One of the mind’s most exciting creations is the dream. Dreams are the portals through which we gain access to the unconscious and its miraculous content and process. We do not know what exactly exists in our unconscious mind, precisely because it is unconscious! -- but the dream is our greatest and most prolific tool for comprehending what we have stored in this vast part of the mind.

Virtually every person dreams, and with amazing regularity! In fact, dreaming appears to be a necessary function for biological and psychic well-being. Sleep deprivation is a known tool of torture, and it is now believed that the most harmful component of sleep deprivation is dream deprivation. We suffer from dream deprivation sooner than from sleep deprivation! Rats who are prevented from dreaming die after 10 days, even if they are allowed to sleep. Interestingly, they die of starvation. Newborns of all species spend 50-95% of their time in dream states, and it is hypothesised that dreaming helps store memories. The fox kit who has just pounced on its first mouse may dream of the experience and thus remember it more easily the next time it is out hunting! So, on the physiological level, dreaming serves to regulate metabolism, as well as to consolidate memories.

We tend to dream at specific periods throughout our sleep cycle, during times known as REM sleep. REM stands for "rapid eye movement," because during these times, our eyes are literally darting back and forth beneath the closed lids. We have several such REM cycles throughout the night, in fact we move up and down through sleep stages, lighter to deeper and back again, a few times throughout the average night. REM sleep is not a particularly heavy sleep; it is characterized by low amplitude, high frequency energy waves, almost like a waking state EEG! Dreams are caused by energy firings at the base of the brain. It is hypothesised that, because these firings land near the visual cortex of the brain, dreams are primarily visual in nature. And since the gait center is also located in this specific area, we tend to move in dreams. However, it is only in dreams that we move while sleeping, for we are almost immobilized during REM sleep. Our major muscles groups tend to be virtually paralyzed, an adaptive response which keeps us from acting out our dreams!

What do we dream about? So much has been written and debated in dream research. Van de Castle and Hall conducted an excellent content analysis of dreams, and I refer you to Van de Castle’s excellent book, The Dreaming Mind. It is safe to say that we dream about the content of our unconscious, whatever that may be! And it is also safe to say that what we have stored in our unconscious is UNFINISHED BUSINESS. Generally, there is some sort of conflict, anxiety, longing, questioning, emotion or some other sort of unfinished emotional business surrounding the contents of our unconscious mind. So, if you are dreaming about something, it means that you are trying to work something out around it.

Of course, you may not be dreaming about the exact picture which appears in your dream! Because dreams use visual representations, and because these are often very symbolic, the pictures in your dreams may actually stand for something else. So, say you dream about an ocean voyage. This does not mean, necessarily, that you have unfinished business around ocean voyages! It means that you have unfinished business around whatever that ocean voyage really represents, perhaps a psychic journey into a new inner place, perhaps beginning therapy, or something of that nature.

Freud, the first person to take dreams seriously and the first person to analyze his own dreams to explore the content of his own unconscious mind, has strong beliefs about the meaning of dreams. His theories continue to influence scholars to this day, for it was his entire theory about the unconscious mind which gave rise to the study of dreams as we know it now! Freud said many important things about the dream. 1. It is the function of the dream to safeguard sleep! Freud believed that the dream was an attempt on the part of the mind to present the issue in a visual form in an effort to work out the issue, and allow the sleeper to remain asleep, to be undisturbed by the problem. 2. The dream is a wish fulfillment. Freud believed that every dream –if properly analyzed-could be seen to hold a wish. And not just any kind of wish, but a very specific wish, one originating in childhood and based on the sexual longings of the child. Freud’s overall psychology was one based on the stages of childhood development, and he was the first to talk about the sexual nature of the individual, even the child. Sexual drives, which must be controlled, socialized and sublimated, continue to manifest in our dreams, throughout our entire lives.

Because there is so much conflict around the sexual nature of dreams, it is impossible to experience them directly. Therefore, our minds engage in a sort of hide and seek game, to present the dream, but in a heavily disguised way. Freud spoke at length about the mechanisms the mind uses to disguise these dreams. One of these is condensation, whereby we might take characteristics from several things or people in life and put them all together in one dream symbol. So, perhaps there is a person in your dream who has your father’s nose, your boss’s car and your husband’s pipe. This one dream person is a symbol for those other 3 men, and a condensation of their characteristics! Displacement is another dream tool, whereby we take the characteristic which is important to us and replace it with another, less conflictual one. So, for example, if you see a naked person carrying a bunch of flowers, displacement might lead you to dream about a bunch of flowers, and leave out the naked form entirely! There are other dream tools which are fun to play with, and in fact, figuring out the meaning of a dream is great fun altogether! One person reported a dream of her mother and father floating on a raft on the Nile. As she reported this dream, it sounded very much like she said "...on de Nile" and I asked her to repeat the narrative. Then I told her that I had heard her say, "...mother and father floating on a raft on denial." This, in fact, is a very good picture of her family, and we both had a chuckle at the tricks the mind can play. Watch for puns!

So our dreams can capture the personal history and experience of the dreamer, from early life experiences which have not been mastered, to the state of the present self. Dreams of falling, emptiness or empty things etc. capture the inner state of depletion; dreams of desert-type landscapes capture the state of inner alienation and loneliness; dreams of chaos and confusion capture states of fear, chaos and inability to self-soothe. There is, in fact, a self component to most dreams, and our dreams can be very useful in helping us figure out what is going on with ourselves.

I work with dreams–my own and others’–for many reasons. First and foremost, they tell me what is really going on with the mind. So often we get lost in our stories, but a dream is a direct communication from the deepest part of you! There is no story there, only actual experience. Your dream, when properly interpreted, will reveal You to You!!!  Dream work is very rewarding and useful.