Bad Dream or Nightmare – Change It
Experiment with changing your dream by using your imagination/visualisation:
(The above picture is from the film NextGen)
You can always try to build a different ending to a dream that was not satisfying or not understandable by imagining a different end or a different direction. Do it while wake and relaxed and without interruptions.
Imagine yourself in the dream and continue it as a fantasy or daydream. Consider what it is that troubles you or is not what you want in your dream. Now take time to think how you would alter it and how to have an ending that would satisfy you. Now you can, in your imagination, enter your dream and alter the dream in any way that satisfies. Experiment with it, play with it, until you find a fuller sense of self expression.
It is very important to note whether any anger or hostility is in the dream but not fully expressed; or if feelings come in or something makes it hard to change the dream; if so, let yourself imagine a full expression of the emotions, the feelings, or the interruption, and keep on experimenting until you find satisfaction. It may be that as this is practised more feelings or insights are openly expressed in subsequent dreams. This is healthy, allowing such feelings to be vented and redirected into satisfying ways, individually and socially. In doing this do not ignore any feelings of resistance, pleasure or anxiety. Satisfaction occurs only as we learn to acknowledge and integrate resistances and anxieties into what we express. This is a very important step. It gradually changes those of our habits which trap us in lack of satisfaction, poor creativity or inability to resolve problems. See Secrets of Power Dreaming
How can you find your way through the good dreams and bad dreams you meet while you sleep? What can you do to move on from anxiety dreams and nightmares? How can you open up the possible wonders of dreaming?
Things to realise:
Nothing can hurt you in your dreams, of course you can dream of being hurt or even dying, but dreams are virtual realities we create in our mind, and like computer games, we wake unhurt, though some people or so scared they carry the feelings with them.
Research and human experience over many years have shown ways we can work with the wonder of your dream process. From such research Dr. Nielsen and Levin suggest that dreaming attempts to create ‘fear extinction’ to deal with painful or fearful past experience. The dream process succeeds at this when we do not wake from a fearful dream. When we wake from a nightmarish dream it has failed. As Dr. Nielsen points out, ‘If you feel yourself falling spread your arms and learn how to fly’. See Example 15 – Life Changes
You Can Contact the Big You
This is not a crazy suggestion. Dreams are simply feelings put into images. Nothing can actually hurt you while you dream. If you really take that in and decide to confront your dream fears – don’t confuse this with externally dangerous things – you can transform your inner world of anxieties, heal past hurts, and open up the treasure house of your potential. When this happens it flows into confidence and pleasure in daily life.
Remember that in dreams you cannot be hurt or die. Whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
Your dreams are a unique area of self expression. They are a safe area to experiment and experience things in any way you wish. Often we introvert, or take into our dream life, rules and fears that have no place there. For example, while dreaming, you may fall into the sea and be terrified you will drown. But that is impossible because you are only experiencing images of your feelings and thoughts. All you can do is to feel fear. You can easily breathe underwater in a dream, or fly, or die and be re-born. So remove such limitations from your inner life by visualising such changes into your dreams when awake. Imagine yourself being what you can in your dreams. Even passive people who couldn’t stand up for themselves can change as they do this.
