Dream Basics v1.0
By David Sunfellow
Download a pdf of the handout here.
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How To Remember Your Dreams
• First and foremost, you need to value dreams and WANT to remember them. Here are a few ways to awaken an interest in dreams: talk with long-time dreamers, read dream books, visit dream websites and social networks, attend dream groups, study the profound impact that dreams have had on human beings throughout the ages. Since dreaming is an ability that all human beings are born with, you, too, can learn to remember your dreams — and then use them to change, heal and transform your life.
• Buy a dream journal, and personalize it with beautiful images, prayers, and quotes that inspire you.
• Since dreams are servants of health and wholeness, they are easier to remember and understand when we maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle. Eat organic foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid pesticides, artificial ingredients, preservatives, and heavily processed foods. Breathe fresh air. Drink clean water. Soak up sunshine daily. Spend time in nature. Exercise. Cultivate healthy relationships, especially with God and other human beings. Pursue your heart’s callings.
• Establish a regular sleeping schedule that allows you to get sufficient sleep (at least six hours). Take naps; avoid going to bed overly tired.
• Be sure your sleeping space is clean, dark, quiet and comfortable. Turn off lights, computers, televisions, and other electronic gadgets.
• Every night, before falling asleep, take time to review the events of the day. Write these events down in your dream journal and then focus on the areas of your life that you wish to receive help with. Doing a “clearing session” before you go to sleep will help clear your mind of the clutter that will otherwise follow you into your dreams. It will also help you focus on the areas of your life that are most important to you.
• Place your dream journal beside your bed and open it up.
• Place a small flashlight or book light near your journal to use when you write your dreams down (turning big lights on will tend to wake you up and make it difficult to get back to sleep).
• Before falling asleep ask God/Spirit/Your Higher Self for help remembering your dreams.
• As you are falling asleep, repeat to yourself The Four Dream Suggestions (see below).
• Whenever you awaken, whether in the middle of the night or in the morning, write down whatever you remember — no matter how fragmented, insignificant or ridiculous it may be. This will help train you to remember your dreams and also help you capture important dreams that might otherwise slip away. Dreams that seem unusually ridiculous or evoke strong emotional reactions are often very important. If you try to drag dreams through the night, instead of writing them down as soon as you remember them, you can forget and/or distort key elements, which will make them harder to understand. Your sleep will also suffer.
• During the day, think about whatever dreams you remember and find ways to apply their messages in your life. Remembering dreams, but not taking the time to write them down, or writing them down, but not acting on their messages, will limit the helpfulness of your dreams.
• Share your dreams with other dreamers. This will anchor, reinforce, and deepen your dream life. This is also an excellent way to learn more about dreams and unravel their hidden meanings.
• As you begin to experience the transformational power of dreams, thank the universe for the guidance, insight, and healing that begins to flow from your dreams to all aspects of your life. Your dreams will help you realize that you are not alone. You are, instead, known, loved, and surrounded by benevolent forces that constantly seek to help.
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The Four Dream Suggestions
1. I will remember my dreams.
2. I will only have those dreams that God/Spirit/My Higher Self wants me to have.
3. I will record my dreams clearly and accurately, as soon as I remember them.
4. I will interpret and apply my dreams as they are intended to be.
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Interpreting Your Dreams
• Dreams can be symbolic and/or literal. They possess layers and layers of meaning and come from many different levels of consciousness. A helpful rule is to first look at the images in your dreams as aspects of yourself. Then as the people, places, and things that they appear to be. Then as both. Then look beyond these interpretations for other meanings.
• Dreams are usually talking about current issues and events in our lives. To help you identify the area of your life that your dreams are talking about, give your dreams a title and identify their main theme. Then look for themes in your life that are similar.
• You can also use the feelings in your dreams to identify the areas in your life that your dreams are talking about. Ask yourself, “What area of my life feels like this?”
