OUR FIRST DREAMWORK SESSION is fast approaching! June 7, Session 1: Dream work standards will feature tried-and-true methods of approaching dreams that will get you started immediately in understanding the language of your dreams. Sign up via Meetup.com or just email me. Bring a dream to share with the group. I’d love to see you there!
Dear Carolyn,
I’m mostly interested in WHY I dream so much and why I usually remember them in the morning. I’ve talked to several people about their dreams and I find a lot of people don’t dream as much as I do, or they don’t remember them.
I have a couple dream books and over the years I’ve looked them up. I know from the past in my working career a lot of my dreams were due to stress. But I am no longer working and still have a very active dream state. It seems I always pick up something from the day that I saw or remembered and dream about it.
Signed, Active Dreamer
Dear Active Dreamer,
Some dismiss dreams as random nocturnal electronic charges that release equally random images in no particular order, accompanied by arbitrary emotions having no import or bearing on the dreamer’s waking life.
But there is ample evidence that our brains, rather than firing haphazardly, are active during the dream state in much the same way as in waking. Segments of the brain associated with sight and sound, for example, are active during REM state, when the images of dreaming and waking are parallel. Additionally, the metaphorical narratives generated denote more than accidental or unintentional sparks.
It is common to remember a dream from the last REM cycle of the night. This is at the shallower section of a dreamer’s brainwave as s/he prepares to wake. So perhaps all of us are more likely to remember the dreams we have just before we wake up.
Research shows that everyone dreams every night (with exceptions for illness, medication and so forth). It seems probable that those who are interested in their dreams are more likely to remember them. If a person accepts that dream images are an indiscriminate release of surplus energy, why bother remembering them? Others may remember their dreams because they are at a place where they can accept and explore on multiple levels the possibilities for growth, development and progress in their waking lives.
Picking up an image or setting from the day makes sense. More interesting is why a particular image or object was chosen by your Dreaming Self from the hundreds of thousands your eyes light on in any given day.
Many books on dreams provide springboards for understanding the rich material brought forth in the dream state. Use caution, Dear Dreamer, when a source claims to know what a given image always means. The meaning of your dream lies within you.
Sweet Dreams to you!
Carolyn Plath, M.Ed., is a Benicia resident and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Reach her at sendmeyourdreams@yahoo.com.
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