PROGRAMMING AND CONTACTING THE UNCONSCIOUS
SEEKING A MIRROR AS A CATALYST FOR LUCID DREAMING
As we mentioned before in the title of setting the right intentions, instructing your dreaming self to seek a mirror in your dreams and trying to see your own reflection in it, can become a powerful catalyst for lucid dreaming as long as you rehearse this cue sufficiently beforehand. By making repeated suggestions to yourself during the day that you will become lucid in your dreams it is possible to program our unconscious. This is a process known as “autosuggestion”.
Different dream analysts in the field of dreamwork recommend to us to suggest ourselves each night: “Tonight I shall know that I am dreaming, and I shall awaken in the dream world.” As we mentioned earlier, it is crucial to become intentional and affirm what we want. By repeating this mantra very firmly as you fall sleep can be of great help to get to the state of lucid dreaming. This happens when you are conscious in the dream and you can consciously act and participate of the dream as it is unfolding.
You can imagine yourself back in a recent dream, only this time knowing that you are dreaming. If there is an object or event that features frequently in your dreams, such for example a house, a soccer field or a car, you can use it as an anchor image. By telling your waking mind that the next time it appears in dreams, you will realize that you are dreaming.
For example, you can also choose an activity that you regularly perform in dreams like for example, cooking or building a house. Whatever object, event or activity you select, visualize it as often as possible during the day.
Another method is to create a cue for lucid dreaming. Instruct your dreaming self to find a mirror and look into it. Later, promise to yourself that you will know that you are dreaming when you see your reflection. This technique is especially effective because it is an unusual dream experience. If you frequently dream of water, tell yourself to go and look for your reflection in the surface.
Different dream analysts in the field of dreamwork recommend to us to suggest ourselves each night: “Tonight I shall know that I am dreaming, and I shall awaken in the dream world.” As we mentioned earlier, it is crucial to become intentional and affirm what we want. By repeating this mantra very firmly as you fall sleep can be of great help to get to the state of lucid dreaming. This happens when you are conscious in the dream and you can consciously act and participate of the dream as it is unfolding.
You can imagine yourself back in a recent dream, only this time knowing that you are dreaming. If there is an object or event that features frequently in your dreams, such for example a house, a soccer field or a car, you can use it as an anchor image. By telling your waking mind that the next time it appears in dreams, you will realize that you are dreaming.
For example, you can also choose an activity that you regularly perform in dreams like for example, cooking or building a house. Whatever object, event or activity you select, visualize it as often as possible during the day.
Another method is to create a cue for lucid dreaming. Instruct your dreaming self to find a mirror and look into it. Later, promise to yourself that you will know that you are dreaming when you see your reflection. This technique is especially effective because it is an unusual dream experience. If you frequently dream of water, tell yourself to go and look for your reflection in the surface.
BEFRIENDING THE UNCONSCIOUS & DEVELOPING STRONGER DREAM SKILLS
It would be unrealistic to expect the unconscious to respond to us like the conscious mind does. Even after a long period of intense efforts, it may fail to get the message you are trying to convey, only to reward you when you least expect it or to respond to you only when you have been seeking for a specific result.
As you work to develop stronger dream skills, bear in mind that the unconscious does not learn in the same way as the conscious mind does. The conscious mind is usually more logic, rational, and/or linear. This tends to search for patterns and relationships, and thrives on consistency and predictability. It thinks primarily in terms or words, and can readily test itself on what it has learned.
By contrast, the unconscious mind follows no rules, tends be stubborn and willful, definitely more wild and perhaps we can affirm that it is more illogical or non-linear, and makes progress in a frustratingly unpredictable and inconsistent ways. It sometimes obstinately refuses to cooperate with us as well.
In this process of befriending the unconscious, it is crucial to be patient, and not to waver in your belief that the unconscious will respond. The unconscious does, however, resemble the conscious mind in that it responds well to praise. You must befriend it, letting it know how much you value it.
You can reward it verbally and holding the value with your warm feelings for receiving your dreams it gives you. Make sure that you thank yourself and your unconscious for each improvement in your dream life. Keep asking what further help you can give to it, and wait in silence for the answers it provides.
Never regard actions of this kind as fantasy. They are an effective way of self-integration, and produce a range of psychological benefits as well as improvements in the overall process of dreaming. Subtleties are very important to not disregard them. I know that it is a hard work and it is easy to skip by or to give up. Thus, in this regard every little improvement and renewed intention surely counts.
