I wanted to take a moment to talk about what can be seen as the negative side of exploring your dreams, nightmares. This has been on my mind since I woke up this morning from a series of particularly scary dreams. Personally, my dreams and my nightmares have always been very vivid, colorful, and sense-filled. For example, last nights’ dreams were filled with violence and blood. I could see the bright red, smell the tangy metallic scent, and even (ewwww) taste the hot liquid in my mouth. It was not pleasant. However, particularly good dreams filled with delicious food, pleasurable experiences, and shared moments with loved ones seem that much more vivid.

So how can one embrace their dream life completely and include nightmares without being negatively impacted by them? Depending on the individual this can be difficult. I have spoken to many people throughout the years who have no memory of nightmares or even particularly bad dreams or have them so infrequently it never causes them pause. There are many others; however, that nightmares can be a nightly occurrence causing them significant stress related to just going to bed.

No matter which side of the spectrum you fall on, nightmares can be lessened or sometimes avoided altogether by understanding what causes them. The main cause of nightmares is turmoil in your waking life. If you are under stress and are not resolving it or handling it appropriately while awake, your brain will often use itself to work things out while you sleep. Simply acknowledging your daily stresses and incorporating meditation, yoga, deep breathing, biofeedback, or other stress management will significantly lower your chances of waking up in a scare sweat.

Occasionally, nightmares are caused by a past hurt, trauma, or significant event that has not been dealt with completely in your waking life. This can include abuse that you suffered as a child, a car accident or house fire, or even the loss of a loved one. At times, nightmares may be the way for your brain to bring up these events for you to first remember them and then deal with them appropriately. We remember so much more inside our minds than we access in our wakeful states.

The last cause of nightmares we’ll talk about is drug related. If you are taking medications (or illegal drugs) a frequent side effect is nightmares. Take a look at your medication information and inform your Dr. of your nightmares on your next visit.

When you are haunted or plagued by nightmares remember to write down what you can as soon as you wake up in your dream journal. Look for clues as to what symbols, people, and events may mean in your personal life. For instance, last night the main characters in my dream were my sister and I, the ghost of my grandmother, and then various family members and people I have met throughout my life. My sister and I were working together to escape from the people around us guided by my grandmother’s ghost but everyone was armed with long butcher knives and there was a lot of stabbing. Every time we thought we had escaped, the scenario would begin again, it was truly horrid.

In my waking life I am mourning the fact that my sister, possibly the closest person to me, is moving to a different state with her family to pursue a new job. While I am happy for her I also feel abandoned a bit. We had a difficult childhood, our Grandparents were the one bright spot in it so it makes sense my Grandmother would be guiding us as we work together to face the world, but we are never truly successful and I believe that is because we are to soon be separated in the waking world.

Understanding the meaning in your nightmares takes away the power of fear they have over you.

Click to vote!

Happy Halloween everyone! This is one of my favorite holidays so right before running out the door to take the little one trick-or-treating I wanted to ask everyone a quick question. This week (and weekend) I have just enough time to finish the final edits and layout for one of the two e-courses I have been writing. I was hoping you would help me decide which I should do first.

Go here to click on the image to the left to vote!

The first option is my lucid dreaming project that has been a dream of mine for a long time. I would take a group of people through the process that I have used and taught several times to beginners at lucid dreaming. This would be an e-book followed by weekly reminders, tips, and tasks emailed right to you. Plus I would be available on Facebook and Twitter for general hand-holding.

The second option would be to finally finish my guide to teach you how to do dream interpretation for yourself  (and others I suppose).  The guide was nearly complete at one point but contains a lot of information on exactly how you can begin to get in touch with your dreams.  I cover things like improving dream recall, improving the quality of your sleep in general, what kinds of symbols and events to look for when doing dream interpretation, and a lot of tips and tricks that I have discovered over time.

Both of these are worthwhile projects and eventually I’ll get to them both. But please head over to Facebook and help me decide which to do first.  While your there go ahead and like my page.  After the first of the year I have a big surprise that you won’t want to miss.

