The power of dreams

THEY TAKE over our minds while we are sleeping. They may be intriguing, ridiculous, mundane or frightening. Every night while you sleep, your subconscious mind unlocks parts of your psyche that your waking mind is never aware of. Your dreams often reveal powerful inner wisdom and can bear the messages you need to lead a happy life. Dreams are, at their simplest, a function of learning. They are also a means of exploring possibilities of resolving anxiety and conflict, a means of integrating new experiences into old attitudes (or changing old attitudes in the light of new experiences) and a method and result of the search for meaning in life. What do these dreams really signify? Dreams can be classified into four categories:

• The house cleaning dream or a dream that cleans away thoughts of fear, anxiety and prepares the dreamer for the next day. Even a simple overdose of television can stimulate a long house cleaning dream.
• The problem solving or mechanical dreams revolve around a real problem the person maybe facing. It could mean any kind of problem.
• The psychological dreams are a result of the current mental state of the dreamer. These dreams mean an attempt by the unconscious to get in touch with the conscious.
• The spiritual or occult dream, the highest order of the dreams, comes from the super conscious rather than the unconscious.

A very simple but common example of a dream which all of us must have seen at a certain point of time, is the dream about falling. If the dream is spiritual, we would see falling as going from a higher level to a lower level of consciousness. In a psychological dream we even if we are falling there is a feeling of loss of confidence, anxiety and stress. There is no such thing as coincidence in dreams. However, one can interpret common symbols. Here are a few symbols and what it means:

Animals: Signifies instinctual side of our selves

Abandon: Reflects loss of friends and favours

Abroad: Indicates changing lifestyle

Accident: Signifies obstacles or an impending illness

Adultery: Reflects guilt complex and anguish

Castration: Indicates feeling of sexual inadequacy or impotence

Cleaning: Recovering from old injuries, preparing for a new phase in life

Death: Indicates a sense of loss, of separation from the world of a known person. It could also indicate hostility. If you dream about death of an unknown person, it indicates the dreamer is involved in an intolerable situation

Falling: Indicates failure or fear of it

Fighting: Indicates struggle, conflict, inner turmoil

Illness: Reflects uncleared bad feelings

Nudity: Indicates exposure or lacking defenses

Losing something: Being out of touch with feelings

Poisoning: Indicates danger

Rejection: A refusal to accept an influence in life

Repairing: Indicates recovering from bad feelings or injuries

Running: Indicates physical pleasures or exhaustion of resources

Suffocating or drowning: Indicates being overwhelmed with a situation or emotion

Suicide: Indicates aggressions or frustration in some form or another

Sweeping: A desire to remove old ideas and attitudes

Sex with stranger: Represents whim for a different kind of sexual experience. Dream of sex with partner acts as a reassurance of your love and bonding

Thus, dreams are the one essential path to enlightenment and reveals inner wisdom and is available to everyone.

Writer: Tarot card reader and karmic healer POONAM SETHI