Dreams and Their Relation to Waking Life

Because the human mind becomes - by necessity - outwardly focused, primarily concerned with survival and necessity and the concrete world of "facts", it loses touch with the true fount of its being, which is much more mysterious and less rational than many of us may like to believe. Our minds become independent, then, but not really self-sufficient: because we are, in many ways, spiritually starving whilst we live thus separated from our source. The intention of all our dreams is to show us how we can reconnect with this source.

The waking world, which is generally referred to as the real world, is just the part of reality that is actualized - made concrete - out of the endless swirling possibilities that exist in the world of dreams. This "other world" has been given myriad names throughout human history, and described in a host of ways by seers and visionaries from every age and from all walks of life. It is the much-maligned Hades of Greek mythology and the Underworld of the Egyptians; it is the place that Christ was describing when he stated that the Kingdom of Heaven was spread upon the Earth and men do not see it. Following the path of our dreams, our awareness and perception can profoundly shift so that we can see the luminous life that the mystics throughout the ages have beheld, and that exists all around us even now - if only we could see it.

Dreams do not only hold relevance for us whilst we're asleep, then.

Dreams carry specific intent; they are not random fumes escaping from the furnace of the unconscious. If listened to, they will draw us ever closer to that fire at a pace that is measured precisely for each individual heart and mind. Barriers to self-understanding will be first encountered and acknowledged and then broken down. The process of dream analysis has been shown to provoke extraordinary transformations within people, from the inside out.

Moving through the feelings that dreams evoke, accepting the truths that they confront us with, sets in motion a process that is nothing less than the death of our old, limited (and, perhaps, long-suffered) lives and the birth of new, expansive possibility.

All the while, the process is carefully guided so that, at each step along the road, we are given exactly what we need and never more than we can handle. Dreams are proof that the psyche is its own best physician. They are allies that have been with us since the birth of our reasoning minds (maybe even before), always appearing with the same intention: to guide us to the wealth of guidance, knowledge and wisdom that lies within.