Dreams As Spiritual Messages

Have you had one of those dreams from which you wake up thinking, “That was so real. . . I think that meant something important, but what could that be?” Our nightly dreams are one way we receive spiritual messages.

In my interview with Davina, many comments came about dreams. So here is my follow up on this fascinating topic. (Photo by jpstanley)

Five types of dreams

Not all dreams are spiritual messages. Here is a quick overview of the various types of dreams:

1. Some dreams are just the products of our mind. The mind wants to re-process what it experienced. The experience may be real or something you saw in a movie or in a book, and it may be recent or old experience, or combination of them.
2. Some people “work” through their dreams. They have many dreams but the dreams don’t make sense to them. It’s a way their soul is helping other souls in the dream world, and my advice for this kind of dreamers is “Don’t over-analyze your dreams.”
3. Some go to the wrong side of the dream world either by accident or by negative energetic interference. This is really harmful – the person ends up having some kind of sleep problems such as nightmares (the negative side of the dream world is a very ugly place), insomnia (because the mind is so afraid of going there again), or dreamless sleep (because the mind dismisses the horrible dreams immediately at waking up). It is one of the energetic issues I clear in my Akashic Record Reading.
4. Then, there are dreams that are spiritual messages. They would feel special. It may be the soul memory of its past lives, or premonitions, or messages from your spirit guides.
5. Some people (with practice) can program dreams before going to sleep. It’s called lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming also means being aware you are in dreams while in dreams, therefore allowing you to explore the dream world actively.

Can dream dictionaries help your dream interpretation?

So the first step in dream interpretation is to focus on that special dream that you know, beyond reasoning, means something important. You don’t have to “try to remember” this kind of dream as you wake up. You know. (However, it will help you to write down the dream once you are awake. We are all so busy to get distracted, aren’t we?)

Then hold on to that dream and “guess” what it may mean. Hopefully, you’ll have your a-ha moment.

Erin Pavlina makes very important point to rely on your own frame of reference rather than checking with dream dictionaries for your dream interpretation. I totally agree. What does that symbol mean to you? How do you feel about it? What is the overall feel of the dream?

And then again, the dream may not be “symbols”. It may be a more straightforward past life memory or premonition.

Because this is such a personal process, I guess a case study may serve better than generalized explanation. Here is something I experienced several years ago. When I woke up from this dream, I knew it was important so I wrote it down in my journal at 3 am.

Meeting my spirit guide in the dream

In the dream, there was an old man dressed like a Buddhist monk. He was terminally ill, and was being cared for by a younger someone – one of his disciples. There was another young man who heard of his condition and traveling to see him. But the old man was not sad nor scared about his own upcoming death.

“When you seek answers outside of yourself, there is no end in seeking. Silly. Everything is complete within yourself already.” The old man was talking to the person at his bed side. I knew he meant things like books and teachers when he said “outside of yourself”. He looked happy. His body was weakening, but he was in joy to go home.

Like many dreams, there may have been more details but this is about all I remembered. The feelings were very clear: the traveling man’s concern about the old man’s condition and the old man’s positive, almost joyous, feeling about his own death.

At the time, I thought the old man’s message about life and death was so interesting, and so I wrote it down.

When I got to know my spirit guides more closely later, I found that my first guide was an old man who was my spiritual teacher in one of my past life. After awhile this dream popped up in my mind again. I now think that old man in the dream was my teacher and on my spirit guide team.

Learning spiritual lessons in the dreams

Dr. Brian Weiss reports in his classic Many Lives, Many Masters that he received lessons from his Master Spirits in his dreams. It wasn’t just about receiving spiritual messages – he says he could do Q&A sessions with the spirits. Basically, he was channeling in his dreams.

Have you had unusual dreams? What do you think about dream analysis and dream dictionaries?

Further reading:  My friend Anna Conlan just wrote a post about spiritual messages in dreams and “working” in the dreams.