How often has your alarm clock saved you from a worrying dream you thought was real? What a relief to wake into your everyday life, where all the quandaries and confusions of the dream evaporate and leave you free to get on with your day! You may have spent all night trying to catch that dream plane but now, awake, your confidence in getting places on time is restored. Phew. Missing a plane would never happen to you, would it? You may have endured hair-raising confrontations with a slippery, fang-endowed snake but now, awake, you know that’s one encounter you need not worry about, living in the city, as you do. Or perhaps that alarm clock intruded on a passionate, illicit love affair. Plummeting to earth on opening your eyes you console yourself that at least your waking life is guilt-free. “No,” you conclude, looking around your bedroom, “This is my life. This is what’s real. There are no missed planes, lurking snakes or secret lovers in my life.”

“No,” you conclude, looking around your bedroom, “This is my life. This is what’s real. There are no missed planes, lurking snakes or secret lovers in my life.”

But I invite you to take another look. No time? No problem! This is an easy exercise. It will take you no longer than five minutes a day and you can always set that alarm for five minutes earlier, can’t you?

This is what to do:

Write one sentence a day. It’s best to write this sentence a few minutes after waking up, while your dream is fresh on your mind, so keep an exercise book or diary by your bedside for this purpose.

The sentence is a summary of your dream, written in the present tense, starting with the words ‘I feel’ and including the word ‘something’. It can only be one sentence though! Here are some examples.

Your dream:

I feel worried that something precious and fragile may break.

It was a long and complicated dream, but the part that stood out for you was when your son was carrying a stack of precious, fine china crockery. You were moving house and were worried that the plates, cups and saucers should have been properly packed to prevent them from breaking.

Your sentence might be:

I feel worried that something precious and fragile may break.

Your dream:

I feel frustrated that so many delays are slowing me down from achieving something so simple.

It’s your recurring dream theme again. It’s long, it’s involved, and the essence is that you have a plane to catch but everything goes wrong and you never get airborne.

Your sentence might be:

I feel frustrated that so many delays are slowing me down from achieving something so simple.

Your dream:

I feel surprised that something I expected to be painful was not as bad as I had anticipated, but only time will tell the full outcome.

This dream was an epic adventure involving snakes appearing from nowhere, chasing you and threatening to bite you. At one point you were actually bitten. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt as much as you thought it would, but your dream ends in trepidation. Was the snake poisonous or harmless? Only time will tell.

Your sentence might be:

I feel surprised that something I expected to be painful was not as bad as I had anticipated, but only time will tell the full outcome.

Your dream:

I feel an attraction to something deeply and personally fulfilling, but I feel the only way I can protect my current way of life is to keep this secret.

You were magnetically attracted to an awesome person and ended up having a deeply loving sexual tryst that left you feeling elated physically, mentally and spiritually. In the dream you know you have been unfaithful to your partner. You decide the solution is to keep this affair secret.

Your sentence might be:

I feel an attraction to something deeply and personally fulfilling, but I feel the only way I can protect my current way of life is to keep this secret.

Your dream:

I feel surprise that when I dive into something I think will be painful, I discover such rich rewards.

The bit that stands out for you in your dream is the swarm of bees. You get stung, yet you decide to chase the bees. They lead you to the hive where you dive in, as small as a bee now, and see all the honey being made. Rows and rows of tasty, golden honey glisten.

Your sentence might be:

I feel surprise that when I dive into something I think will be painful, I discover such rich rewards.

In each of these examples, notice that ‘something’ is usually one of the main dream symbols: it’s the crockery, catching the plane, the snakebite, the lover and the beehive. In other words, ‘something’ can be a thing, an action or goal, a sensation, a person or a place.

Use the examples as guidelines and remember to start with “I feel” and to include the word ‘something’.

Five minutes a day to write one sentence summarising your dream. There is no right sentence. There are many ways to summarise a dream, so dive in and just do it.

Use the examples as guidelines and remember to start with “I feel” and to include the word ‘something’. As the days go by, you’ll get quicker at this.

Five minutes will become two. Just two minutes a day!

So what do you do with all these sentences after writing them down?

Choose a day, perhaps a weekend day or an evening you usually have to yourself, to take 30 minutes to review your list. Make it a weekly appointment with yourself. Allow no interruptions.

You will have seven sentences to review, assuming you remembered a dream on each night, less if your dream recall was not so hot. (If you remember more than one dream on any night, you can choose to summarise only the most vivid one, or to summarise them all.)

