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Hi Pero- Since your log is so visible now I decided to look at it generally out of curiosity. I notice you have a lot of dreams and I wonder if you would like a very handy and accurate tool to use to interpret them. It will take a little while to write it out so let me know if you would like to have it. It’s from a book called Creative Dreaming by Patricia Garfield. -A
Hi Alexander
I`d love that. Also, if you have your own opinion on my dreams, you are welcome to share. I think that dreams can offer some valuable insights, that`s why I finaly decided to write them down. Though I think they can also represent just something I watched, read, heard or thought about the previous day.
I just have to start writing them down as soon as I wake up, beacause I sometimes forget them otherwise.Thanks,
Peteri’m gonna check out that book too.
it seems to me, though, that one would need to know a little bit about you and your life experiences to really be able to advise you on your dreams and their significance. i could be very wrong on that, but i know that my dreams often relate to what has been going on in my day, in my mind,. . . but of course, there are those where you just have to wonder where in the world that came from.“it seems to me, though, that one would need to know a little bit about you and your life experiences to really be able to advise you on your dreams and their significance. i could be very wrong on that, but i know that my dreams often relate to what has been going on in my day, in my mind”
You are very right about that, TS. While it certainly is possible for an intuitive person to coach someone with dream interpretation, it is ultimately a very personal thing to interpret one’s dreams. The method I outline next does that beautifully.
This method was created (as far as I know) in the 70s by Patricia Garfield who wrote Creative Dreaming. She is/was an amazing dreaming master. This technique is totally simple and elegant, and after a few practice sessions with it you’ll have it down.
Writing your dreams down as soon as you wake from them is almost essential to get them freshly and completely. It’s good to have a journal and pen right there next to your bed.
Write the dream down in its entirety as fast as you can not paying attention to anything else so that you hold the dream state clearly as you transcribe it.
Note: A long time ago I came across a book in a library that was written by about a dozen different famous authors, one of whom was Steven King. The book was about how to write. Each author took a chapter and revealed his/her secrets. King’s secret was one of the most useful tools I know. He said that when you start writing you should write the whole thing down all at once as fast as you can and don’t go back to make any changes until it’s all over. Don’t care about spelling or punctuation or anything. Just get the whole thing down right away. That way you keep the thread and the power of the thing. I apply this to all kinds of things, dream journaling included.
Write out the whole dream. Even if you think you can’t remember it all, pieces will come to you as you write, so just concentrate on the feeling of being in the dream.
When you’ve got it all down, go back to the beginning and UNDERLINE whatever words (or phrases) stand out to you; whatever has emotional importance. You must be very intuitive about this and not cerebral or you’ll get lost.
On a separate piece of paper write down all those words one at a time two or three lines apart from each other.
Then take them one at a time and write next to each one whatever associations come to mind when you think of them. Write two or three associations for each.
Ex: You may have underlined the word “blood”. So you would write:
blood- life, water, earthy substance
When you’ve written out all the associations for all the words then pick one of the associations for each word (the one you feel strongest about at the time) and place it into the dream you wrote down instead of the word that was the dream symbol. So the word “blood” might have been in the sentence: “I was covered in blood.” The new sentence then could read: “I was covered in life.”
Fill in the whole dream with the associations in place of the original words and you will have a remarkable (and often shocking) translation of dream imagery into understandable terms.
Got it?
Happy Dreaming,
AlexanderThanks, cool stuff. I just have to start writing dreams down as I wake up. Can this be done for older dreams? Or does it have to be done “immediately”?
i will definitely give this a go also. i wish i had read it yesterday instead of today. i really remembered a lot about my dreams last night (started keeping my journal on the corner of my bed or under my pillow so i can grab it whenever i wake up).
wouldn’t it change things when you start getting into lucid dreaming?I have used it successfully for older dreams too but I feel that there is something missing then. I think it’s “the moment.” See what works for you.
“wouldn’t it change things when you start getting into lucid dreaming?”
Yes!
Any attention you put on your dreams, like writing them down and interpreting them, will change how you dream. You can give yourself suggestions/directions as you go into sleep that will change things around for you. Being lucid in this 3-d waking reality will affect how lucid you can be in dreams and visa-versa.
The book outlines many different aboriginal methods for dreaming as a tool for enhancing one’s life. All cultures have dreaming techniques that are considered very important in one’s development. Michael offers a Daoist dreaming technique set of tapes.
As with all systems, there is a yin/passive way to approach it and a yang/active way. You can give yourself specific suggestions for what you want to accomplish in your dreams or you can simply say something to yourself like: “Take me where I need to go, show me what I need to know” and leave it up to the lifeforce.
I like to use a body centered approach. based on the book “Let your Body Interpret your Dreams” by Eugene Gendlin. I also play with some of Arnold Mindel’s approach e.g. if the dream (image or person animal ect..) were in your body where would it be? How would it feel? Sound? ect… then you can interact in the body -inner smile, fusion, kan & li . So I will usally review the dream and start playing with the images & characters in my body & shifting in and out of meditaion & dream work. To me shifting the relationship with the dream is more important than interpretation. Thanks for tolerating my rambling.
Thanks and Smiles to you all.
Greg.Hi Greg,
“I will usally review the dream and start playing with the images & characters in my body & shifting in and out of meditaion & dream work. To me shifting the relationship with the dream is more important than interpretation.”
Why would you try to shift the relationship until you understood what it is telling you? -A
Hi Alexander,
Sorry for the delay I’ve been on the road lately and haven’t been online much. I should have been a little clearer in my earlier post. The “Let your Body Interpret your Dreams” book uses a method called Focusing to help the head brain communicate with the belly brain, and does give you a sense of the meaning. It is however felt in the body not just in the head. Also, often understanding doesn’t help much. For instance, if I dream about a co-worker, and the interpretation basically says that I don’t like this person and we don’t get along- all that has happened is a confirmation of the current situation. But Gendlen has a technique called getting a growth step. Holding the felt sense of the dream and its meaning, you ask what is needed to change the situation and a new resourceful feeling will come up. The dream in the body will shift and so hopefully will the life situation. That is a small example of what I mean by shifting the relationship.
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