How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
Dream Meanings & Analysis
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Article about Dream Meanings & Analysis based on an interview with Craig Hamilton-Parker for an article titled 'Sweet Dreams - dream yourself happy' for Natural Health Magazine. The Dream Meanings and text of this interview are copyrighted. Craig is a well known dream interpreter and is available for interview.
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
DREAM MEANINGS & ANALYSIS FOR SWEETER DREAMS
Things getting you down? Maybe you need to sleep on it. Take the advice of one of the UK’s leading psychics, Craig Hamilton-Parker, and dream yourself happy.
 Nobody knows for certain why we dream but most researchers agree that
without dreams we would cease to function. Some of the most recent research
suggests that dreams happen in order to stop the emotions from overheating.
Without dreams we would probably become emotional wrecks!
Dreams give the brain the opportunity to explore its potential in ways that would never be possible in day-to-day life.
It is generally agreed that dreams and fantasies are essential for health. As an emotional safety valve, dreams are as important to our well-being as eating and drinking; without them, frustration and anxiety would overwhelm us.
There are many aspects to happiness but one of its main aspects certainly comes when we feel emotionally in balance. And dreams will help you towards this goal. They do this by bringing our problems to our attention and offer us ways to solve those problems. If we pay attention to our dreams by writing them down in the morning then we can discover many things about ourselves that will eventually lead to greater inner harmony and well being.
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
THE MEANING OF NIGHTMARES
Of course not all dreams are enjoyable and there are many times when we all
have nightmares. But these are also very useful for they may highlight our
weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In fact nightmare force these things to our
attention and may contain all the things that we refuse to face up to about
our situation and ourselves.
Simply burying our heads in the sand when we have problems is not usually a
good way of sorting problems out. Dreams and nightmares make us pay
attention to our weaknesses but also will offer us ways to overcome these
problems.
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
POSITIVE DREAM MEANINGS
The ancients believed that dreams given via the temple gods related to the
future conditions and can also give information about health.
You can achieve a much more positive state of mind by simply becoming more aware of your dreams. We dream every night and particularly in the morning yet most people forget their dreams immediately when they wake. However if you keep a dream diary and make a habit of recalling your dreams you will soon find that you have many to work with and sometimes many dreams that follow on from dreams of a previous night.
Once you have the material to work with you can start to use it to create
that positive state of mind you want. You dreams might identify a
weakness. For example, if you have the common dream of being chased then you
need to identify what it is you are running away from. The figure that
pursues you is a symbol for the things that you refuse to face up to. Once
you have the courage to identify these things you start to address your
fears and will eventually take control of them.
Other common fears may be that dream of turning up to a public place when you
are only partly dressed or naked. This is another dream that may highlight
your sense of vulnerability. You may feel emotional or sexually vulnerable
or the dream may speak about other sensitivities- for example you may fear
that a secret about you is going to be exposed. The dream is saying, “You
feel vulnerable, just like you would if you had no clothes on. It is time to
realise this and do something about it!” Dreams are a good friend for they
tell us the truth about ourselves in order that the inner balance can be
achieved.
So if you have a recurring dream or a dream that bothers you, ask yourself
what the dream says about you. What does it say about your behaviour in
waking life or your hopes and fears? Sometimes dreams can reveal the things
we would prefer not to know about ourselves but it is only through
self-knowledge that we can ever become fully integrated and rounded
individuals.
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
MEANING OF EMOTIONAL DREAMS
One of the ways that dreams help to maintain our emotional equilibrium is by
solving our problems. During sleep, our unconscious mind sorts out these worries
and fears by scanning all the information it can find and, from this material,
weaves a dream that expresses our feelings and offers symbolic solutions to
our problems. Obscure memories and half noticed things from the day are used
to build the strange imagery of dreams. I believe that the brain uses
everything it can to come to a conclusion and if it can't find the
information it needs in the past and present then it looks to the future to
find what it wants. |
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
DREAM MEANINGS FACTS
Did you know?
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One third of our lives are spent sleeping.
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In your lifetime you will spend about six years of it dreaming. That is more than 2100 days spent in a different world.
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Everybody dreams. Just because you don’t remember your dreams it does not mean that you didn’t dream
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We dream an average of one or two hours every night and we often have four to seven dreams in one night
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Five minutes after the end of a dream, half the content is forgotten. After ten minutes, 99 per cent is lost.
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If you are snoring then you cannot be dreaming
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The word dream stems from the middle English word, ‘dreme’ which means joy and music
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Men tend to dream more about other men, while women dream equally about men and women
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Dreamers who are awakened right after REM sleep are able to recall their dreams more vividly than those who slept through the night.
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Research has shown that during REM sleep men experience erections and women experience vaginal blood flow no matter what the content of the dream. In fact, ‘wet dreams’ may not coincide with overtly sexual content.
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People who give up smoking have longer and more intense dreams
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Toddlers do not dream about themselves. They don’t appear in their own dreams until the age of three or four
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Your subconscious mind is in some ways a little like a biological computer that can be used for specific tasks. All we need to do is set a programme running and in the morning we will be given an answer in the form of a dream.
It is possible to programme this, our biological computer, by a technique
called ‘Dream Incubation’- sometimes called ‘Dream Seeding’ (‘incubate’ comes
from the Latin ‘incubare’, meaning 'to lie down upon'. The basic method is to
tell your dream that you require an answer to a problem and the dreams
through the night and just before you wake will provide a symbolic answer to
your question. Recognised as a valid technique by today's psychologists,
this method stretches back to the very first dream experiments when people
would sleep in the dream temples of ancient Egypt and Greece in order to
receive a message from the gods.
Dream incubation helps you to use dreams to solve specific problems. Start by trying something not too emotive and work up to the big problems as you begin to understand this method. Always, of course, remember that dreams may sometimes exaggerate situations in order to clarify the issues they are highlighting, but ask the big questions and once you begin to understand how dreams work with allegory, metaphor and symbols you can use your dreams to achieve a better approach to situations. Act on what your dreams are telling you and make positive changes in your life!
How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
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How to Interpret and Analyse Dream Meanings
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