As we pointed out earlier, the best way to approach the unconscious is through simplicity and repetition. You have to be a “faithful fisherman.” Give it instructions that are clear and unambiguous, such as “I am going to remember my dreams” and repeat it with faith and sincerity frequently.
Another attractive option to work with dreams and symbolic images chosen by many people is to listen to music that you feel that echoes or represents the dream mood you wish to experience. You can also read romantic of mystical poetry and visualize its symbols and ponder the deep metaphors involved. You may opt to watch and listen as your mind learns how to absorb impressions, and resist the temptation to reduce these impressions to the level of rational, linear thought by expressing them as words.
One important fact is pretty true and this is that the more rigid and inflexible the conscious mind becomes, the more thoroughly it prevents the energy of the unconscious from emerging into awareness. In this regard, it may be helpful to think of the unconscious as the source of your psychological life, and see the conscious mind as a kind of over layer, placed over it by learning and in experience.
Another way we can befriend our unconscious is by making the different parts of our mind work in unison by creating a visual metaphor: visualize the conscious mind as a strong and serious doorkeeper holding the door closed through which the unconscious is trying to enter.
Therefore, imagine the conscious mind opening the door and greeting the unconscious like it was a lost close friend or a brother or sister. Watch the two parts of the mind assent that they both have much to learn from each other. Feel deeply in your heart that from now on, once they have re-encountered each other after a long time of being separated, they will work together in harmony.
As you work to develop stronger dream skills, bear in mind that the unconscious does not learn in the same way as the conscious mind does. The conscious mind is usually more logic, rational, and/or linear. This tends to search for patterns and relationships, and thrives on consistency and predictability. It thinks primarily in terms or words, and can readily test itself on what it has learned.
By contrast, the unconscious mind follows no rules, tends be stubborn and willful, definitely more wild and perhaps we can affirm that it is more illogical or non-linear, and makes progress in a frustratingly unpredictable and inconsistent ways. It sometimes obstinately refuses to cooperate with us as well.
In this process of befriending the unconscious, it is crucial to be patient, and not to waver in your belief that the unconscious will respond. The unconscious does, however, resemble the conscious mind in that it responds well to praise. You must befriend it, letting it know how much you value it.
You can reward it verbally and holding the value with your warm feelings for receiving your dreams it gives you. Make sure that you thank yourself and your unconscious for each improvement in your dream life. Keep asking what further help you can give to it, and wait in silence for the answers it provides.
Never regard actions of this kind as fantasy. They are an effective way of self-integration, and produce a range of psychological benefits as well as improvements in the overall process of dreaming. Subtleties are very important to not disregard them. I know that it is a hard work and it is easy to skip by or to give up. Thus, in this regard every little improvement and renewed intention surely counts.
As we pointed out earlier, the best way to approach the unconscious is through simplicity and repetition. You have to be a “faithful fisherman.” Give it instructions that are clear and unambiguous, such as “I am going to remember my dreams” and repeat it with faith and sincerity frequently.
Another attractive option to work with dreams and symbolic images chosen by many people is to listen to music that you feel that echoes or represents the dream mood you wish to experience. You can also read romantic of mystical poetry and visualize its symbols and ponder the deep metaphors involved. You may opt to watch and listen as your mind learns how to absorb impressions, and resist the temptation to reduce these impressions to the level of rational, linear thought by expressing them as words.
One important fact is pretty true and this is that the more rigid and inflexible the conscious mind becomes, the more thoroughly it prevents the energy of the unconscious from emerging into awareness. In this regard, it may be helpful to think of the unconscious as the source of your psychological life, and see the conscious mind as a kind of over layer, placed over it by learning and in experience.
Another way we can befriend our unconscious is by making the different parts of our mind work in unison by creating a visual metaphor: visualize the conscious mind as a strong and serious doorkeeper holding the door closed through which the unconscious is trying to enter.
Therefore, imagine the conscious mind opening the door and greeting the unconscious like it was a lost close friend or a brother or sister. Watch the two parts of the mind assent that they both have much to learn from each other. Feel deeply in your heart that from now on, once they have re-encountered each other after a long time of being separated, they will work together in harmony.
SLEEPING ON PROBLEMS AND ASKING FOR SOLUTIONS.
