The Other Worlds of Night part 2

In the first part of this post, I talked about my own experiences and began to explore different theories of dreaming.  Most dream theorists believe that dreams are either largely or all symbolic.  I agree that a lot of our dreams can be symbolic.  But I also believe, as some other dream theorists believe, that dreams serve to enlighten us and teach us things.  They can hold answers that we may not necessarily be apparent to us in our waking life.  Most dream theorists would tell you that dreams never tell you things you already know.  The reason why is that our dreams originate in our unconscious and subconscious states of mind.  Our unconscious is the part of our either knowledge or intuition that is not quite aware to us.  However, it holds a lot of clues to our understanding, about ourselves, our emotions, and situations in our lives.  Dreams are that almost magical bridge between our not knowing and knowing things.  I knew an individual who began to have reoccurring dreams about driving down their street and seeing a for sale sign on their home.  This person was also telling close friends that they noticed major changes in their spouse.  It was disclosed several months later that the spouse was having an extramarital affair.  The dreamer was aware on some level what was happening but just wasn't quite aware.  But they "knew" and their dream was one of the first voices to say something.  A major change was happening which did affect the happy home (or seemingly.)  After the affair was revealed, the dream made perfect sense to the dreamer.   Many people report having dreams like this. People are perceptive and may not know the truth of everything, but they are good at picking up on clues and things around them that do not seem right to them.  Dreams can hold the answers that elude them in waking life, or they can provide an answer where there does not seem to be one immediately available.   There is also the concept of a "precognitive" dream where dreamers will dream about events that occur in the future.  Infamously, Abraham Lincoln purportedly had a dream about his assassination around ten days before he was shot and killed.  Those to me are out of the realm of science and so I will not focus much on them.  But, I will not confirm or discount their existence.  A lot of dream work and interpretation cannot be measured in scientific terms.  The fact that we do dream and our brain activity can absolutely be confirmed.  So, I will be open to all people's experiences.

How can you use dreams in your favor?  Here are some helpful ideas:

1. Be open to the idea that your dreams are a part of you and exist to help you improve your life.  I have found that it is fascinating to explore this part of my life and appreciate everything that it does for me.  I strongly encourage anyone who might be on the fence, see it as insignificant, etc. to keep an open mind.  

2. Pay attention to your dreams and begin to give thought to them during your waking time.

3. Keep a journal.  Journals are a great way of helping you to understand your dreams.  Sometimes just putting them in written form can help you to understand what might not make sense when you think about them.  It is like when you were in school and had to make a presentation.  Maybe you knew in your head what you wanted to say.  But when it came out, it made sense to everyone you were trying to reach.  Dreams are the same way.

4.  Take a stab an interpreting your dreams.  When you do so, take a long look at your life and what is currently happening.  Are you worried that your job might be going away?  Maybe you lack closure from a failed relationship.  Is your child exhibiting behavioral changes that concern you but you can't put your finger on it?  Pay attention to the people and characters in your dream.  Is there a certain color that jumps out at you?  What about the place?  Is it familiar to you, or is it totally unfamiliar?  Is it a place you know but does not look the way that you know it to be?  

5. Ask for help or do further research if you are stymied by a dream.  There are a lot of great resources online that I am going to post, but those are just a few of many.  If something concerns you, your clergy member or a therapist may be able to help out.  Or, if you have a friend like me who studies dream interpretation, reach out and ask them.  I can confidently say that we all exist to help fellow dreamers.

I have only scratched the surface of this fascinating world of dreaming.  I might post more specific topics related to this in future posts.  But for now, happy dreaming!  I wish you the best in this wonderful unique world that we experience every night.

 For more information:

This site has a lot of everything from symbols, a dream dictionary, even forums to discuss dreams:

Your Online Source For Dream Interpretations (dreammoods.com)

A comprehensive look at color in dreams:

The Meaning of Colors: Color Symbolism in Our Dreams (journeyintodreams.com)

Here is an extremely comprehensive list of books about dreaming:

Resources - Professional Dream Interpretation LLC

This is a very comprehensive website devoted to all things about dream interpretation:

Dream Interpretation | Jungian Analysis

An interesting article on the difference between the U.S. and other cultures and how dreams are viewed:

Opinion | To Dream in Different Cultures - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Other Worlds of Night part 1

 I was walking down the alley as a child of around eight years of age on a warm, sunny afternoon.  The walk was very casual and uneventful.  I was looking into people's yards as I passed through.  Everyone had their doors open, and I could see different people's kitchens.  I looked into one kitchen, and there was a display of kitchen knives on a wooden block, hanging on the wall.  A man who seemed to be in his 50s saw me looking in, grabbed one of the knives and started chasing me down the alley.  I just outran him before I got to my yard and quickly shut the gate.  I was safe.  And obviously I am safe, because this was just a dream.  It was a reoccurring dream, actually, and I had this several times over throughout my childhood.  I suppose the die was cast with that.  I have always been interested in dreams, the analyzing of dreams, and dream work.  In fact, I participate in a group of wonderful ladies where we meet regularly and help each other and ourselves discover what our dreams mean to us.

