The Power of Dreams
Girl Flying by Diana Stevan – Oil
As I continue to wrestle with sleep, the power of dreams is on my mind. The fact that I don’t have enough of them lately attests to a sleep disturbance. Or maybe not. There are many who can’t remember dreams. Their stories vanish not long after they arise. I’m like that, too, so I have to write them down if I want to remember them.
Upon reading Peter M Rosenberg‘s post, A Dream Goes On Forever, I was reminded of one client who came to me during my counseling days with an ongoing fear. She was afraid to go to sleep, as every night she dreamt of a spider crawling on her. She was afraid of being bitten by that spider. I suggested she had more power than she thought to change the outcome, that she could control the ending. I suggested when the spider came, she could take a slipper and hit it, in her dream that is. Now, I know that this isn’t Buddhist thinking and there is more to our dreams than just dealing with the obvious, but the bottom line was this woman was feeling out of control. And to be given the idea that she could do something about a terrible situation gave her hope.
When she came back the following week, she told me she had stopped having the nightmares about the spider. I asked her if she had followed my suggestion. She said, “What I did was put a slipper under my bed.” She had taken what I said and made it her own. She found her power in her dreams, and this small change gave her strength to tackle others in her life.
Some people soar over their problems in their dreams. They find power through flying over cities, oceans and countryside. I’ve flown, only once. It was while I was having a Swedish massage at a retreat on Saltspring Island in British Columbia. I went into this vivid daydream, in which I dreamt I flew over my old elementary school where I’d experienced some prejudice and harsh treatment from my classroom teacher. Somehow, my flying act gave me the power to let go of an old hurt that had haunted me for years.
Dreams are magical and mysterious. Like the one I tried to make sense of in my post Dreams That Work Overtime. Do you have mysteries to share? Have you found your own power while dreaming? Has anything surprised you about this inner world we go to?
Dropping over from Linked In and you’ve immediately caught my attention as I have a dream blog and just this past week talked about dreams that confront and sometimes solve problems. I’ll have to check out some of your other posts.
Lee
A Faraway View
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Dreams are an untapped resource. If we take the time to go over them in the daylight, we can often make sense of what they mean, given what’s on our minds.
It’s wonderful that you were able to do that. It’s so empowering to figure out you have some control on the outcome of dreams. Not always, but if we take a few moments upon awakening, we can learn so much about ourselves. There is so much we don’t know.
Good or bad, I seem to dream more and remember my dreams more these days. Often I dream that I am trying to find my way back to a place in a city. As I walk I get further and further away from my destination and never find it. Last week in a similar dream I used my cell phone to call a cab and take me where I wanted to go. Problem solved! So far I have not had the same “lost” dream!
Jo, love that you used your cell phone to help you get to your destination. That’s one thing I learned in my therapy practice: our ability to wake ourselves up and change the ending of our dreams. The power of our minds to bring about a different outcome. Did you think of that after you had the dream where you were lost and kept getting further and further away? We are more brilliant than we think. Thanks for sharing this one. 🙂