Bag O’ Dreams

Last night I was chatting with a fellow writer friend about listening to her dreams and accessing her intuition. I think there are a lot of truths hidden in our dreams. Our subconscious and higher self uses dreams as a form of communication. We take in and perceive such a barrage of information during the day, that it stands to reason not everything gets processed.At night, though, when we are asleep the information earlier held in reserve reveals itself often through the landscape and language of dreams.

Of course, not all dreams are bits of hidden data we accumulated, but are an awakening to something more powerful. We all have the ability to dream. What we often lack is the recall. I always suggest starting a dream journal and having it on your nightstand along with a pen, so that when you first wake up, you can jot down notes about any dreams you might have had the night before while they are still fresh in your mind.

Once you start reading back through your journal, you can get a better idea of what your subconscious is saying. Of course, this also helps you sort out what kind of dreams you’re having.

I break them down into three main areas:

Subconscious Peripheral Information

Inner Wisdom and Personal Truths

Prophetic and Intuitive Dreaming

Subconscious Peripheral Information is the stuff that goes on around you all day that you may miss. All those things in the light of day you’re oblivious to and don’t see.  An example would be sitting next to a co-worker at lunch and then that night dreaming about them getting a divorce. The dream may be prophetic, but may have more to do with your subconscious picking up clues like a bare finger where they used to wear a ring, or eating take out when they used to bring a brown bag lunch. Your subconscious sees these things and streams the data into your brain for later use in dreams. Sometimes they can warn us of problems before they arise, like a wobbly ladder needing repair, or a tire with a slow leak. If we don’t get them fixed, they may become prophetic!

Inner Wisdom and Personal Truths  are those insights into our very nature, things we try to deliberately hide from during the day. Most of the questions we have about our lives can be answered if we choose to explore, see, and listen to the inner wisdom and truth in our subconscious.

An example would be dreaming of an old woman giving us advice, or a child playing on a swing, or inanimate objects that feature in dreams often signify and symbolize a part of ourselves. The old woman could represent the sage inside us, or the child our need for security, our cell phone the social aspect of our personality.

And finally, there are those dream that defy logic or “rational” thought…

Prophetic and Intuitive Dreaming  are the dreams that become all too real. We see things that don’t belong in either of the first two categories. We try to analyze and puzzle out a dream, only to find out later that what we dream came true.

An example of this would be dreaming about the number 26 in conjunction with an airplane crash into the ocean and later hearing on the news the next day that Flight 26 did. Or that you were chosen to appear on a game show and won $100,000. Then getting a call back that you were selected, and you went on to win exactly $100,000. We should all be so lucky, eh?

Many of us never have those dreams we classify as prophetic, but I believe we all have the capability to tap into the divine power and energy hidden within our own subconscious minds.

But before you think you’ve figured it all out, know that dreams are a sort of shorthand and often the interpretation we apply is faulty because of our own perceptions and personality.  For instance, I dreamed for over a month of driving a sporty new green car.  I loved the image of myself driving this car, the windows down, the breeze blowing my hair.  As I curved around a bend, I saw more in the dream, visual pointers I would be sure to look for later, I knew.

When my own car finally died, I believed that the perfect car, the one waiting for me, would turn out to be green.

And I did see a car I liked that was green…but it was out of my price range and nothing I could do would make that car be mine. Believe me, I tried, too. LOL.

I finally wound up with a vehicle that was white.

So my dream wasn’t prophetic at all—or was it? The dreams stopped after I bought the white one.  Then three months later, my sister went shopping and bought a car—a green car.

But in the dream I was driving it…? The answer soon become apparent when a few weeks after buying it, she invited me to go with her up to the country to visit relatives. Since my car turned out to be  a gas guzzler, we took her car and also, since she’d just had surgery on her toes, she asked me to drive her little green car. And as we curved around a bend in the two lane country road, I saw a red barn to the left and knew this was exactly like my dream! The green car wasn’t mine, it was hers! I’d had a glimpse into the future. But my own wants colored my interpretation.

Why did I dream about my sister’s green car? Or me driving it? I have no idea. But it just goes to show that not all prophetic dreams are matters of earth shattering proportions.

Sometimes dreams are just what they are. Whispers.

May all your whispers be sensuous and filled with light and joy!

Cassandra