How Sleep Works

Sleep is one of those funny things about being a human being -- you just have to do it. Have you ever wondered why? And what about the crazy dreams, like the one where a bad person is chasing you and you can't run or yell. Does that make any sense?
If you have ever wondered about why people have to sleep or what causes dreams, then read on. In this article, you'll find out all about sleep and what it does for you.


Characteristics of Sleep
We all know how sleep looks -- when we see someone sleeping, we recognize the following characteristics:

• If possible, the person will lie down to go to sleep.
  
• The person's eyes are closed.
  
• The person doesn't hear anything unless it is a loud noise.
  
• The person breathes in a slow, rhythmic pattern.
  
• The person's muscles are completely relaxed. If sitting up, the person may fall out of his or her chair as sleep deepens.
  
• During sleep, the person occasionally rolls over or rearranges his or her body. This happens approximately once or twice an hour. This may be the body's way of making sure that no part of the body or skin has its circulation cut off for too long a period of time.

In addition to these outward signs, the heart slows down and the brain does some pretty funky things (we'll get to this later).
In other words, a sleeping person is unconscious to most things happening in the environment. The biggest difference between someone who is asleep and someone who has fainted or gone into a coma is the fact that a sleeping person can be aroused if the stimulus is strong enough. If you shake the person, yell loudly or flash a bright light, a sleeping person will wake up.
For any animal living in the wild, it just doesn't seem very smart to design in a mandatory eight-hour period of near-total unconsciousness every day. Yet that is exactly what evolution has done. So there must be a pretty good reason for it!
­­Reptiles, birds and mammals all sleep. That is, they become unconscious to their surroundings for periods of time. Some fish and amphibians reduce their awareness but do not ever become unconscious like the higher vertebrates do. Insects do not appear to sleep, although they may become inactive in daylight or darkness.

By studying brainwaves, it is known that reptiles do not dream. Birds dream a little. Mammals all dream during sleep.
Different animals sleep in different ways. Some animals, like humans, prefer to sleep in one long session. Other animals (dogs, for example) like to sleep in many short bursts. Some sleep at night, while others sleep during t­he day.
Sleep has a profound effect on your brain.

Sleep and the Brain

­If you attach an electroencephalograph to a person's head, you can record the person's brainwave activity. An awake and relaxed person generates alpha waves, which are consistent oscillations at about 10 cycles per second. An alert person generates beta waves, which are about twice as fast.
During sleep, two slower patterns called theta waves and delta waves take over. Theta waves have oscillations in the range of 3.5 to 7 cycles per second, and delta waves have oscillations of less than 3.5 cycles per second. As a person falls asleep and sleep deepens, the brainwave patterns slow down. The slower the brainwave patterns, the deeper the sleep -- a person deep in delta wave sleep is hardest to wake up.
At several points during the night, something unexpected happens -- rapid eye movement (REM) sleep occurs. Most people experience three to five intervals of REM sleep per night, and brainwaves during this period speed up to awake levels. If you ever watch a person or a dog experiencing REM sleep, you will see their eyes flickering back and forth rapidly. In many dogs and some people, arms, legs and facial muscles will twitch during REM sleep. Periods of sleep other than REM sleep are known as NREM (non-REM) sleep.
REM sleep is when you dream. If you wake up a person during REM sleep, the person can vividly recall dreams. If you wake up a person during NREM sleep, generally the person will not be dreaming.
You must have both REM and NREM sleep to get a good night's sleep. A normal person will spend about 25 percent of the night in REM sleep, and the rest in NREM. A REM session -- a dream -- lasts five to 30 minutes.
Medicine can hamper your ability to get a good night's sleep. Many medicines, including most sleeping medicines, change the quality of sleep and the REM component of it.
Missing out on a good night's sleep can seriously affect what happens when you're awake.