Thanks!

As I was reading through my news feeds this morning I came across this cool article on NPR.org about a computer program that can scan your brain waves and reconstruct what your seeing.  The researchers believe that this technique could someday be used to reconstruct dreams or to communicate.

Of course the technology is still a long way from that point but I still find it pretty amazing how far we have come. Everyone who has done dream interpretation knows how difficult it is to remember your dreams clearly. By far that is the number one thing that I am asked how to improve.  If we had access to technology that could retrieve our dreams, even with poor clarity, that could drastically improve our ability to interpret our dreams.

Here is a short excerpt from the article, I highly recommend you go and read the whole thing. If your interested in dream research this is pretty cool.

It sounds like science fiction: While volunteers watched movie clips, a scanner watched their brains. And from their brain activity, a computer made rough reconstructions of what they viewed.

Scientists reported that result Thursday and speculated such an approach might be able to reveal dreams and hallucinations someday.

In the future, it might help stroke victims or others who have no other way to communicate, said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-author of the paper.

He believes such a technique could eventually reconstruct a dream or other made-up mental movie well enough to be recognizable. But the experiment dealt with scenes being viewed through the eyes at the time of scanning, and it’s not clear how much of the approach would apply to scenes generated by the brain instead, he said.

People shouldn’t be worried about others secretly eavesdropping on their thoughts in the near future, since the technique requires a person to spend long periods in an MRI machine, he noted.

Another expert said he expected any mind-reading capability would appear only far in the future.

Source: Can Computers Reconstruct Your Dreams? by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Can Computers Dream? Not yet but I did find this cool video…

Last week our home was broken into and most of our valuable possessions were stolen. To make it even worse the theives trashed the place, dumping drawers and boxes and clearing out closets onto the floor. To say that we felt vulnerable, angry, and violated would be an understatement. These emotions are normal and healty(?) and are just the tip of the iceburgh when dealing with this type of event.

The whole process of cleaning up and deciding what to replace and what to let go of made me think about what is really important though. While the thieves may have gotten a few items of sentamental value it is all just stuff. The things that are really important are the real connections we make with those around us and this tragedy has brought us all closer together.

I think what has surprised me most about this ordeal is my emotional reaction to the thieves. There was a time when I would have felt scared or angry; now I just feel sad for them. I feel bad that their lives are such that they can behave in this manner. I hope that the few possessions that they stole were able to bring them some fleeting happiness.

Anyways enough about me, lets talk about you and our bright new future together.

Losing our computers means that we lost this months newsletter, 2 ebooks that I was putting together (one on luced dreaming, one of beginning self dream analysis), my notes for a lucid dreaming facebook group I wanted to start, and about a million other documents and pieces of writing I’ll forget about until I need.

Thats what I lost, more importantly this is what we will gain from this.

I have a new computer that actually works and runs correctly. This means less time fighting the computer and more time pumping out guides and ebooks for you guys.

I lost about a dozen half finished projects which sucks, but I’ve decided this is a blessing in disquise as I can now focus on one at a time and knock it out. My new goal is one ebook or guide every other week until I finish off my list. Please tell me anything you would like to see in the comments.

I have also gained a new appreciation for computer security and backups. This is what I have done so far but please let me know what I’m missing in the comments.

I am backing up my documents and files with Dropbox. It’s totally free for 2GB of storage and you use it just like any folder on your computer. You can install it on more than one computer and share folders, you can access files online, you can share files via the internet, and I’m sure there is more I haven’t noticed yet. If your not using something to back up your files aready or need to share files between computers this is awesome.

I installed prey on my new computer. It is a totally free open source computer security system that also works on phones and laptops. It allows me to remotly shut down and track my computer should this one get stolen too. Luckily I haven’t used it yet but my web guy highly recommends it.

So please give me any more ideas for computer secuirity/backup or ideas for ebooks or guides you would like me to focus on first. Thanks for reading all this and putting up with my off-topic babbling.

