Dreams contain inspiration, warnings, and prophesy about your future. In his book The Toltec Secret: Dreaming Practices of the Ancient Mexicans, Sergio Magaña, who comes from this 1,400-year-old lineage, points out that there are two different realities: the naqual (where dreams come from) and the tonal (waking life). He says that the naqual is four times more important than the tonal because everything that happens to us in waking life was first shown to us in a dream.

That doesn’t mean that what you experience in a dream will inevitably come to pass in waking life. The main thing is to get the message so you can change the outcome when possible. You can even work to make this change in the naqual by reentering your dream and changing the ending. Magaña says that those who don’t pay attention to their dreams are like the walking dead. I’ve come to see the wisdom of that statement.

Sigmund Freud and his student Carl Jung—both fathers of modern psychology—knew and wrote about the power of dreams as Soul communication. Those who train at the Jung Institute in Switzerland are trained extensively in dream analysis. Marion Woodman, the prolific writer and psychoanalyst, worked with and wrote about the astounding power of dream imagery to help and heal. Her books are classics.

Don’t take your dreams lightly

One of my doctor friends told me about an experience he had that made him reconsider the power of dreams. He had a vivid dream that he was bleeding to death from his rectum. He went in for testing and, sure enough, they found a very small colon cancer. It was removed and he’s been fine ever since. He credits the dream with saving his life. Dr. Larry Burk, a radiologist and the author of Let Magic Happen, has done extensive research on dreams and has published a study on dreams of breast cancer as a reliable diagnostic tool. Dreams can be so helpful and accurate; you have to wonder why the medical profession ignores them!

I began an in-depth study of my own dreams with clinical psychologist Doris E. Cohen, author of Repetition: Past Lives, Life, and Rebirth, back in 2012 when my ego was being shredded by the loss of a man I truly loved. Doris taught me that the subconscious mind is very efficient, and it will use whatever is currently going on in your life to make a point. That’s likely to include imagery from a recently watched TV show or movie. That does not mean that the TV show caused you to dream what you’re dreaming. Your subconscious is just using that character to make a point. For example, I dreamed about the character Jake on Scandal once. What he represented was loyalty, integrity, and skill—the very things I like in a man. I was not dreaming about Jake, per se. I think one of the reasons celebrities are so adored in our society is because they enact roles for the entire collective and we project onto them. In this, they do our psyches a big service.

Without the dreams and my work with Doris as a lifeline, I might have slipped into despair and bitterness. Instead, I worked through my pain and wrote Goddesses Never Age—a title that was given to me by Doris during one of our dream work sessions. And this book has inspired and uplifted thousands of women all over the world. All because I followed the dictates of my own Soul—and was willing to transform my own pain.

How to work with, remember, and interpret your dreams

1. Set your intention to remember your dreams. Just say out loud or to yourself something like “Divine Beloved, please help me to relax and remember my dreams tonight.” Have a pen, paper, flashlight, or recording device right on your bedside table.
2. Ask a question that you would like to have answered in your dream. Ask that the imagery be easy to understand and interpret. Then let go of it all and drift into sleep.
3. If a dream awakens you in the middle of the night, it likely has an important message. So make sure you at least jot down a few details to remember it in the morning. In your sleepy state between the world of waking and sleeping, when the dream is very vivid, you’ll be certain you could never forget the details. You will if you don’t write down at least a few things about it. Trust me on this one. It’s happened to me dozens of times.
4. As soon as you awaken, lie in bed for a moment, remembering the details of the dream before they slip away. Write them down. I personally dictate them into my iPhone as voice memos. Later I write them up in Word documents and put them into monthly files that I keep on my computer.
5. Give the dream a title—like a headline in a newspaper. This will encapsulate the wisdom in the dream and, in the future, will often bring the entire dream back to you in vivid detail.
6. Check for recurrent themes in your dreams. And also any animals. I love it when animals show up in my dreams. They are always highly symbolic. I always look up the symbol the next day. Animal Speak by Ted Andrews is my favorite book for this. Also Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson. You can also Google the name of the animal and the word meaning, e.g., “gorilla meaning.”
7. Other common and useful symbols and themes include clothing and shoes, which represent the roles you play in life. The hair on your head represents the thoughts in your head, so a new hair color or hairstyle indicates a new way of thinking. Cars represent the Self moving through life. Houses are also the Self—and the basement is the unconscious. When you find new rooms you didn’t know were there, it means you are opening up to new aspects of your Self.
8. Larry Burk suggests that you ask yourself, “What does the dream want?” Stop and listen for the first thought that comes into your head. Write it down. He says to seriously consider that the spirit world may have a question it wants you to answer in return.
9. Share the dream with someone. Very often, recounting the dream out loud with a trusted friend or therapist will illuminate the meaning very quickly simply through the process of sharing.

