Dream Visions

Understanding the Dreams You Dream Revised and Expanded

God frequently talks through dreams. The Bible reveals that in the past, dreams were the most common way God talked to His people. The people in the Bible communicated with God through prayer, and He answered them in dreams. God does not change, neither has the way He communicates with His children. Unlike the early Christians, today’s believers often treat dreams like junk mail. In doing so, they often throw away the very answers they asked for when they prayed for counsel and guidance. Understanding the Dreams You Dream is written from a Christian perspective to help Christians understand the symbolic language of dreams. Deliberately written without technical jargon, this book can be easily understand and used by everyone. It is the only complete, one-volume Christian reference book for interpreting dreams on the market today.

Read More

The Interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text

What are the most common dreams and why do we have them? What does a dream about death mean? What do dreams of swimming, failing, or flying symbolize?First published by Sigmund Freud in 1899, The Interpretation of Dreams considers why we dream and what it means in the larger picture of our psychological lives. Delving into theories of manifest and latent dream content, the special language of dreams, dreams as wish fulfillments, the significance of childhood experiences, and much more, Freud, widely considered the “father of psychoanalysis,” thoroughly and thoughtfully examines dream psychology. Encompassing dozens of case histories and detailed analyses of actual dreams, this landmark text presents Freud’s legendary work as a tool for comprehending our sleeping experiences.Renowned for translating Freud’s German writings into English, James Strachey—with the assistance of Anna Freud—first published this edition in 1953. Incorporating all textual alterations made by Freud over

Read More

Dreams of Joy

In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful novel yet, she returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages

Read More

Dreams of Joy: A Novel

In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful novel yet, she returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages

Read More

The Complete Dream Book, 2nd edition: Discover What Your Dreams Reveal about You and Your Life

The average person will dream over 150,000 dreams in a lifetime--each one a complex web of imagery and deeper meaning. The Complete Dream Book uses the interpretation of 28,000 actual dreams from contemporary dreamers, just like you, to help you access the substance and meaning of your own dreams.Discover:–Who’s who in your dreams–Which dreams recur during certain life stages--The true meaning behind your nightmares--Why you have certain dreams again and again–How to tell if a dream is worth interpreting--and if you’ve done it correctly–The phenomenon of precognitive dreamsThe Complete Dream Book is the only dream interpretation book based on concrete data about real people’s dreams and how the real events in their lives relate to their nighttime visions.

Read More

Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted, or What’s in a Dream; A Scientific and Practical Exposition

The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Dreams; Dream interpretation; Symbolism (Psychology); Dreams; Psychology / General; Self-Help / Dreams; Self-Help / General; Body, Mind & Spirit / Parapsychology / General Body, Mind & Spirit / Dreams; Self-Help / Dreams;

Read More

Dream Analysis – Dreaming True for Soul Mastery

I am going to discuss ways to record, analyze and dissect your dreams. Many of you are probably keeping a dream journal already. If not, then this advice will help you understand why it’s important and how to go about it. If you are keeping a journal, then here’s a much easier way to do this.

In the online dictionary, the word dissection is defined as the ‘process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the functions and relationships of its components.’ Look up the word and you will also see it is synonymous with anatomize as well. Take a quick look at that definition too.

Both of these words describe very well the reasons we need to track and record our dreams. We are supposed to dissect and analyze them. It allows us to gain mastery of our parts. All of them. We are meant to be masters of our own fates and our souls.

Admit it. Haven’t you always wanted to keep one of those fancy ultra suede covered dream journals, written down in perfect lettering? The kind you find in the book stores? Now you can! It just takes a method. There is always a method or trick. Always.

Besides, you’ll come to think of yourself and how you work your own healing methods as most fine. How grand to know you have your dreams analyzed written down and dissected over the years. How grand you will feel knowing you’ve leaped mountains of issues and found rainbows to keep because you can work with your dreams. Very powerful stuff.

Continue reading Dream Analysis – Dreaming True for Soul Mastery…

Why Do We Dream?

Why Do We Dream? There are many theories.

Scientists say that the brain receives stimuli from many different sources all day long. There are far too many stimuli for it to process, so the mind prioritizes the stimuli and makes you aware of those that need immediate attention (the crying baby, the out-of-control car, your boss’s request), so that you can react appropriately. The stimuli that you are not consciously aware of are alos noted by the brain, but are stored in the brain at a subconscious level (the drip of a water faucet, the remark by a coworker at the coffee machine while you were on the telephone.)

Meanwhile, you feel emotions all day. Some you acknowledge and act on (as when you automatically say thank you and smile when you are complimented). Some you repress or do not allow yourself to act on. For example, you don’t punch your boss in the nose when he tells you the report you worked on for a week is no longer needed.)

Some traumatic experiences may be so emotionally painful that you refuse to experience them at the time. Instead you send them deep into your subconscious (repression.)

In addition to processing all these emotions and stimuli the brain every day, your brain also keeps your body functioning. It remembers names and faces. It enables you to talk and walk and chew gum (sometimes all at the same time). And it controls or enables many other activities that you take for granted. You must admit — that’s a lot to do. 

At night, when your body must rest, your mind continues working.  When it is no longer being used to type letters and do the grocery shopping, the brain processes all of those subconscious stimuli and emotions (while still maintaining body temperature and breathing, and so on). Scientists say that is why we dream. 

Only you are not awake to receive the signals at a conscious level. You cannot hear or see or touch (at a conscious level) while you are sleeping. The brain must resort to other means to get the signals through to your conscious mind. Supposedly that is why we dream the way we do.

The mind uses everything at its disposal (which is everything it has ever been exposed to) to get the message across. Dreaming is the minds way of processing all of the stimuli and emotions it has received during the day or repressed over time, so that you can act on them.

All in all, it’s a pretty neat system. But unless you are remembering and making sense of your dreams, you are missing countless opportunities to learn about yourself and experience life to its fullest.

Even though we’ve mentioned it before, it is important enough to repeat: Why should you try and remember your dreams? Because they contain important messages from your won subconscious mind to yourself. Dreams can tell you important things that your waking mind may have overlooked.

Respect your dreams as the tremendous resource for knowledge that they are. And pay attention. You may learn something incredibly valuable from your own dreams.

Nightmares

Image via Wikipedia

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.