Dream Visions

Nightmares

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Children are especially likely to have nightmares. In fact, nightmares are common in children. Nightmares typically start at around age 3 years old and continue till about age 7 or 8.

People with anxiety disorder might also experience what experts call night terrors. These are actually panic attacks that occur in sleep. It is especially difficult to remember these types of dreams since they conjure up terrifying images that we would just as soon forget.

In poetic myth, the Night Mare is a “small nettlesome mare, not more than thirteen hands high, of the breed familiar with the Elgin marbles: cream-colored, clean-limbed, with a long head, bluish eye, flowing mane and tail.”

Mares’ nests, “when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in rock-clefts or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully chosen twigs lined with white horse-hair and the plumage of prophetic birds and littered with the jaw-bones and entrails of poets.” Thus, in a pagan world of myth and blood sacrifice, the Nightmare was a cruel, fearful creature.

Our modern word nightmare derives from the Middle English nihtmare (from niht, night, and mare, demon), an evil spirit believed to haunt and suffocate sleeping people. And so, in today’s world, when we speak of a nightmare we mean a frightening dream accompanied by a sensation of oppression and helplessness.

The blood-thirsty aspect of the mythic Nightmare, provides a clue about nightmares in general. In psychodynamic terms nightmares are graphic portrayals of raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and rage that have not been incorporated into the conscious psyche. Thus we tend to encounter these “ugly” aspects of our unconscious lives as terrifying dream images in whose presence we feel completely helpless. Continue reading Nightmares…

Sigmund Freud on Dreams, Part 3

Without the powerful personal experience of working with his own dreams, during which his forgotten or unexpected emotions and fantasies welled up from his unconscious, Freud could not have so passionately believed in his theories of dreams and the unconscious.

As in many of his theories, Freud associated dreams with sex. Fundamental to his view of dreams was the belief that the purpose of dreams is to allow us to satisfy in our fantasies the instinctual urges that society considers unacceptable, such as certain sexual practices. That was partly why he experienced such the enormous opposition and criticism from scientists and the public alike.

When Freud was young, only men were thought to have powerful sexual urges. When Freud showed that repressed but obvious sexual desires were equally at work in women this created a social uproar. Perhaps his second finding in regard to sexuality surprised even him.

During Freud’s analysis of women patients, sexual advance or assault by the woman’s father was often revealed. Freud struggled with this, wondering whether the assault was memory of an actual event, or a psychic reproduction of it. He eventually came to the conclusion that hysterical and neurotic behavior was often due to the trauma caused by an early sexual assault by the parent.

Where there was not evidence of physical assault, Freud felt that the neurosis was due to sexual conflict or a trauma caused by some other event. That conflict was often manifested through dreams. That led to his theories being rejected by university colleagues, fellow doctors, and even by patients.

Sigmund Freud on Dreams, Part 1

Sigmund Freud actually called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious.” That statement will probably remain true in psychology forever.

Freud’s classic book, The Interpretation of Dreams, includes some of his finest work. Freud wrote that every dream is a wish fulfillment. He continued to believe that theory to the end, even though he gave up his initial idea that all dreams have a sexual content.

For Freud, the concept of wish fulfillment did not necessarily mean that the dream indicated that the dreamer was seeking pleasure. He said that the dreamer could just as well have a wish to be punished. Nevertheless, this idea of a “secret” wish being masked by a dream remains central to classical Freudian psychoanalysis.

Freud said,

“Dreams are not comparable to the spontaneous sounds made by a musical instrument struck rather by some external force than by the hand of a performer; they are not meaningless, not absurd, they do not imply that one portion of our stockpile of ideas sleeps while another begins to awaken. Dreams are a completely valid psychological phenomenon, specifically the fulfillment of wishes. They can be classified in the continuity of comprehensible waking mental states; they are constructed through highly complicated intellectual activity.”

After Freud noticed how allowing his patients to freely associate ideas with whatever came to mind, he began to seriously explore what he called spontaneous abreaction. Freud himself suffered bouts of deep anxiety, and it was partly this that led him to explore the connection between association of ideas and dreams.

In 1897 Freud wrote this to his friend, Wilhelm Fliess:

“No matter what I start with, I always find myself back again with the neuroses and the psychical apparatus. Inside me there is a seething ferment, and I am only waiting for the next surge forward. I have felt impelled to start writing about dreams, with which I feel on firm ground.”