Missing Sleep

One way to understand why we sleep is to look at what happens when we don't get enough:

• As you know if you have ever pulled an all-nighter, missing one night of sleep is not fatal. A person will generally be irritable during the next day and will either slow down (become tired easily) or will be totally wired because of adrenalin.
  
• If a person misses two nights of sleep, it gets worse. Concentration is difficult, and attention span falls by the wayside. Mistakes increase.
  
• After three days, a person will start to hallucinate and clear thinking is impossible. With continued wakefulness a person can lose grasp of reality. Rats forced to stay awake continuously will eventually die, proving that sleep is essential.

A person who gets just a few hours of sleep per night can experience many of the same problems over time. Two other things are known to happen during sleep. Growth hormone in children is secreted during sleep, and chemicals important to the immune system are secreted during sleep. You can become more prone to disease if you don't get enough sleep, and a child's growth can be stunted by sleep deprivation.
But the question remains -- why do we need to sleep? No one really knows, but there are all kinds of theories, including these:

• Sleep gives the body a chance to repair muscles and other tissues, replace aging or dead cells, etc.
  
• Sleep gives the brain a chance to organize and archive memories. Dreams are thought by some to be part of this process.
  
• Sleep lowers our energy consumption, so we need three meals a day rather than four or five. Since we can't do anything in the dark anyway, we might as well "turn off" and save the energy.
  
• According to ScienceNewsOnline: Napless cats awaken interest in adenosine, sleep may be a way of recharging the brain, using adenosine as a signal that the brain needs to rest: "Since adenosine secretion reflects brain cell activity, rising concentrations of this chemical may be how the organ gauges that it has been burning up its energy reserves and needs to shut down for a while." Adenosine levels in the brain rise during wakefulness and decline during sleep.

­What we all know is that, with a good night's sleep, everything looks and feels better in the morning. Both the brain and the body are refreshed and ready for a new day.
Dreams are another important part of sleep.

Dreams and Improving Sleep Habits

­ Why do we have such crazy, kooky dreams? Why do we dream at all for that matter? According to Joel Achenbach in his book Why Things Are:

­The brain creates dreams through random electrical activity. Random is the key word here. About every 90 minutes the brain stem sends electrical impulses throughout the brain, in no particular order or fashion. The analytic portion of the brain -- the forebrain -- then desperately tries to make sense of these signals. It is like looking at a Rorschach test, a random splash of ink on paper. The only way of comprehending it is by viewing the dream (or the inkblot) metaphorically, symbolically, since there's no literal message. This doesn't mean that dreams are meaningless or should be ignored. How our forebrains choose to "analyze" the random and discontinuous images may tell us something about ourselves, just as what we see in an inkblot can be revelatory. And perhaps there is a purpose to the craziness: Our minds may be working on deep-seated problems through these circuitous and less threatening metaphorical dreams.

Here are some other things you may have noticed about your dreams:

• Dreams tell a story. They are like a TV show, with scenes, characters and props.
  
• Dreams are egocentric. They almost always involve you.
  
• Dreams incorporate things that have happened to you recently. They can also incorporate deep wishes and fears.
  
• A noise in the environment is often worked in to a dream in some way, giving some credibility to the idea that dreams are simply the brain's response to random impulses.
  
• You usually cannot control a dream -- in fact, many dreams emphasize your lack of control by making it impossible to run or yell. (However, proponents of lucid dreaming try to help you gain control.)

