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.