Sunday, July 18, 2010

Do You Know What Your Dreams Are Telling You?


Everyone dreams, even if we don't always remember those dreams the next morning. Sometimes they seem to make sense and other times they linger in the mind as pure fantasy. There have been many books and articles written about dreams and how to interpret them. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists often use dream interpretation as part of their therapy analysis process.

I recently read an article about the eight most common types of dreams and what they mean.

1) Processing Dreams: These can sometimes feel annoying because they are mostly a replay of your day's activities. It's the subconscious sorting out the events of the day, making sense of the thoughts and images that have bombarded you during your waking hours, and putting them in order in preparation for the next day. It explains the expression, "Let me sleep on it," when you need to consider how to handle a problem.

2) Venting Dreams: These are the dreams that can be terrifying…the nightmares. These are the ones where you're being chased, falling, failing a test, or arriving for a job interview completely naked. But don't be too quick to dismiss and ignore these dreams. They can be helpful in either helping you get ready for an opportunity (preparing for that test or job interview) or release what is subconsciously blocking you from achieving your goal.

3) Integration Dreams: If you dream that you or someone you know is behaving in an extreme manner (either something you admire or disapprove of), then your dream is probably trying to teach you that this behavior you're judging is a part of you and should be embraced and…well…integrated as vital to your whole being.

4) Breakdown/Breakthrough Dreams: These are dreams of disaster such as death, fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, etc. They represent great change on the horizon. If you're a creature of habit, they might be helping you to loosen up and be more receptive to change since change is an inevitable part of life.

5) Recurring Dreams: The mission of the recurring dream is to deliver a message from your subconscious to your conscious mind. Until you accept and decode this information, the subconscious continues to send it.

6) Precognitive Dreams: These can be compared to looking into the crystal ball and seeing the future. The information in the dream deals with people, places, and/or situations that are future events based on something currently taking place in your life.

7) Prophetic Dreams: These are different than precognitive dreams. The prophetic dream is like a psychic event. You dream of a wise, loving being (whether a religious leader, a departed loved one, etc.) and feel that they have brought you a gift in the form of a life lesson. Write down the message and recall the feeling the dream gave you.

8) Wish-Fulfillment Dreams: This is akin to a genie in a bottle. People who are wealthy attract more wealth, happy people attract more of what makes them happy. When you move in the direction of your dreams by acting as if you already have what you wish for, you move closer to attaining what you want. Your subconscious mind cannot discern between actual events and what you have vividly imagined, so your wish fulfillment dream can create the energy to take you from where you are to where you want to go.

Have any of you had any experience with dream interpretation?

8 comments:

Mary Ricksen said...

For a long time I have not remembered any of my dreams. What does that say to me?

Leigh D'Ansey said...

Interesting to know that the nightmares I've been having lately may have a good reason behind them.

Samantha Gentry said...

Mary: Good question. Maybe if you consciously tried to remember, made it the last thing on your mind before going to sleep.

Samantha Gentry said...

Leigh: Sounds like some kind of information is trying to get through to your consciousness.

Unknown said...

DEAR SAMANTHA--I have about a 100 e-mails, and while zipping through them came upon yours. I could not pass it up. Dreams are very interesting to me, and I am a prolific dreamer. I dream every night, and the dreams are complicated, often wild, rarely a feel good dream. I've read that very creative people dream a lot and often can recall the dream (however, your recollection depends in the stage of sleep you're in). I know friends who say they never or rarely dream. How odd to sleep and not dream. Thanks for this informative post that made me stop and read something. Celia

Samantha Gentry said...

Celia: Thanks for stopping by. I, personally (without anything to back it up), think that creative people have more vivid dreams and tend to remember more of them. Maybe a right brain -- left brain type of thing.

Sylvie said...

Very interesting post. I have several dream interpretation books and have dreams I remember almost every night, mostly toward morning. If they're not disturbing in some way, I usually forget them quickly. Sometimes I look them up,

Samantha Gentry said...

Hi, Sylvie. It's an interesting subject. Whether you believe that dreams have specific meanings or not, they have to come from somewhere rather than be meaningless. Something has to generate the images and sounds, there has to be a reason for the sequence.