Thoughts On Dreaming

I’ve been having a communication with a young man about his dreams, with a suggestion that he keep a dream diary. And then today one of the students in the Woman Warrior’s Journey mentioned dreams in which anger seemed to be bubbling up. Some un-organized thoughts on this.

1. I don’t think too much about what dreams “mean.” that doesn’t mean I don’t care…it means that I don’t want my conscious mind trying to steer the discussion. A better approach IMO is to journal them out and let patterns emerge on their own.
2. Dreams seem to be a re-organization of fragmented thoughts, experiences, and memories, arguably along lines of emotional resonance. Some say it is a transferrance from conscious to unconscious mind.
3. Everyone dreams, every night. REMEMBERING them is another matter.
4. Anyone afraid they lack creativity simply hasn’t tapped into this stream of nightly lunacy. We’re all #$%% nuts, people. Dig it.
5. A fine practice to connect the conscious and unconscious minds is simply to create a “window” in on this process by keeping a Dream Journal. Before you sleep at night, tell yourself that when your dreams end you will wake up and remember them. Keep a pad of paper and pen, or a digital recorder at the side of your bed (I prefer the recorder). Wake up just enough to mumble your dream, or scribble it down. Now, in the morning much of what you wrote or mumbled will be unintelligible. “A crossed banana needs no brakes” is a perfectly common sort of comment. It can be similar to one of…