Dreaming Beyond Death | BYBS

Dreaming Beyond Death: A Guide to Pre-Death Dreams and Visions is a book about the dreams that some patients have spontaneously that comfort them throughout the process of dying, and how to counsel them. It was written by the Rev. Patricia Bulkley and Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D.

Patricia Bulkley is a counsellor who works with people who are dying. Kelly Bulkeley is a dream researcher. They came together to write a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact book to help patients like Patricia’s and those who care for them.

Recently I reviewed another book on essentially the same topic, The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead, by Robert Moss, whose books I talk about a lot here. If you have read some of those reviews, you know that I love Moss’s books and his ideas.

You may also have decided that his books are probably a bit out there for materialists who have no particular belief or interest in dreams. Moss’s books are extremely readable, but they also tend to be long. While they are easy and fun to read, they are also somewhat mystical. 

Dreaming Beyond Death is a short, simple book, written for those who do not believe in dreams but do want to help others make a peaceful transition. This is a book you can give to a healthcare professional or a person with a conservative, orthodox belief system. The book does not assume that the reader believes in dreams or anything mystical. And for those who are not dream believers that is a very good thing.

This book also tells vivid stories of dreams that have brought peace and reassurance to dying people. It provides guidance for helping people understand and accept their dreams. And it does all that in a simple, readable way.

Dreaming Beyond Death is a great book to give as a gift, knowing that almost anyone can benefit from it. They do not have to believe in anything metaphysical at all. I wish I had had it to use in comforting a friend who was dying of cancer a few years ago. 

So keep it in mind. You might like to read it yourself.

And it could be a wonderful caring gift for someone who needs it. In fact, it would be a great blessing.

Dream Books and Synchronicity | BYBS

Lately I keep finding so many great books on dreams that I cannot keep up. I read part of one and then part of another. Then yet another great dream book turns up…

After reading several of Robert Moss’s books on dreamwork, I seem to understand much more of what the various dream experts are saying. And I understand more of other books, such as those of R.J. Stewart. While not about dreams, they do relate closely to Robert Moss’s active dreaming practices. Somehow it all seems to be coming together. 

Today in a site on Mandalas I found a page of great quotes from Carl Jung on dreams. Dream information keeps turning up all over the place. Carl Jung would call that synchronicity.

The wealth of knowledge and of well-written books on dreamwork available today is a real blessing. Watch for more dream book reviews soon on this blog. 

And in closing, here is a wonderful quote from Carl Jung on dreams:

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends. For all ego-consciousness is isolated; because it separates and discriminates, it knows only particulars, and it sees only those that can be related to the ego. Its essence is limitation, even though it reach to the farthest nebulae among the stars. All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral.

“The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man” (1933). In CW 10: Civilization in Transition. pg. 304

Dreaming with the Departed | BYBS

The Dreamer's Book of the Dead

Dream expert Robert Moss has written yet another ground-breaking book, The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead: A Soul Traveler’s Guide to Death, Dying, and the Other Side. It’s a big book, and I just started reading it. So you can be sure I will be writing more about it later. Meanwhile, just in case you have some holiday gift cash burning a hole in your pocket, I wanted to tell you about it. 

If you have read any of the Robert Moss books on dreams (or if you have been reading this blog), you know that he uses innovated techniques and is breaking new ground (in our culture) in the practical and spiritual uses of dreaming.

Some Native Americans, Tibetans, Indonesians, and others have been masters of dreamwork for centuries. But Europeans and Americans have for the most part considered dreams to be meaningless, if not downright scary. Robert Moss and others are changing that as they teach us amazing and effective ancient ways of working with dreams.

The point of this book is that our departed loved ones, friends, and spiritual teachers often appear to us in dreams with important messages, but we don’t always pay attention. Moss teaches us to heed such messages. He also teaches us to take the initiative to contact the departed in dreams.

One of the main reasons to contact departed loved ones, friends, even enemies, is closure. Sometimes we need to apologize or receive apologies to heal old wounds. Sometimes we just need the reassurance that they are still in existence, even though no longer living.

Moss says that sometimes people who have died cannot rest easy until they deliver information or make peace with the living. It may be practical, like the whereabouts of missing papers or valuables, or it may simply be guidance on handling business, family or spiritual problems.

If all this sounds morbid, it really isn’t. You can also contact spiritual teachers and others who have gone before. You can ask them for advice or find out valuable information about the past or the present. 

