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