• Spend time thinking about and talking to the people, places, and things in your dreams. Ask them who they are, why they have come, what message do they have for you?
• Ask God/Spirit/Your Higher Self to help you understand what your dreams mean.
• Share your dreams with other dreamers, especially those who know you well. If possible, find a dream partner that you can share dreams with every day. Working with dream partners and dream groups can be magnitudes more productive than working on dreams alone. That’s because others see what we overlook and dreams, by nature, thrive on collaboration.
• No one is better equipped to understand the meaning of YOUR dreams than YOU. You will know you have unlocked the meaning of a dream when you have an “ah-ha” moment. That’s when all the pieces fall in place and you “get it.” Since the full transformational power of a dream is not unleashed until you experience an “ah-ha,” don’t settle for interpretations that fall short.
• When dreams elude all attempts to understand them, ask for more.
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Dream Guidelines & Insights
• All dreams are important. Big dreams gift us with breakthroughs and healings, while small dreams help us ground, integrate, and manifest lofty visions step-by-step, day-by-day.
• As dreamworker Jeremy Taylor says, “all dreams come in the service of health and wholeness.” Some dreams help us connect with the divine within. Others shine bright lights on the dark, undeveloped, and shadowy aspects of our nature. By working with all the different parts of ourselves, dreams help us realize our full potential and accomplish the unique purposes for which we were born.
• Whether short and simple, or epic productions with a cast of thousands, dreams love drama. In order to get our attention and reveal the true nature of things, dreams are masters of shock and awe. When we embrace their wildness, they reveal transformative truths; when we resist, they turn into nightmares.
• In some dreams, we are portrayed as lost and incorrigible. In others, we are full of virtue, wisdom, and power. When confronted with such extremes, the tendency is to feel good one day, and awful the next, depending on the content of our dreams. In order to rise above this cycle, we need to remember three things: 1. Dreams exaggerate; 2. The challenges we encounter in dreams (and waking life) transform into blessings when we face them; 3. While there are imperfect aspects of ourselves that need to be recognized and developed, we are, in essence, indestructible parts of God who will, in time, master everything.
• While we can and should learn how to tap the power of dreams, we should never try to force them to do our bidding. The resources they offer are so far beyond earth-bound minds and emotions, that we limit ourselves, and our awareness and growth, if we try to exert too much control.
• While we are all born with other methods of guidance — intuition and rational thinking, for example — there is no substitute for dreams. In the same way we have five physical senses to find our way through the world — seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting — so, too, do we have different kinds of inner senses, each with different strengths and weaknesses. We should aspire to live a balanced life in which all the senses we have are honored, used, and developed, including dreams.
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Learn more about Charlie Morley and lucid dreaming.
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Dream Quotes
“For these, if paid attention to, brought back in the memory, written and kept and studied, interpreted as actual experiences which are symbolic and yet real in their nature, become guidelines to such an extent that one should be able to understand and rectify all those things in the life which are of an imperfect nature.”
— Season of Changes, Ways of Response
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“Jung told one dreamer: ‘Look here, the best way to deal with a dream is to think of yourself as a sort of ignorant child, ignorant youth, and to come to the two-million-year-old man or to the old mother of days and ask, ‘Now, what do you think of me?”
– Marc Ian Barasch, Healing Dreams
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“Our dreams are a continuum, revealing, if we care to look, that we do not exist alone, but in a skein of relationship with all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be.”
— Marc Ian Barasch, Healing Dreams
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“I find the most powerful single tool for getting to the fuller meaning of dream experiences and dealing with problems and issues that they present, is the technique that I call dream re-entry; in other words, learning to go back through the doorway of a remembered dream to explore the dreamscape in greater depth. Dreams are real experiences, and the full meaning of the dream is inside the dream itself, if you can only recover more of the original and full experience of the dream.”
— Robert Moss
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“Another aspect of appreciating a dream involves sharing it with others. When we work on a dream alone, we tend to repress those aspects we don’t want to see. To encounter a dream in the company of others helps us see what we would otherwise gloss over.”