Dreaming is important. In sleep experiments where a person is woken up every time he/she enters REM sleep, the person becomes increasingly impatient and uncomfortable over time.
To learn more, check out How Dreams Work.
How Much Sleep Do I Need?
Most adult people seem to need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. This is an average, and it is also subjective. You, for example, probably know how much sleep you need in an average night to feel your best.
The amount of sleep you need decreases with age. A newborn baby might sleep 20 hours a day. By age four, the average is 12 hours a day. By age 10, the average falls to 10 hours a day. Senior citizens can often get by with six or seven hours a day.
Tips to Improve Your Sleep

• Exercise regularly. Exercise helps tire and relax your body.
• Don't consume caffeine after 4:00 p.m. or so. Avoid other stimulants like cigarettes as well.
• Avoid alcohol before bedtime. Alcohol disrupts the brain's normal patterns during sleep.
• Try to stay in a pattern with a regular bedtime and wakeup time, even on weekends.

read more “How Sleep Works”

dreams interpretation and meaning

Organic Dream Integration: Dream Interpretation & Meaning

Four blind beggars come upon an elephant and share their experience. " It’s much like a snake", says one by the elephant’s trunk. "Not at all," replies the second, pushing against the elephant’s leg, "it’s large and solid like a temple pillar." "You’re both mistaken," says the third, holding its tail, "it is just like a rope." "How can this be?" asks the fourth man, feeling its ear, "when to me it seems identical to a rug."

Interestingly, all four are correct, yet even all their experiences put together does not give anywhere near a complete picture of what an elephant is. And so it is with dreams. In saying that the reason for dreams is this or that, or that they mean such and such, we often limit our overall experience of them. This is not to say that many very true, insightful and useful dream theories and methods don’t exist, but rather to give a hint of perspective on the incredibly vast, diverse, and enigmatic nature of the what, why, and how of dreams.

In line with our analogy, renown European physician Dr. Sigmund Freud, with his focus on phallic imagery and repressed wishes in dreams, perhaps had the proverbial elephant by the balls. Though quite true that male and female elements appear in dreams, and that dreams often bring up strong connections with our desires or have emotional roots our childhood, Freud’s is but one viewpoint. Carl Jung, perhaps the best known contemporary of Freud’s, put forth some very insightful frameworks for understanding the symbolism and nature of dreams, including his concepts of universal personality archetypes and the collective unconscious. Yet Jung himself wrote, "I have no theory about dreams. I do not know how dreams arise. I am altogether in doubt as to whether my way of handling dreams deserves the name ‘method’. But...if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly…something almost always comes of it." Jung added that this something is rarely of rational, scientific nature, but rather "a practical and important hint which shows the patient in what direction the unconscious is leading him." Jung observed that dreams perform restorative, corrective, compensatory, prophetic and developmental roles in the psyche and believed that we must be ready at any moment to construct and entirely new theory of dreams.

Dream Analysis vs. Dream Integration

Rather than lumping all importance on analysis or having to figure "out" what a dream might mean, it helps to see dreams as experiences valid on their own. Experiences which can be cultivated organically whose roots delve into the rich depths of the psyche as they stem outward into the light of conscious awareness and begin forming their leaves of thought. Truly, they are an art form of the soul for creative self-expression, self-discovery and self-healing, and much benefit and fulfillment comes simply by remembering, writing, tape-recording, sharing, painting, enacting or otherwise birthing them into the physical world. It can be greatly worthwhile to harvest the dream fruits of personal insight and practical guidance, yet every dream affects us physiologically, emotionally, psychologically, and/or spiritually, and becomes part of our being, changing us regardless of whether we make any logical waking connections or not. Even when we spot such connections, it can be limiting to assume that this was the sole ‘point’ of the dream, and therefore drop further exploration or creative expression; carrying away golden coins, we may miss the priceless and treasured jewel fashioned or concealed within the chest itself. Psycholigist/author Jill Mellick goes as far as to say that the long term effects of dry interpretation can "too often preserve the piece in intellectual formaldehyde when it could have led a long and vibrant life."

In one of my classes, during discussions about interpretation, one student dreamt: "All I could see was a hair from an elephant." (A.P. Montreal, Qc). She chuckled when the insight came that this might be her analogy for what portion of her entire ‘dream elephant’ a linear one-line interpretation might represent.

