All You Wanted To Know About Dreams and Nightmares – Theories, Interpretations, Analysis and What You Can Do to Improve Their Quality - Part 3

Read part 1 here.

Read part 2 here.

More intriguing facts

Towards the end of this “trilogical” article, I will share tips on how you can control your dreams, learn from them, and get inspired by them.  Before that, let me share a few other dream theories – you can decide just how many of them resonate with you. 

The metaphysical school strongly believes that every dream is about the dreamer, of the dreamer and for the dreamer and that every dream reveals the person’s state of mind in the past 24-48 hours.  Dreams thus give the dreamers the ability to understand themselves and their own state of mind in a better fashion.  Unfortunately, most tend to ignore the message, pretend not to understand it, or play the victim instead.  No one, other than your own subconscious mind is responsible for your dreams!

It goes to say that if every dream is about the dreamer, than every person is truly and really you! Every single person in your dream (stranger or relative) represents a part of you.  If the person in your dream is a bully, probably you were being a bully in the past couple of days.  If the person is kind, that’s how you were.  If the person is aggressive, timid, lazy, stubborn, rushed or in panic, look back at your past 24-48 hours.

The language of the subconscious is not words but symbols.  The subconscious uses the images from our working life to communicate metaphorically, analogically or symbolically.  Regular meditators as well as day dreamers experience this state of mind even whilst awake.  For example, in your dream, a car may represent your body to your mind, a transportation that takes the mind from place to place.  If you are unable to accelerate, it may mean that you are lazy or not pushing yourself enough.  If you are going too fast, well it means you are probably burning yourself out.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Let us take this example a little further, so that you learn to interpret your dreams for yourself.  Only you can do it – no other person can!  It takes time and patience, but you can get there.  Upon waking up, try and recollect if the car was as good as new or looked old and damaged.  What would that mean if the car represented your body?  Was it moving or was it at rest (parked)?  Were you driving the car, was someone else driving your car or were you unable to control the car?  Was it going faster or slower than you intended it to (in the dream)?  Introspection can lead to great insights for yourself!

Some more plausible ways to interpret your dreams.  Are you dreams realistic or are they fantastic?  How do you live your day?  Are they short and sweet or long and rambling?  Do they have a logical progression or do you jump randomly from one event to the other?  Are you in a rush doing multiple things anxiously?  Now look back at your day and see if it makes sense to you.  What would you like to change?  And what you prefer to accept?

Your attire reflects how you like to express yourself.  Being naked in a dream could mean that you are being transparent in your interactions with people or you are experiencing your true self without any layers.  If you are not embarrassed, in all likelihood it means that you are very comfortable ‘in your own skin’.  People will see you for what you are.  If you are overdressed, extravagant, loud, boisterous – you do the math!

Take Charge of Your Dreams

It would be incorrect and inappropriate that we know everything about dreams.  We know very little, and we have quite a few theories.  But nothing can replace experience.  So the way to know for yourself is to try things out for yourself and see how it improves the quality of your life (and dreams). 

Here is what you can (and should) do –

1.    Stop reading and listening to standard interpretations of dreams.  As I have explained to you, only you can interpret your own dreams – no one else can, although they can guide you.

2.    Start maintaining a dream diary by your bedside and start recording your dreams today!  Try and ascertain the ones which recur – as a theme, as an event or as a fantasy.  What does this mean to you?

3.    Start interpreting your dreams as much as you can.  There are a few guidelines above, nothing can ever be exhaustive or comprehensive when it comes to interpreting dreams.  Identify the areas you need to work upon, areas of change, areas of contentment.  Identify the different parts of you and decide how you would like to be as a person.

4.    Take time to de-stress and meditate every day, if only for a few minutes.  Practice Nirmiti Nidra^TM.  Work on your affirmations, align behavioural conditioning with thought conditioning. Start observing the changes in your dream patterns, get encouraged to work on yourself some more. 

Look for solutions in your dreams.  In a state of Nidra, ask for solutions to your problem.  Or just before you go to sleep, ask yourself how you can resolve a particular issue.  Don’t forget to record your dreams!  Stay blessed.

The author is the founder of Nirmiti Nidra, one of the easiest effortless techniques to connect with and program your mind in addition to de-stressing at will anytime anyplace.  In addition to being a corporate board member, he is a Certified Leadership Coach, Life Coach and Success Coach.  He is also an NLP Master Practitioner and therapist. Know more about him at www.rajeshseshadri.com

All You Wanted To Know About Dreams and Nightmares – Theories, Interpretations, Analysis and What You Can Do to Improve Their Quality - Part 2

Read part 1 of this article here.

Dreams are a reflection of your emotions

If you are in a constant state of tension and worry during the day, you would most likely get some scary dreams which reflect this emotion.  Desires and emotions which are suppressed also find their way into dreams.  There is also a community that believes that events that cannot possibly materialize into your current life situation often find a way to channelize themselves in your dreams. 