My relationship is precious to me but it feels fragile and in need of careful handling.

During your 30-minute weekly review, read each of your seven sentences in turn and ask yourself, “Where does this apply in my life?” If an answer comes to you, write it down, using – you’ve guessed it – one sentence.

As a guide, your answers to the examples in this article might be:

1. I feel worried that something precious and fragile may break. Where does this apply in my life?

Answer: My relationship is precious to me but it feels fragile and in need of careful handling.

2. I feel frustrated that so many delays are slowing me down from achieving something so simple. Where does this apply in my life?

Answer: Losing ten kilos in six months should be so simple, but here I am, still way overweight after twelve months of setting my goal.

3. I feel surprised that something I expected to be painful was not as bad as I had anticipated, but only time will tell the full outcome. Where does this apply in my life?

Answer: I finally got enough courage up to talk to my partner about a sensitive issue, and it wasn’t as painful I had expected it to be, though how things will turn out in the long run, I don’t know.

I want to build an energy-saving home and embrace a self-sufficient lifestyle, but to do this I risk losing the support of my family who enjoy the luxuries of life my current high income allows.

4. I feel an attraction to something deeply and personally fulfilling, but I feel the only way I can protect my current way of life is to keep this secret.

Where does this apply in my life?

Answer: I want to build an energy-saving home and embrace a self-sufficient lifestyle, but to do this I risk losing the support of my family who enjoy the luxuries of life my current high income allows.

5. I feel surprise that when I dive into something I think will be painful, I discover such rich rewards. Where does this apply in my life?

Answer: I finally decided to tackle my tax problem by enlisting the help of an accountant who not only taught me some simple, helpful bookkeeping skills but also got me an unexpected tax rebate!

What is the value in doing this exercise? These examples might give you the feeling that dreams simply tell us what we already know, but not so. It’s easy to think that, looking in on someone else’s dreams, someone else’s summary sentences, someone else’s answers. But we rarely appreciate the deeper patterns of our lives until we look closely. Your dreams draw your attention to the way your life is. They exclaim, “Hey! THIS is your life! Is this how you want it to be, or would you like to change this pattern?”

So, what might our example dreamer conclude?

She began to see why she tiptoes around her partner’s moods, fearful of breaking up

1. Her dream about handling fragile crockery helped her to see that she regards her relationship as both precious and fragile. Strange though it may seem, she hadn’t seen her relationship in this light before, but her dream view suddenly made sense of a few things. She began to see why she tiptoes around her partner’s moods, fearful of breaking up, instead of finding a mutually beneficial way of relating, perhaps taking a tip from the dream and looking at better ways of strengthening the relationship (better ways of packing the crockery). Her dream gives her a metaphor to contemplate. Does she want a fragile relationship?

The delays, she saw, were all her own work.

2. Her dream about missing the plane because of so many delays helped her to see that her weight-loss goal is achievable. Why? She travels widely with her job and never, ever misses a plane. If she can achieve something as simple as catching a plane by taking a step-by-step approach, she can achieve the equally simple goal of weight-loss. She looked at her dream again and suddenly saw all the delays in a new light: her lost baggage was her fear of losing weight, her lack of passport gave her a feeling that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t ready to give herself permission to achieve her goal and all the rewards that go with it. The delays, she saw, were all her own work!

3. Her dream about the snakebite helped her to see that other sensitive issues that she fears broaching may also be less painful once faced. Her dream gave her courage, not only to face pain, but also to trust the outcome. She decided to visualise this dream whenever she needs to address an issue, summoning up a feeling of trust in the process.

4. Her dream about the secret affair helped her to realise just how important her desire to embrace a change of lifestyle was. It also helped her to see that her ‘secret affair’ was a form of infidelity to her family. In trying to protect them, she was hiding a wonderful part of her being from them. She wasn’t being true to them. From here she began to understand why some of her family relationships weren’t as fulfilling as they could be. She saw she needed to share more of herself. She called a family conference – an entirely new approach – and shared her dream of building an alternative lifestyle. She was blown away to discover that they also had ‘secret dreams’ and that they all had more in common than they had believed.

Whenever a task looked too daunting, too stinging, too deep, she closed her eyes and imagined flying into the hive and discovering all that honey.

