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?
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 dream 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
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.
Example: An actual example of this is of a woman who wrote telling of a recurring dream in which she discovered a door in her house she had never seen before. Beyond it was a whole apartment she has never known or used. It was obviously an area of her life she had never lived in, but she had no idea what it was. So, the technique of exploring the dream while awake was explained, and she imagined walking into the new apartment and observing what she felt and what memories arose. A soon as she entered the apartment she began to remember and feel again things that had happened in her childhood. Her mother and father had separated when she was very young and her mother had constantly presented her father as weak and of no value. But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life. An important point here is that the woman did this working alone on her dream, not with professional help or supervision. See Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Potential
The steps to doing this are:
- While awake and relaxed imagine yourself back in the dream and continue it as fantasy or a daydream and move it toward satisfaction. Alter the dream in any way; experiment with it; play with it, until you find a way to fully feel at ease with it. In doing this you must not ignore the feelings of resistance and spontaneous emotion and fantasy that may occur. Satisfaction comes only when you have found a way of integrating these into your conscious imagining. See Being the Person or Thing
- Recognise that every part of your dream is an expression of some aspect of yourself such as sexuality, creativity, ideas, fear, and so on. In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream. So even the monsters and fears of your dreams are part of you. If you run from them you are actually afraid of yourself, of your own emotions and memories. So, in this step, you gradually meet, change, and even imaginatively become the fearful image. In that way you transform your anxiety into available energy. You overcome your fears.
- 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 under water 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.
- Recent research into how the brain works shows that it creates an interpretation of what you take to be a real external world. We each create our own internal reality in that way. Take time to wonder what reality you have created unconsciously and what your dreams portray of it. In doing so remember that any evil, any good, any demon or any god that you meet in your dreams, is any expression of your own potential to create. They are not externally real. So what world do you want to live in? One dominated by internal fears and demons? A life restricted and imprisoned by old habits and rigid rules of right and wrong? What about moving toward one that allows you to love and unfold your potential? Dream a new life!
See: Masters of Nightmares – Summing Up – Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams – People Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections – Life’s Little Secrets – We are Paralysed –
Comments
Hi Dear Tony
I’m a lucid dreamer. Every day I remember many of my dreams and some of them are premonitions about my own life.
I had this dream last night about me pushing out of my uterus 3 placentas, 2 of them were like a mushroom shape and the other one had a bloody messy look. I felt really disgusted when I remembered this dream. Not a good feeling. Also in past dreams (months ago) I dreamed a lost a baby and I hold him in a plastic bag with a placenta as well, I was super sad.
Thank you Tony
Hi – The answers I give arise not out of me thinking up things to say, but from fifty years of exploring dreams in depth. So some of what I write may seem wild. This may be because dreams arise and are experienced by a level of your mind or awareness that very few people have any concept or experience of – usually called the unconscious. Life dreamt in its creatures millions of years before even humankind awoke and developed self awareness or language. So to understand dreams we need to leave our thinking minds behind and go into our feelings and reactions – a much older level of awareness.
But it would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonor http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
Angelico – Super sad is not an easy feeling. Also losing a baby, even a dream baby, is a very deep experience and often has lasting effects.
Dream babies are a real part of you and often represent a new something new and vulnerable that has come to life – come to your life. It is a description of what is happening with the newly emerging or vulnerable part of you.
Your dream baby can represent a new phase of life; a new idea; new activity – as when we say someone has a new baby, meaning a new project or business. This ‘baby’ might be part of you that did not have a chance to be ‘born’ or express before. Or it may be things learned in a rich life that you could not put into practice because of circumstances. The baby in this aspect is the ‘you’ that could have been if you had been free from problems and past hurts.
The fact that it was a lost baby simply means that at that time you were not in the right state of mind to properly support such a birth. Nearly all films of birth of birth show as terribly painful, and I wonder whether you have such feelings that have coloured your response to birth.
