Part Two of Four

In Part Two of this little series on nighttime dreams, I’ll lay out seven tips to remember your dreams. In the last blog, I wrote about the benefits of paying attention to and interpreting our dreams.

Dreams have helped me navigate this crazy human life. So much so that I want to share with you what I know, understand, and love about them. My direct experience with dreams includes personal reflection, application and studies, and dream group participation on many occasions over the decades. 

*Please seek a professional if you need more serious help with your dreams. Use common sense where your health and well-being are concerned.

We all dream, but many of us don’t remember our dreams. I’ll go months without remembering a single one and then have a whopper. Sometimes, I’ve gotten lazy about paying attention to them, but then I’ll feel the need for a dream quest for help and direction on something.

I’ll begin practicing the seven tips below and soon begin to remember and get help from my dreams again. Dreams are not Who We Are, but they can help us navigate our expanding Awareness of what is Real and, importantly, what isn’t. Isn’t this The True Story of our lives?  

Seven Tips to Remember Your Dreams 

1. Make it child’s play!

Develop a childlike curiosity about the incredible stories that visit you while sleeping. Will you dream of a powerful horse swimming out of the ocean, a  tiger stalking its dinner, moving to Ecuador, or a solution to a health issue? What surprise dream symbols await your inner child?

2. Ask, and you will receive.

Ask your True Self throughout the day and each night before retiring for help remembering your dreams. You may even write a note to your dreams and put it on your bedside table or under your pillow before falling asleep. This focus puts you in a better position to receive and remember your nighttime adventures.

3. Purchase a new journal for your dreams.

Keep it on your bedside table with a favorite pen and small flashlight. Personally, I like Moleskine Journals the best. I muse that as I write on the same smooth paper Hemingway and some other great writers did, a tiny bit of their talent might seep into me. I know. Keep dreamin’!

The point is to write your dreams down when you have them. If you have a “snippet” of a dream, take the time to write it down. That tiny symbol or word given to your dream can have oceans of insight to help point you in the right direction.

4. Use music and aromatherapy oils.

Music conducive to relaxing prepares us to fall asleep and dream well. Cedarwood, lavender, and clary sage are all known to promote relaxation and enhance dreaming. Massage a bit of one oil or a mixture of two or three into your big toes, neck, or apply to your pillow’s edge. Go ahead and set the stage.

5. Place a dream-catcher close by to “catch” negative energies and dreams.

A Lakota elder first saw the dream catcher on a vision quest. He was shown and taught by a spirit guide its purpose and how to make one.

The feathers would catch or trap life-taking or bad dreams, and the life-giving or good spirits would know how to pass through the holes in the dream-catcher’s web and into the dreaming body. Due to its effectiveness, dream catchers still hang over beds generations after the vision was shared. 

6. Be patient and consistent.

You may remember a dream the first night you practice one or more of these tips . . . and then not remember another one for a month. Or, you may not remember dreams for a week or more, and then you do every night from then on. Remember that your dreams are here to help serve your best interests. Patience and consistency will help you merge into harmony with your dream life.

I see dreaming much like the tools of meditation, yoga, writing, music, art, etc. Mastery will come if consistency and patience are practiced long enough. Your breakthrough is assured.

7. Spend a little time interpreting your dreams.

Write down any additional dreams when you first wake. Look over your dream journal then or later, when you have more time. Who or what are you dreaming? Do you notice a pattern or theme emerging in your dreams? What could this possibly mean for you?

Dream master, Robert Moss, asks dreamers to give their dreams a title as one would a podcast, video, blog, song, etc. Doing this helps to define and interpret your dream’s impact on you.

While looking over your journal, play with the dream figments or characters. Let them inspire you. Draw or paint them. Create poetry, or compose a piece of dream-inspired music. See what shows up. How might the dream overtly or covertly answer a question you asked?

This is how two dreams dramatically changed our lives.

About eight years ago, I had a dream that was promised in a dream quest nine months prior! That quest had Larry and I both seeking a dream to see where we would spend our elder years after living in Virginia Beach for twenty-five years.

Surprisingly, future upheavals in the U.S. from Coast-to-Coast occurred throughout our dream quest. Nowhere seemed safe, but at the end of the four-week-long dream quest, our last couple of dreams guided us to stay exactly where we lived in Virginia Beach and wait for further instructions. We were also assured that we would be moving at the right time and not to concern ourselves with it. The Universe would have our backs.

Nine months later, as if we were birthing some proverbial gestation, I unexpectedly dreamed we were to move to Ecuador, South America, and that we would love it there. We were moving to Ecuador. The dream was emphatic. More on the details another time.

The next day we visited a friend of thirty years and shared the dream with him. In time he asked us to return to his house later that day. When we did, he surprised us with an unexpected and generous gift to offer support to my dream. He said he felt inwardly compelled to do so.

Larry, a Scorpio and naturally cautious, felt some trepidation that doors opened too fast for a move out of the country. I shared with him before the dream that his horoscope showed him living out of the country at least at some point in his life, but he would always respond.

“That one has to be off. I will never live outside the U.S.”

I wasn’t looking to move to another country at 65, so we were like-minded.

Ecuador, not to mention South America, was the last place we expected to come up. That night, as if the Universe knew Larry needed personal confirmation, Larry was given a dream that we were also moving to Ecuador.

It was a boots-on-the-ground dream that left no doubt in our hearts that we needed to follow through as long as the doors opened to apply the dream. All the doors to Ecuador did swing wide open, and this is how our dreams changed our lives on every level one might imagine could occur. The only thing that didn’t change was Who We Really Are. That never changes for anyone.

We loved living in the U.S., and now we feel equally blessed to live in Ecuador and thank our dreams for this unique opportunity and life. Without these fantastic dreams that point toward greater harmony on our Earth-Walk, we can’t imagine where we would be.

Conclusion

Well, dear reader, you’ve read a story of how dreams can help reshape our entire lives for the better in ways we may not even know in advance. Seven tips to remember your dreams can help you incubate dreams into your daily life. You are ready to release old patterns, solve problems, and set new directions and finer distinctions in your life.

If I’m preachin’ to the choir on dreams, and you’re already using them for your and others’ well-being, I hope this blog refreshes your practice and confirms your attention.

Mr. Sandman, bring us some dreams . . .  

The best is yet to come. I’ll meet you at next week’s blog, and we’ll dive into Lucid Dreaming. And a Bonus Blog after that for sticking with me on this series. Remember, everything leads us to Love Consciousness when we are open. 

Thank you for your comments. 

Happy Dreaming with Love,
Kaye