Dreaming for Direction

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Debra Moffitt, author of Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life.

A friend said that dreams were like letters from a wise relative; they must be opened. Over the past years dreams have helped me find a mate, warn me about the stock market crash, and helped me to get published. In dreams many things become clear and transparent. Like in ancient dream temples, we can create a place where we’re ready to receive them and grow. In workshops, people tell me, “I don’t dream.” This is not true; everyone dreams every night. It’s part of sleeping. In each ninety minute sleep cycle we spend approximately half an hour dreaming. This is the Rapid Eye Movement period, better known as REM sleep.

When we use this untapped capacity it can help us to find solutions to problems at work and in our personal life. Elias Howe, inventor of the modern sewing machine, was puzzled about how to get the needle to work. He was stumped until he dreamed of being in a tribe where men with spears shook them at him. He noticed the spears had holes in the point. He awoke with an “ah-ha” moment and realized that if he put the hole in the tip of the needle, his sewing machine would work. Stephen King dreamed the setup for his book Misery, and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein grew out of a dream, too. If you have problems with dream recall, here are a few tips:

1. Keep a note pad and pen by the bed. Dreams need to be recorded immediately on waking. Any rapid movement out of bed will shift you into another state of consciousness and make dreams more difficult to recall. Some people prefer to speak into a recorder. You may want to keep a small flashlight by the bed, too.
2. Give dreams a title and record them in present tense. “I am walking through a garden…” This will help to keep them alive.
3. Work with your symbols. Begin to explore the images, animals, and scenes in the dreams. What qualities do they have? Dark or light? If there are people, what qualities do you associate with them? Was Uncle Earl a miser or a wimp? Do you dream of a tiger on the prowl? Begin to create your personal dream dictionary and learn your personal language of the soul.
4. Seed your dreams. To use dreams for problem solving, try the trick used in ancient dream temples: drink your favorite warm tea, and as you drink it reflect on what you would like to dream about. Do you want to know how to solve a problem at work or how to do something better? Say a prayer of protection and pray to receive the guidance necessary. Be sure to write down what you dream in the morning and work to understand the messages.

Dreams have given me hope when I’ve felt despair. They showed me how to structure my book, Awake in the World: 108 Practices to Live a Divinely Inspired Life, which was published by Llewellyn. Dreams revealed the economic collapse that culminated in the stock market crash in October 2008 about six months before it happened. Many people have said they dreamed of the World Trade Center attack before the event. Dreams hold a wealth of information. They’re a great source of inner wisdom and much needed to help us find the solutions to serious problems we’re facing in the world.