There is a lot of information in this book on various dream practices. As always there are wonderful stories of real people and experiences, as only Robert Moss can tell them. The book covers a wealth of information on dreams and dreamwork.

So you might want to take a look at The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead: A Soul Traveler’s Guide to Death, Dying, and the Other Sided by Robert Moss. You will find it on Amazon. I know, because that’s where I got it.

My family (on both sides) has always been blessed with dreams that contain messages from departed relatives. We have stories of dramatic dreams conveying important information going back over 100 years that I know of. Probably there were others that we no longer remember. Such dreams can be helpful in a practical way, but mainly they are comforting. 

Dreams that bring help and knowledge from departed family members are a blessing that I like to remember, especially at this family-intensive time of year. How about you?

The Dream Book You Write Yourself | BYBS

The best book on interpreting dreams is the one you write yourself. Oh yeah, I’m talking about recording your dreams again. When you read back over dreams from past months and years, you can start to see patterns, and your dreams start to make more sense to you. The meanings start to be more clear.

One of the blessings of having a weekly metaphysical discussion group is that people remind you of things you once knew but have forgotten. And they give you brand new ideas from their own experience, too.

This week the topic was magical journals, which are simply records of everything magical or metaphysical that you do, what the conditions were at the time, and any results that you know of.

Some people are intimidated by the idea of journaling. They think of it as having to write every single day, and having to write formally and well. So I brought a couple of books on art journaling to show that journals can be anything you want them to be.

I recommended getting a sketchbook or notebook to carry everywhere and write down whatever you want to remember, including dreams. I brought a few of my own messy sketchbooks as examples. 

I also repeated what dream expert and author Robert Moss says, that if you take time to jot down whatever dream memories you have during the day, you can remember whole dreams bit by bit. And I stressed that the book you take everywhere is the book you have with you when you have a few moments and something to write.

Dave, who is a computer guy as well as a metaphysician, does his journaling on line. That’s a great idea if you are at the computer all the time.

We all talked about recording dreams and other events in magical journals, and we had a great time. People seemed to like the idea of combining dream journaling with other kinds of journaling, lecture notes, or whatever, and always being prepared to capture ideas and memories.

Becky had some great ideas keeping dream records and other topics separated in the same book.

Karen decided that all journals are magical journals because they are filled with thought-forms of ours that can become real. Like dreams that come true. Dreams as magical thought-forms. As though writing them down makes dreams more real.

What Karen said reminds me of a saying that was handed down in my family: “Tell a dream before breakfast, and it will come true.” We were always careful not to tell bad dreams till after we had eaten.

It is not the same as writing dreams down, I know. But telling about dreams does make them seem more real. Eating first allowed time for scary dreams to fade a little—to seem less real (and less scary) to us. Having friends or family to share your ideas and dreams with? What a blessing!

But remember, the very best dream book is still the one you write yourself.

More on Dreaming Phantom Bells | Blog Your Blessings

In the original post on being awakened by phantom doorbell sounds, I mentioned that I have also experienced being awakened by the sound of a telephone ringing, but not for some years. I was surprised to hear from comments on this blog that lots of you have had the same phantom doorbell experience.

I think there are at least a couple of reasons why people are not awakened by phantom telephone ringing these days. One is that in the past 20 years or so we have become used to answering machines and voice mail, so we are not the slaves to the telephone that we used to be. Instead, we rush to answer the door.

Also, with the prevalence of ringtone options on mobile phones, the sound of a ringing phone is no longer distinctive. The sound a mobile phone makes can be anything from a baby’s giggle to a hiphop hit. Phones no longer literally ring. In fact, some make no sound at all to announce a call; they just vibrate.

Recently, in a book called Magical Uses of Thought Forms, by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and J.H. Brennan, I ran across the statement that people often hear a bell or ringing sound that is their own inner self trying to get their attention. It is a call to listen to their own inner voice and to pay more attention to spiritual messages.

Wow! Just like our dreams, which are our inner self trying to communicate with us through sensations, stories, images, and sounds. The phantom doorbell may be spiritual wake-up call, a message from the inner us (our spirit) to the outer us (our conscious mind) to wake up to our own inner life.

In other words a helpful message from us to ourselves, a dream that calls attention to what is really important: our spiritual life, “waking up”. I would call that a blessing. How about you?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…