While we are sleeping, our minds continue to work by processing information, storing memories, sometimes untying the more complex intellectual, emotional and moral problems. Not attached to the conventions of the conscious mind, the unconscious is free to take the unusual or unexpected approach that can provide the breakthrough that we have been seeing or desiring for a long time.
Overnight, the sleeping brain incubates the problem, analyzing it and bringing the solution into consciousness as we awake. We all have often spent many efforts pondering an apparently insoluble problem or question, only to wake up with the answer. This feels intuitive and “out of the blue,” but it definitely has gone through an overnight process. One way to test this process, at a very simple level, will be to ask a friend to give you an enigma, a puzzle or dilemma. If you cannot solve it by your conscious efforts, hand it over to your unconscious.
Asking your unconscious to aid you is a matter of holding the problem in your mind when you are going to bed. You can feel confident in the knowledge that you have no need to worry about the solution during the night. Your sleeping mind will do all the work and will reveal to your conscious mind the answer in the morning, either as a entire reply that you will know it, or might appear buried in a dream.
When you will wake up in the morning or even in the middle of the night, you may find that you simply know the solution to your problem or you get the answer to your enigma or question. If not, search for it in your dreams, where it can appear symbolically, as a verbal sentence, which may need further interpretation.
Another approach to be asking for solutions to your unconscious mind is by suggesting an appropriate symbolism to your dreaming mind. Doing this, you can visualize the question in themes that are involved in your dilemma or problem, or name the elements of the problem.
For example, if the problem concerns your family, imagine them and the outside place where they live, write the theme in a piece of paper and later add each of each element associations that comes along. You can proceed to organize in the paper the images that come to your mind to represent the problem awaiting solution. To expand on the themes of your problem, your feelings can help you as well to bring images. In this sense, ask yourself: What I am feeling (conflicted?, chaotic?, angry?, powerless?).
The solution to your problem could appear in various forms, presenting itself in terms of the people involved, the symbols you have using or in some other way. You have to be prepared to repeat this process of visualizing the problem and its questions for different nights in a row, giving your unconscious time to mull over the problem and bring you the solution in a symbolic or literal, more direct form.
Overnight, the sleeping brain incubates the problem, analyzing it and bringing the solution into consciousness as we awake. We all have often spent many efforts pondering an apparently insoluble problem or question, only to wake up with the answer. This feels intuitive and “out of the blue,” but it definitely has gone through an overnight process. One way to test this process, at a very simple level, will be to ask a friend to give you an enigma, a puzzle or dilemma. If you cannot solve it by your conscious efforts, hand it over to your unconscious.
Asking your unconscious to aid you is a matter of holding the problem in your mind when you are going to bed. You can feel confident in the knowledge that you have no need to worry about the solution during the night. Your sleeping mind will do all the work and will reveal to your conscious mind the answer in the morning, either as a entire reply that you will know it, or might appear buried in a dream.
When you will wake up in the morning or even in the middle of the night, you may find that you simply know the solution to your problem or you get the answer to your enigma or question. If not, search for it in your dreams, where it can appear symbolically, as a verbal sentence, which may need further interpretation.
Another approach to be asking for solutions to your unconscious mind is by suggesting an appropriate symbolism to your dreaming mind. Doing this, you can visualize the question in themes that are involved in your dilemma or problem, or name the elements of the problem.
For example, if the problem concerns your family, imagine them and the outside place where they live, write the theme in a piece of paper and later add each of each element associations that comes along. You can proceed to organize in the paper the images that come to your mind to represent the problem awaiting solution. To expand on the themes of your problem, your feelings can help you as well to bring images. In this sense, ask yourself: What I am feeling (conflicted?, chaotic?, angry?, powerless?).
The solution to your problem could appear in various forms, presenting itself in terms of the people involved, the symbols you have using or in some other way. You have to be prepared to repeat this process of visualizing the problem and its questions for different nights in a row, giving your unconscious time to mull over the problem and bring you the solution in a symbolic or literal, more direct form.
READING AND INTERPRETING THE LANGUAGE OF YOUR DREAMS
Dreams speak to us in a symbolic and visual language. In this sense, things in the dream world are rarely what they seem or what they appear to our conscious mind. The two great schools of psychiatry offer us different explanations for this.
In this case, Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis when working with his patients with hypnosis, taught that dreams use a very elaborate symbolic system to protect us. In this case, the process of dreaming could be looked at like a defense mechanism system in itself.
Freud suggested that the underlying meaning of a dream can appear so disturbing to the conscious mind that it would wake us from our quiet or normal state of consciousness and worry us so deeply if it were presented undisguised.