— Marc Ian Barasch, Healing Dreams
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“I’m not enthusiastic about the term ‘lucid dreaming’ because it has often been associated with silly notions of ‘controlling’ or ‘manipulating’ dreams. Through dreaming, we have access to a source that is infinitely wiser and deeper than the everyday ego, and we want to be available to that source. I am in favor of learning to choose where we go and what we do in dreams, as in waking life, but that requires discernment, not the fantasy of control.”
— Robert Moss
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“If you take the idea of evolution of the species at all seriously — if you think there is anything at all to the idea that species alter both behavior and physical structure to enhance their ability to survive in particular ecological/environmental circumstances — then there must also be something about dreaming itself that is of primary and fundamental importance from a collective evolutionary survival point of view, because in spite of the multiple, serious, and dangerous drawbacks associated with dreaming, there is not a single relatively evolved species that has found it of increased survival value to abandon this seemingly… dangerous behavior.”
— Jeremy Taylor, Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill
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After the first graphic was shared on Facebook…
…it generated the following comments:
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Recommended Books
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The Alchemy of Dreams I: Transform Your Life – Develop a Friendship with Your Dreams
By Wesley Wyatt
In this, the first of three books in The Alchemy of Dreams Series, author Wesley Wyatt provides a rich and nuanced discourse on the potential of dreams, the language of symbolism and dream interpretation. Utilizing the psychic readings of the Edgar Cayce readings, the author provides practical tools for accessing the inspiration and counsel offered in dreams.
– Increase your recall of dreams.
– Discover the causes and meaning of repetitive and disturbing dreams.
– Learn how dreams can assist you in expressing your true nature and aptitudes.
– Deepen your understanding of the language of the soul – symbolism.
– Learn specific techniques for translating the personalized symbolism in your dreams.
– Learn to ‘incubate’ a dream on a specific concern.
“Wesley Wyatt is the most skilled person I know at dream work and dream interpretation. His abilities with dreams arise out of a lifetime of working with his dreams and the dreams of others. I know because I’m his brother. We not only learned how to work with our dreams together, but we have spent four decades sharing dreams and honing our skills. Whether you are someone new to dreams and dream work, or a seasoned veteran, everyone can benefit from the treasures my brother has collected over the years. Do yourself a favor. Buy his books. And then buy a few copies to share with those you love. While we are all born with angelic companions, in the form of dreams, only those who actually know how to work with these powerful, magical forces can make the most of their gifts. My brother can show you how to tap the same forces that have guided, protected, healed, and inspired many of humankind’s most celebrated dreamers. The Alchemy of Dreams, in other words, are spiritual dynamite. These books contain pearls of great price that can make everything better, deeper, healthier, happier.”
— David Sunfellow
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The Alchemy of Dreams – Volume II: The Universal Law Governing Dreaming, Consciousness and Relationships
By Wesley Wyatt
The Alchemy of Dreams – Volume Two is written for those who desire a deeper understanding of the universal laws governing dreams and consciousness. Throughout the book, concepts presented by the famous psychic Edgar Cayce and the discoveries of Dr. Carl Jung, the distinguished Swiss psychiatrist and dream researcher, are included for their rich and complementary perspectives. In order to deepen our understanding of dreams and their potential, a more nuanced view of the power of the mind is required. The mind is not only an organ of perception, but of creation as well. By highlighting how we attract and create our experiences, both in dreams and waking life, The Alchemy of Dreams – Volume Two, assists the reader in applying spiritual and psychological concepts for transformation and positive change.
Discover:
– The universal laws governing consciousness, dreams, and relationships.
– How to become a conscious co-creator.
– Unmasking projection, repression and polarization through dream work.
– The meaning behind masculine and feminine symbolism in dreams.
– How dreams can improve and enrich your relationships.
– How dreams can assist you in transforming past trauma.