But a dream baby is never actually dead and care and love for it can help it grow into the wonder you hold within you. So imagine taking it out of the plastic bag and either putting it to your breast and holding it close, or connecting the cord to your navel. Experiment to see what works.
Don’t forget that your life began in the slime of creation of your parent’s sexual act. We have to get back to the very primal levels and feel easy with them to support a baby. If you can bring your baby back from the dead you will find a new part of you growing.
Sometimes i dream of ghost from loveones implying something. This only happens once in 6 mnths. The one dream that keep on bothering me is always going back to my grandparents house. I dnt know why i keep on dreaming of their house. My grandparents already died.
Hi – It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
Michelle – You didn’t say which ‘loved ones’ come as a ghost. Was it your grandparent?
To be able to reply I need a description of the dream and the people in it.
The house is one that carries a lot of your past memories – If so, what was your way of life in that house? What happened to you there? The ghost is possibly memory of something that happened there and is still ‘haunting’ you. Try using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
I often dream of dead people in familiar places. Sometimes in my house and backyard sometimes at my friend’s houses where I’ve spent the night. I see them in a state od death, dispare, or complete confusion. They are almost like wax figures before I start to approach them then they look at me with excitement like they’ve seen something shocking or unusual. My feelings during the dream become so intense and it’s always focuses on one emotion; anger, fear, dread, misery, being lost, everyone in a while I get a beautiful feeling of being safe warm and familiar I once received this dream a year before my grandmother passed. There’s always a tell to when my dream will end, when the decide to grab or touch me. The dreams where I feel the most fear or intensity are the ones that last almost always less then a minute the happy ones are longer. for example I’ve had a dream while I was spending the night at one of my previous boyfriends. In my dream I kept waking up and walking to the kitchen to drink water and this happened over and over and it was always pitch black with only the moonlight for visibility. The very last time I woke, I walked again into the kitchen to drink some water. But this time there was a girl crouching over in the far corner. I suddenly felt very sad and lost but not scared. I walked towards and her thought to myself and also said to her everything will be okay. She’s suddenly sprung her body towards mine grabbed my face inches before hers and stared into my eyes with so much fear I’ve ever seen on someone’s face. This lasted for 10 or so seconds while my vision flashed from the viewpoint of myself experiencing this and watching myself experience it. A couple hours ago I came home from work and I fell asleep on the couch. The dream started off with it being night time in my backyard again the only light around is moonlight and a very dim light behind me in my kitchen. I turn towards apart of the patio that used to have swing there when I was younger that my dad and I made but has since been removed. In its place there was a very well out together thin man with black hair, black suit, a button down blue shirt with the a red tie hanging from a thick brown rope. He seemed lifeless as I took a step closer to him. His blue eyes came to life and he took a big breath and extended his arms and legs and as we made eye contact he started to laugh uncontrollably at my behalf. I became enragged and told him he can’t be hear and he needs to leave now, again but now screaming I told him he was not welcomed here. He just kept laughing and laughing. I awake immediately after. The dream before my grandmother died. My whole family and I were at her house and we were going through her belongings and packing up all her stuff. This dream was golden, glowing and flooded with light. Everything seemed slower, and I had no anxiety. I walked outside to her front yard and she was sitting in a lawn chair with her arms out and a big smile beckoning me towrd her. I ran to her and sat at her feet. She told me it was all okay as i put my head in her lap i started to sob and hen woke up the next morning. I constantly have these visitation and sometimes are hard to cope with and effect me days later, I also never forget any dreams and sometimes have return dreams from almost 20 years ago. I always have tried to interpret my own dreams and id just like some sort of outlet or option. If you’ve even gotten this far in tthis long email I appreciate your time!