Dreams are not just powerful to me.  They have been written about as long as human history has been recorded.  Every major religion has stories in their holy books about dreams, interpretations of dreams, and the role that they play in our lives.  Spirituality in its various forms also sees dreams as spiritual exercises given either by our conscious or some sort of external loving force for our good.  Ancient societies as well as modern indigenous groups have strong beliefs and practices regarding dreams.  Some of our most creative and influential minds have relied on things revealed to them in dreams.  For example, Albert Einstein dreamed about his Theory of Relativity and then explored it in waking life.  The rest is history.  Dreaming can be very simple, or it can be very complex.  Some people have the ability to "lucid dream"- dreaming while being aware that one is in a dream.  I have that ability and had my first lucid dream in June of 2018.  It was a dream where I was in an active shooting situation in a church.  Yes, weird why I would feel the need to stick with it, but I did.  I was aware that I was dreaming but I chose to stay with the dream until a telemarketer called me at around 8:45 a.m. and woke me up.  I have had numerous lucid dreams after that.  What is interesting about them is that I have also decided that I did not want to participate in the dream and wake up.  For example, I was walking down the hall of a hospital wearing a hospital gown and (thank god!) a robe.  A nurse showed me to a room with a sick older woman laying in the bed of the room that I was supposed to stay in as a patient.  I was aware of it and decided that I did not feel like continuing in a dream where I was sick.  Some people have written about the ability during lucid dreams to problem solve or direct the dream in the direction they want it to go.  I am not one of those people.  My abilities with lucid dreaming is just to be aware of the fact that I am dreaming and whether or not I stay with the dream and for how long.  

Sometimes people fear dreams because they are scary, as in the case of my childhood dream.  But, it is important to remember that they should not be considered as scary.  Most dream theorists, including pioneers like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, believe that dreams are largely symbolic.  Whereas we may be fearing that we are being chased by a criminal or a snake in a dream, we are not literally being chased by them.  Instead, we are being faced with a nefarious person or situation in our lives.  The snake may be a toxic job or coworker; the criminal chasing you might be a bad situation in your life.  It may be increasing debt, the deterioration of a relationship, or a medical issue which may be deteriorating.  Or, there might be other people in the dreams called "archetypes"- people who signify a general concept.  A warrior, the hero, a king or queen, a bully, a goddess, an idealized partner, all of these people you might dream about are reminiscent of tales you heard growing up, fables, mythology, or the like.  Someone you may know in waking life may remind you of a romantic partner, or a fearless soldier.  And, according to a lot of dream theorists like Carl Jung, that person is indeed yourself!  There is a belief that every individual character in a dream is a part of yourself or your subconscious or your personality.  

So, how can you know what your own dreams are trying to tell you?  They are definitely trying to tell you something, of that you can be certain.  Since that could be a very long answer, I am going to answer that in part 2 of this topic.  

The Wisdom of the Young

 All of us have met a variety of young people in our lives, whether it be classmates growing up, children who are now a part of our family, children and teenagers who are your neighbors, or attend the same church.  I was a child who was always very observant about the world around me.  That was true of many, many of my classmates, but I only realized it as an adult.  "Philip" was a student at a school I attended, around 9 years old.  Philip's father was an alcoholic.  He did not have a mother who lived with them.  How did I know that?  Because other students told the story about him.  There may have been other students with the same experiences, but Philip was labeled as a behavioral problem and thus more well-known among his peers.  I had enough interactions with Philip to realize that he was nowhere near as misbehaved as teachers made him out to be.  Maybe a bit of a trickster, but he never had serious anger issues.  I think perhaps he had ADHD.  At that young age, I did not understand what alcoholism was.  I thought of an alcoholic as a man laying in the streets passed out.  I did not realize that alcoholics were parents, teachers, co-workers, CEOs of corporations.  I used to feel bad for Philip because of his contstantly being subjected to discipline.  As an adult, I feel even worse for him that he had to live with a neglectful father, possibly abusive.  Philip certainly got to reprieve from his home life at school.  He never got a break, really.  Everywhere he was, there was a problem.  One of my classmates ran into him as an adult, and I am happy to say that he seems to have his life in order after such a tumultuous childhood.  

