Introduction to Dream Watching

Let’s get straight to the point

Dreams are one of natures miracles, not the result of a wandering mind in sleep. A dream is an interface between the deepest part of you and your conscious personality.

Life existed quite capably for millions of years before the self-aware human personality came on the scene. In all that time the ancestors of the modern human being survived without having a rational mind to reason with, or self consciousness to ask such questions as ‘What do I do about this?’ Nevertheless survival strategies were still developed in their unconscious intelligence. Dreams express this unconscious wisdom that was developed in humans and animals through millennia.

Life’s age old unconscious processes are still the major part of our being, yet we seldom consciously meet them – except in dreams. As our physical and psychological health depend upon a reasonable co-operation between the spontaneous processes of life and our conscious decisions and actions, the encounter in dreams is vital.

This is not about a belief, such as a belief in God. Remember that dreams arise, your existence arises, from a process you may label in some way but barely know about. You do not have to believe in your existence. You are convinced of it because you exist.

Do you think you know everything about whatever it is that causes you to exist? For instance although we now know a great deal about life processes in biological science, that science still sees Life as a mystery. Can you take that attitude to your own origins? Can you accept that at the base of your being is a mystery?

Try this simple approach to get closer to this. Sit quietly where you will not be disturbed for a minute or so. Close your eyes, become aware of your breathing, then put your hand under your clothes so you can feel your heart beating.

There you have it. The conscious you is touching and directly experiencing in a quiet moment how that mystery we call life is right there in every moment of your being spontaneously giving you existence. You are touching the unconscious. You can feel it moving right under your hand. You know it is not your conscious will, knowledge or beliefs that are pulsing that beautiful movement. Right now life is breathing you and beating your heart. And that is just the very evident surface signs of what it is doing. Feel it! Do you really fully understand that? Isn’t that an amazing miracle and mystery? Wouldn’t it be wise and wonderful to get to know that mystery directly and more fully?

If you feel you know all that the mystery can do, and all of it possibilities think for a moment. Dreams can do things that we cannot do while awake. they can move our body, feelings and mind while asleep. Our dreams cause our body to be paralysed and another level of us takes over. That other level is a much bigger and able part of us – call it the unconscious, spirit or core self, it doesn’t matter. Dreams are part of that mystery. They are a way it speaks to us from our depths.

Dreams cannot be defined under any one heading. Like human beings, they are enormously varied in what they express. Just as one cannot say the human mind is simply a system of memory, one cannot say dreams are just the reflection of experienced events. The mind also deals with problem solving, predicting outcomes of action, playing with possibilities via imagination, creating the new out of old material, replaying disturbing events in order to find ways of meeting them constructively. Dreams, being the mental phenomena they are, deal with all of these issues and more. The following definitions give the main functions observable in dreams.

Dreams are:-

• An expression of what is happening in the physical body. Some doctors consider dreams to show signs of illness long before they are evident in other ways. Women frequently know they are pregnant very early on through sleep awareness in a dream.

• A link between the sleeping mind and what is occurring externally. For instance, a person may be falling out of bed and dream of flying or falling.

• A way of balancing the physiological and psychological activities in us. When a person is deprived of dreaming in experiments, a breakdown in mind and body quickly occurs. See: Life’s Little Secrets

• An enormously original source of insight and information. Dreams tap our memory, our experience, and scan information held in our unconscious to form new insights from old experience. Dreams often present to us summaries or details of experience we have been unable to access consciously. Sometimes this is as early as life in the womb.

• A dream image is an expression of a dimension or aspect of your mind or awareness. What this means is that we are as an aware person not simply one thing. We have various ‘programs’ running at the same time. If you are standing you are running a ‘balance’ program that you learnt with difficulty as a child. At the same time you might be running a language program and also a vision program. See Levels (Brain)

• A means of compensating for failure or deprivation in everyday life, and as a means of expressing the otherwise unacknowledged aspects of oneself. Such dreams are a move toward wholeness. See

• In dreams we may be integrating new experience with what we have already gathered and digested. In this way our abilities, such as social skills, are gradually upgraded. See: – Dreams are Like a Computer Game

• Dreams often stand in place of actual experience. So through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally. For instance many young women dream in detail of giving birth. See A Woman’s Creative Power

• A means of exercise for the psyche or soul. Just as the body will become sick if not moved and stressed, so the mind and emotions need stimulus and exercise. Dreams fulfill this need.

• An expression of human supersenses. Humans have an unconscious ability to read body language – so they can assess other humans very quickly. See Talking with Dead

• A means of solving problems, or formulating creative ideas, both in our personal life, and also in relationships and work. Many people have produced highly creative work directly from dreams.

• A presentation in symbols of past traumatic experience. If met this can lead to deep psychological healing. Such dreams are therefore an attempt on the part of our spontaneous inner processes to bring about healing change. See: People’s Experience of LifeStream

• In the widest sense nearly all dreams act as a process of growth or a move toward maturing. Some dreams are very obviously presenting internal forces or dimensions of experience that might lead the conscious personality toward a greater balance and inclusiveness.

• A way of reaching beyond the known world of experience and presenting intimations from the unknown. Many people have dreams in which ESP, out of the body experiences, and knowledge transcending time and space occur. See: Edgar Cayce.

Dreams are like any other language – if you don’t understand it, the sounds or words appear to have no meaning at all.

So learn something about the way dreams use symbols as language. Read Language and Dreams.

If you want to, you can look up your dream symbols in the Online Dream Interpreter. But that may not give you enough depth of understanding. However, the many links below give you access to direct ways of understanding your dreams and amplifying anything you gain from the online dream dictionary. Interpretation is only an intellectual thing, it doesn’t get to the depth of feeling dreams contain. You can can only make that journey through actually diving into your own dreams. If you can do that a door opens to wonderland. I mean it!

Dreams often show us what the events we witness around us are leading to. See: Vision in the River of Dreams; Groundswell; ESP in Dreams.; Prophecy.

Dreams have structures and dimensions you will not see unless you know how to look for them. When you know how to recognise these it gives you an almost immediate insight into your dreams. To understand and use these structures read – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; and What we Need to Remember About Us.

One of the greatest ways of exploring your dreams is working with a partner. To learn this read Peer Dream Work. This  the way to go on the journey to wonderland. Here is an audio example of Tony working the Peer Dream Work way: Dream Exploration.

Dreams are worth taking time with, so look at Creative Relationship with Dreams.

Some of the best general guides you can have are the books Dream Dictionary and Your Dream Interpreter. Not only do they have a full list of dream symbols, but they tell you how to work with your dreams, their feelings and drama. Buy Dream Dictionary from Amazon UK or from Amazon USA Buy Your Dream Interpreter from Amazon UK or from Amazon USA There is also The New Dream Dictionary in eBook format HERE