I found these posts looking for an answer as to why I’ve dreamt of a baby elephant twice recently. I’m not one to even remember a dream. In my first dream my baby elephant was small like small cat. I was going to pick him up and take care of him. That is all I remembered. Today I dreamt of the baby elephant again and it was bigger, about the size of a small dog. Again, I was going to take care of the baby elephant. In this dream two women walked into my garage and through the garage out the back door. Before picking up the elephant, I went to lock the back door and then I was awaken by a phone call. So for the second time, I don’t think I’ve picked up the elephant, but fully intended to do so. My little elephant has grown, but still very small; much smaller than a real baby elephant. There is a lot going on in my life right now. I’ve started a business that is not earning money yet. I’m about to lose my house, but don’t really care about that as long as I am able to relocate when it occurs. I do believe my business will be successful, but I don’t always feel that I know what things I should be doing or how to do them. I don’t think this is a sexual dream for me. I don’t really notice the elephant’s trunk at all. In my first dream he was standing up and would fit in my hand. I could see the whole elephant including its truck. In the second dream, he was sleeping on his side with his feet facing me. I don’t even remember seeing his trunk. He looked up with I spoke to him, laid back down and we seemed to be able to communicate, albeit not necessarily through speak. Thanks for your insights.
Hi i came to one of your wonderful workshops ages ago and consult your dream dictionary.
I am thinking about what you say about nothing being able to really hurt you in your dreams. The thing is that nightmsres for example, though a feeling, can be so powerful. I have tried letting myself stay in them in a dream but the feeling gets worse and stronger until i cant stand it. I just cant do it. What if the trauma is so great you cant face it?
Having said that i have a recurring dream of being somewhere snd leaving the house but forgetting to write down the address so i am somewhere i dont know without a clue how to get back and cant ask anyone. This is the most terrible feeling but in the last dream i had i called out to god to help me and would you believe my friend was suddenly on the phone to me. I was so releived and everything was fine. I had absolutely no sense if being lost any more.
This was after watching an amazing woman joyce meyer on tbc tv channel.
Dear Jill – Nightmares are certainly, from my own experience a way leading to healing, and are not sent to torment or terrify. But having said that I had nightmares years ago that I couldn’t face – that took me five or six years to get past them.
Looking back and wondering why I couldn’t get past them a couple of things stand out. One is that the thing that started the fear in you caused you to believe in it so strongly that you cannot yet see that it is only an inner emotion – fear – and emotions don’t kill you unless you believe in them.
To explain this – In 1887 Dr. Crile had watched helpless as his friend, William Lyndman died of shock after amputation of both legs. Crile went on to develop anaesthesia and blood transfusion to counteract death through shock. But some forms of shock appeared to be outside any physical cause. In 1898 Crile was on an army transporter off Cuba and examined a young officer who was delirious with fear due to facing his first battle. He was as deep in shock as if his legs had been crushed by a wagon as William Lyndman’s had. This led Crile to become interested in exopthalmic goitre, an illness which produces a similar type of anxiety condition. Despite the use of anaesthetics, no one had successfully operated on such a goitre condition. Every patient died. Crile discovered why when he attempted such an operation in 1905.
While under anaesthesia the patient’s heart rate rose to 218 and the body temperature rose to a dangerous level. Despite no physical injury or infection, the patient died that night with a temperature of 109.6 F. Crile realised from his previous observations that it was fear that had killed the patient. Therefore, he told his next patient, a young woman who needed the goitre operation, that he was going to give her a simple inhalation treatment. When she breathed in the anaesthetic, she therefore thought she was having a ‘treatment’ not an operation. She was the first person to survive the operation for exopthalmic goitre. Crile called it “stealing the goitre”, and was so impressed by the influence of emotion on the body he constantly stressed the importance of self-control, and taught that calmness is strength.
As can be seen, the woman’s fear led to a belief/conviction that could have killed her. In your case the feelings were so strong you couldn’t face them.