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Healing Dreams
By Marc Ian Barasch
The Washington Post hails Healing Dreams as “a book as wise and healing as a dream…lucid, brave, and trailblazing.” The winner of the Nautilus Award for best psychology book 2001, it offers a clear, compassionate understanding of what dreams mean, but also poses a daring question: What do our dreams ask of us, and how might we answer? Dr. Gayle Delaney urges, “Read this book if you want to live a bigger, more vivid life.” Dr. Larry Dossey calls it “a new standard in the field of dreams…an uncommon joy,” and Joan Borysenko calls it “a watershed in the appreciation of the psyche.”
Click here to read some powerful excerpts from this important book
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Dreams that Change Our Lives
By Robert J. Hoss, Robert P. Gongloff, Stanley Krippner
Have you ever awakened from a dream that left you feeling stunned — a dream so vivid or impactful — so unexpected — that it changes your life from that point forward? Imagine you could ask a question of a dream character, or the dream itself, and watch as a profoundly surprising response appears. Suppose you could take action in your dream to eliminate a recurring nightmare, heal a relationship, or even a physical ailment. The 100 dreamers in this book have!
These are what might be called big dreams, stories of life changing guidance, insight and healing; some that reach beyond the senses and even beyond death. They are presented as guideposts along our life’s journey, and introduced by 22 internationally acclaimed experts, psychologists, researchers, and best-selling authors from the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD): Deirdre Barrett, Susannah Benson, Kelly Bulkeley, Laurel Clark, Gayle Delaney, Marcia Emery, Patricia Garfield, Robert Gongloff, Bob Haden, Robert Hoss, Ed Kellogg, Stanley Krippner, Justina Lasley, Jacquie E. Lewis, Tallulah Lyons, Wendy Pannier, Alan Siegel, Carlyle Smith, Gregory Scott Sparrow, Jeremy Taylor, Robert Waggoner and Kelly Sullivan Walden.
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Dreaming in the World’s Religions
By Kelly Bulkeley
From Biblical stories of Joseph interpreting Pharoh’s dreams in Egypt to prayers against bad dreams in the Hindu Rg Veda, cultures all over the world have seen their dreams first and foremost as religiously meaningful experiences. In this widely shared view, dreams are a powerful medium of transpersonal guidance offering the opportunity to communicate with sacred beings, gain valuable wisdom and power, heal suffering, and explore new realms of existence. Conversely, the world’s religious and spiritual traditions provide the best source of historical information about the broad patterns of human dream life. Dreaming in the World’s Religions provides an authoritative and engaging one-volume resource for the study of dreaming and religion. It tells the story of how dreaming has shaped the religious history of humankind, from the Upanishads of Hinduism to the Qur’an of Islam, from the conception dream of Buddhas mother to the sexually tempting nightmares of St. Augustine, from the Ojibwa vision quest to Australian Aboriginal journeys in the Dreamtime. Bringing his background in psychology to bear, Kelly Bulkeley incorporates an accessible consideration of cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology into this fascinating overview. Dreaming in the World’s Religions offers a carefully researched, accessibly written portrait of dreaming as a powerful, unpredictable, often iconoclastic force in human religious life.
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Big Dreams: The Science of Dreaming and the Origins of Religion
By Kelly Bulkeley
Big dreams are rare but highly memorable dream experiences that make a strong and lasting impact on the dreamer’s waking awareness. Moving far beyond “I forgot to study and the finals are today” and other common scenarios, such dreams can include vivid imagery, intense emotions, fantastic characters, and an uncanny sense of being connected to forces beyond one’s ordinary dreaming mind. In Big Dreams, Kelly Bulkeley provides the first full-scale cognitive scientific analysis of such dreams, putting forth an original theory about their formation, function, and meaning.