According to Carl G. Jung however, symbols for him was the primal language of the unconscious, a pre-linguistic means of communication which resents truths potentially so mystical and profound that they can be understood only in terms of metaphor, parable or myth.
Dream interpretation, as Jung proposed is then best approached with an open mind. The goal is to play freely with the dream symbols that can come to you through your unconscious and put the conscious/subconscious mind into a receptive and quiet state.
There are two main techniques for interpreting dreams: 1) Freud used the free association technique, which involves allowing each aspect of a dream to stimulate a stream of unhindered associations. These eventually lead to a sudden insight that the dreamer recognizes as the essential hidden meaning.
2) Jung considered that free association would take the dreamer too far from the dream itself and often will miss its specific significance. Jung’s method of direct association was slightly different. Instead of allowing the mind to free-associate, the dreamer returns to the dream image after each association.
Although the language of dreams is in some respects consistent for us all, we have personal idiosyncrasies that render dream dictionaries, which ascribe specific or common meaning to dream experiences, of limited value.
In order for us to grasp the real significance of our dreams, we must learn how to interpret them. We can definitely say that this task is in many ways more of an art than a science. This certainly means that accurate dream interpretation requires practice.
It is very important to highlight that dreams that arise from the personal unconscious are especially inclined to use images and associations from the dreamer’s own life story and subjective inner world. In this case, successful dream interpretations depend on learning the appropriate techniques and make a special study of your own dreams to unravel their very personal messages.
We all can make a good use of the universal and archetypal significance but it is certain that dream significance is a unique and personal endeavor. You can get help and borrow many different techniques, but what is really amazing to appreciate is that no one can do this for you.
In this case, Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis when working with his patients with hypnosis, taught that dreams use a very elaborate symbolic system to protect us. In this case, the process of dreaming could be looked at like a defense mechanism system in itself.
Freud suggested that the underlying meaning of a dream can appear so disturbing to the conscious mind that it would wake us from our quiet or normal state of consciousness and worry us so deeply if it were presented undisguised.
According to Carl G. Jung however, symbols for him was the primal language of the unconscious, a pre-linguistic means of communication which resents truths potentially so mystical and profound that they can be understood only in terms of metaphor, parable or myth.
Dream interpretation, as Jung proposed is then best approached with an open mind. The goal is to play freely with the dream symbols that can come to you through your unconscious and put the conscious/subconscious mind into a receptive and quiet state.
There are two main techniques for interpreting dreams: 1) Freud used the free association technique, which involves allowing each aspect of a dream to stimulate a stream of unhindered associations. These eventually lead to a sudden insight that the dreamer recognizes as the essential hidden meaning.
2) Jung considered that free association would take the dreamer too far from the dream itself and often will miss its specific significance. Jung’s method of direct association was slightly different. Instead of allowing the mind to free-associate, the dreamer returns to the dream image after each association.
Although the language of dreams is in some respects consistent for us all, we have personal idiosyncrasies that render dream dictionaries, which ascribe specific or common meaning to dream experiences, of limited value.
In order for us to grasp the real significance of our dreams, we must learn how to interpret them. We can definitely say that this task is in many ways more of an art than a science. This certainly means that accurate dream interpretation requires practice.
It is very important to highlight that dreams that arise from the personal unconscious are especially inclined to use images and associations from the dreamer’s own life story and subjective inner world. In this case, successful dream interpretations depend on learning the appropriate techniques and make a special study of your own dreams to unravel their very personal messages.
We all can make a good use of the universal and archetypal significance but it is certain that dream significance is a unique and personal endeavor. You can get help and borrow many different techniques, but what is really amazing to appreciate is that no one can do this for you.
SHARING AND LISTENING TO DREAMS
Being in personal analysis as an ongoing psychotherapeutic work, or be participating of weekly psychotherapy or having a dream guide mentor can help you very much to pay attention to your inner life.
If you participate in dream groups, other dreamers can offer suggestions as to the meaning of your dreams but only you can experience your inner world, and you are the final authority interpreting the information what your unconscious is seeking to convey.
In this case, the flower remedies that operate as catalysts for change can be of a great aid at certain periods of your life when you want to be doing in-depth work on yourself and be healing and while you do that, you will be looking forward to receive answers from the depth of your unconscious mind.
The old saying that “a problem shared is a problem halved” applies to dreams as well.