Note how often you will remember a dream you had the night before—but much later in the day—like the afternoon.

See if you can determine what jogged your memory enough to remember the dream then. Write it down. Don’t dismiss it. Doris, my dream therapist, tells me that we usually dream the same kinds of things hundreds of times before we get the message. That is how compassionate our Souls are!

If a dream brings up an unresolved issue or bothers you in some way, you can, in waking life, simply close your eyes and re-enter the dream. Change the ending. Remember—this is a freewill universe. We can change our future by changing our present. And whether the imagery comes in a dream or in a meditation, it’s all coming from the same place.

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It allows you cognisant access into the deepest niches of your mind, and the chance to guide your dreams.  In a lucid dream, you’ve not woken up—in fact, you’re still sound asleep—but a part of your brain has been reactivated [the right dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, in case you’re wondering]. The ‘waking up’ of this region, so to speak, allows you to experience the dream state consciously and with self-reflective awareness. Once you know that you are dreaming as you’re dreaming, you gain access to the most powerful virtual reality generator in existence: your mind.

I found that one of the most radical aspects of lucid dreaming is that it makes sleep enjoyable! Considering that we spend a third of our lives asleep, it completely reconfigures our relationship with sleep. Today, a large number of people refuse to go to sleep or sleep for a limited amount of time, because they believe that they should be doing other things. But lucid dreaming makes us realise that sleep is not just ‘wasted time’, as some people see it, but rather a potential training ground for psycho-spiritual growth. It is a laboratory of internal exploration that makes us more cogently aware in our waking lives too.

In fact, the term ‘lucid dreaming’ is a bit of a misnomer—it should really be called ‘conscious dreaming’, because it’s the aspect of conscious awareness that defines the experience, rather than its clarity.

Understanding what lucid dreaming isn’t

Given that there’s so much misunderstanding around what lucid dreaming actually is, it’s worth taking a moment to look at what lucid dreaming is not…

• It’s not a half-awake/half-asleep state. In a lucid dream, you are still asleep. You’re in the REM [rapid eye movement] dreaming sleep and out for the count, but part of your brain has become reactivated while you’re dreaming, allowing you to experience the dream consciously.
• It’s not just a very vivid dream. Although lucid dreams are often incredibly vivid, high-definition experiences.
• It’s not an out-of-body experience [also called astral projection]. This point is still being debated by many lucid dreaming practitioners, but as I see it, a lucid dream is happening primarily within the confines of our minds, whereas in an out-of-body experience we’ve moved beyond these boundaries.
• Lucid dreaming is a dream in which you are aware that you’re dreaming while you are still dreaming.

So why would we want to dream lucidity?

So many psychological problems have their source in the fact that we don’t know ourselves; we’re unmindful and unaware. Through lucid dreaming we get to truly know ourselves, and can become more mindfully aware in all states of day and night.

Our unconscious minds hold a wealth of wisdom—about both ourselves and the world around us. This treasure trove is rarely accessed in the waking state but once we become lucid, we gain access to a library of insight that resides in our dreaming mind. Through lucid dreaming we become conscious within the unconscious. This opens up the possibility of directly communicating with our own divine potential, and witnessing just how limitless we actually are.

The benefits of lucid dreaming

There are so many benefits to lucid dreaming but in a nutshell, once you become conscious within your unconscious mind you can [much like through hypnotherapy] make lasting changes to your body and mind while you sleep.

A few of my favourite benefits of lucid dreaming are:

• Psychological healing [phobias, trauma, confidence]
• Physical healing
• Engaging spiritual practice while you sleep
• Exploration of the unconscious mind
• Treating PSTD and nightmare integration
• Increasing and tapping into creativity
• Preparation for death and dying
• Enhanced learning and access to past memory
• Lucid living and waking up to your full potential
• Having fun [it’s the most fun you can have in your pyjamas!]

Sounds great, but how do I actually do it?

Now comes the exciting part! You can actually train yourself to have lucid dreams.

• The first step is start remembering your dreams
• Step two is to write them down as a way to learn and familiarise yourself with their content
• And step three is to start spotting patterns. Once you notice that, “Oh look, I often dream of being back at school” you can set a trigger in your mind so that next time you are back at school you think “Hey! I must be dreaming!”

