You walk into a room and there they are—your doctor, your best friend, and your boss, all talking about how to make your life better. Sound like a dream? It is. It’s what happens nearly every time you go to sleep. Dreams are like your personal team of advisors. Processing the day’s events. Sorting through issues and worries. Preparing you for the unexpected. Sending you subconscious messages that can change your life for the better. All you have to do is pay attention.
“Since ancient times people have realized dreams contain special information that can help guide their lives,” says psychologist Patricia Garfield, PhD, author of nine books on dreams. Sumerians recorded dreams on stone tablets as early as 3100 B.C. Ancient Egyptians would sleep in a temple and have their dreams interpreted by a priest the next day. And the Bible contains hundreds of references to dreams as sources of divine revelation, such as the one in which Joseph was told that Mary would bear Jesus.
Today, many scientists agree our ancestors were on to something: Dreams have significance and we can use them to improve our waking lives. “The brain communicates in dreams by combining images much the same way that when you’re awake you communicate by combining words,” says Robert Hoss, executive officer of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and author of Dream Language. “Everything you see in a dream is some aspect of yourself or some emotional memory.”
Each night about ninety minutes after you fall asleep, you enter a REM (rapid eye movement) period. REM sleep is when most dreams occur. It lasts about ten minutes during your first sleep cycle, lengthening to thirty minutes or more as the night goes on and you complete more cycles. Major muscles are temporarily paralyzed during REM sleep, so you can’t act out your dreams.
Most of the cortex, or outer layer of the brain, is shut off during dreams, including the control centers for our motor and sensory functions and our sense of logic and time. That’s why dreams often seem bizarre to our waking minds. What kicks into high gear while we dream are the more primitive parts of our brains, like the limbic system, which deals with emotions. “Dreams link up related conflicts from the past with the present,” says psychologist Alan Siegel, PhD, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Dream Wisdom. “It’s a little like a Google search. Your mind puts in ‘relationship problems’ and up pops your first boyfriend who rejected you. You can find symbols in your dreams for what you’re facing in life.”
With a little effort, you can turn your dreams into tools for enlightenment.
