to neutralize, release and resolve the toxic feelings which build up inside you, these “negative” vibes can cause disease and pain to the physical body. Not only are you building up stress factors which generate headaches, rashes, weight gain or loss, ultimately, these repressed negative vibes can cause cancer and other physical ailments. What your mind and spirit experience, your body manifests. IT CAN HEAL YOUrnWe all know that our bodies are self-healing. Scratch your arm and immediately your body sends all its resources to stop the bleeding, kill any bacteria present, create a protective wall against infections, then regenerate the tissue to rebuild your skin so it’s patched up as necessary. The human mind does exactly the same thing with your emotions, thoughts and feelings. Your psyche, that brilliant whatever-it-is that processes these energies, recognizes what’s “bad” for your health and goes through exactly the same process to patch up your mental/emotional/spiritual core. This is why the great icons of mental metabolism – Freud and Karl Jung, to name a few – had such strong convictions about the power of dreams. Dreams have the power to generate self-healing, self-understanding and self-guidance. Dreams can aid you in resolving the current dilemmas in your life. STEPS TO RECORDING YOUR DREAMrnIt can be as simple as having a journal by your bedside, recording the major components of the dream before you forget them, and determining what the dream signifies. You can even put such components in your iphone or ipad, or if you’re really motivated, typing out as much as you can into your computer word processing program. In my book, “I DREAMT I WAS NAKED,” (available through Amazon.Com), I actually show examples of how I interpreted my dreams through the many years I’ve been using my dreams as a self-guidance system. When I go through my many files of dreams I’ve had over the years and read the interpretations I generated for each dream, I can’t help but think how recording and understanding my dreams have made my life so much less stressful and confusing. I recommend it to anyone seeking self-improvement and self-help tools.