"Luke" was a classmate in high school.  When I first met him, I heard from several of his friends that he lived with a stepfather who was constantly verbally abusing him and occasionally punched him in the face.  Luke was angry and reactive.  In fact, I was a target of his anger, and sometimes he scared me.  I may have not known why he was so angry, but those around him did.  And those of his friends, for whatever reason, decided to share his story with those of us who were not Luke's friends.  Especially when I got to high school, I heard more and more of those stories.  My classmates were always very aware of the lives of their peers.  There were several students at my school whose grandparents were raising them because their parents had legal problems, unable to parent, etc.  Everyone seemed to know what the problems of their fellow classmates were.  Again, it did not strike me at the time.  Developmentally, none of us were able to fully conceptualize what all of these things meant.  But when I picked up my newspaper a few years after graduation and saw that Luke had committed an egregious murder, I was not at all surprised.  Completely heartbroken for his victim, yes.  Surprised, no.  I do not think anyone who knew Luke in high school was surprised, either.  

My schooling was a very up and down experience.  The high times were when I was a public school student.  The low times were when I was a student at a private school.  It just was a horrible experience from start to finish.  I had headaches contstantly, I felt tense, sometimes it was hard for me to even be hungry.  And I was anxious, although I didn't realize at the time.  But my body was telling me that something was wrong.  I approached my parents about leaving the private school because of the things that were happening there.  Unfortunately, they did not listen to me.  Part of that, I believe, is that like many adults, they did not recognize that young people can articulate for themselves and know what is best for them at times.  Of course, this is not talking about letting your child do dangerous things or something which would not be in their best interests.  This was me, as a young but perceptive individual, saying that I was suffering and needed to be removed from a situation.

When I was in college, I worked as a teacher in a preschool.  I worked in a classroom with later 3-year-olds and younger 4-year-olds.  I was warned about "Brandon" by the teachers.  He was a behavior problem, I was to really monitor his activities, they kept him on a very strict regimen, moreso than any other student.  And when I met him for the first time, Brandon did not disappoint. He came running into the classroom like a whirlwind.  The other teacher in the room, "Rebecca" immediately put him in time out.  I thought, what an introduction.  Truthfully, I was nowhere near as rattled by him running as Rebecca was.  Of course, it is not a good idea for a child to be running for safety reasons.  But that day, I immediately saw the dynamic between Brandon and Rebecca.  Everything he did, she kept him in a box.  Even if Brandon tried to speak to her, she was very dismissive, told him to sit down, etc.  The children had nap time in the afternoon, and Brandon had trouble falling asleep.  We mostly took our breaks during that time.  Sometimes I would see Brandon walk up to Rebecca and try and talk with her.  She would immediately tell him, "Sit down, go back your on your mat and go to sleep."  Brandon could never sleep.  When Rebecca was on her break and I was the only teacher in the classroom, Brandon would come up and talk to me.  You know what I did?  I listened to him.  He talked about how he was going to be an older brother, about his cat, and stories about home.  They weren't very profound conversations, but it was enough.  After I talked to him for just a few minutes, Brandon would go back and fall asleep and get the nap he needed.  As our life paths would have it, I reconnected with Brandon.  He did have ADHD but proudly overcame his challenges to graduate high school.  

All of these experiences made me realize two things.  First, children and teenagers are much more wise than we realize and give them credit for.  They know about the pains of their friends and classmates, even if they do not fully understand the ramifications.  In my case, I knew what was a bad situation.  I was able to articulate what was wrong in my school and how those problems were affecting me.  And that brings me to my second realization.  Parents and adults are entirely too dismissive of the young.  Sometimes they do not realize that their children are often as perceptive as they are and that they know what they are talking about.  Or, even more disheartening, they look at children like Philip and Brandon and label them as they see fit.  They're "trouble" and need to be reigned in.  They do not deserve to be listened to, they just need to be put in a box and told what to do.  Having these realizations make me much more sensitive than most when I listen to children and teenagers.  And I have been able to have many meaningful conversations with them as a result.  One of the more profound ones was when I encountered a teenage girl who found out she was pregnant.  I listened to her without judgement as she talked about how terrified she was to tell her parents.  She needed someone to listen who just listened and would not yell or threaten her.  I do not know what happened in her situation, but I can only hope for the best.  I hope she remembers that someone actually did listen and hear her fear when she needed it the most. 

I suspect that if you are reading this, you do have an interest in young people.  If you do not already have this realization about how wise young people are, please read this with an open mind.  Next time you encounter a child who might seem different that their peers, take the time to understand why.  Do not ever dismiss the "complaints" of a child.  Children do know and understand their world around them.  Sometimes they are even wiser than the adults around them.  I honor all of the wise young souls who I know, those who I do not know, and those with whom I will come in contact in the future.  I hear you and I see you.  You are wise.