Self-doubt and lucid dreaming

People often block their potential to have lucid dreams because of their self-doubt. Their misgivings make them think that they can’t have lucid dreams, or that only certain people achieve the ability to dream lucidly.

Lucid dreaming is for everybody who dreams. If you sleep, you dream, and if you dream you can lucid dream. Irrespective of where you lay your head, lucid dreaming is available to you.

It is likely that most people have already had multiple lucid dreams, even if they don’t remember them. This is because children and adolescents can lucid dream naturally, [not every night and not every child] but a majority of children experience copious lucid dreams as part of their psychological development.

The fact that children and adolescents have spontaneous lucid dreams tells us two important things: firstly, that lucid dreaming is a natural, unprompted arising of the human mind [rather than a forced imposition], and secondly that you don’t need to learn how to lucid dream, you just need to remember how.

This was first published in the January 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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The dreamer awakens

I am going to be careful to not make too many metaphors related to sleep, but for those of you who have spiritually awakened, it is like coming out of one kind of dreamland. The physical world around us is, in so many ways, more illusory than the dreams that we have at night. So much of the world is overrun with lies and deceptions. But in the dreamtime, you are often in a world much more real because every emotion and feeling is coming directly from you. In this way, your dreams are often where you are most vulnerable and exposed to the truth. You can’t lie to yourself in your subconscious. Going into your subconscious, you’ll see where fear, anger and self-deception dominate your life. This is often why many people have nightmares. For some people, sleep and nightmares can be really bad because there is hidden trauma that the person has forgotten. Such people are afraid even to go to sleep. After years of avoidance and keeping themselves constantly busy in their waking hours, they develop insomnia to avoid dealing with what is coming up from the subconscious.

Intense nightmares indicate that the person is dealing with a lot of fear and fear is its own trauma. Watching horror movies and other things that are based on fear further exacerbates the problem. It’s like injecting poison into your body. At night, your subconscious is trying to rid itself of that poison. During a spiritual awakening, the ridding of poisons goes on everywhere and that includes your dreams and the subconscious.

Creating a dream journal

I am no expert on the psycho-analysis of dreams, but I can say for certain that keeping a dream journal can be an illuminating tool for anyone on the spiritual path. Simply have it close to your bed and when you’ve had a dream you want to remember, write it down before you forget it [dreams fade away very quickly]. Over time, you can discover themes and similarities. Since dreams operate in emotions and imagery, these are usually the most important parts to focus on. For instance, it may not be as interesting that you picked your step-father to play a stand-up comedian in your dream so much as the feelings that come from him, whether it’s inspiration to do something new, overcoming stage-fright and other fears, or something else. As you continue to get a better sense of what your dreams are about, you may find ways in which you can take action during your waking hours to address your deeper needs that your subconscious is telling you about.

For instance, you may have always dreamt of going to exotic places or driving on the road somewhere. It may show up again and again in different forms and as you recognise this pattern in your dream journal, you can begin to inquire with yourself if you need more time to explore life. That may mean actually travelling, or it may mean picking up new hobbies and meeting new people. Dreams work in metaphors, so you may not actually need to go on a road trip. Of course, that might be a fun way to explore anyway.

Nightmares and being alone in the dark

For others, dreams have long been a scary place. A dream journal can help, but looking at how much fear is in your everyday life may be more important. Take a look at the life you’re leading and how you’re handling the stresses in your life. Pay attention to what you are afraid of. You can write down your different fears to get some perspective, or you can talk to a close friend about what frightens you. While there are also ways that forgotten childhood trauma can be arising through nightmares, most often it is the way we live our daily lives that’s truly terrifying and traumatising us. Facing these fears in our waking hours and making meaningful changes are important parts of making space for a more restful sleep.

For those with a lot of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and other deep pains, sleep can be an exhausting place because of all the upset emotions and memories that have yet to be consciously dealt with. Finding a psychologist to help becomes one aspect of achieving a better night’s sleep. Additionally, learning how to do lucid dreaming can be another way to engage with the inner darkness. Through techniques that are available, we can learn to be semi-awake in the dream. We can take more control and interact with the difficult emotions that are arising, to understand them in order to release them. In this way, nightmares can be transformed into an empowered situation and ultimately, they can gradually be released, allowing for a more restful sleep.

