Today, we're going to explore how our dreams are a portal to our imagination, discovering how to harness the power of our dreams to awaken and fuel our creativity.
So, what is a dream? A dream is a series of visual images, concepts, and feelings that occur in our minds when we fall asleep each night. It is believed that each dream only lasts for a few minutes and occurs during our REM cycle, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement - a period of intense brain activity.
Dreams have long captured our imagination, and dream interpretation goes back for thousands of years. But how do our dreams serve us?
The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung believed that our dreams offered us a glimpse into our subconscious mind, allowing us to gain a clearer insight into our higher self, and perhaps even our spiritual nature.
Jung famously said, "Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes". He believed that our dreams had a purpose and that that purpose was to guide us through the darkness.
Dreams have a language all their own and are filled with rich symbolism and archetypes. Jung believed that each symbol in our dreams reveals to us something that our conscious mind is perhaps unaware of. He also described dreams as "pure nature", and believed that they offered us something raw, real, and truthful.
Perhaps, then, dreams might have something to share with us when it comes to our creativity. When I write, for example, I want my words to be a representation of what feels real and true for me.
When we tap into our dreams, then, might we be tapping into a rich treasure chest filled with symbolism that is deeply authentic and meaningful to us? And might this inner world, then, be an exciting landscape for us to explore, offering us original material that we could then use creatively?
Perhaps our dreams are a gateway to our higher self, offering us a way to know ourselves better and more deeply. If our dreams are a direct link between our conscious and subconscious minds, then perhaps they serve as a portal that shuttles us straight to the heart of our imagination and creativity.
Dreams are mysterious and hard to pin down and have captivated us for millennia. Some people explore the psychology of dreams, other people create great literature and poetry based on dreams, and there are others still who wonder whether dreams are a gateway to the divine, perhaps even a form of prophecy. When we meditate or enter into a creative flow state, perhaps we can access a dream state then too?
Whatever we believe dreams are, and whether we believe they mean anything or nothing, they can be a rich source of inspiration to us. The human fascination with the search for meaning means that there is nothing we cannot turn to for inspiration, and likewise, there is nothing we cannot turn to to draw meaning from - and that includes our dreams.
So, why not keep a notebook and pen by the side of your bed so that you can keep a dream diary? Not only might we come to understand ourselves better by engaging in a dialogue with our subconscious, but we might also discover hidden meaning and creative food for thought. There is nothing that cannot inspire us if only we allow ourselves to be open to it.
When we dream, we enter a type of 'otherworld', an exciting realm where all things become possible. The Irish word, 'aisling', which means 'dream' or 'vision', reminds us, then, that our dreams are not only those things that we dream when we are asleep but are also about what we see, what we envision for our future, and what we can imagine. Our destiny is woven together with our dreams and desires, and it is therefore important that we follow them.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams", and this is true. But it is not enough to simply believe in our dreams, we also have to muster up a bit of courage to act on them. We must plant the seeds of our dreams and water them - and when we watch them grow, then we will truly know how it feels to bring our dreams to life. Live the life you dream of, and don't delay your dreams. Do what you came here to do, and be unafraid and unapologetic in the pursuit of your dreams.