So improve your inner green thumb by gardening your dreams organically. Till the soil using dream recall practices to help seedlings break the surface of forgetting in order to reach the light of your attention. Water them with curiosity and fertilize them through natural creative expression and contemplation, yet being careful not to overdo it such that the rest of your life falls out of balance. Learn to prune back overgrowth and distinguish weeds from fruits and flowers (and keep in mind that your neighbor may have different tastes). It’s wonderful to share with others the beauty and abundance you find, yet use discretion as to who you invite inside your protective fence — trespassers may unknowingly trample months of careful effort.

The Benefits of Dream-Sharing Partners

A group of individuals or friends with a like interest can bring wonderful benefits, allowing you to observe others’ unique styles and preferences. Natural interactions between members also brings great insight and life to exciting new dreams, inner developments, and especially to synchronicities. You can also gain appreciation for and experiment with the different goals group members have. Those with an introspective inclination may simply be inclined toward the peaceful joy of the dream recording and sharing process, while others may be focused more on the harvest — one might express the beauty of dreams as an artist, another looking for business advice or creative problem solving, and another still may be natural at cultivating dreams to heal self and others. One thing is certain, anyone embarking upon such a co-operative inner exploration will find themselves with abundant food for thought and likely have much greater discipline and success, thanks to the support of the group.

Why are Dreams so "Weird"?

"Wow, I had the weirdest dream last night," is a phrase I hear often. Rarely do I get, "Oh I had this normal dream," yet if someone began speaking Sanskrit, we would also find that it sounded strange, unless we'd taken the time to learn the vocabulary, grammar, mythology, and culture of the Sanskrit language. So it is with dreams, granted that we take time to learn the language of symbols, the associative logic of dreams and some principles and differences of sleeping and waking consciousness.

Dreams generally speak in a multi-dimensional language of feelings, images and multi-level associations rather than linear words and concepts. Says author Bernie Siegel, M.D., "While our minds and our bodies communicate constantly with each other, most of this exchange occurs on an unconscious level. That’s why I often advise patients to start recording dreams, because the body cannot speak except by using symbols."

Dreams often come as series, throughout the night, for a few nights in a row, and/or within some natural cycle of weeks or seasons. They are also intimately interconnected with events in the dreamer's life, and often even with events that are yet to occur (which can make literal interpretation a challenge). Edgar Cayce wisely insisted that one should "interpret the dreamer" and not just the dream alone. Trying to understand a single isolated dream without any life context or a look at other dreams can be like trying to understand a weekly show from a single episode — not pointless, but quite often incomplete.

The dreams that are meant to assist you in waking life, hence which are the most important to contemplate, understand and act upon are recurring dreams, nightmares, and dreams which you've asked for or incubated. Otherwise, any dream which impacts you strongly or sticks with you clearly— especially the dream you remember just before getting up in the morning— along with dreams or dream fragments which spontaneously come to you later in the day, are the ones that your unconscious is trying to bring to your conscious attention. Dreams which have a powerful positive impact and leave you feeling uplifted, inspired or even completely awestruck can be understood, but better yet they can be integrated and have their beneficial impact magnified if you express them creatively (as with this dreamwork exercise) by allowing them to blossom into a poem, painting, story, dance, song, collage, sculpture, or other art form. This same technique is also an excellent type of art therapy to express the fear and difficult feelings from less pleasant dreams.

Note the level of the psyche from which dreams come, which tends to be deeper at the start of the night (and often 'weirder') and closer to our waking awareness as morning approaches (dreams which are more likely to lend themselves to conscious understanding). Look first for simple practical advice about your daily routine such as diet, exercise, and challenges you face at school, work or in your relationships, yet trust that deeper issues are likely also undergoing resolution.

