The Power Of Dreams In Ancient Times

The ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were a gateway that would allow them to travel between worlds and commune with the creator of the universe.

The Hebrew slaves who established the Kingdom of Israel proclaimed that G*d spoke to his prophets as they slept. Greek kings and Roman rulers relied on their dreams to make decisions that influenced the fate of empires. The men and women who lived in the time of the Bible were convinced that dreams were the language that G*d used to speak to the faithful.

Understanding the meaning of dreams (read the full post about dream and their meanings here – http://www.lifed.com/25-common-dreams-and-their-meanings)was a specialized skill that offered both great rewards and terrible danger. Imagine the consequences for a royal sage in Rome if his analysis led to a defeat for Caesar’s armies. In the holy land, a prophet who incorrectly explained a dream would be stoned to death for speaking falsely. While disaster and death was the price of mis-interpreting a dream, some fortunate individuals reaped incredible rewards when their understanding brought victory in battle or soothed the troubled sleep of an all powerful potentate.

From the Original Bible To The New Testament (lehavdil) We Find Dreams To Play A Major Role 

The Bible tells us about the wise men who used their interpretive skills to influence their enemies and improve the lot of their fellow captives. Joseph rose from slavery to become a royal adviser when his explanation of the Pharaoh’s dream saved Egypt from famine. After the Babylonians conquered Israel in 606 BC, Daniel was among the Hebrews who were taken as hostages to Babylon. There he successfully analyzed Nebuchadnezzar’s disturbing nightmares and became his most trusted adviser.

In the New Testament, Joseph was prepared to reject Mary after he learned his future wife was pregnant despite the fact that they had never been intimate. An angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and instructed him to accept Mary as his wife because the child she carried was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In another New Testament story, the three Magi were warned as they slept not to tell Herod about the location of the Baby Jesus and they were advised to follow a different route home to avoid Herod’s soldiers.

Today, science has a radically different explanation for the brain functions that cause human beings to dream. While ancient societies used dreams as a tool to understand the will of their creator, the modern world dismisses this powerful belief as superstitious nonsense. Yet, even today, there are still seekers of truth who believe that dreams may hold the key to the great mysteries of human existence.

Making Sense Of Your Dreams

You may be surprised to learn that if you live to the age of 70, you will spend approximately six years of your life dreaming.

Dreams can insulate our minds from the concerns and fears of life and they play a crucial role in helping human beings maintain their emotional balance.

When our sleep patterns are interrupted and we are unable to dream normally, our mental health can be seriously affected. Researchers found than when test subjects were awakened at the beginning of each dream, their next day was plagued by difficulty in concentration, irritability and hallucinations. In several studies, conducted over extended periods of time, the subjects began to exhibit signs of psychosis after only 3 days.

Making sense of our dreams is a worthwhile goal that can actually improve our lives. Since we forget 90 percent of what we dream within five minutes of waking, the experts advise keeping a notebook by your bed and recording whatever you remember as soon as you wake up. A dream diary is an essential tool that will allow you to train your mind to become more proficient at retaining those fleeting glimpses into your sub-conscious.

In addition to writing down the details of your dreams, keep a list of all the specific symbols you may remember. If all you retain from your previous night’s sleep are a few symbols, they are still useful tools to help you analyze your dreams.

Understanding and interpreting these symbols requires an open mind and the ability to honestly evaluate your thinking. Begin by reflecting on the content of your dream and how it may relate to the events of your life. For example, if you dream about your teeth falling out, do you have a dentist appointment in the morning or did someone at the office make you feel self-conscious about your appearance?

Analyzing your dreams is wonderful way to enrich your life and develop a better understanding of the thoughts and emotions that motivate your thinking. There is no right or wrong in your personal interpretation of the symbols in your dreams. Although your dreams are full of hidden meaning, they also allow you to clearly illuminate the path to emotional stability and fulfillment.

Dreams And Their Meanings

The Tower of Dreams holds all the knowledge, wisdom, history, and insights of the fairies race. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is a fact that everybody dreams.

Whether or not you remember what you dreamed about is beside the point. In fact majority of people do not remember what the dreamt about unless they were woken up suddenly in the midst of dreaming. Most dreams are usually a series of thoughts that were in the mind of the person dreaming even if they were not voiced.