Talking over your dreams with a friend or with a witness partner can help you to remember more details and arrive to a fair interpretation. Your listener should be someone that you trust, someone who won’t exercise judgment or censure you, no matter how bizarre the dream and the content associated.
You can start by recounting the dream, telling as much of the dream details as you can. It is always best if you can write the dream down in a paper or at your journal to not lose any detail. You can narrate it like it is a story. As much as detail contains, the best it will be to recreate the context in which the dream happened for analysis purposes and expand on different parts of the dream.
Add as much information as possible, for example about the colors, the forms and the sizes you saw, the actions there were made by you or others, feelings and sensations that the dream made you feel while dreaming and when you woke up.
Also, you can describe what textures you perceived by touching things or what perceptions did you had when looking at things, etc. Did they feel familiar or unfamiliar?
Next, describe your emotional reactions to the dream and its setting or the environment that the dream occurred. Did you behave as your waking self would have behaved? If it was unpleasant in some way, what improvements would you do? If the dream is not complete, how would you have liked it to end?
After that, you can also generate direct associations from the images of the dream and the different events of the dream. This can lead to a discussion of possible interpretations and themes that the dream is pointing out for you to work on.
When listening to yourself or others, one important thing is to help yourself or the other person who tells you a dream to remember his or her dreams as fully as possible. When listening and the other wants to receive feedback, use open questions such as:
“How did you feel about this event or this character in the dream? Or: “How would you like the dream to have ended?.” These types of questions will help your subject to uncover interpretations.
You could also suggest some ideas of our own but always express them as suggestions and formulate them as questions. For example: “That suggests to me so-and-so; does that make sense to you?” Always have present in mind that it is the other person’s dream and it is a unique experience for him or her.
We can all be facilitators for consciousness to emerge and become visible to us by having a dialog about our psychic experiences, but at the end, only each unique individual can fully interpret and give significance to his or her own dreams.
***
If you participate in dream groups, other dreamers can offer suggestions as to the meaning of your dreams but only you can experience your inner world, and you are the final authority interpreting the information what your unconscious is seeking to convey.
In this case, the flower remedies that operate as catalysts for change can be of a great aid at certain periods of your life when you want to be doing in-depth work on yourself and be healing and while you do that, you will be looking forward to receive answers from the depth of your unconscious mind.
- Are you ready to dive in the healing process and be transformed and healed by the flower remedies and your own dreams?
The old saying that “a problem shared is a problem halved” applies to dreams as well.
Talking over your dreams with a friend or with a witness partner can help you to remember more details and arrive to a fair interpretation. Your listener should be someone that you trust, someone who won’t exercise judgment or censure you, no matter how bizarre the dream and the content associated.
You can start by recounting the dream, telling as much of the dream details as you can. It is always best if you can write the dream down in a paper or at your journal to not lose any detail. You can narrate it like it is a story. As much as detail contains, the best it will be to recreate the context in which the dream happened for analysis purposes and expand on different parts of the dream.
Add as much information as possible, for example about the colors, the forms and the sizes you saw, the actions there were made by you or others, feelings and sensations that the dream made you feel while dreaming and when you woke up.
Also, you can describe what textures you perceived by touching things or what perceptions did you had when looking at things, etc. Did they feel familiar or unfamiliar?
Next, describe your emotional reactions to the dream and its setting or the environment that the dream occurred. Did you behave as your waking self would have behaved? If it was unpleasant in some way, what improvements would you do? If the dream is not complete, how would you have liked it to end?
After that, you can also generate direct associations from the images of the dream and the different events of the dream. This can lead to a discussion of possible interpretations and themes that the dream is pointing out for you to work on.
When listening to yourself or others, one important thing is to help yourself or the other person who tells you a dream to remember his or her dreams as fully as possible. When listening and the other wants to receive feedback, use open questions such as:
“How did you feel about this event or this character in the dream? Or: “How would you like the dream to have ended?.” These types of questions will help your subject to uncover interpretations.
You could also suggest some ideas of our own but always express them as suggestions and formulate them as questions. For example: “That suggests to me so-and-so; does that make sense to you?” Always have present in mind that it is the other person’s dream and it is a unique experience for him or her.
We can all be facilitators for consciousness to emerge and become visible to us by having a dialog about our psychic experiences, but at the end, only each unique individual can fully interpret and give significance to his or her own dreams.
***
Image used from Free Images at https://pixabay.com
