BalanceOctober2016 - 37

the guide D R EAM E N COUNT ERS C AN B R I NG EMOT I ONA L H EALI N G, RE NEWI NG IN TE R E ST I N LI F E what they need to move towards balance. For instance, a person who is artificially pleasant may have dreams full of anger. Drawing upon the Jungian approach, Transpersonal psychology holds that dreams also reveal our spiritual potential. Our capacity to imagine - expressed through dreams - acts as a bridge between the worlds of matter and spirit. When we explore dream images, we access something beyond our minds, discovering more about our true nature within the multidimensional realm of consciousness. S IGNIFICANT SIGNS The core of Transpersonal Psychology relates to the Big Questions in our lives: What gives our lives meaning? How do we express the Highest Good or Divine in our lives? How do we live fully? We find these questions answered in our dreams. From the Transpersonal viewpoint, in dreams our psyches open to the more mysterious and numinous, that is, sacred and divine qualities, also contained in the unconscious. In this way, dreams can facilitate inner transformation and healing. This has great significance for wellbeing because, as Jung claimed, it is the encounter with the numinous that is the 'real therapy'. During a numinous experience, whether in waking life or dreams, we receive emotional and physical healing. The following dream illustrates a physical dream healing. The dreamer was suffering from a The three most severe sinus infection widely reported at the time: 'I stand emotions felt during surrounded by bright dreams are anger, light. A handsome man sadness and approaches and says: "I fear.* hear you haven't been feeling well." As he speaks, he lifts his right forefinger and touches me under each eye. I instantly feel healed. I wake up feeling better.' Dream encounters can also bring emotional healing, putting the dreamer in touch with a desire to renew their interest DREAM ON FI ND YOUR BALANCE COMMON DREAM MYTHS BUSTED 'I don't dream' This actually means, 'I don't remember my dreams'. Everyone dreams several times a night. We can learn to recall them by setting the intention to remember our dreams before sleep and by writing down our dreams immediately on waking. 'Dreams are purposeless' Neurologists believe the rapid eye movement (REM) state, in which dreams occur, correlates with brain development, particularly in infancy. Studies suggest dreams are involved in the ongoing creation of memories and help us to process information. 'A dictionary can tell me dream meanings' Although symbols can have a universal meaning such as a heart being equated with love, it is more about discovering what the symbol means to you personally. In this case, linking the heart to your own experiences of love, and applying that to your dream and current life context. We each develop our own symbol system in our dreams. 'Dreams are a waste of time' In our lifetime, we spend on average the equivalent of 2,000 days 'dreaming'. Given the correlations between dreams and wellbeing, it is good for your health to develop a relationship with your dreams through dreamwork, especially by learning to become lucid and to 'awaken' in sleep. October 2016 BALANCE in life as in this dream depicting the 'inner child': 'I find myself sitting on a wooden floor next to a baby girl who can just sit up. She wears a red dress and looks perfect. My heart opens towards her. I put my hands under her arms so she can stand. Looking at her, I realise she will require a lifetime of love. I tell her: "Of course, you are everything. You are all that matters." I awake, feeling she represents the new life I'm to bring into the world.' LUCID DREAMING From the perspective of many spiritual traditions, waking life represents an illusory world, a 'veil of Maya', filled with constant change that distracts us from who we truly are. From this viewpoint, dreams reflect a greater reality that lies behind the physical world of matter. 'Dreams' to quote the writer James Allen, 'are the seedlings of realities.' We can consciously even learn to 'wake up in sleep' by becoming lucid, aware that we dream while we are actually dreaming. Lucid dreaming has now been scientifically mapped as a brain state through MRI scans. Research on lucid dreaming has shown the dreamer can communicate with observers using agreed-upon eye movements during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In lucid dreams, we can choose many courses of action, much like in the waking world. However, in lucid dreams, if we align our will with our Highest Will and surrender to the awareness we 'belong to more than ourselves', new experiences of being and knowing occur. These involve transformative encounters that empower us to enact creative change in the waking world. The development of reflective-awareness in dreams has a long history within Wisdom Traditions. For example, Tibetan Buddhism, with its practice of Dream Yoga, has been featured in popular conceptualisations of lucid dreaming. However, esoteric Judaism, Christianity and Islam also explore the revelatory aspects of dreaming for spiritual purposes. The call to 'wake up' to a greater wisdom and deeper love echoes throughout Wisdom Traditions and our dreams. The more we 'wake up' to our dreams, the more we wake up to life. And no one should miss that! B See driccpe.org.uk for more information. Have you had a spiritual experience in a dream? Complete our survey at surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DRI-dreamstates 37 http://driccpe.org.uk http://surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DRI-dreamstates

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BalanceOctober2016