New Dream Analysis Contests!

You may not know this but in the past few years I have provided over a hundred free dream analysis on this website. This is something that I am very proud of and I am very happy to have gotten to help so many people.

Well I am very happy to announce that I am expanding my dream interpretation service to a more robust paid model. You will no longer have to wait weeks before your dreams can be interpreted because I am available every single day to answer requests. I will interpret your dreams either by phone or email, whichever is more convenient for you.

Now I know that some of you may not be able to pay for dream analysis so I have come up with a little solution. Since we all love winning things and I have never had the chance to hold a contest I’m going to hold monthly giveaways for premium dream analysis!

The rules are simple.

Follow me on Twitter, Friend me on Facebook, read this blog, or join my upcoming monthly newsletter (form below).

//
Everyone who does is going to entered into the contest but to keep it interesting the rules might change. Some months I might just draw randomly, some I might draw only from those I have interacted with, sometimes it might be based on who has the cutest dog.

Who knows it could get crazy. I will post on my blog, twitter, facebook, and in the Newsletter the rules for the next month though so everyone gets a fair chance.

Lastly of course follow your local laws and if The Man says you can’t win or enter then you can’t. Thems the breaks. No purchase necessary to enter, limit one per household, offer void where prohibited and all that jazz.

I look forward to another year of helping everyone discover their dream meanings and I wish everyone the best of luck.

Were on Facebook!

Dream-Psychic.com can now be found on Facebook.  Please visit me there and say hi.  Of course I’m not abandoning this website or the great dream interpretation dictionary I have here. I will still be here writing blog posts and creating articles and resources to help you learn about dream analysis.

My goal is that by expanding into Facebook I can be out there more and easier for you to contact me with your questions.  Of course I have been on twitter for a while and I would love it if you would follow @dream_psychic there too.

The Real Reason I’m now on Facebook

Of course there has been pressure from the “cool kids” to come over to Facebook and hang out but there is more to the story. For the past year and a half I have been offering a free dream analysis service and it has been wonderful.  Sadly I haven’t been able to keep up with the amazing demand so something had to be done.

What I have decided to do is to start offering a new premium dream analysis service which will allow my readers to get personal one-on-one readings either by phone or email. I am super excited about this service but I really wanted to give something to everyone for free.

So what I am doing for everyone in place of my free analysis service is giving away access to my premium dream interpretations every week.  You can read more about it on the free dream analysis page but for right now this is all you need to know.

1. Go to the Facebook Page and “Like” it. Saying hi would be nice too.
2. Follow @dream_psychic on twitter (and I’ll even follow you back)
3. Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter (form below).  First issue is due out on Friday the 1st.
4. Subscribe to the RSS feed to get blog updates automatically.

If you do those four things you wont miss out on any chances to win a free premium dream analysis with yours truly or one of the other great prizes I plan to give away in the months to come.

Sign Up for the monthly newsletter here.

//
// <![CDATA[
var fnames = new Array();var ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';var err_style = '';
try{
err_style = mc_custom_error_style;
} catch(e){
err_style = 'margin: 1em 0 0 0; padding: 1em 0.5em 0.5em 0.5em; background: FFEEEE none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-weight: bold; float: left; z-index: 1; width: 80%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: FF0000;';
}
var head= document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
var style= document.createElement('style');
style.type= 'text/css';
if (style.styleSheet) {
style.styleSheet.cssText = '.mce_inline_error {' + err_style + '}';
} else {
style.appendChild(document.createTextNode('.mce_inline_error {' + err_style + '}'));
}
head.appendChild(style);
$(document).ready( function($) {
var options = { errorClass: 'mce_inline_error', errorElement: 'div', onkeyup: function(){}, onfocusout:function(){}, onblur:function(){} };
var mce_validator = $("#mc-embedded-subscribe-form").validate(options);
options = { url: 'http://erayne.us1.list-manage1.com/subscribe/post-json?u=ffd323ab5aa299f5273580ef8&id=081b2b17c8&c=?', type: 'GET', dataType: 'json', contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
beforeSubmit: function(){
$('#mce_tmp_error_msg').remove();
$('.datefield','#mc_embed_signup').each(
function(){
var txt = 'filled';
var fields = new Array();
var i = 0;
$(':text', this).each(
function(){
fields[i] = this;
i++;
});
$(':hidden', this).each(
function(){
if ( fields[0].value=='MM' && fields[1].value=='DD' && fields[2].value=='YYYY' ){
this.value = '';
} else if ( fields[0].value=='' && fields[1].value=='' && fields[2].value=='' ){
this.value = '';
} else {
this.value = fields[0].value+'/'+fields[1].value+'/'+fields[2].value;
}
});
});
return mce_validator.form();
},
success: mce_success_cb
};
$('#mc-embedded-subscribe-form').ajaxForm(options);