Your own gut feeling is always the best source to trust for understanding your dreams, and should also have the last word as to whether any interpretation is valid. As the Sufi saying goes, "only a fool takes the words of another over his own experience." This said, dreams are often meant for sharing and it's a practice I heartily encourage when done in a supportive, non-judgmental environment. Clear insights often pop up simply in the telling, and interestingly, these vary in the presence of different people. Sharing a dream not only refreshes it in your memory and gives you a chance to gain insights while viewing it more objectively, but you may also begin to glimpse how the source from which dreams come is so wise that it knows in advance who you will meet on any given day and often cooks up dreams that are also of benefit, if not sometimes mainly intended for those you later share them with. When sharing a dream, or especially when listening to someone else share a dream, take special note of body language, face expressions and voice intonation/fluctuation since these often reflect related unconscious elements.

A good rule of thumb to find out what a dream may relate to in your life is to look at the feeling present in the dream and search daily life, especially the previous day (and six days earlier, as research has shown) for the same feeling. This greatly helps you tie together the dream symbols and their waking counterparts. On the other hand, if the feeling shocks you, such as is sometimes the case of dreams with a strong component of anger or sexuality, for example, then the dream may be a safe outlet for such feelings which have been denied healthy expression in daily life.

Time and time again I meet people who bemoan how difficult dreams are to understand, and I've noticed that this stance fulfills itself excellently, since such people end up distrusting or completely blocking any insights as or before they come. Author Richard Bach sums this up nicely in his wonderful book Illusions, "Argue your limitations and they're yours." The solution and best overall method to improve your ability to understand dreams, though deceptively simple and perhaps tough to accept initially, is simply to believe that it is easy and natural to know what your dreams are saying, and that you are already good at it. Along with this, give yourself the suggestion that important dreams will start coming accompanied by a narrative or explanatory thoughts. You can even request dreams that interpret earlier ones. I made such a request once about a very important dream, and a friend I met later that week who often shares his dreams with me, told one he’d had that morning very similar to mine with the same characters and setting, and which clearly explained mine to me; I felt he 'unknowingly' dreamt it for me.

Some Universal Dream Symbolism Tips

While interpretation is not the only tool for working with dreams, it can be very useful and fun to boot. Here are some guidelines to ponder. Keeping a collection of self-interpreted personal symbols can be quite helpful, but when it comes to using a dream dictionary, remember that every dreamer is unique and each dream dependent not only upon what's going on in life at the time, but also upon other dreams and things such as age, religion, upbringing, language, sex, culture, political, social, and seasonal climate and particularly upon the individual’s interests and beliefs.

It is very helpful to take note whenever a symbol becomes very specific such as names, numbers, colors or detailed or out-of-place symbols. Contemplate why the dream chose something so precise. Experimenting with word plays in such cases can often bring surprising insights.

Following are some symbol associations to keep in mind, and though somewhat universal, they are certainly not etched in stone (see also: universal nightmare themes and how to resolve them):

Directions are perhaps one of the most insightful, though often overlooked dream elements. Forward or in front of often represents forward in time (i.e. the future), and similarly, backward or behind often symbolizes the past (the back yard of your home is your personal past, for example).Upward or high often represents the spiritual, or intellectual (i.e. flying above the roof tops), while downward or low suggests more physical, instinctive, and being grounded. Less universal but still helpful, to the right often points to logical, reasoning or outward world power focus (right hand man), while to the left suggests emotional, inner, artistic aspects. Underground, or in the dark, is the symbol of something being subconscious or unconscious (e.g. basement, nighttime), since light usually symbolizes consciousness. Colors can mean many things, often more individual than universal, though black can depict guilt or other heavy feelings (the black ball and chain you keep dragging around) while white may indicate purity, and the realm of the spirit. Pure green can suggest healing, and the healing power of nature.

Your viewpoint or perspective in a dream can be insightful. First person, where you play ‘yourself’, shows that you have a fixed identity or character. This is particularly common in nightmares and anxiety dreams where you are quite caught up in your role as dream actor. The other most common perspective is third person where you witness the dream from an audience viewpoint as a disembodied watcher or point of awareness. Sometimes, though not always, this can point to feelings or situations which are not being felt or experienced (i.e. ‘you’ are ‘removed’ from the scene). A balanced blend of these two perspectives is a good step toward lucid dreaming.

