Dreams are an immense part of our lives, even when we don’t remember them. Science hasn’t quite figured out the purpose of dreams, except that while we’re dreaming, our brain is building and reinforcing neural pathways. But dreams do a whole lot for us. They help us remember things, important information, they help us work out problems and find solutions, and they allow our unconscious minds to communicate with our conscious minds. And this unconscious to conscious communication is perhaps the most intriguing part.
There’s a lot that happens in our unconscious, while we’re awake and while we’re asleep. So much happens that we don’t really know for sure everything that does happen. But this is the primary receptacle for non-linear and often overlooked information gathering. This is where our intuition, spirits, and guides talk to us. Where we perceive things about our environment that we don’t – or can’t – consciously observe. This is where all that extra information goes.
Since dreams allow the unconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind, there’s a lot of information that can be contained in our dreams. Our brains continue to work on our day-to-day issues, often drawing connections we hadn’t noticed or thought of before, or show us in dreams what the situation really looks like or where our blockages come from. The unconscious is not the conscious, though, and has its own intuitive way of speaking to us that is couched in symbolism and references to previous and future experiences. It can take some time to successfully interpret the meaning of a dream.
To really learn about and develop a relationship with your dreams, it is ideal to keep a dream journal. Writing down your dreams allows you to start picking out patterns and themes and helps encourage your conscious mind to remember your dreams. Also, if you’re having trouble remembering your dreams, make waking up a slow transition instead of a quick one. Spend a couple extra minutes in bed with your eyes closed just remembering the tidbits of dream that remain. It’s easy for dreams to be forgotten when the alarm goes off, we spring out of bed, and minds engage in tasks right away. Another suggestion is to set an alarm to wake you up at odd times during the night, so that you interrupt your dream cycle and your brain doesn’t have a chance to move on to another topic before you have a chance to remember.
There are many other techniques out there to remember your dreams, but these I find are the most common and successful.