The dream that is too real

Have you ever had a dream that seemed like it was actually happening? Many people do. This can only be felt and while it isn’t something that I’ve really felt too often, I certainly know others who have had these types of dreams. However, these aren’t dreams. Most of the time, these are believed to be out-of-body experiences, which some call astral projection. For some people, the veil between this world and other dimensions is very thin. At night, their spirit simply steps out from underneath this veil. This can be a way to explore this world or other worlds. It can be a way to heal on the level of the soul and sometimes this is a way to heal directly with other people where healing isn’t possible in the waking world. For instance, the person has already passed, or the other person is violent or otherwise irreconcilable in his/her waking self. But their true self is a being of light. No matter how horrible they are in person, that soul can be approached on the energetic level for healing.

Certainly, you can become more conscious of these travels, but this is quite different than how we use our consciousness in waking life. In this space, you don’t feel asleep. You’re very alert and you can suddenly find yourself looking at your body in bed or moving into space. In this place, you can communicate easily and directly with other spirits. If you’ve had a loved one pass beyond and you still haven’t finished grieving, you may be able to contact them and say the good-byes that you could never do in waking life. This type of spiritual-level connection is deep and profound and, usually, doesn’t require words for communication. For some people it can be overwhelming. But the level of healing and expanding of consciousness that is possible is tremendous.

Letting go of fear

For all of these situations—regular dreams, nightmares and spirit-travel—releasing fear is essential. The more you release fear, the more you can learn from your dreams. The more you release fear, the less often nightmares will arise. And for travelling in the spirit realm, you will have a chance to see and experience amazing things that you might never have “dreamed” were possible to experience. As always, it looks easier to ask someone to “release fear” than to actually do it, but unless you begin the practice of releasing fear, you will live under its shadow forever.

So my quick tips on the topic always start with writing down what you’re afraid of. Pick an easy one and do it. In this way, you move into the fear. If you’re afraid of approaching that attractive man or woman at the coffee shop, go say, “Hello.” It doesn’t have to be a super big fear and oftentimes, large fears are built up of little ones. Chipping away at them over time helps to dissolve them.

And here’s an essential piece of the spiritual path; you move into discomfort, not away from it. Avoidance perpetuates pain. Unaddressed pain grows exponentially over time. But when you meet whatever it is that is upsetting you, then you can properly address it. Also, go slowly. Building patience is important and sitting in meditation with what frightens you is another way to prepare you to do something that scares you. Befriend your fear. It has been here the whole time, so it’s not like your fear is a new guest anyway.

Sleeping peacefully

My last few thoughts are that as we find more peace in our waking lives, we will find more peace in our sleeping time. A spiritual awakening is a special transition, where everything is particularly tumultuous, including sleep. That’s why meditation and regular spiritual practices become so essential. It helps to acknowledge and release fear on multiple levels so that you can make space for the peace and love that you already are. As you melt more deeply into that peace and love, the dreams that come may become clearer or even prophetic. This is the gift of the spiritual path. Letting go of all these burdens clears the way for you to dream the dream that matters most and then to bring that dream in your waking life.

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But, according to new research, far from being futile, daydreaming may actually be essential to us. In fact scientists now are beginning to take daydreams seriously, many of them concluding that it may be fundamental for fostering creativity.

Scientists may be discovering the power of dreams recently but if you ask me, this reputation has always been unfair. Daydreams are not only not worthless, they are extremely potent. Of course, the potency of daydreaming differs from one individual to another. If you daydream a lot and yet dismiss it as just idle fantasy, then daydreaming will produce little more than mental relaxation [which, by the way, is not entirely worthless].

But, there are those among us who instinctively know that their daydreams are more than merely unbounded hopes and fantasies. Such individuals understand that their dreams are potent and therefore, not only do they dream a lot, they work to make them a reality. I call these individuals purposeful dreamers.

What separates purposeful dreamers from the rest is that they have figured out how to use power of dreams to improve their lives and the lives of others. As the term suggests, these people dream with a purpose. However crazy their dream may seem, they take them seriously. Their dreams act as a vision statement of their life’s blueprint. Many of them write down the dreams. Others visualise their dreams as vividly as they can. Still others allow their minds to conjure up hitherto unimagined ideas.

There are many examples of purposeful dreamers from across the globe and across ages. Albert Einstein’s “wandering mind” did wonders. Founder of the Reliance Group, Dhirubhai Ambani too daydreamed about creating one of the biggest business empires in India when he had nothing. But, he took his daydreams seriously. He was on a purposeful dream. Film star Shah Rukh Khan’s now famous declaration to his lone friend that he will “rule Mumbai city one day” could have been dismissed as a daydream by many. But he took his daydream seriously and manifested it into reality.

If you are one of those have who always felt that there is more to dreaming than mere fantasising, it might be worthwhile to explore the idea of purposeful dreaming. I have only one suggestion: whenever you decide to dream on purpose, dream big!

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