Understanding Dreams

In my experience dream interpretation is a subtle art.  While there are some standard symbols that appear in dreams, there are also infinite meanings for dream symbology, often best interpreted and understood by the dreamer himself.  Dreams can be useful in psychotherapeutic evaluations, however one must be aware of the full context of dream influences, which is by no means easy to encompass.

Psychologists posit that dreams and certain drives come from the collective unconscious.  This is certainly true.  Have you ever examined why you want that brand of car, or to have children, or to look a certain way?  Are these instincts innate to your soul or are they things that you have picked up from society?  The energy of the collective unconscious certainly has an effect on our most basic ideas of how we want our lives to be, as well as on what we believe to be our personal goals and dreams.

But our waking and sleeping dreams can come from other sources as well.  There are precognitive dreams, dreams inspired by divine beings, dreams inspired by astral, or dark energies, telepathic dreams in which you connect with others, dreams in which you can actually travel to places, meet people, learn things, and more.

For example, last night I had a telepathic dream in which someone texted me to complete a conversation that we had been having.  The dream texts brought me peace and closure.  Later in the night I also had a precognitive dream about something that happened that I would find out about in the morning (namely, a friend had an unexpected visitor and I saw it happening while I slept so when she told me about it in the morning I was not surprised because I had already known about it).

There is a danger in dream interpretation though, that one may interpret certain dreams which are simply unconscious thoughts processing as if they are precognitive or meaningful dreams.  It can cause a lot of mental confusion if one does not understand which category of dream they are dealing with.  Personally I have had periods in my life in which precognitive dreams were mixed with nonsensical dreams on a regular basis.  So I would not be sure what was going to happen during the day since I would have seen dreams in which 50% of the things were true and indicative of upcoming occurrences, and 50% were misleading.  It was a rather frustrating time, and now I generally ignore precognitive dreams that I have as much as possible.  I do however pay attention to warning dreams, and also to precognitive dreams once they have proven true by happening in real time.  I will look back at them in retrospect after the events have transpired in my waking life.  I will also use dreams as a way to receive guidance or answers to questions as I explain below.

In order to have the most possible clarity in distinguishing meaningful dreams from mental babble, I highly recommend that one pray or set a clear intention before sleeping, that only the highest energies and influences come to them while they sleep.  Create a protection for yourself, and if you have a specific issue that you are pondering you can ask for dream guidance about it.  Then your intuition, wisdom guidance, and dream symbols can address the issue. 

It is good to keep a journal or voice recorder by the bed in order to record dreams right upon waking when they are fresh.  Interpret your dreams in the best light possible, as any negative foreboding that you do can magnify negative outcomes.  And don’t get too hung up on what you see.  Ultimately, the dream realm is not as real as the waking world so just use it as a tool to supplement your waking life and spiritual growth.  It is a time when your soul and divinity can communicate with you, so allow for the beauty of that experience and enjoy it!

Rahman Beckwith, Psy.D. (exp. 2016) is a Holistic Therapist in PA who applies alternative healing techniques to the mind, body and spirit. She is a doctoral candidate for Psy.D. degrees in Holistic and Spiritual Psychology. Rahman holds a Bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She has published two books which are available on Amazon, You Are God- A Handbook for the Divine in Each of Us and Novice: 40 Days of Capturing the Divine with Love Poems from a Spiritual Heart. Like her FB page Holistic Therapy with Rahman for updates.