5. Her dream about the beehive, you might argue, was an afterthought. She had already dived into her tax problem and been rewarded with some very golden honey, so how could this dream be of help? Dreams confirm our excellent moves, cementing in positive new attitudes and patterns. She used the dream as a visualisation from that day forward. Whenever a task looked too daunting, too stinging, too deep, she closed her eyes and imagined flying into the hive and discovering all that honey. Her visualisation helped her to dive in, uplifting and inspiring her forward.

Five minutes a day, one simple sentence a day, one thirty minute contemplation once a week. Give it a go. What’s that? Can’t stop, you’ve got a plane to catch? I don’t think so. Is this your life?

[Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, March 2006. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Nipple worms & radio experts

Spot the belief

Ever woken to eerie sounds in the night, or a feeling of your skin being touched when you’re sleeping alone, or been scared out of your wits when you’ve opened your eyes to see ghosts or strange things going on in your bedroom? As utterly convincing and frightening as these sensations are, it’s important to take a deep breath and know that what you are hearing, feeling, and seeing is not real. Neither are you going insane. What you are doing is dreaming while partly awake, so that both your dreaming and waking worlds overlap. You could say you are experiencing the Twilight Zone, not a scary spirit world but a brain zone where the night of dreams mixes with the light of day in a hazy, confused half light. This is how it happens.

You will be utterly convinced that a tiger is under your bed.

When you wake up to visions in your bedroom, you are experiencing a phenomenon known as hypnopompic hallucination. When you open your eyes while you are dreaming, your eyes transmit a picture of your bedroom to your brain, and this is then superimposed onto your dream images. Because your eyes are open, your brain decides the mix of images is a real event situated in the bedroom. So you see the ghost, or dream scene, in your room.

The sensations feel real, but they are dream sensations, dissolving away as your brain becomes fully awake.

The same applies to other sensations, such as sound and touch. If you start to wake up while you are still dreaming of a wolf howling, or a tiger nuzzling your skin, your brain will superimpose the fading howls or the warmth of the tiger’s breathy lick onto your bedroom scene. You will be absolutely convinced that a wolf is outside your door, or that a tiger is under your bed, as your ears will still be ringing, and your skin still tingling. The sensations feel real, but they are dream sensations, dissolving away as your brain becomes fully awake. The memories of those sensations may haunt you, but they were dreams.

Have you ever got into bed and then felt the covers lift as if an invisible stranger or spirit has just climbed in with you? The explanation for this sensation is the same, except that your dreaming mind has switched on while you are still half awake. This common experience usually happens when you’re not expressing your whole self, holding back too much of the real you, the true enormity of your power. Your dream is about to introduce your ‘lost spirit’ and you perceive this lost, detached, abandoned shadow as a separate being as your brain begins to switch into dreaming mode.

Be amazed at the power of the mind to believe what it sees and feels.

So when these kinds of spooky events happen to you, relax in the safety of this knowledge, and be amazed at the power of the mind to believe what it sees and feels.

Then simply record your awesome Twilight Zone experience, and interpret it as the dream it really is.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, Jane Teresa Anderson]

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Killer ghosts

Dream catcher machine

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What you see is what you get, depending on how you see it.

As your eye changes – as your experiences change – so does what you get.

Have you noticed how a favourite story from childhood is different when you reread it as an adult? Or how the message of a movie can change from one viewing to the next? Or how even a non-fiction book can seem to impart different information when you review it years later?

Beauty – and all other value judgements and interpretations of life – is also in the ear, mouth, nose, skin, mind, heart and soul of the beholder.

Have you noticed a difference in what you get from reading a story to what you get from hearing it?

Have you noticed a difference in what you get from reading a story to what you get from hearing it?

If you’re primarily a visual person, you may feel you get more from reading an article than from hearing it, and if you’re primarily an auditory person the opposite will probably be true.

Yet the challenge of listening as a visual person focuses your attention in a different way, and what you get from listening may be quite different from what you get from reading. And vice-versa.

Test this by listening to this month’s episode, episode 122, in which I read four of my blog articles, all interlinked upon a theme. Oh, and of course there’s a bit of chat too.

This is what you get in this episode, depending on how you get it!

This is what you get in this episode, depending on how you get it.

What’s the moral of The Princess and the Pea? If you were to sleep on twenty feather beds piled high upon twenty feather mattresses, would you feel the pea the Queen had placed beneath this luxurious mountain of a bed, and would you mention your discomfort to your royal hosts in the morning? There are life lessons ripe for learning here.