The positive side of this is that when you are fretting and fuming over a problem which you cannot resolve, plausible solutions are offered by your subconscious mind through dreams.  You can try this for yourself – before you sleep, ask yourself HOW you can resolve a particular problem or situation.  There are so many people who will vouch to the fact that they were inspired when they were asleep and found solutions as a result of dreaming.

 

Visions are rare, but occasionally your current state of the mind may lead your subconscious mind to portray certain events before they actually happen.  This gives you a sense of déjà vu.  Although it is quite rare, almost all of you reading this article would have experienced a sense of déjà vu at least once in your lifetime.  Time travel and Astral travel occur in dreams more frequently than you think, but it is not always that you remember them. 

By the way, you must know that toddlers do not dream about themselves until around the age of 3.  From then until the age of 8, they have more nightmares than adults do, as the mind is busy venting the unwanted stuff.  I do not have data to prove this, but think that it is more likely that children in these modern times have more nightmares than children of the earlier generation.  And a peculiar fact that I happened to read is that you cannot dream whilst you are snoring.  Is that good news?

Bewildering facts about dreams

As I have mentioned before in other articles on this blog, time gets distorted in the subconscious mind or in a hypnotic state.  You would therefore hardly be able to keep track of time in your dreams.  Lucid dreamers report that the hands on a clock do not appear to move.  Each time you look at a clock in your dream, it will tell a different time. 

Likewise, reading in dreams is extremely rare.  Since dreams are either processing, predicting or venting, books have an extremely limited role to play.  Do comment below if you are one of those who has been reading a book or an article in a dream. 

Surf the internet and you will find that there is a large batch of people who engage in lucid dreaming or conscious dreaming.  Through various techniques, these people learn to assume control of their dreams – awaken to consciousness in their dream state – which enables them to fly, pass through walls or go back in time.

You may have dismissed precognitive dreams, but it is apparently documented and on record that Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his assassination, many victims of catastrophes had dreams forewarning them, and (if I remember the number correctly), around 20 people had precognitive dreams of the Titanic catastrophe.

Contrary to what is generally believed, our brains show more activity during dreams (more areas light up) than during the normal waking state. This aligns well with the fact that our subconscious is more powerful and capable of doing much more than our conscious mind.

The faces of people you see in your dreams are typically only those you have already seen in your real life, somewhere, sometime, someplace.  The face you see in your dreams is always familiar to you (in your dream) and never a stranger.  However, you may be unable to recollect (upon waking up) as to where and when you have seen that person.  Remember, dreams are metaphorical and the person may have nothing to do with the situation, but represents a time or place or event symbolically.

Research also reveals that dreams generally tend to be more negative than positive.  No prizes for guessing that if a preponderance of the thoughts that we have during the day are negative, do you expect your dreams to be otherwise.  If you are constantly worried and multi-tasking, your dreams will probably tend to reflect the same panic and anxiety. The most common emotions experienced are apparently fear, anxiety, anger, helplessness and sadness.

You may be surprised to learn that dreams have inspired some of the greatest inventions and discoveries.  Examples are Google, AC generator by Tesla, the sewing machine, DNA’s double helix spiral form, etc. Creative breakthroughs have also been inspired by dreams.  James Cameron was fighting a 102-degree fever when a vision of a robot dragging itself along the floor with a knife came to him in his sleep – this eventually found a place in the ‘Terminator’. Apparently Cameron brainstorms best in a dream state: it’s how he thought of Avatar as well.

As many as 12% of the populace only dream in black and white.

Continued.. part 3

The author is the founder of Nirmiti Nidra, one of the easiest effortless techniques to connect with and program your mind in addition to de-stressing at will anytime anyplace.  In addition to being a corporate board member, he is a Certified Leadership Coach, Life Coach and Success Coach.  He is also an NLP Master Practitioner and therapist. Know more about him at www.rajeshseshadri.com

All You Wanted To Know About Dreams and Nightmares – Theories, Interpretations, Analysis and What You Can Do to Improve Their Quality - Part 1

It is not easy to decide where to begin, especially on this subject.  In every workshop that I have conducted, a percentage of the participants always have questions about dreams and their need to interpret them.  There are so many theories, explanations and wild guesses that I have come across over the years. 

This article is intended to tell you all that you need to know and being a fairly lengthy one is posted in three parts. 

In order to understand our dreams, we must understand the issues that plague us during the day. “We talk to ourselves all day long while awake. That doesn't change when we sleep,” says Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst and author of, “Dream On It, Unlock Your Dreams Change Your Life”. She advises, “the better conversation you have with yourself while awake will ensure better dreams at night.” 

If you spend your entire day in a state of panic, anxiety, tyranny of the urgent, worry, fear, anger and aggression, it is almost equally likely that your dreams turn into nightmares.  Before we get down to how you can manage it yourself, this fairly lengthy article intends to tell you more about the subject itself. 