});
function mce_success_cb(resp){
$('#mce-success-response').hide();
$('#mce-error-response').hide();
if (resp.result=="success"){
$('#mce-'+resp.result+'-response').show();
$('#mce-'+resp.result+'-response').html(resp.msg);
$('#mc-embedded-subscribe-form').each(function(){
this.reset();
});
} else {
var index = -1;
var msg;
try {
var parts = resp.msg.split(' – ',2);
if (parts[1]==undefined){
msg = resp.msg;
} else {
i = parseInt(parts[0]);
if (i.toString() == parts[0]){
index = parts[0];
msg = parts[1];
} else {
index = -1;
msg = resp.msg;
}
}
} catch(e){
index = -1;
msg = resp.msg;
}
try{
if (index== -1){
$('#mce-'+resp.result+'-response').show();
$('#mce-'+resp.result+'-response').html(msg);
} else {
err_id = 'mce_tmp_error_msg';
html = '

‘;

var input_id = ‘#mc_embed_signup’;
var f = $(input_id);
if (ftypes[index]==’address’){
input_id = ‘#mce-’+fnames[index]+’-addr1′;
f = $(input_id).parent().parent().get(0);
} else if (ftypes[index]==’date’){
input_id = ‘#mce-’+fnames[index]+’-month’;
f = $(input_id).parent().parent().get(0);
} else {
input_id = ‘#mce-’+fnames[index];
f = $().parent(input_id).get(0);
}
if (f){
$(f).append(html);
$(input_id).focus();
} else {
$(‘#mce-’+resp.result+’-response’).show();
$(‘#mce-’+resp.result+’-response’).html(msg);
}
}
} catch(e){
$(‘#mce-’+resp.result+’-response’).show();
$(‘#mce-’+resp.result+’-response’).html(msg);
}
}
}
// ]]>

The moon is a powerful force not only on our tides but on our imagination and psyche. It represents the mysterious powers that science cannot understand. Also throughtout history the moon has been looked upon as a symbol of fenimin power and fertility. You can read more about the dream meaning of moons in our dream dictionary.

This supermoon got me thinking about the relationship between the moon and our dreams. Perhaps this was because of all the hype trying to connect the moon with natural disasters like the tragedy in Japan. Whatever the reason the night of the supermoon I found myself paying particular attention to my dreams and what meanings I thought they might be conveying.

The morning after the supermoon I was able to recall 2 seperate dreams but neither was any more powerful than my normal dreams. The first involved having an accident in our van as I was driving to work. Pretty normal as far as my dreams go. I am still surprised at how many little details I can recall about these dreams after years of working on my dream recall.

The second dream was slightly less normal, but didn’t leave any of the emotional tags that I have come to associate with psychic dreams. Me and the family were on a boat undertaking some great journey. It was never clear where or why. Throughout the dream I kept having to stop the boat to take care of hundreds of terribly mundane tasks before we could continue.

This is slightly different because in my travel dreams I typically am driving. I can’t think of any other dreams that I have been on a boat for. If I were still maintaining my dream journal of course I would know for sure.