Far more uncomfortable than a pea under the mattress are those dreams where you feel over-the-top loss, devastation, rejection, betrayal, anger, or other painful emotions. Why do we have these kinds of dreams from time to time, and what do they mean?

In this episode, we also take a light-hearted look at life through the eyes of a dog and cat, explore how we interpret and misinterpret waking life, and interpret a dream at four different levels – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

This is a power-packed episode that will broaden and deepen your approach to dreams, and get you thinking again about the goals you pursue in life. Enjoy.

Listen here

iTunes: You can also subscribe (free) to The Dream Show here on iTunes.

(Our next show, episode 123, will be released in four weeks, on 9 March 2012.)

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How much does worry weigh?

Dream alchemy results: Jeremy’s news

Twenty-one years ago, I dreamed I was trying to get into a building by pushing through one of its solid brick walls. It was hard work that got me nowhere at all. All it did was exhaust me. I stood back, walked around the house, and discovered an open door. I realised that the door had been open all this time.

This short, simple dream helped me to see that there was a much easier way for me to get to where I wanted to be. I realised that I believed the way was tough, that I needed to push to achieve my goal. What an exhausting belief!

I believed the way was tough, that I needed to push to achieve my goal. What an exhausting belief!

I had this dream a year before I began my research into dreams, and my interpretation, while insightful and life-changing for me, was basic. If you brought this same dream to me for a dream therapy session, we would spend a full hour exploring the many concurrent levels of meaningful insight such a dream offers, and I would lead you through a dream alchemy practice to transform limiting beliefs that block your progress into more rewarding ones that open your way.

When I had this dream, I hadn’t done the research, hadn’t developed and tested the concept of dream alchemy, hadn’t seen or experienced the power of working with dreams at such a deep level. It was enough for me, back then, to stand back and look at where I pushed hard in life – and why – and then to look for the open door, the opportunity I was not seeing. And this approach worked quite magically for me.

Now, looking back with twenty years professional experience in working with dreams, I also see the building as me, the brick walls as my solid beliefs, my pushing on the walls as a readiness to breakthrough my beliefs (my illusions of reality), and the open door as the result of surrender to change.

Surrender to change

Each interpretation is correct. The same dream – any dream- can be interpreted on a physical level (pushing hard is exhausting you, there’s an easier way), a mental level (you have a belief that you need to push to achieve your goal), an emotional level (you have this belief because of the emotional rewards it gives you, and because you fear what will happen if you release this belief), and a spiritual level (surrender). And this is only a beginning. There are many other interpretation levels, each adding dimensions to the one emerging picture of why your life is the way it is at this particular point in time, and what you can do to change this, if you wish.

The journey – as the old cliché reminds us – is more important than the destination. A goal gives you purpose, inspiration, motivation, and a sense of achievement when you attain it, but it’s the insights you receive along the way that build physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual mastery.

No matter which goal you choose, the lessons inherent in the journey will be the same.

Choose goals that feel important and meaningful to you, or goals that feel fun and enjoyable, or goals that make you face your fears. Pick goals that are big, or small, long-term, or short-term, because no matter which goal you choose, the lessons inherent in the journey will be the same.

Twenty-one years ago, I walked through an open door. I no longer remember the goal I had in mind at the time of the dream, but the lesson was life-changing.

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It can’t be that hard

Are we there yet?

It’s that time of the year here in Australia. It’s midwinter*(see footnote!), the air is clear and dry and the sunlight is blinding. There’s no summer humidity to water down the glare, and the widening hole in the ozone layer down this end doesn’t help. I need a new pair of sunglasses.

Which is better: looking into a glaring bright light or into a dark cave? Yes, we’re heading into dreams, but first please ponder this question. Which would you rather, total glaring light or deeply dark cave?

You cannot keep staring into a bright light. Your reflexes kick in, closing your eyes before further damage occurs. If you are forced to look into the light for too long, temporary blindness and perhaps long term damage will result. Either way, you will not be able to see clearly, if at all. What a paradox! So much light yet nothing to be seen.

If you keep staring into the dark cave what will happen?

If you keep staring into the dark cave what will happen? If you can push through the fear and stay focussed, you may begin to see faint shafts of light penetrating through hidden fissures and cracks in the cave walls. You may catch glimpses of movement, shadowy forms scuttling, lizard-like. The more you focus the more you may see that yes, these are lizards. Your eyes adjust and you discover that there are shades of darkness revealing shapes and forms.

