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Our Dreams are the Bridge Between The
Seen and Unseen, and the Known and Unknown!
In general, we spend one third of our
lives in a state commonly referred to as sleep, and we’ll experience
approximately one hundred thousand dreams during that time. It seems
highly unlikely that the expenditure of all that time and energy is
just to help us clear the cobwebs out of our brains. If dreams are, as
has been formerly posited, meaningless physiological functions, or
only psychological upkeep, then there would be absolutely no need for
humans to remember their dreams (even occasionally) but we do. Nor
should there be any evidence of precognition, telepathic communication
or clairvoyance in dreams. But there is!
It is widely agreed upon nowadays
that dreams arise from the unconscious, that vast part or level of our
mind that remains otherwise inaccessible to consciousness.
The unconscious mind is a profound reservoir of knowledge that
influences our personalities, our actions and our responses, and even
our conceptions of reality. By developing our powers of dream recall,
interpretation and control, we gain access to a tool that can change
our lives.
I believe, as did Jung (Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss Psychoanalyst and
contemporary of Sigmund Freud), that if we pay attention to our dreams
they’ll reveal practical and important information about where the
unconscious is leading us. I extend this idea further by suggesting
that not only do dreams reveal practical and important information
that is beneficial to the individual dreamer, but also to those close
to the dreamer, to the society in which the dreamer lives, and even to
the world.
Dreams have had a dramatic influence on almost every important aspect
of our culture and history. Dream images have expanded our artistic,
musical and literary horizons, dream messages have spurred generals to
conquer empires and the intense nocturnal pictures have led to
inventions and industrial products that have revolutionized science
and society. Dreams have also given us a basis for believing that
there is a non-material component to our existence, as well as a
continuity of existence which is not interrupted by physical death.
When frustrated by a problem in our
waking lives, we may find ourselves in a rut, going back and forth
across the same familiar but unproductive ground. In dreams, it seems
we can look at the situation from a new or unusual perspective, move
back and forth, up and down, or sideways, in order to see the problem
that’s vexing us.
Frederick Banting, a Canadian physician from the University of
Toronto, was carrying out research on the causes of diabetes. He was
unable to find an effective method for extracting pancreatic
secretions, which he was the key to his discovery. One night, however,
he awakened from his sleep and wrote down these sentences:
“Tie up the
duct of the pancreas of a dog. Wait for a few weeks until the
glands shrivel up. Then cut it out, wash it out, and filter the
precipitation.”
This new approach resulted in his
successfully isolating the hormone now known as insulin, which is
secreted in insufficient amounts, or not at all, in diabetics. The
discovery, by Banting and his colleagues, of a means of extracting
this substance from nonhuman pancreases has since saved the lives of
untold millions of diabetics.
Dreams have not only led to
scientific, cultural and artistic development, but have also served as
channels for spiritual inspiration. Some form of dream imagery is
embedded in the beginnings of most of the world’s major religions.
Muhammad received his divine mission in a dream. Much of the Koran,
the scared book of the Muslims, was revealed to Muhammad in his dreams
over a period of several years. The establishment of the Church of
Latter Day Saints has been attributed to dream revelations received by
Joseph Smith in upstate New York. And most of the events surround the
birth and early years of Christ were announced in dreams. Joseph was
told the source of Mary’s pregnancy in a dream, and instructed to name
the child Jesus (Mathew 1).
Aside from their role in the development of specific religions, dreams
have suggested answers to many enveloping and eternal questions: Who
are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? Of what are we made?
Where are we going? What is death? Etc? People of all times have asked
these same questions. What is seldom recognized is that dreams have
helped to provide some answers.
Long before the advent of sacred texts, our ancestors’ dreams gave
them inklings of a realm beyond the physical and inspired their first
spiritual strivings. Belief in the afterlife also probably arose from
dreams, since dreamers often encounter deceased individuals who
exhibit their same behaviours.
If our beliefs about the existence of a soul originated in dreams,
then dreams should be recognized as having contributed a fundamental
premise about the nature of human existence that’s been a subject of
debate and reflection of all civilizations and all ages.
The concept of a close correspondence between physical and mental
illness and dream content has long been understood. Hippocrates, the
father of Greek (and some say modern) medicine proposed that some
dreams had the potential to indicate diseases, humoral imbalances, or
other physical conditions, such as overeating. The 2nd century
physician also stressed the ability of dreams to predict impending
illnesses.
Several diagnostic dreams preceding illness have been reported from as
far back as the Middle Ages. Dreams which herald the onset of a
physical illness were classified by M. Macario around the middle of
the nineteenth century as “prodromic,” a term which is still used
today. He used the term “symptomatic” to describe dreams which
occurred during the course of a disease after it had been detected.
Many examples of dreams preceding the onset of cancer have been
published. One author traces a link between dreams, disturbing
emotions, lowered functioning of the immune system, and increased
susceptibility to cancer.
Dreams which correctly predict unlikely future events is called a
precognitive dream. A telepathic dream is one in which the dreamer
becomes aware of someone else’s current mental state. In a clairvoyant
dream, the dreamer obtains information about the location or physical
properties of some object.
On October 21, 1966, a massive coal-tip slid down a mountainside and
engulfed the Welsh mining village of Aberfan, killing 144 people,
mostly school children. A young girl, Eryl Mai Jones, often tried to
tell her mother about her dreams, but her mother tended to dismiss
them. One morning, however, Eryl Mai managed to get her mother to
listen to one of her dreams. In her dream, “We go to school but
there’s no school there; something black has come down all over it.”
She told her mother, “I’m not afraid to die, Mommy. I’ll be with Peter
and June.” When the huge slag deposit slid down on the school two days
later, Eryl Mai, Peter, and June were among the 118 children crushed
or buried alive.
A well known American assassination dream was one in which the victim
himself dreamed of his assassination. About two weeks before John
Booth’s bullet struck Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre, Lincoln
dreamed that he heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were
weeping. Curious about the origin of these sobs, he left his bed and
wandered downstairs from room to room, continuing to hear the same
mournful sounds along the way. When he arrived at the East Room, he
saw a coffin lying on a platform. The corpse was wrapped in funeral
vestments. Soldiers, acting as guards, were stationed around it and
there was a throng of people. Some gazed mournfully upon the corpse,
whose face was covered. When Lincoln demanded of one of the soldiers,
“Who is dead in the White House?” the soldier replied, “The President.
He was killed by an assassin.” The loud bursts of grief from the
crowd, when they heard this, woke Lincoln from his dream. After
Lincoln’s assassination, his casket was placed on a platform in the
East Room of the White House where it was guarded by soldiers.
That dreams have had a profound effect upon our history (and possibly
our evolution) seems inescapable. Dreams have enriched our culture
through the arts, stoked the fires of freedom, led to the invention of
labour-saving devices and life-saving cures and treatments, changed
philosophical premises, and served as a source of spiritual
illumination and an expanded vision of our very nature and essence.
By developing our powers of dream recall, interpretation and control
we can take advantage of the one hundred thousand opportunities
available to us to understand and improve upon ourselves, our society
and our world, to explore our relationship with each other, with
nature and with the universe, to heal, to create and to invent. But
most of all, we need to appreciate our dreams and learn to understand
the messages the send us; for they hold the key to our future; to
where we’re going, what we’re to face, and who we’re to become.
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...Recent
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What's in a Dream: Content Analysis in the Study of
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When Dreams Become Nightmares: And How to Deal with Them
Symbols, Dreams and
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