Exploring Our Dreams


Yesterday I suggested that this would be a good time to keep a dream journal if you’ve been dreaming more lately. But actually, anytime is a good time to do so. Dream journaling gives us another way to learn about our deeper self. I call it getting news from the engine room.

A dream journal can allow you to look for patterns over time. Do you see recurring themes or elements? Are they metaphors for you? Do you have recurrent dreams? Do they change in any way? Do you see a connection between your dreams and something happening in your life? Something that you have been wondering about, thinking about, or contemplating? Something that has been causing you concern? Using a dream journal to answer questions like these can perhaps help you to find guidance, make decisions, validate prior choices, or make sense of your experiences, emotions, moods, and behaviors.

So a few notes about using a dream journal. As with any other tool, you’ll find your own ways of using it and will become more adept over time. I suggested, for example, that you jot down only the words and phrases that will help you remember the dream later. But others recommend adding as much detail as you can, or drawing pictures along with writing notes, and you may wish to do so, either when you first make a record or sometime later. You may wish to annotate the journal with your emotional sensations. You’ll learn over time what sorts of information are most helpful for you.

You’ll also learn over time what images are usually significant for you. I have learned to pay attention when I dream about being inside a house, especially if the dream recurs, and that dreams about children are often important to me. So I might put a star by those dreams and revisit my notes about them as I have new dreams that seem to be related.

One thing to remember, though, is that not all dreams have deeper meaning. The question is always whether your dreams have meaning for you, and that can depend upon the context. A dream about being locked outside may be only that, or it may feel very significant to you if you have just been turned down for a job.

Here’s a personal example. I once had a vivid dream that I fell asleep on a bus and missed my stop, and that I woke up miles from where I wanted to be. The driver told me not to worry, because we would circle back around and I would get to the place I wanted to go. That might not mean much to me if I were to have that same dream now. But at the time, I had burned out on my first career and had been wrestling with mid-life decisions about whether and how to reinvent myself. I was wondering if I was too old to go back to school for a different degree. For me, that dream brought assurance that I was on the path that was right for me and that I would get to my destination even if I had to take a circuitous route.
 
One way to examine a dream is to simply share it with a friend or loved one, and see what resonates with you as you talk about it together. Sometimes just talking it through will help you gain clarity. And sometimes you can make sense of your dream when someone else reflects it back, asks questions about it, or offers suggestions for possible meanings. See what resonates for you.

Another approach is to annotate your journal notes with reactions, ideas, memories, or emotions that are triggered as you read through them. You might want to use a few different colored pencils to develop your own way of identifying connections between your waking life and your dream.

Some people like to diagram their dreams. You can do a simple mind map by writing the key word or central theme of your dream inside a circle in the center of the page. Inside other circles you can identify symbols, persons, or other important facts about the dream. Use lines to link the circles that seem to you to be related, annotating the lines with words or images that help you identify the connections.

A sunburst diagram is an alternative. Here you write the key word or theme inside a circle, then add rays around it. Between the rays, add notes about other elements of the dream, as well as the emotions, feelings, reactions, or other descriptive words that come to mind as you describe the dream.















If it sounds like all of this relies upon instinct, feelings, perceptions, and intuition, you’re right. Making sense of your dreams is more a feeling process than a thinking one. That may seem foreign to you at first. But if you are willing to sit with the experience, it might become more comfortable over time. And who knows what you might learn in the meantime?

Until tomorrow, take good care and stay safe.

Love,
Nancie/Mom/Mimi/Grandma



Comments

Anonymous said…
"...Making sense of your dreams is more a feeling process than a thinking one."

Perhaps someday there can be rational analysis of dreams, for those more pragmatic and skeptical of intuitive, 'feeling' interpretations...dft
May 5, 2020 at 9:43 AM
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