Stars don’t slip away during the day, they shine on but their subtle light is drowned by sunlight.

Consider the sun and the moon. During the day sunlight is so bright (even on a rainy English day) that it blinds us to starlight. Stars don’t slip away during the day, they shine on but their subtle light is drowned by sunlight. It is only when we look into the darkness of the night sky that we can study the mysteries of the changing cosmos.

How much light do we need to get the best picture? It’s all about balance and your point of view.

Turn your back on the glaring sun and what do you see?

Turn your back on the glaring sun and what do you see? Your own shadow, as well as shadows cast by other objects bathed in the same brilliant light. Your shadow may be outrageously distorted but it IS your shadow and it does inform you of important parameters such as how many arms and legs you have and how your size compares with other shadows around you.

And so we move into dreams where the preamble to this article will slowly make sense. Stay with me, let your eyes adjust to the dream world and be ready to see the mysteries of your inner universe more clearly in dream light, in starlight, away from the glare of the stark light that blinds.

“Seven years without a heart,” the horse confided. Dolores was shocked.

Dolores dreamed she was watching a horse race. She followed the winning horse to the stable, keen to know the key to his success. She was surprised to find the horse weeping. He looked deeply into her eyes and told her the key to success was deep pain. He turned and revealed an ancient festering wound in his flank, and a hole where his heart had been ripped from his body long ago. “Seven years without a heart,” the horse confided. Dolores was shocked.

On waking, Dolores couldn’t shake the image of the horse and the ripped heartless hole. It stayed with her all day, distracting her from work. Slowly the pieces began to fall into place. She had been in this job for seven years since a painful marriage break-up. She loved the job. It kept her busy, far too busy to notice the pain. In fact, now she thought more about it, her successes were due to the pain. The more the pain threatened to surface, the harder she worked and the more successful she became. Why hadn’t she been able to see this before? She was mystified. It was so clear.

“Heartless,” a voice whispered from the periphery of her mind. “You’ve become heartless. You’re cold. You’ve left us behind. You don’t care,” the voice continued.

And Dolores wept, for these had been the words of her friends. The dream and Dolores’ friends both delivered the same message, but only the dream message got through.

And Dolores wept, for these had been the words of her friends. They had tried to tell her, but she couldn’t relate to what they were saying. She had thought they were rude and unsupportive, perhaps even envious of her success. She had flicked them off: the words and the friends.

Dolores’ dream had shocked her into touch with her pain, with the festering anger over the way her heart had been ripped and hurt. Her dream delivered the strong message that she could not survive much longer under these conditions. It was time to stop shutting out the pain, to end her heartless pursuit of success, to recognise the heat of her anger and heal it rather than freeze it out.

The dream and Dolores’ friends both delivered the same message, but only the dream message got through. Why?

Dolores’ friends had told her straight. Too straight. The truth was too close to home, too painful, and so her defences kicked in. She found the light too blinding. She denied any truth in it because she couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. Her dream was subtle, drawing her to feel the pain of the horse since she was blind to the pain within herself. Once the connection was made, Dolores was able to see the light.

People often ask, “Why aren’t our dreams literal? If the message we need to hear is so important, why don’t our dreams spell it out in a language we can understand?” The answer?

Dreams can help us to see, in shades of nightlight, what is too painful for us to see or acknowledge in blinding daylight.

Dreams can help us to see, in shades of nightlight, what is too painful for us to see or acknowledge in blinding daylight.

Like your shadow when you stand with your back to the sun, your dreams may be outrageously distorted but their special effect is to draw your attention to yourself. It is only when you look into the darkness of your dreams that you are freed to study the mysteries of your changing self.

* [Copyright Jane Teresa Anderson, July 2005. First published as a Dream Sight article.]

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Decapitated

Extracting wisdom

An original signed sketch by Sir Sidney Nolan, one of Australia’s best known painters, recently sold on eBay for $113.61. It would probably have sold for thousands if it hadn’t been pan fried. Yes, you did read that correctly. Pan fried.

The idea to pan fry the sketch - a portrait of the dreamer’s grandfather - came in a dream.

The idea to cook the sketch – a portrait of the dreamer’s grandfather – came in a dream.

“In the dream I had an exhibition of drawings which had all been crumbed and deep-fried. I’d never seen anything like that before,” explained artist Andy Wear.