Big dreams have played significant roles in religious and cultural history, but because of their infrequent occurrence and fantastical features, they have rarely been studied in light of modern science. We know a great deal about the religious manifestations of big dreams throughout history and around the world, but until now that cross-cultural knowledge has never been integrated with scientific research on their psychological roots in the brain-mind system. In Big Dreams, Bulkeley puts a classic psychological thesis to the scientific test by clarifying and improving it with better data, sharper analysis, and a broader evolutionary framework. He brings evidence from multiple sources, shows patterns of similarity and difference, questions prior assumptions, and provides predictive models that can be applied to new sets of data. The notion of a connection between dreaming and religion has always been intuitively compelling; Big Dreams transforms it into a solid premise of religious studies and brain-mind science.
Combining evidence from religious studies, psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, Big Dreams makes a compelling argument that big dreams are a primal wellspring of religious experience. They represent an innate, neurologically hard-wired capacity of our species that regularly provokes greater self-awareness, creativity, and insight into the existential challenges and spiritual potentials of human life.
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The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life
By Jeremy Taylor
A renowned expert on the subject of dreams, Jeremy Taylor has studied dreams and has worked with thousands of people both individually and in dream groups for more than forty years. His discoveries show us how dreams can be the keys to gaining insight into our past and our conflicts, as well as excursions into the fantastic realm of creative inspiration.
An expanded and updated edition of his classic guide to understanding your dreams — Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, The Wisdom of Your Dreams provides readers with specific, hands-on techniques to help them remember and interpret their dreams, establish a dream group, and learn the universal symbolism of dreaming. Full of case histories and featuring a revised introduction by the author and a new chapter about dreams as clues to the evolution of consciousness, this is a life- changing and potentially world-changing work.
Dream resources offered by Jeremy Taylor.
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Dream Overviews & How To’s
• Sunfellow 2-Page Dream Basics Handout (pdf)
• Simple Dreaming by Amy E. Brucker (pdf)
• Enhance Your Dream Life by Ryan Hurd (pdf)
• Jeremy Taylor’s Dream Toolkit (pdf)
• The Five Star Method of Dream Analysis: One-Page Summary (pdf)
• The Five Star Method: A Relational Dream Work Methodology (pdf)
• The Dream Tribe Library (outstanding collection of dream tutorials and resources)
• Dream School for Newbies by Amy E. Brucker
• Dream Techniques by Amy E.Brucker
• Jeremy Taylor Dream Work Resources
• Jeremy Taylor On Dreams As A Tool For Social Change
• Dreams, Dream Groups & Related Resources
• How To Start A Dream Sharing Circle In Your Town
Edgar Cayce On Dreams: Your Pathway To Personal Guidance And Intuition (pdf)
By Kevin J. Todeschi, M.A.
The Academy For Spiritual And Consciousness Studies, Inc.
Annual Conference 2013 Proceedings
The Porosity of Dreams (pdf)
By Robert L. Van de Castle
EdgeScience
May 2013
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The History of Dreams & Dreaming
• 12 Famous Dreams of Creativity and Inventions (pdf)
• Famous Dreams
• Excerpts from “Healing Dreams” by Marc Ian Barasch
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Additional Information on Dreams & Dreaming
• Dreams, Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife
• Can Dreams Connect You to a Spiritual Reality?
• Managing Cancer Pain with Healing Dreams
• Wanda Burch: Fighting Cancer Using Your Dreams
• Lucid Dreaming Notes & Quotes
• Robert Hoss: Lucid Dreams
• Robert Hoss Website
• Books by Robert Hoss
• Lucid Dreaming Experience Magazine
• International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD)
• Institute for Dream Studies (IDS)
• Sleep & Dream Database
• Charlie Morley & Lucid Dreaming
• 3 Must See TED Talks on Lucid Dreaming
• Dreaming of the Apocalypse: The Ape Man Cometh by Linda Mastrangelo
• NHNE Pulse on Dreams and Dreaming
• NHNE Dreams on Facebook
• NHNE Dreams on Google+
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