Setting is an extremely key dream element since it provides the backdrop for the scene and often provides the link about what aspect of your waking life the dream relates to. Deserts have no water (feeling, emotion, life force), and generally denote some area within ourselves which we have not paid too much attention to (usually in regards to our feelings). Oceans suggest the vast stretches and depths of the soul and of psyche.

Powerful weather or nature elements (i.e. tidal waves, storms, tornadoes, hurricanes - interestingly there happens to be a thunderstorm happening as I write this sentence) generally symbolize powerful emotions, and change, while seasons can point to a certain mood or phase of experience: winter as an unconscious time of hibernation/incubation, spring the beginning of new life, summer the height of activity growth, freedom, expression, and fall can often signify a time of harvest or a natural ending.

The type of room(s) you are in suggests the portion of your ego (house/appartment) that the dream’s about. Some common ones are the basement or cellar as the subconscious, the kitchen/dining room as the place of self-nourishment or social nature, the bedroom as a place of relationships or unconsciousness (sleep), the bathroom as private and where you cleanse yourself and dispose of waste, and the garage as the place where action/achievement (car) stems from or where we have things stored or piled up.

Dream elements that transform from one thing to another are pointing to a connection between the two. Elements of distorted size (especially in childhood home setting dreams) may sometimes denote that the dreamer's perspective is different as it would have been at a different age (i.e. the very high window might represent that the dream is pointing to feelings or experiences when the dreamer was very young).

Perhaps the most universal symbol of all, is the human body, and much light can be shed upon dreams by knowing about palmistry, face-reading, body-language, ayurvedic body types and symptoms. Some of the most common elements are dreaming of someone asleep (a part of us that is unconscious), dying, being dismembered or buried (going unconscious - the opposite of remembered), or dreams focusing on body parts. Skin often represents ‘feeling’s (skin problems may point out emotional challenges), blood is what brings us oxygen and energy and often figuratively stands for life force. A very common dream image for new dream explorers is feces, representing something natural but which is past and usually something we need to clean up, let go of, get out of our system. It's often a shocking sight, and means some work will be involved, but just remember that it is also wonderful organic fertilizer for new inner growth. Hands are our tools for creation and work in the world, while feet may describe one’s current life path.

Animals embody strong character aspects too, especially of an instinctive or emotional nature. Birds generally denote freedom, a perspective of increased awareness (from a bird's eye point of view), and also lucidity, as hinted at by the Sufi saying, "When a bird lands on your outstretched hand, then, my friend, you will understand." Dinosaurs can show up in a dreamer's early stages of becoming aware of powerful, deeply-seated "prehistoric" (i.e. childhood) emotional or instinctive feelings, and often "evolve" in successive dreams.

Dream Characters

An interesting enigma exists as to whether characters within a dream depict our own inner aspects, qualities or abilities, or whether they represent their waking counterparts — the people from our daily experience. If we were to view life as a dream, the differentiation somewhat falls away. But for simplicity and practical purposes, it is sometimes accurate to treat them as relating to the actual person (and check our dream against actual waking events), and sometimes better (more often than not) to understand them as own inner characters or personality aspects. At times, characters can be composites (e.g. he looked like my brother, but I knew it was Markus) and/or may shift identity as the dream progresses which again points to a connection between the two. An in-depth look at animals and dream characters is the subject for further exploration and training, but for the moment, investigate both potential aspects, and try engaging in a written dialogue (where you "make up" their answers) to find out what makes them tick and why they are doing and saying what they are. This technique can be very insightful.

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for a dreamer

Dreams - Do they have Meaning?

