Remember & Learn From Your Dreams

“Dreams are the royal road to the psyche.” 

  

~ Sigmund Freud

How Can I Remember my Dreams ... and Why Should I ?

* Today's article was sent our way from Diane Jaquet who works with BardoCoaching.com  - and was written by Steven Tokeshi is a Certified Life Coach and Career Coach with Bardo Life Coaching. Based in San Diego, Steve helps people clarify their personal and career goals, and to motivate them to actively pursue them through coaching and mentoring.

According to dream researcher, G. William Domhoff, dreams have no physiological or psychological functions- despite the claims of past psychotherapists such as Freud and Carl Jung.  Yet we humans have found- and continue to find- endless fascination and use for them.  Lack of function, however, does not mean lack of meaning.

"Meaning has to do with coherence and with systematic relations to other variables, and in that regard dreams do have meaning,” states Domhoff.  After all, life itself does not have any inherent meaning outside the meaning we attach to it.  So finding the meaning we attach to our dreams may help us better navigate meaning in our waking lives.
  

Here is a simple process to practice remembering your dreams:

• Write your dreams in a dream journal, and keep the dream journal beside your bed.  A simple notepad and pen or pencil will suffice in the beginning.  As you become more experienced and even begin identifying patterns in your dreams, you might like to purchase a blank notebook or bound journal to lend a more ceremonial feel to your dreamwork.  Of course, this all depends on your own personality.
• Before falling asleep, set the intention to remember your dream when you awake.  Even better, write down an intention to resolve some challenge or conflict with the help of your dreams before going to sleep.
• Record your dreams immediately upon awakening, before you begin your morning activities, and before you forget.  Make this part of your morning ritual.
   
• Look for signs in the outer world.  Your dreams can give you signs from your subconscious that you may also encounter in your waking life.
  
  
• Practice and trust your intuition in following the signs, and continue following them as long as they lead to your next step closer to your dream, goal or objective. 
  

Self-help guru Deepak Chopra uses this idea of a connection between our consciousness and the outer material world in his book, SynchroDestiny (the term “synchronicity” was actually coined by Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli in the 1920’s).  In your dream journal, write down every waking experience that might correspond to something that happened in one of your dreams.

The more you practice this ritual, the more easily solutions may come to you through your dreams.  Remember that your conscious mind is regulated by logic, beliefs, and social constraints.  When you can balance it with the creative flow coming from your subconscious and expressed through your dreams, you may begin to feel you are living a more integrated, fulfilled life.  

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