In the course of several conversations I’ve had a number of people ask me if I ever remember my dreams. Many of those I was talking to apparently don’t. My answer is: I didn’t used to but I wanted to so I studied the topic and found that, allegedly, I could train my brain to remember my dreams. I followed the described process and… viola… I remember an awful lot of my dreams. The danger for those folks is that once you get me talking about my dreams you also get some related… um… odd philosophies or beliefs out of me.
Just recently I was discussing dreams with another friend and the issue of spirituality or “other dimension” possibilities was brought up. Before I get too deep into that, I have to share two absolutely true stories that are dream related and support one of my beliefs about dreams – or at least mine.
Event 1: A man I knew and considered a good friend, but whom I hadn’t talked to in almost a year was in my dreams a lot one night. When I woke up I couldn’t get him out of my head. I called him that afternoon and asked if everything was okay. I couldn’t tell him why I felt like something was wrong except that he “had been all over my dreams.” He was shocked and told me that he’d just received the news, the night before, that his brother had died. He was understandably emotionally overwhelmed.
Event 2: A woman I knew from my youth – again, someone I consider a good friend but who isn’t in my day to day life – was in my dreams. She seemed to saturate them. Every dream I had she was in it somehow. I called her the next morning to see if she was okay and she disclosed that her husband of over 20 years had just asked her for a divorce the day before confessing a long time affair he’d been having. She was emotionally distraught and overwhelmed.
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Given those two events one might be able to understand how I came to believe that, in my dreams, I could somehow sense or become aware of a friend’s emotional distress. It placed them in my dreams in such a notable fashion that they were on my mind the next day, sufficiently to compel me to call and check on them. In both of these two incidents there was an obvious emotional challenge that existed for them. Those two incidents, by the way, are only two of about twenty. Tuck that away…
When I was a young child – about eight to ten years of age – I was told of a Native American belief that when we dreamed it was actually our spirit leaving our body and traveling to wherever we saw in our dream. Somewhere in my young adulthood I became aware of a theory that there are many different realities; different dimensions, all existing in parallel to one another but representing different timelines (I can’t think of a better way to describe it).
Well, what if, when we dream, that’s our spirit leaving our bodies in THIS plain of existence and visiting our body in those other realities? In my dreams I’ve been to the same place time and time again; so often and across such a span of time that I could cite improvements to the house, landscaping changes, etc. I’ve seen chess games that I later played while awake and more.
The result of all of this is that I’ve come to believe our dreams are so much more than our subconscious minds trying to pass worries or concerns to us. Yes, I absolutely believe they can do that, but what if that’s just a tiny fraction of what they can do?
With that small possibility in mind… the tiniest possibility that you, in your dreams, could visit other lives, different realities and varying circumstances… do you want to remember your dreams more often? Who wouldn’t?
I will share one last dream related item before closing: when my youngest son was little, one of his favorite shows was “Bear in the Big Blue House.” It was a Disney show that had this big orange bear who lived in a big blue house and every show addressed some part of a child’s life that might be of concern: potty training, stranger danger and more. One thing that was addressed was nightmares.
In the course of the show, Bear showed kids how nightmares could be transformed into wondrous dreamscapes and that every child had absolute control over their dreams – if only they believed it so. Now I will tell you that I absolutely believe that to be so. All of us have fallen in our dreams and “jumped” awake in our beds. I’ve had the very cool experience of falling in my dream… and because it’s a dream where I have absolute and unlimited control (it is, after all, just in your mind)… I’ve not fallen but instead have flown. Do you have any idea how cool it is to be able to fly? Unfettered by gravity or concerns of weather, simply soring so high you can see most of the nation? I’ve done it a lot in my dreams; so much that I can remember how it feels and what I have to do in my dreams to fly… and feel like I OUGHT to be able to while I’m awake.
I do truly believe that our dreams should never be of concern to us unless they bring us news of a friend or family member in distress. Our dreams can be fueled by memories, fears, desires and more. What ultimately makes our dreams welcome instead of frightening or confusing is our ability to bend them to our will. They belong to each of us and exist only in our head. Once that is accepted, beyond doubt, then the ability to not only remember but control your dreams can be quite awesome.
I hope you get to enjoy it some time.