What if you had your own personal guide standing ready to shed
light on your path, bring messages of encouragement, show you how
to live a better life, or reveal your greatest stumbling blocks? Wouldn’t
you listen?
Dreams can act as powerful guides if we learn to decode these nighttime
messengers. Heeding messages in dreams has a history which
stretches back in time at least five thousand years to ancient
Egypt and Sumer. Three thousand years ago the Upanishads,
Hindu sacred texts, described dreaming as a higher state of consciousness
than the waking state. Dreams might be viewed as a one-way
mirror, reflecting a deeper reality behind the seemingly mirrored
wall of waking existence. Only by going behind the “mirror” can
we perceive differently.
Australian Aborigines refer to “the Dreamtime,” a sacred
state when the soul journeys in the heavenly realms. Through
concentration and breathing Aboriginal shamans claim to enter Dreamtime
at will, performing consciously in this state while awake. Tibetans
have a long tradition of valuing and working with symbolic dream
messages. Chuang Tzu, a Taoist seer, wondered with Shakespeare,
if “all life was but a dream.” Assurbanipal,
an Assyrian king from the seventh century B.C.E., considered dream
elements to be like ciphers, symbols with distinct meaning.
As far as I can tell from my research, every tradition in the world
pays attention to dreams. There seems to be a universal understanding
that the guidance offered through dreams comes from a wiser place,
a deeper knowing, than our everyday awareness can provide. Dreams
can act like magic mirrors, or scrying bowls, inviting our gaze
and revealing and reflecting truth. Our task is to bravely
face the looking glass and be willing to accept and act upon the
guidance we receive.
Dreams speak to us in the timeless language of symbols. Words
are an imperfect means of communication, but pictures are potentially
perfect. I have found that keeping a dream journal, and tracking
the dreams that seem to make an impact on you upon waking, is time
well spent. Working consciously with our dreams allows us
to stepthrough a portal, or gateway, which is generally veiled
between these two “worlds,” so that we stand in both
simultaneously.
Common dream themes
From my research and counseling practice I’ve found there
are seven common dream themes which seem to recur with some regularity. This
commonality of themes may speak to the intrinsic similarity of
the human experience as well as the issues we all deal with repeatedly. Even
though most people don’t recall the majority of their dreams,
everyone seems to have a “favorite” which falls into
one of the following categories. |
1. Flying and falling rank among the top dreams themes. Flying
with a thrilling sense of abandon may showcase our expanded abilities
while in the dream state. Falling seems to be a way of communicating
to our conscious mind that we are making a rapid reentry into our
physical body and ordinary awareness.
2. Attending school, or being in a classroom,
may show the lessons we’re working on in waking life. Sometimes
this version of “night school” reveals to us other
work or learning our mind is involved in while our bodies rest
and recharge.
3. Feeling unprepared themes are popular and include exams
we’re not ready for, hurrying to catch a plane, train, bus,
boat, and losing or misplacing something, especially
keys, wallet, purse, or briefcase. These dreams act as warnings
and usually reveal very real concerns about where we need to be
prepared in waking life.
4. A sense of vulnerability is a common dream theme
and usually is symbolized by being naked, or
improperly dressed in public. These dreams can show us where
we indeed feel vulnerable in relationships or waking challenges
we need to face where we must strengthen our resolve.
5. Storms are a frequent symbol and almost always suggest
emotional issues which aren’t being addressed at the conscious
level and which are preparing to unleash their emotional force
in a potentially damaging way if we continue to ignore the symptoms.
6. Teeth falling out is another popular image and may
hint that you’re feeling guilty about a “biting” comment
you made to someone the day before. This symbol almost always
has something to say about careful speech and judgment.
7. Trying to answer a phone or make a call is a frequent
image and may suggest issues of incomplete communication
occurring in waking life. Here we may be either receiving
a direct communication from our subconscious which we need to pay
attention to, or we are counseled to gather the courage to address
a difficult communication we’ve been avoiding.
Reflecting on these commonly appearing dream themes may give us
a head start in understanding some of the nightly processing our
minds perform. If we have a sense of the thrust of the message
perhaps we can take a closer look at what’s unfolding in
our waking life and respond from a hopefully wiser perspective.
Julie Gillentine is the award-winning author
of TAROT & DREAM INTERPRETATION
and other books and articles. Each year she leads a sacred journey to Egypt. Julie
can be reached through her web site www.queenofcups.com or in Colorado at 970-264-7474. |
