Something that has been very powerful for my own personal growth the last few years is keeping a dream diary. I wanted to encourage anyone reading this to start writing down your dreams when you can remember them and really exploring them. It can be an intense and transformative process.
When I remember a dream, I grab my phone and write it down in a notes app. Later in the day, I might free write about the dream or pull a tarot card or just think about the dream and linger on the images and symbols of it. I have one document where I collect all my dreams. It's fascinating to look back on them and see how certain images and themes recur over time.
I am very interested in Jungian psychology, which is influenced by the work of Carl Jung. I believe dreams can be many things. I've had dreams that almost seemed like premonitions because things in the dreams happened in real life. I still don't know what to make of it. I've had dreams that felt like warnings about particular people, almost like my intuition was trying to tell me to avoid them. And I also have dreams that I think are trying to tell me things about myself. Overall, I believe our dreams are not random or meaningless. They can guide us on our journey through life. They should be listened to.
Jungian psychology sees dreams as powerful sources of healing. Our dreams are a doorway to our unconscious and, when we work with our dreams, we can come to know and understand ourselves better.
One book that can give you a step-by-step guide for working with your dreams is Robert A. Johnson's Inner Work. Johnson writes about Jungian psychology in very acessible language. His book, Owning Your Own Shadow, is also great. I believe both are available on Kindle Unlimited right now.
Here are some quotes from Inner Work:
"If we go to our own dreams and sincerely work with the symbols that we find there, we generally learn most of what we need to know about ourselves and the meaning of our lives, regardless of how much we know of the psychological theories involved."
"Put your faith in your own unconscious, your own dreams. If you would learn from your dreams, then work with them. Live with the symbols in your dreams as though they were your physical companions in daily life. You will discover, if you do, that they really are your companions in the inner world."
"If dreams only served to affirm our pre-existing opinions and assumptions, they would not contribute to our psychological growth at all. Assume that your dream has come to challenge you, help you grow, wake you up to what you need to learn and where you need to change."
"Dreams are aimed at the unfinished business of your life, showing what you need to face next, what you need to learn next. In the inner life, we never reach the point at which we can stop learning and start resting on our laurels."
"When you have begun to experience your dreams, you sense that there is an enormous power and intelligence behind them. You feel that your dreams are revealing layers of your soul that you never knew, touching on themes that are so important that your whole sense of life and its meaning begins to be rearranged."
Another Jungian writer I love is Marion Woodman. Here are some things she's written about dreams. These quotes are from Conscious Femininity:
"But it is the soul that is calling out in dreams and the soul communicates through symbols. If we meditate on these images, they reach us on all levels: imaginative, emotional, intellectual. Our whole being, including our body, resonates. We feel ourselves whole."
"The healing dimension of the unconscious is available to men and women who are willing to connect with powerful images from poetry, myth, personal dreams and personal experience. Images ignite the body electric that connects us to our inner reality."
"What a person needs is a bigger framework than the smaller personal framework, because a personal framework can become too humdrum. We need to ask ourselves about the meaning of life. What is the purpose of life, why should we keep going? The images in our dreams give us that meaning, and at the deepest level they are connected to myths."
"As I go deeper into dreams, I realize that the voice that says, "I am unlovable," is in the cells. Therefore it's at that cellular level that the transformation has to take place."
Do you work with your dreams? If you do, what is your process like? Have your dreams helped you?
How do you see your dreams? As premonitions? As a deeper part of you revealing itself?
Love this informative and interesting post! I've definitely had premonitions from my dreams warning me about people or full on experiences that happened soon after.
Our intuition definitely comes through our dreams and we should always listen to them. I need to start a dream diary so thanks for this reminder!
This is a niche interest for me! I have many personal anecdotes I don't want to doxx myself by sharing, but my dreams are often prophetic. If you've read lots of my posts you've probably seen me mention that I'm an atheist. (I don't believe in a higher power really, but I agree a simulation is possible which in theory would have a creator. I only believe things supported by evidence basically.) I don't think I'm receiving divine messages from a being, but I think my brain has good critical thinking skills to the point where I'm making connections and hypothesizing in my sleep. Sometimes my dreams are scrambled garbage, and sometimes it's pretty much my brain screaming something at me that I probably already know on some level. It's interesting. I've had experiences I can't explain and I've told my friends stories I wouldn't believe if I heard them from somebody else. HOWEVER, my biggest takeaway is still to just follow your intuition, dream or otherwise. It's a safety thing. Based on reading many of the FDS recommended books following your gut is one of your most trustworthy safety assets. Sometimes my dreams are a well-timed warning!
** to address your question about more literal process I have kept dream journals for going on 2 decades, have a dream dictionary, and definitely work with my dreams by reflecting and researching omens/metaphors/etc. I do believe dreams reveal yourself to you as well.
I've had premonitory dreams. Quite a few people around me have them too. It has stopped surprising me honestly.
I dreamt of a significant guy who was trying to trap me in a never-ending situationship years before I met him. It's a funny story. I was staying over at a relative's place, and before going to sleep that night, I picked up a psychology book lying on the shelf. It was abt men's psyche. I read about the Madonna-Whore for the first time and was a bit grossed out by the book in general. I was still 15. Years later, I met said guy and as I got to know him, remembered that vivid dream and saw the resemblance. He also exhibited traits that matched the Madonna-Whore complex, a concept I totally forgot about at that point. It was also pre-FDS days.
Thanks for sharing, I love this post!
I have had lucid dreams spontaneously since I was a child. Not many, just once every few months, but it can be very fun. At 18 I read a couple books on lucid dreaming and started having them more frequentely, but I also experienced sleep paralysis for the first time, got scared and stopped practising.
I do remember my dreams every morning when I wake up and I used to write them down, I have 5 notebooks full of dreams. When I was doing that I noticed some cool patterns like, I often dream of a particular hall, it looks like a hotel, with a fancy elevator with many buttons, there are hundreds of buttons to choose from, but in my dreams I always press the same button.
My dreams are usually very pleasant, almost like a very realistic daydream. I often dream of things I have been fantasizing about. As in, if I am planning a trip to Hawaii, my dream that night will probably be set in Hawaii.
I have used my dreams for creative purpouses before, like, painting a scene I have seen in a dream, writing a short story that came to me in a dream.
I used to see my dreams as travelling, astral projecting or something like that. Nowadays I try not to overthink it too much. I really have no idea what dreams are but I usually like mine, I often wake myself up from laughing. It's very, very rare for me to have a nightmare.
I like this post, though my dreams, more often than not, make no sense. I had even dreamt about recording a chicken mixed with a cat, dog, duck, tiger, etc. It was funny as hell, NGL.
Yes, they are very powerful symbols.
Is it weird that I don’t dream much or often? 🥺😩
Dreams are the only things worth chasing, Freedom is the only thing worth fighting for,
Rights are the only thing worth living for. Yet women all over the world are willing or brainwashed since birth to throw that away to be subserviant to a manlet. To be a doormat to raise his children.
At times I feel sorry for my own kind.