Looking for a low-cost path to self-knowledge? A way to mine your subconscious for clues to your motivations, desires and fears?
No need to undertake years of therapy or analysis. Just look to your dreams.
"You can ignore your dreams, which most people do, but you are really doing yourself a disservice,'' said Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, a dream analyst in Nashville, Tennessee, and the author of So, What Did You Dream Last Night? "By ignoring your dreams, you're letting red flags pass you by, letting great ideas and inspirations pass you by. You are not tapping into your full potential.''
While there are sleep researchers who claim that dreams are nothing more than random nerve impulses in the brain, others believe dreams are more directly related to our moods and emotions and can serve as tools to self-understanding.
'Dream Doctor'
Charles Lambert McPhee, who has a syndicated radio show, 'The Dream Doctor', said dreams can help people in practical ways, providing them with insight into romantic and family relationships, career advancement and self-improvement.
"People have no idea whether or not dreams mean anything,'' said McPhee. "They associate dreams with astrology and tarot cards and horoscopes. That's the disaster portion of what's happened in the field.
''What I'm working on every night on the show is to reposition the understanding of dreams. ... As a rule, no dream is random. There is always a relationship to what is going on in the dreamer's life."
Before we get into what dreams mean, however, let's look at a few facts about dreams.
Dreams occur during the REM (rapid eye movement) cycles of sleep each night. For adults, that means about every 90 minutes. The first period of REM sleep may be short, five to 10 minutes, followed by progressively longer stretches, eventually reaching an hour or more in the fourth or fifth period.
When people are dreaming, brain scans show a lot of activity. "The brain is online during dreams. The experiences you have during the day are codified and associated during dream sleep," said Edward O'Malley, director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Norwalk Hospital in Connecticut. "If people are awakened from this state, they are ready to go," he said, their alertness improved by their dreaming.
As for the contents of a dream, O'Malley said, "The coinage of the realm has to do with emotions."
Here are some more basics about dreams:
Short of dreams? You can train yourself to dream more and recall your dreams more vividly, experts say. When you go to bed, remind yourself that you want to recall your dreams. When you wake, don't jump out of bed. Instead, lie there in half-sleep, and try to recall what you were dreaming about. In that state, you'll have a much better chance at recalling more of the dream. Then write it down immediately. If you wait until later to try to recall it, you'll often forget much or most of the dream.
Dream incubation: Yes, you can play a role in what you dream. When you're going to sleep, tell yourself what you want to dream about, whether it's a solution to a problem or simply a pleasant experience. This simple step often results in useful dreams.
Getting rid of bad dreams: Loewenberg suggests several ways to do this. If the dreamer is a child, Loewenberg advises having the child try to remember details of the dream. An older child can write out the description. A younger one can draw a picture. Then change the story. With older children, they can imagine a superhero coming to the rescue and beating up the scary monster. A younger child might turn the horns on a monster into candy canes or other benign images.
Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
