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The Not-So-Hidden
Messages in Dreams
by
Patricia F. Hare, M.A.T., M.A.
I am speeding
forward. It is very difficult to see. I know there are dangers to the
right and left but I cannot see what they are. Slow down!—I tell
myself—slow down! I do slow down and find that I feel less afraid,
though I still have great difficulty seeing. |
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The next morning I
awoke early to drive to Charleston. I needed to be there by 7:30 a.m.
and it was still dark when I left Columbia. Once on I-77 headed for
I-26, a fog began to thicken around my car. Driving at conservative
interstate speeds, I realized that I still had trouble seeing the lane
lines—if I drove too far right, I could go into the bank. If I drove too
far left, I might be hit by the 18-wheelers I could hear (but barely
see) whiz by. I remembered the message of the dream—slow down—and
I did. Better to arrive in Charleston late than not to arrive at all. I
made it safely out of the rough patch and was on time for my
appointment.
No one who knows me
would mistake me for a psychic. Yet, some part of me knew what was going
to happen in my future. And that part of me was able to communicate what
my conscious, (but still waking-up) waking mind needed to clearly hear
at that early hour of the morning—slow down. |
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Dreams are often
dismissed as night-time mental discharges of energy. Since many people
remember their dreams we can’t deny they exist. But our culture largely
doesn’t pay much attention to them and more often than not their value
goes unrecognized.
It was once claimed
that 90% of the brain went unused. We couldn’t figure out what we did
with it, so it was assumed to be superfluous. Our dream-life is kind of
like that—it exists, but, gee…who can make sense of that crazy stuff? |
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Actually, YOU can.
Understanding the meanings of your dreams is a skill that can be learned
by anyone who is able to dream. The benefits of developing this skill are
many. Dreams help us solve problems we are working on; gain access to the
information in our subconscious mind; provide insights into perplexing
life situations; warn us of upcoming events or energy dynamics;
and—yes—sometimes help us to discharge excess mental energy left over from
a busy day.
The primary language of
dreams is visual imagery. But sometimes we hear things, feel things, and
even smell things in our dreams. The primary tool of dream communication
is symbolism. The images we see in our dreams represent information
and ideas we are trying to tell ourselves about. |
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For example, awhile back
I dreamed of a fence around a yard I was in. This fence had several
openings in it; not gates, but sections where the fence was simply
missing. As I looked through these open spaces I could see large,
monster-like creatures passing by. One resembled an alligator, the
other a rhinoceros. They did not seem to notice me—but I noticed
them!
The fence is a symbol of
protection, boundary, and limitation. I was preparing to teach courses
again—work that would take me out of my safe (but limiting) home office
environment and into the local public arena. I had mixed feelings about
this. The missing sections of the fence reflected the change in privacy
status I would need to deal with. My boundary of protection was still
there, but it was no longer as solid and impenetrable. |
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And what was out there
on the other side? Two very intimidating “monsters!” My dream books
interpret the symbol of the alligator as, “tough hide, treachery,
primordial fear.” The rhinoceros is interpreted as, “blind strength,
armoring, unpredictability, aggressiveness, and small intellect.” So it
doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I was expressing, through this
dream, fears of vulnerability that I was experiencing in anticipation of
making this change in my professional life.
Do dreams ever offer
good news? Sure they do! Not long ago, I dreamt of a delightful waltz with
a man (not my husband). A week later, I exchanged emails with a journalist
who was interested in new consciousness ideas—the back and forth of the
exchanges felt just like that waltz! |
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--by Patricia Hare,
Copyright © 2005
Recommended Reading on Dreams: To
learn more about the messages of your dreams, I recommend
The Mystical Magical Marvelous World of Dreams by Wilda B.
Tanner. (Note my book review on the linked page.) --Pat
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