Before we proceed, there are five important things you ought to remember at all times –

1.    No one can interpret your dreams, only you can do for yourself.

2.    It is in your hands to sleep well and improve the quality of your dreams – no one can do it for you.

3.    The quality of your dreams is a reflection of the quality of your day.

4.    The subconscious is always awake, whereas your conscious mind is asleep during dreams.  Certain parts of the brain become dormant, whilst others become highly active during the dream state.

5.    The language of the subconscious is metaphorical – thus you are thinking in pictures, symbols and emotions and not in literal terms or with words, logic and reality as we know it may not have a place in dreams.

Let us take the classic example of a snake that appears in one’s dream.  For someone who is scared of snakes or hates them, this dream has a completely different interpretation as compared to someone who is a devotee of Lord Nagaraja who feels blessed.  If the quality of dreams depend upon the quality of your day as aforesaid, who else can improve upon their quality but you?  It is in your hands – not playing victim to circumstances and events.  Likewise, it is in your hands to be aware of your thoughts and emotions throughout the day – the mindless chatter that goes on incessantly.  It is in your hands to take control of your mind, slowly but diligently. 

Among all the theories that abound, let me share a few that apparently make the most sense and have also been researched or reported by lucid dreamers.  You may also wish to read more about lucid dreaming or other fascinating facts about dreams.

Stages of dreams

Contemporary hypnosis research suggests that even as we move from a conscious state to a subconscious state during sleep, we pass through a natural hypnotic state as the mind goes into an alpha state upto theta and sometimes even upto delta.  All of this is explained in detail at the Nirmiti Nidra workshop.  In a state of sleep, we pass through three dream stages, viz., processing dreams, predictive dreams and venting dreams. Typically, a dream analyst would equally divide the total hours of sleep into these three stages.

The Sub-conscious mind is a repository of all our experiences and memories of past, present and future lifetimes.  Soon after you fall asleep, the mind is processing information that wasn’t processed during the day, classifying what stays and what is going to be rejected. All the inputs our mind has absorbed ever since the last sleep we had or those that haven’t been processed yet due to lack of sleep too are processed by the critical mind during this part of the sleep.

Based on previous experiences and certain actions that have been taken or determined, the mind predicts future events from available information.  During predictive dreams, either our sub-conscious mind or our higher self is purportedly guiding us about events about to happen next, based on events which have already happened and decisions taken.

During the third and last stage of sleep, we experience Venting dreams. These can oftentimes be very confusing, scary and frightening dreams and we invariably wake up panting or disturbed when we view these as nightmares. Most such dreams are a natural way for our mind to release an overload of negative emotions like fears, traumas, anger, guilt, etc. accumulated during the day or from the sub-conscious.  It is usually early in the morning just before you wake up and it is believed that quite often the symbolic content is getting rid of information and messages that are of no importance in the future. 

Continued... part 2

The author is the founder of Nirmiti Nidra, one of the easiest effortless techniques to connect with and program your mind in addition to de-stressing at will anytime anyplace.  In addition to being a corporate board member, he is a Certified Leadership Coach, Life Coach and Success Coach.  He is also an NLP Master Practitioner and therapist. Know more about him at www.rajeshseshadri.com

Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

For those who have attended the workshop, Nirmiti Nidra^TM you know that we blend NLP, meditation, mindfulness and affirmations into a simple 10 minute practice each day.  You also know that any practice is meant to be effortless and easy which guarantees continuity as long as one is dedicated.  It should be an interesting, fun exercise that anyone can do and you will greatly enjoy it and benefit from it. Meditation or its variations is not a chore; it is an enjoyable practice.

Yet, we have to get out of the way and let the practice be the practice.  It is not about learning a new skill, it is about enjoying the practice.  This is one of the reasons that dependence on any external person or object, be it even music, should preferably be avoided – the practice alone matters.  Dependency means that you will create an excuse for non-practice, should that person or object not exist.  Unless and until you learn to enjoy the practice by itself, for itself, the purpose is lost.

In this video, Bodhin (a Sōtō/Rinzai Zen roshi and Abbot of the Rochester Zen Center (RZC)) weaves metaphor and allegory together to explain the importance of meditation. He will deliver several tangible benefits of meditation that would go unrealized without personal experience. The only way to know is to experience it for yourself.

Bodhin says that what you learn through meditation is to direct your attention and you have a choice as to where you wish to direct your attention.  We have the ability to use our mind like a flashlight and this has enormous consequences.  The great Spanish philosopher and writer, Jose Ortega y Gasset said “tell me what to pay attention and I'll tell you who you are”. The quality of our life is not determined so much by what we do but instead how we use our mind to direct our attention and as a corollary, how we respond to various situations.

Nirmiti Nidra^TM  makes it easy and effortless because of the mind programming at the workshop.  As you practice over a month, you find it easier to direct your attention, easier to de-focus from stray random thoughts and easier to determine a response for situations that you encounter.  See this video.