So what about you guys, did anyone experience any great dreams on the night of the supermoon?

Also, just because it’s really cool…

Photo Credit: Fitz Villafuerte

An accurate interpretation of the Sex Dream will depend a lot on what’s going on in the waking life of the person, just like any other dream. A sex dream can be a way to simply expand your sexual experiences in a safe environment. Perhaps there is something that you have thought about, fantasized about, or are missing from your current relationship but you aren’t brave enough to bring it up in your waking life, the Sex Dream can be your mind’s answer to your problem. You get to “experience” whatever it is that you are longing for in a completely safe and nonthreatening way.

Does that mean that if you dream about having sex with someone you have that desire in your waking life? Not necessarily. Sex can be a symbol for many different emotions or experiences. For instance, it can symbolize success, self esteem, confidence, and other positive emotions. It can represent power and the struggle that you are having in your waking life for it. If you have a boss, for instance, that you feel is beneath your abilities and is still higher on the food chain than you, dreaming that you are having sex with them, especially if you are in the dominant position, is probably about your desire for power over them and not indicative of sexual attraction for them.

Your sex dreams can involve people, places, things, or situations that would be abhorrent or even illegal in your waking life. Dreaming about having sex with a family member; for instance, is very common but absolutely does not indicate your sexual attraction to them. In this case sex is probably representing something else. For example, if as an adult you have a dream in which you have loving, tender sex with your sibling who you are not as close to in your waking like as you used to be, this probably symbolizes you missing that intimacy which has nothing to do with sex.

If you have a Sex Dream that leaves you feeling “icky” remind yourself that it is probably a symbol of something else. If you have a Sex Dream that leaves you feeling sated and happy, good for you.

The person whose death is depicted can be a friend, loved one, a stranger, or oneself. For the purpose of the most common Death related dreams we will not venture in this blog post about people who are killed by you in your dreams as that is a completely different symbol.

The main thing to know about dreams involving Death is that it is almost always a symbol of the approaching end to something, not a literal harbinger of bodily Death. That’s almost always the top fear of people that write for a dream interpretation regarding Death; that they have foreseen their own Death or that of someone they love.

In fact; death in your dreams almost always signifies the end of a stage in your life, a relationship, or some event.  It could also symbolize a feeling of insecurity, fear, or loss that you are experiencing surrounding someone or something in your waking life.

For instance, a reader (who has given permission for her dream to be shared) wrote in regarding a dream in which her Grandmother, who had passed away several years earlier, died and she, as a child, felt an intense sense of loss.  After corresponding with her to get some additional details of both the dream and her waking life, my interpretation of that dream was that she was anxious and mourning the loss of her own motherhood role as her son had graduated high school and was preparing to go off to college. For this particular reader, her Grandmother had taken the place of her biological mother very early on in her life.

As you can see, to get an accurate dream interpretation you have to look at the themes in your dreams as symbols for what is going on in your life, not as literal representations.

What does dreaming of being naked in public mean? It’s a very common dream shared by people across all spectrums of life. The venue may be different, maybe you dream of going to school naked, giving a presentation naked, shopping naked. The one thing that most of these dreams have in common is the feeling of humiliation and public exposure. I think that this is a very literal representation of our inner fears. For instance, I do a lot of public speaking and no matter how many times I address an audience I always experience a feeling of intense fear right before I go on, just like in my dream.

When I am naked in my dream I am extremely vulnerable, I am open for ridicule. This can be indicative of a situation in our waking lives in which we feel intensely uncomfortable, anxious, and vulnerable. Maybe it’s moving to a new town and starting over with new neighbors, new coworkers, new friends. Maybe it’s a promotion that requires new duties that you aren’t completely sure of. Or it could be anxiety over a relationship that is getting deeper and more intimate, exposing new vulnerabilities.

When you dream the “naked dream” pay close attention to your audience, there is almost always one. See if there’s any correlation to something in your waking life. This will help you identify the area of your life in which you are having negative feelings and address them.