Dreams & Dreamwork

One way you can tap into your subconscious is by monitoring your dreams or keeping a dream diary. If you struggle to remember your dreams, write them down. The more you document your dreams once you've woken up, the easier it will get to recall your dreams in general. A good way to start this is journey is by making a dream journal.

You can meditate each night before you go to bed to wind down and calm your mind. Then, in the morning, potentially whilst you're still in bed, simply make a few notes on a piece of paper or your phone or iPad of everything you can remember from your dreams last night.

I have always had vivid dreams and nightmares since being a young child. But, if you're one of those people who "doesn't dream" or "can't recall your dreams" you just need to shift your focus.

The average person can have between three to five dreams a night. You might not be able to recall them all, however with practise you will be able to reveal more. As I'm writing this article, I can still remember my dream from this morning. There was a lesbian sex dream which turned into me saving a lorry load of neglected sheep. Unfortunately, I couldn't save all of the sheep and some had passed away. It was a pretty horrible dream as there was flies and dead sheep carcasses, however upon waking up my brain gave the phrase "Sheep to the Slaughter".

Now on a logical level, I could explore what these situations mean to myself on a day-to-day basis, and then cross references to start putting the pieces together. On the other hand, a quick google search could give me some interpretations of animals, objections and situations to give me guidance on understanding. I'm not going to evaluate my dream, however initially these two methods might be helpful for you on getting a grasp on your subconscious mind.

Dreams are purely created by the subconscious mind. When we sleep, our conscious mind also sleeps. Yet, our subconscious mind never sleeps. From a scientific point of view, our subconscious mind works through our sleep to store memories and makes up stories to make sense of the world around us as best it can. This is where our dreams come from. The stories our subconscious mind tells us to help itself understand. It may come as no surprise, to know our subconscious mind will tell stories according to what we think/believe/know about the world around us. Our subconscious mind picks up on thoughts and belief systems we may not consciously be aware of. Sigmund Freud explored dreams and had a lot of ideas and theories around dream analysis and interpretation. You can read some of those theories if you want more insight on how your dreams work.

Concluding on this topic though, I think it's important to keep a dream diary for self-evaluation and reflection throughout different stages of your life. I have come to understand, when I am perhaps needing a break and taking too much on, I will have an increase in nightmares. You can find patterns like this in your own life and dreams and it will help you evaluate successfully and understand yourself better.

Making a dream diary is really simple. It could literally just be a few notes wrote down on some paper or typed up on a computer. The general idea is you keep writing each day, kind of like a diary, until you have enough information to start seeing patterns. I believe there may also be some apps available where you can track exactly how many hours sleep you had in correlation to the dream. The quantity of sleep can also affect your quality of sleep, you will begin to see how important it is to have those 8 hours of sleep a night. Perhaps, even keeping a dream diary can help you notice any harmful sleeping patterns you have such as; sleep debt from lack of sleep or cases of oversleeping for avoidance of things you don't want to do in the day which then keeps you up all night.

Give it a try for about a week and see what you learn. Practise makes perfect.

Until next time

Peace and Love x