Wear was inspired to follow his dream literally, exploring the question of valuing a work based on the artist’s signature rather than on the quality of the art. “I find it intriguing that just because a great artist does it, it’s treasured,” he said.

Following a dream literally also blinds you to the more meaningful personal insight you can gain by understanding your dream at a symbolic level.

Many brilliant inventions, ideas, and creative solutions, have been triggered by dreams. While following a dream literally may be rewarding, it may also be disastrous or misguided.

Following a dream literally also blinds you to the more meaningful personal insight you can gain by understanding your dream at a symbolic level.

I don’t have any more details of Wear’s dream, but the notion of an exhibition of crumbed and deep-fried drawings reminds me of the hunger for fast fix dream interpretation that people new to the subject often expect.

I encounter it frequently in the form of well-intentioned questions on Twitter, when people new to exploring their dreams manage to get their dream and their request to tell them what it means down to the 140 characters that Twitter requires, clearly expecting me to be able to deliver a fast fix in up to 140 characters back.

People ask me what their dreams mean on Twitter. What? In 140 characters or less?

I understand this. Dream novices think you can look up the meaning of a dream in a dream dictionary, and expect a dream expert – like me – to be that instant dream dictionary.

I love that people are interested in their dreams and what they mean, and I’d love to deliver fast fixes, but that’s not how you get meaningful, useful insight, the kind you can take action on to create meaningful,  long-lasting, deeply rewarding change in your life.

We live in a fast world, and all hail to speed and efficiency when it gets us results and frees time and energy for us to enjoy. Interpreting dreams takes time, and the only way a dreamer can speed it up is to get a professional interpretation. Absorbing that interpretation, pondering and understanding the new insight it delivers, doing the dream alchemy to reprogram limiting beliefs, and taking appropriate action: these take time.

I’d love to deliver fast fixes, but that’s not how you get meaningful, useful insight, the kind you can take action on to create meaningful, long-lasting, deeply rewarding change in your life.

I’m not going to do the metaphor about the time it takes to grow, harvest, shop, prepare, and cook good food as opposed to popping into McDonalds for a fast fix.

Oops, I think I just have.

Next time you find yourself taking a dream literally, stop. Have a deeper look.

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And it bloomed ...

Connections

My guest this episode, Gay, is keen to hear my take on a dream she had six months ago, a dream that profoundly changed her life.

Gay dreamed of moseying along a walkway from a dark museum castle into a room filled with a blinding light where she embraced her estranged granddaughter.

There are many deep and wonderful levels to Gay’s dream, its interpretation, its healing qualities, and we explore these as Gay tells her story.

This inspirational episode will deeply touch your heart, while guiding you – as all our episodes do – in developing your dream interpretation and dream alchemy skills.

Listen here

iTunes: You can also subscribe (free) to The Dream Show here on iTunes.

(Our next show, episode 122, will be released in four weeks, on 10 February 2012.)

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When you wake up crying

Painful emotions in dreams

Here’s a great tip for when you’re feeling stuck and need some guidance to move forward. Most dreams, when you look at them closely, have at least one pair of opposites. For example, your dream might involve slow and fast, or high and low, or noisy and quiet, or long way round and short way round. Look for these opposites, and write them down.

One person in your dream might be someone you consider rigid and closed-minded.

If the opposites don’t jump out at you straight away, look at the personalities of any people in your dream. Dreams usually highlight people with opposite personalities or approaches to life.

For example, one person in your dream might be someone you consider very flexible and open-minded, while another person in the same dream might be someone you consider rigid and closed-minded.

Not all dreams contain pairs of opposites, but most do, so have a really good look.

When you find a pair of opposites ask which opposite best describes you or a life experience you are encountering right now. Then ask what you think about people who tend to be in the opposite corner from you on this. Finally, ask if you were ever in that opposite corner before you ‘swapped sides’.

Another person in the same dream might be someone you consider very flexible and open-minded.

These pairs of opposites define issues that your dream is processing. Something is only an issue in your life if you tend towards one extreme opposite (or corner) because you find something about the other extreme uncomfortable. For example, you might tend towards being too flexible because you haven’t had good experiences with rigid people and don’t want to be like them. Or you might tend towards being too rigid because being too flexible in the past seems to have created difficulties for you.

Find the middle path between two extremes.