Every person on earth dreams every night – every mammal in fact. It follows then that something extremely important must be going on while we sleep and dream, yet in the industrialized world, the majority of people pay little attention to dreams, and sometimes shortchange themselves on sleep because it is perceived as lost time, or at best unproductive.

How astonishing that we generally ignore this third (and possibly far more) of ourselves. An appropriate analogy to the grandeur of this mass misunderstanding is the incredible inertia in the middle ages against the idea of earth being other than flat until repeated point-blank evidence like Galileo’s observation of other planets and their moons and the journeys of Columbus and other explorers across the ocean proved conclusively otherwise. The challenge was that people’s everyday experience contradicted the idea of a spherical earth because nobody had yet gained perspective from outside of the system. Airplanes and especially photographs from space were not yet available, so there was little first hand evidence of a new paradigm that was quite a great leap beyond the old. Fortunately, people eventually began to come around, and the shift triggered an ensuing surge of exploration as the realization and acceptance finally dawned that our world really isn't flat after all.

Dreams, in the same way, encompass yet another entire dimension of experience, a world as yet unexplored by most, where a fascinating sphere of activity awaits investigation and possible harvest for greater fulfillment in waking life. The challenge is again the same — common daily experience for the average person offers little proof of this other reality, let alone the possible value of this other dimension of experience, unless one can gain perspective from outside the 9-to-5 work day framework and a scientific purely-objective system.

Dream related mental skills such as dream recall or dream interpretation and information on subjects such as the meaning of nightmares or precognitive dreams isn’t often taught in our schools, and the majority of our parents knew or passed on little about the value of dreams as we grew up. So it's no big surprise that many adults remember few or no dreams, and even more rarely contemplate or set out to interpret the guidance and mine the jewels of creative inspiration hidden just below the surface of consciousness in dreams. Basically, nobody told us or showed us how dreams can be extremely practical.

The result of where this long-standing trend of disregarding dreams has brought society is that the current misguided concepts about the value of dreams are not only crucial misunderstandings, but also represent and even bring about a lack of connection with the subconscious and our own deeper nature. This artificial rift may indirectly, or even rather directly be the source for many of our current personal, cultural and planetary social, political, and environmental challenges.

One solution towards rebalancing and integration on a personal and eventually a planetary level, is for each of us to realize and begin to investigate how our personal dreams, at very least, each night offer a direct means to explore inner reality and gain unique, undeniable experiences of deep personal value. Further, there is overwhelming evidence that they can be applied in many ways to improve waking life, supporting Shakespeare's age-old claim by MacBeth that sleep and dreams are the "chief nourishers in life's feast". Dreams do indeed offer opportunities for fun, adventure, wish fulfillment, creativity, deep personal insight and healing — and dreams offer all this at no cost and with no line-ups! 

Nightmares, Bad Dreams, or Recurring Dreams.

The above title may seem odd, if not a complete contradiction. Why would anyone suggest that nightmares or anxiety dreams might be helpful? If you're in the half of the population that has experienced an anxiety dream or nightmare within the last month, then this may even be what you're wishing you could get rid of, right? Some people who had nightmares or recurring dreams early on in life even manage to block their dream recall entirely in order to stop being upset by such experiences. This unfortunate view of "bad" dreams as things to avoid is precisely the reason for the above title and for this article. An avoidance or denial approach is much like putting a Band-Aid on a car's blinking oil light because the light seems annoying. Of course, fifty or a hundred miles later, it would be greatly preferable to have understood the warning. Obviously, it's even better not to have the light blinking, but if it does, then it's important to do something about it since it's there for a good reason. One certainly wouldn't be very wise to disable it. Though perhaps not obvious, the simple fact is that most nightmares and almost all recurring dreams are similarly trying to provide an extremely valuable service to the dreamer. If we block them, we are likely missing their immediate benefit; if we remember but ignore them, we may well be missing the vital message that they are trying to bring us about our life.

