Understanding Dreams & the Dream State

The dream state is a very interesting phenomena. Basically it is a subconscious manifestation of what we are consciously or subconsciously thinking or focusing on. The dream state usually happens in the lower levels of brainwave activity; Alpha and Theta. It is a system where the subconscious mind plays out various visualisations, stories, depictions and movies according to what we are consciously experiencing and often not able to fully understand. This is why you will often hear people say to ‘sleep on it’ if you are having trouble finding the answer to something. What this means is, that by not consciously thinking about something, you allow the subconscious to step in, usually in the form of a dream, wherein you will discover the answer. Dreams are our means of connecting conscious and subconscious thoughts/emotions and finding new ways of dealing with them.

Dreaming can be particularly useful to unite our two minds for a greater good. Like I mentioned earlier, the two minds are always battling for dominance, and dreams can often be the amphitheater where these battles take place. The key is to turn the concept of a battle into a sensible conversation and sort out any differences in a way that is more beneficial to your own emotional wellbeing. Dreams are always symbolic or representative of something. They usually do not happen for no reason, and by understanding your dreams you can go a long way towards experiencing better emotional wellbeing.

You can, whilst in a dream, begin to practice changing the outcome of that dream. This will direct your subconscious mind to solutions of victory instead of failure or miscommunication. It does take a bit of practice, but like most things, after a little effort you will do it easily. The first step towards doing this is to understand that you are the director, the main character and the creator of everything within your dreams and that you have the power to step in and change things as needed.

For example, if I have a dream that I am on a tall building and sense that I might fall, I change my character in the dream to one that can fly. This means that in my dream I can fly off the building and land somewhere safely. This provides a positive outcome for my dream and helps me find a solution to the problem the dream is representing. Try it… it may work well for you too. And remember this, the dreams we usually remember the most are those that take place just as we begin to fall asleep or just before we wake up. This is because during these times we have more conscious awareness and hence can consciously recall what has happened better. This is when it is easiest to step inside your dreams and direct their outcomes, so try to practice on these dreams first before you try and step into the deeper dreams when you are fully asleep.

When you are dreaming it feels real because your nervous system becomes involved. This means your mind has not realized the dream is not real and is actually directing the nervous system to respond accordingly. This is symbolized by things such as twitching, movement and even the feeling of falling. This is a prime example of the mind-body connection which I will cover shortly in this book. Have you ever begun to fall asleep and experienced a twitch in a part of your body? This is actually symbolic of an energy release which means your body is releasing stress and tension from it so that you can relax and begin to fall asleep better. Dreams, our emotions and even our physical body are all interconnected, and it is important to realize this.

- Giovanni