What’s the solution? The solution is to identify the issue (in this example, the issue is how flexible or how rigid to be about something in your life right now) and then to balance your approach by finding a mid-point between the two extremes. For example, it’s usually best in any situation to take an approach about half way between too flexible and too rigid, a place where a bit of both serves you well.

Dreams help you to identify issues you have been blind to, issues that are affecting your life in a negative way. They help you to see where your life needs more balance. It’s up to you to follow that cue.

[Extract from 101 Dream Interpretation Tips, Jane Teresa Anderson]

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The goddess and the blowfly

Dream interpretation: Fire and ice

What’s your recurring dream? If you’ve been following my blog, listening to my podcasts, and reading my books, and you’re still experiencing a recurring dream, today’s post is your wake up call. It’s time to put what you’ve been learning into action if you want to enjoy life changing results in 2012!

Let’s review the basics:

1. A dream is the experience you have, during sleep, while your brain processes your conscious and unconscious experiences of the last 24-48 hours.

2. Think of this processing as like updating your hard drive. Your brain and mind compare your latest experiences to all your past experiences, drawing conclusions – beliefs – about how life works. Mostly you consolidate your oldest beliefs. Sometimes you modify your beliefs. Sometimes you completely overwrite an old belief and wake up with a transformed personal view of how the world works.

Imagine a painter trying to capture your mind’s fast processing of experiences, emotions, and beliefs, as an abstract picture.

3. During dreaming, you are more in touch with your unconscious mind, which is why dreams seem surreal. Imagine a painter trying to capture your mind’s fast processing of experiences, emotions, and beliefs, as an abstract picture. She might use metaphor, analogy, colours to represent emotions, shapes to represent belief structures, any number of creative techniques to help you ‘get the picture’ – or, at least, to store it in your archives under ‘update on how life works’.

4. The magic begins when you know how to ‘get the picture’ – how to interpret a dream – because this helps you to understand your unique mindset. You get to understand your unconscious beliefs, both the ones that work for you and the ones that work against you in your everyday life.

5. You can then see which beliefs need to be changed to get the kind of waking life results you desire. If you stop there, you probably won’t see those results. You need to apply a deeper magic – dream alchemy.

Dream alchemy is a way of working with your unique dream symbols to reprogram your unconscious beliefs.

6. Dream alchemy is a process you can use to transform an unconscious belief. It’s a way of working with your unique dream symbols to reprogram your unconscious. It works because your unconscious mind relates to your personal dream symbols – after all, it created them!

7. Now, back to your recurring dream: Since dreams reflect the last 24-48 hours, your recurring dream reflects a recurring waking life issue. Have you noticed that most recurring dreams are unhappy, frustrating, or unresolved? That’s because they reflect an unhappy, frustrating, or unresolved issue in your life.

8. To resolve that issue, apply the formula: Dream interpretation + Dream alchemy = Success + an end to your recurring dream.

Ok, that’s your wake up call. Do your dream alchemy to make 2012 your best year ever!

Listen as DK asks me about his recurring dream of driving a car that goes way out of control ... and more.

On a more light-hearted level, here’s an hour’s entertainment about recurring dreams. DK, host of At the Watercooler on Z Talk Radio, invited me onto his show. In this podcast, he asks me about his recurring dream of driving a car that goes way out of control, and, excited by the discovery, moves on to ask me about another recurring dream featuring buildings.

Listeners ask about their dreams and we cover lucid dreaming, falling and floating dreams, a variety of toilet dreams, dreams of snakes, dream sharing, and the question of astral travelling. Oh, and we also talk about dream alchemy and much more.

Listen here. Note: the interview starts halfway through the podcast, so move the slider halfway, or enjoy DK’s interview with the guest before me, Jane Congdon, author of It Started With Dracula.

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There’s a theme of lost and found, and another of being driven around – always the passenger, never the driver – and sitting so far back in the vehicle that she even falls out of the car.

Who or what is lost? Who or what is found? And how does the shocking picture help Gwynne – once I’ve interpreted her dream – to understand and transform the deep programming that has been limiting her waking life results?

Many will relate to Gwynne’s dream, and that shocking picture carries a dramatic quality that will assist anyone whose life experience is limited by the common programming it represents.

Listen as Gwynne and I discuss her dream, and hear her responses as she relates the dream to what is happening in her waking life.

Listen here or subscribe (free) to The Dream Show here on iTunes.

(Our next show, episode 121, will be released in four weeks, on 13 January 2012.)

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