Dream Magic
Whispers from the subconscious mind...🌙
Hello Beautiful Soul.
How are you?
I am fresh back from the DREAM Retreat.
One of the great blessings of hosting DREAM was that holding space for other people’s dreams turned up the volume on my own.
In preparation, I did loads of research on the history and science of dreaming. How to read them, their significance, key historical and psychological players in the dream conversation, and more.
There are varying beliefs about the role of dreams in our lives.
Some theorists believe dreams are simply the side effects of neural activity in the brain. Others, notably Freud and Jung, support the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed desires.
Since recording my own dreams regularly from retreat, I can’t help but lean towards the “dreams have significance” camp.
Not because I need them to be mystical. But because dreams have become one of the few places in my life where I can’t perform or play a role. Where I can’t be efficient, focused, or on task. Where I can’t care about being likable or wise. And mostly, where I can’t make it all make sense.
Their messages are not always comfortable. Not always clear. But somehow, I find hidden gems there when I shine light on my dreams by acknowledging and thinking through them.
I believe dreams tell the truth sideways.
And sideways truths are strangely helpful at bringing us back to what is quiet and true.
This morning, I woke up and wrote down a dream from last night.
I was on a houseboat with my husband, kids, and all our animals. The house was sinking into the ocean, bit by bit. Water leaked through the cracks in the windows and walls as we sunk. And there was a shared understanding that we could not be rescued. No one was coming to help.
I woke up multiple times during this dream and found myself wanting to get back into it. Despite the grief I felt from what was happening, I wanted to be there, experiencing it.
So I kept diving back in after each waking, going further and further into what came next…
It’s my experience that dreams rarely speak in literal instructions. They speak in emotional truths. They show us what we haven’t been able to name in daylight.
Here are three roles dreams have been playing in my life lately…
Dreams show me what I’m avoiding in daylight.
I often find that what I ignore in daily living surfaces in images and emotions in the undirected comfort of the night. Not in a scolding way. In a compassionate way. Like, “Hey you, we can’t keep stepping around this forever...” Or if I’ve made a decision I feel uncertain about, the truth of it will surface once my conscious mind is offline.
Dreams reveal the emotional truth under the storyline.
Typically, dream plots make no sense. But the feeling can laser-precise. Grief. Longing. Relief. Panic. Tenderness. The emotion is the message because our subconscious minds speak to us not in direct language, but in IMAGES and EMOTIONS.
Dreams return me to my intuition.
They train me to trust subtlety again. They remind me that there are parts of me that know things before my mind can make a spreadsheet or blog post about them. My most creative connections and ideas come at night, or first thing in the morning. I believe our source of creativity is intimately linked with the subconscious mind, the shadow side, and the dark.
I don’t know that every dream is profound. But I do think they’re honest. And sometimes honesty is the most spiritual thing available to us.
Here’s to turning up the volume on your dreams. And to the gems you might find there.
🌙If you feel like sharing in the comments: what’s a dream you still remember years later, and why do you think it stayed?👇🏼
To find out more about my other writings and offerings, please see my website. xxo
