A primary way that information comes to me is through my dreams. Just the other night, I asked my dreams to provide me with information on a particular dilemma. I know a response was given to me, because I hadn’t been remembering my dreams and I had a really intense one that night. A nightmare is your psyche’s way of trying to tell you something really important!
You have the ability to access your intuition through your dreams, too. Everybody has this ability. You just have to open the line of communication with them. If your dreams know that you’re listening to them, they will communicate with you.
The first step to accessing your intuition through your dreams is to be able to remember them. If you practice the following guidelines, I guarantee that you will remember your dreams!
Keep a notebook and a pen or even a voice recorder next to your bed. Most cell phones have a voice recorder. A flashlight is helpful, too.
Set an intention, before you go to bed. Ask your dreams for information around a particular issue, and write down your request in your notebook.
Upon awakening, immediately write down any information you remember from your dreams. Even if you do not remember very much, write it down. You can glean a lot of information from a single image, color or feeling. If you wake up in the middle of the night, record one bit, an image or a feeling, from the dream. This will help you to recall the dream in the morning. You can also draw your dream in pictorial form or tear out images from a magazine that remind you of your dream. It has been my experience that the more I pay attention to and write down my dreams, the more dreams I remember.
The second step to accessing your intuition through your dreams is to understand them. What the heck are your weird dreams trying to tell you? Dreams have their own language, a symbolic language. They speak indirectly (from our perspective) through such things as images, feelings, relationships and actions. For example, the color red symbolizes many different things, including love, anger and heat. The following guidelines will help you decode your dreams.
As you record your dream, write it down in the present tense. So, instead of writing “I helped the woman escape from the house,” write “I help the woman escape from the house,” as if it is happening in this moment. Recording your dream in the present tense allows you to reenter and connect more intimately with it. As a result, you’ll probably recall more information. At the same time, writing down your dream helps you to gain distance from it, so that you can see it from an outside perspective. The simple act of writing it down will most likely help you to see connections between your dream and your life.
Ask yourself the following questions: How do I feel in the dream? What part of the dream stands out the most to me? What are the themes or patterns in the dream? Where am I in the dream? Who is in my dream?
Break down your dream into parts or pieces, and think about what the pieces could represent or symbolize. What do you associate with the images, feelings and people in your dreams? Usually dreams have many layers of meaning, so a single image could represent several different aspects of an issue in your life. Simply have an open mind and brainstorm, at this point. Think about all of the possibilities that each part of your dream could represent.
For instance, suppose you dream that you are in an ancient underground dwelling. The space could symbolize a past life, your subconscious mind or perhaps the womb. If you dream about somebody in your life, think about your relationship with him or her and what stands out the most about the individual. If you were describing the individual to somebody else, how would you describe him or her? As you brainstorm and think about the possibilities of what each aspect of your dream means, pay attention to “Aha!” moments. These are indications that you are on the right track with your interpretations.
Connect the parts of your dream with your everyday life and the original issue that you needed insight on. How does your emotion in the dream relate to what’s going on in your life? Why did particular people appear in your dream? It isn’t random. There is a reason why certain people and other images appear in your dreams. Your dreams are trying to tell you something, and they are perfectly choreographed in order to relay information to you. You just need to listen to and understand them.
The final step in establishing communication with your dreams and, therefore, your intuition is to let your dreams know that you heard them. Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson believes that one must perform a ritual or a ceremony, a conscious symbolic act, to create deep and lasting changes in one’s life. He says to really register the meaning of one’s dream, the body, feelings and intellect need to be simultaneously involved, so that the ideas and images from the dream enter into the cells of one’s body. A highly conscious ritual sends a powerful message back to the dream.
A former hairstylist of mine once called me, because she knew I studied dreams. She said that she was in a new relationship, but that she had a dream about her two ex-boyfriends. She felt upset about her dream, because her two ex-boyfriends represented unhealthy relationships, and she was trying to move forward in her life and have a healthy relationship. She was worried that she hadn’t let go of an old way of being.
Interestingly, in her dream there was an “X” drawn on the back of each of her hands. Therefore, I suggested that she consciously perform the ritual of drawing the letter “X” on the back of each of her hands, symbolizing each one of her ex-boyfriends, and then washing her hands of the X’s, along with her ex-boyfriends from her life.
You have the ability to make deep and lasting changes in your life, too. Why not use the time while you sleep to access your intuition through your dreams?
