Dreamwork Is Essential for Spiritual Growth

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While it has been said that neurosis is a cry of the soul wanting to be heard, there are various positive ways that our souls speak to us, if we take the time and the effort to pay attention.   One way is intuitive insight.  Perhaps another is reverie when we are relaxed and allow our minds to meander without control, being fed by stirrings deep within us.   Another very important way is dreams.  Freud called dreams the “royal road to the Unconscious” for a reason.  These night time scenarios are the most direct and readily available means of receiving undiluted messages from the soul.

It stands to reason then that anyone who is seriously interested in spirituality and the care of the soul would take dreams seriously, but sadly this is often not the case.  There are plenty of people who try to follow a spiritual path and ignore their dreams altogether!  Even many psychologists who are in the field of “the study of the soul” don’t take their own dreams seriously or use dreams as a therapeutic method.  The most common reasons given are that dreams are hard to remember, or are weird and hard to figure out.  An often not-stated reason is that dreams can be frightening and disturbing.  Also, some religious people of certain persuasions feel dreams may be the work of the devil despite the fact that the Bible recounts numerous stories where people used dreams to listen to God.

There is in Western society and in Christianity in particular, an abiding distrust of the Unconscious that has not encouraged us to explore our dreams—something not shared by our ancient ancestors and indigenous peoples who all took dreams seriously.  We need to reclaim this respect if we are going to mature spiritually in a truly holistic fashion of mind, body, and spirit.

Get to Know Your Dreams

If dreams are strange and so frightening, it is perhaps like anything else we fear: it is a fear of the unknown that can be remedied by getting to know what we fear.  One gets to know one’s dreams by making the following intentions and following through with them:

• Take dreams seriously.
• Tell yourself you will remember your dreams.
• Write or record them in a dream journal. Review them on occasion.
• Reflect on them for several levels of meaning rather than seek a quick and superficial answer.
• Consider that every dream has a spiritual meaning.
• Consider everything in the dream as representing an energy within yourself.
• Make associations between things and people in the dream with those in your waking life at the moment.

Doing these simple tasks of dreamwork on a regular basis will provide a profound portal to the soul, teaching much about the soul and what it has to say. You will come across an amazing, undiscovered country and you will have practiced a very effective spiritual method!

Why are Dreams Important to Health and Spiritual Growth?

Go Within for Answers

According to research on dreams, dreams are what help us make sense of the world around us. In dreamtime we are already problem-solving and dealing with current and future issues, no matter if we remember the dreams and issues or not.

Intentional dreaming is about pro-actively tapping into this amazing ability we all have—but most of us just let run on auto-pilot. What is even more amazing is that we can intentionally tap into, work with and be inspired by the dreams for specific reasons—and our dreams seem to want us to do this. They respond to our questions and concerns and keep knocking at our door with repetitive dreams when we don’t want to respond.

Dreams are sources of pure intuition. While daydreaming, prayer and meditation can give us intuitive insights, dreams are probably the surest and the best way to access intuition in its richest form. The famous neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, called dreams “the royal road to the Unconscious.” He was not the first to make a similar claim. Ancient cultures viewed dreams as a way that the gods spoke to humans. We only have to think of Joseph’s prophetic dreams and Jacob’s ladder dream to recall that the Bible is full of stories of holy and dynamic people being led by God through their dreams. Edgar Cayce, one of the world’s greatest intuitive minds, said that dreams were “today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions,” and that working with dreams was important for spiritual growth. To not do so would be “highly negligent.” Edgar Cayce thought that the purpose of dreams was to align the dreamer with the soul’s purpose—something that is often quite different from Ego’s purposes which tend to be focused on things like making money or gaining status in the community. (Reading 2265) Dreams then are one of the best ways for connecting with the true nature of one’s Self for the purposes of healing and direction.

From my experience, I have found dreams provide clues that are symbols for energy in the body, mind and soul. Dream elements such as images, themes and processes are the language tools used to communicate the health status of body, mind or soul. Learning to recognize the symbols for disease, health and well-being can, therefore, greatly aid us in learning at the energy level what the body, mind or soul wants and needs to be healthy—often long before something registers as a recognizable or testable medical or psychological ailment and before the time when something becomes a challenge to treat.

Engage your dreams and let them inform you about how to better improve your health and well-being!

To learn more about dreams, visit my website: http://www.healingdreamgarden.com.