Almost everyone has experienced one or more dreams that contain anxiety or outright fear. For some, unpleasant dreams or nightmares recur repeatedly; for others, the content may change while the theme remains the same, such as scenes of falling, or of being pursued or attacked, late or unprepared for a presentation or an exam, stuck in slow motion, unable to move or scream, or naked in public, to name a few common themes. This type of experience, when unpleasant, is usually associated with lack of progress by the dreamer to recognize and solve related conflicts in life.

Though it has been scientifically proven that we all dream every night, fear of nightmares or other anxieties or misguided beliefs about dreams and the unconscious can block dream recall. This can usually be overcome by learning about the useful nature of dreams and by recognizing that the majority of nightmares, like a bitter but quite necessary medicine, represent opportunities for personal healing through much-needed emotional release. They are often indirectly warning us about current behavior patterns or psychological imbalances that we need to remedy if we don’t want such unpleasant dreams to repeat, or worsen. Sometimes, such imbalances or patterns resolve themselves as the dream percolates into waking thought and we unknowingly respond and make adjustments in our life. But if we block, deny or ignore such messages from the subconscious for too long, then it usually speaks ‘louder’ to get our attention often by bringing related events, which I call daymares, into our waking hours. These daymares show up as sickness, accidents, relationship difficulties or other unfortunate personal circumstances that force us outright to deal with the issue at hand. Interestingly enough, such events often have repeating themes as well, such as recurring relationship patterns, for example.

Psychologist Ernest Rossi has put forth that one important function of dreaming is integration: the combining of separate psychological structures into a more balanced and comprehensive personality. Renown psychologist Carl Jung observed that portions of our whole personality which we knowingly or unknowingly judge become disowned, and are frequently projected outward in dreams, taking the form of aggressors, devils, monsters, intimidating animals or natural events (e.g. tidal waves), and so on. Jung referred to these symbolic figures as "the shadow". Whether we become aware of such elements of our shadow through nightmares or daymares, re-accepting these judged and disowned portions of ourselves is the message and the awaiting gift.

So, we truly are lucky to have such nightmares, since they provide a natural ‘pressure-release’ therapy for the psyche, and especially since they may even provide what amounts to an early cure if we listen to, make an effort to understand and then act upon the valuable insight that dreams try to bring us. The goal is still to put an end to nightmares and recurring dreams, but by evolving them into more beneficial scenarios, and not by blocking, ignoring or denying them.

Resolving Nightmares

Fortunately, there exist treatments for nightmares that do not involve medication and which have shown to be very effective. Some of the most useful techniques include dream rehearsal, dream lucidity, guided imagery and mainstream therapies such as gestalt, psychosynthesis, focusing, or other such methods.

One approach is lucid dreaming where one recognizes during a dream that one is dreaming, hence gaining a degree of conscious control. This approach is demonstrated by this woman’s dream:

"After many recurring nightmares where I'm pursued by some terrifying figure, I learned of lucid dreaming and had the following dream: 'I'm in a frantic car chase with the pursuer right behind me. Swerving into a parking lot, I bolt out of the car and run with him hot on my heels. Suddenly, the scene seems familiar and I realize that I'm dreaming, though the lot and trees still seem more real than ever. Drawing upon every ounce of courage that I have, I swirl to face my pursuer, repeating to myself that it's only a dream. Still afraid, I scream at him, "You can't hurt me!" He stops, looking surprised. For the first time I see his beautiful, loving eyes. "Hurt You?" he says. "I don't want to hurt you. I've been running after you all this time to tell you that I love you!" With that, he holds out his hands, and as I touch them, he dissolves into me. I awake filled with energy, feeling great for days.' Not only did the nightmare never return, but more importantly, I now find myself much better at facing unpleasant situations at work and in my personal life. Following what I learned in the dream, I'm much better at standing my ground and expressing my feelings when needed and appropriate, whereas before I would usually avoid or run from such situations." (M.R., San Jose, CA)

read more “for a dreamer”