There can be another cause for that – build-up of trauma. I have to use one of my own awful traumas that took years to deal with. Birth was for me a trauma because I was born two months premature at a time prior to intensive care and antibiotics and experienced dying because I could not breathe easily or digest properly. I recovered memory of these by using LifeStream – See – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/
Then as I was brought up mainly by my grandmother because my mother worked every day, I attached to my grandmother. But at 18 months old she died, so I felt an awful feeling of abandonment. Later at 3 years old my mother, without explanation to me sent me to a hospital to become healthy. That, on top of my previous shock of abandonment deepened the wound. Later at 6 I was put into hospital for tonsil operation – a wound already deep was cut and bled. Then my mother threatened to put me into an orphanage. It led me to cut off any emotional links with my mother leading to me marry without any love – for we develop love with our mother and move toward maturing it with her. I married again with an infant sort of love and became a five-year-old following my wife/mother around frightened of losing her. My wife’s response was to see me as a weak and needy child – which wasn’t the case. It takes strength to meet and recover such things. See http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/ages-of-love-2/
I managed to recover, but we still carry emotional scars which shape the way we think and behave.
So what lies behind the fear you cannot yet face? Your sense of being lost sounds very much like a childhood experience which needs more time to heal. I believe it is our real life’s work to meet and deal with such fears or hurts. The way I found was through exploring a dream every week and trying to integrate what I learned into my daily life. This led me to LifeStream – see http://dreamhawk.com/body-and-mind/peoples-experiences-of-lifestream/
But of course there are other ways, but please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/example-15-life-changes/ and – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/ also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
It is said that dreams can not hurt us but I remember this one dream of mine – the end of it – quite clearly. I believe I was confronting someone until they pulled a gun on me, threatened me, and when I didn’t back down, they shot the gun. I remember my dream self watching the bullet come at me first in slow motion but the nearer it came, it sped up. Right before I woke up, I was impacted. The bullet hit me right between the eyes and when I was awake, I could feel the tingling of the bullet and where it hit for hours that day. It’s always bothered me since.
Tony,I have so many dreams where I have power. A few examples are: A car going out of control,I stick my hand out the window towards it and it straighten up, A shooter is shooting /trying to kill people and when he points his gun at me i speak some words and the gun turns on him killing him, and i think things(in my awaken life too)and they be come reality. I have been told several times that this is a gift i have. What say you? thanks and have a great day.
Hi i have been having a reoccuring dream its starts out with a super long white wooden bridge and im walking across it slowly and im wearing a white night gown i do not own one but when i get towards the middle of the bridge the rest of it disappears and i cant go any further everytime i dream this i never get any further on that bridge im just standing there wondering where did the bridge go if you could please just tell me what you think might be going on. Thank you
Stephanie – Crossing a bridge usually represents making a big change in your life. Dressed in white suggests the change you are making is positive, but sometimes we cannot foresee where changes in our life will take us.
But if you use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ you can gradually see/feel the way ahead and cross the bridge.
Tony
Three weeks ago I dreamed of ann Ariel view of an grey cat being stalked in the water by a large green alligator. Right before the alligator attacked the cat turned around as if to confront it and the alligator verred off leaving the cat to swim to shore. Three weeks later( last night i dreamed Iwas in a swap swimming my boss was on shore. Suddenly. Alligator s of different sizes surfaced all around and began pursuing me the largest and closest one was huge and white. I swam frantically toward the dock asking my boss to help but she just stared. I made it onto the docrock safely in the nick of time but felt ‘very panicked and furious with my boss. What is the significance of timhe white gator. WhAt did the first dream mean. My life is overwhelming right now. I have some perception that others don’t. If I could hone in o these I would b happier. Pls email me.
Hello. Im reading up on deams and I need some help with mine. when I woke p from my dream I was very disturbed.can you please help me.?
Nicole – I need to hear the whole dream and anything relevant about you.
Tony
hi tony i love your pages on dreams,you seem like you dont mind sharing the dreams meanings with everyone thats RARE to find not everyone wants to let you know more about what you are looking for,i would love to be able to get hold of your books,i am in perth, best regards colleen.