While most people usually do not pay attention to the things that they dreamt about, there are instances during which dreams may linger and bother the person in question. If this is the case for you, then it is best to think about the possible dream meanings that pertain to your situation.

You can find a way to interpret your dreams through online tools that are available for that purpose. Alternatively, you can use books to achieve the same goal. Most experts agree that dreams usually have either a spiritual or a psychological connotation to them though. If you seek an interpretation to your dreams, you need to decide the angle from which you are going to approach the issue and follow it through. It is always good to be very open-minded about this issue if you are to get an interpretation that applies to your needs.

Since each dream is unique, the dream meanings will also be unique. A dreams expert can help you interpret your dreams based on certain factors. It may be that your dreams are a way to condense what you think and feel in an instance. It could also be that your mind is expressing confusion at certain issues going on in your life. Dreams and in essence, a message to your mind and body and letting an interpreter of your choice know what is going on in your real life will help him or her understand better what it could all possibly mean.

When you are describing your dream to someone, ensure that you do not leave out any detail, no matter how small or embarrassing it may seem. Doing so, may change the symbolism of whatever your mind conjured when you were sleeping.

If you do not want to use an expert’s help to interpret the meaning of your dreams, then use the guides you access online or via books. You should however, remember that these guides may not give you the most accurate picture possible. Whatever your interpretation may be as far as dreams are concerned, remember that they are in fact, not reality. You alone are in control of that and if you change your circumstances, your dreams will change too.

A Few Fascinating Facts About Our Dreams

“Landscape with the Dream of Jacob” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are few facts about life that are absolute. We are all born and we all die. In addition to these two well known absolutes, it is also true that every human being must sleep, and when we sleep, we dream.

Dreams are an important gateway to our sub-conscious and they help us to understand our fears and our repressed emotions. Humans spend a great deal of energy trying to understand and interpret their dreams, often using dream analysis as a guide to improving their lives. While interpreting our dreams is always interesting, there are several other facts about dreams that are equally fascinating.

1. Most dreams are quickly forgotten. Five minutes after we wake, we have already forgotten 50 percent of our dreams, and with ten minutes, 90 percent of our dreams are a distant memory.

2. Everyone dreams, except for people suffering from a very rare psychological disorder. Many people think they don’t dream because they forget their dreams so quickly, but with simple training, anyone can become quite proficient at remembering their dreams.

3. Blind people also dream. People who are born blind have dreams involving their other senses of  sound, smell and touch. People who become blind after birth are able to dream in images.

4. In our dreams, we only see faces that we have seen in real life. When we dream, we do not invent new faces, but we draw upon the vast catalog of faces that we encounter in our daily lives.

5. Some people do not dream in color. Ten to twelve percent of the human race actually dreams in black and white. Research has shown that the advent of color television led to a decrease in the number of people who dream in black and white.

6. The meaning of dreams is never obvious. Dream images are based on a symbolic language from our sub-conscious and interpreting them requires a knowledge of the individual’s psychology and emotional state.

7. Negative emotions are more common than positive emotions when we dream. The most common dream emotion is anxiety.

8. Animals also dream. The brain waves of dreaming humans in REM sleep are similar to the brain waves of animals in REM sleep. (Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – A stage in the normal sleep cycle during which dreams occur and the body undergoes marked changes including rapid eye movement, loss of reflexes, and increased pulse rate and brain activity.)

9. When we are in REM sleep and we dream, our external muscles are normally paralyzed to prevent us from acting out physical movements in our dreams and possibly injuring ourselves.

10. Men and women have different dream content. Approximately 70 percent of the characters in men’s dreams are other men, while women tend to have an equal amount of men and women in their dreams. Men also tend to have more aggressive dreams then women.

11. People can have orgasms in their dreams. Pleasurable sexual feelings are often common in dreams and can be greatly enhanced by learning the techniques of lucid dreaming. (Definition of Lucid Dreaming:  A dream state in which one is conscious enough to recognize that one is in the dream state and which stays in one’s memory. Lucid dreamers are often able to develop the skills to consciously direct their dreams.)

Dreams can guide us to a happier and more fulfilling life. We can use our dreams to overcome our greatest fears and better understand our deepest emotions. Take a moment to write down any dreams you remember and you have taken the first step to becoming a lucid dreamer who can actively participate in the direction and content of your dreams.