Dreams to Go
Research Documentation
There is something mysterious about dreaming and every book that has been written on the subject has a slightly different approach or perspective. I am not suggesting just another perspective, but an effort to show a purpose for this physiological phenomenon that millions of people experience every day of their lives. 
“To Sleep Perchance to Dream”, a quote from Hamlet by William Shakespeare, describes the mystique surrounding dreaming. It is never known when we lie down to sleep what will occur during those hours. If we are very tired, our hope is to have a minimum of six to eight hours of complete solid unconsciousness. If we are adventurous, our hope may be to have dreams that will take us to places unknown. It doesn’t matter what our intentions are when we lie down because the physiological will soon take over and the dreams will occur.
I began studying and researching my dreams in the early 1970’s during a period of my life when I was unemployed. This was the perfect time since personal research involved the possibility of losing at least an hour of sleep each night. In the beginning, I read books written by others on dreaming. Some of the books were extremely scientific, while others were supporting psychic phenomenon. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, both renowned psychiatrists, had individual views about dreams. Freud believed that dreams were simply “wish fulfillments.” Jung believed that dreams came from “a collective unconsciousness.” It finally became clear that I would have to derive my own theory and conclusion. One of the most helpful things I learned from my studies was that I could program myself to awaken after each dream segment, which is very important since the ability to remember a dream can be quite illusive. At first, I only awakened a few times during the night. I kept a pad and pen on my night stand so that each time I could record my dream content. Before long, I was awakening five to six times a night after each dream segment, and becoming aware that often the dreams were imparting certain information about me, and my life. I have been aware of my dreams since I was a child and I always enjoyed the adventure except when the dream was so “frightening” that it would awaken me. I now understand that “nightmares” may even have a purpose. I must admit that I have had dreams that made very little sense to me, but those were rare. The majority of my dreams have had an impact on both my emotional and spiritual growth, and my ability to solve problems.
Understanding dreams is not an exact science because each person dreams using their own vocabulary. Dream vocabulary is composed of picture symbols. Most of the time, the symbols that appear in a person’s dream are derived from personal experiences and various people that they know or encounter on a daily basis. Once recognized and identified, this personal dream vocabulary will stay fairly constant throughout their life.
Dreams are completely ignored by some people and thought of as a type of “brain-dumping” by others. Many believe that they never dream but studies have shown that everyone dreams although some may not remember. It was first thought that dreaming only occurred during “rapid eye movement” but further research has shown that in some cases, dreaming may occur at other intervals of sleep. Regardless of when dreaming occurs, the fact is that it does occur to each of us on a regular basis whether we acknowledge it or not. This brings the question that can only be answered by theory and thus accounts for so many books on the subject. What is the significance of dreams? One of the reasons that this question is so complicated is because the answer requires both an objective and subjective approach. Each of us must objectively acknowledge the scientific data that has been confirmed by numerous research efforts. Subjectively, however, each of us may accept or refuse to accept that dreaming has a purpose that can be explored, understood, and applied to our emotional, and spiritual life, and enhance our problem-solving skills. I have come to believe that understanding dreams is a gift for some, and a learned experience for others. Either way, it is either utilized or overlooked. Understanding dreams is a complicated process because it requires effort and perseverance to allow it to fulfill its purpose in an individual’s life. In my life, it has been worth the effort.
Bibliography
http://www.macalester.edu/-psych/whathap/UBNRP/dreaming/drea...
Domhoff, G. William, The “Purpose” of Dreams.
Dreams, Carl Jung, Copyright 1974, Princeton, University, Princeton, New Jersy. http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Articles/purpose.html
God’s Word, Copyright 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society, World Publishing, Inc., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49418 U.S.A.
Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Camden, New York.
Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams: Published 1899, Germany, Translated by A. A. Brill, 1913, New York.
Dreams to Go
(The Process)
Understanding dreams is a unique and individual process. The meaning of picture symbols in dreams can, and does vary for each person. In order to help a person understand their dreams, certain conditions must be met. The first condition is that the person must believe that although dreaming is a physiological process, the understanding of dreams can play a part in emotional and spiritual growth, and also help in basic problem solving. Please read the information and the research provided and if you would like to submit a dream, I would be honored to help you understand its meaning.
I do not participate in any type of psychic phenomenon. I also am not professing to be any type of prophet. I have simply learned to use prayer, common sense, logic, and life experience as the tools to understand, and apply the meaning of dreams to my life. I have helped many people, mostly through email, to understand their dreams. I do believe that some people, like Daniel and Joseph, in the Bible, were given a gift to understand other people’s dreams. I am not saying that I have the same type of gift. I can only tell you that I researched my own dreams for two years. Through prayer and the other tools listed above, I learned to understand, and apply the meaning of my dreams to my emotional and spiritual growth, and it did help me understand the particular growth process I was going through at the time.
If you are already experienced with the process of understanding and applying your dreams to your daily growth; I am willing to help you if you get stumped. If you have always been curious about why your dreams occur, and would like to try to understand, and apply them to your emotional and spiritual growth, I will get you started by helping you decipher what your picture symbols in your dreams mean. I may do this by giving you my “take” on the dream content, or just giving you a vocabulary that is peculiar to your dreams, so that you can put the story together from that point. I may not always appear to be 100% on target, but I don’t have a problem with you telling me if you believe I am off base. I do know that often dreams are for the future, and therefore, the meaning that I come up with may not seem to apply at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it’s off base. Often, we just have to wait and see.
Working with dream content is an exciting process for me. I have found that more often than not, the dream is very clear once a person understands how to view it. I look forward to helping anyone who is interested. Come dream with me.
