Our dreamy nature

The function of dreams has changed considerably throughout human history. Dreams were viewed as an oracular mystery, capable of revealing information about the outside world and the inner archetypal landscape. Since ancient times (or at least as far back as records have been found), human experience has grappled with dreams as an important dimension of life. There are many records of prophetic and premonitory dreams in ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and Egypt. Monarchs and Pharaohs made political decisions motivated by the messages deciphered in their dreams. Throughout history, dreams have served as a source of inspiration for artists, inventors, and scientists—chemist Dmitri Mendeleev received the arrangement of the elements of the periodic table in his dreams. Masters of all spiritual lineages were also guided by their dreams. Even today, Amerindians and indigenous peoples of various traditions guide their lives based on information brought from the dream world, often through ancestors and spiritual guides.  Dreams were once seen as a window into the future. After the development of psychoanalysis, dreams came to be understood as a reorganization of past events. More recently, with the development of magnetic resonance imaging and the greater isolation between various compartmentalized areas of knowledge, dreams have come to be seen as something trivial, devoid of any practical function. But, according to scientist Sidarta Ribeiro, dreams are much more than the passage of electrical activity through neurons. Sidarta explains that dreams are a simulator of possible realities, a kind of probabilistic oracle in which the brain processes innumerable future possibilities based on the reactivation of memories. In other words, the dreamer accesses, on an unconscious level, the possible consequences of his or her own actions. Dreams bring us information about reality that is not normally available to the conscious mind; they are a source of new ideas about how to live life. That is why it is so important to pay attention to and improve our ability to remember our dreams. The subrealities we create when we dream teach us to visualize other possible realities. Beyond visions of the future or interpretations of past events, dreams contribute to our actions in the present. Our disconnection from the dream world may be at the core of our inconsistency as humanity. Perhaps it is precisely our difficulty in imagining another possible reality that keeps us clinging to a model of growth and development that destroys the planet and ourselves.

A letter from our home

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés says that dreams are a letter written and sent from a deep place in our psyche, which is our true home. This “letter” reveals what we are not yet able to consciously perceive about ourselves, our life and our current psychic state. Dreams save us from our blindness, from our inability to perceive the important things. The stories that dreams tell are evident to us during the day, but they are revealed to us during rest, when we dream. Dreams can bring insights useful for our life. According to Dr. Estés, a dream can, for example, give us coded clues that point to an illness even before it is diagnosed or reveal the intentions and feelings of a person (or of ourselves). 

One possible way to interpret dream messages is to start by getting the general idea of what is happening and then look at your own life and ask yourself the question, “Where is this happening in my life?” The general idea of what is happening in the dream can be as simple or as complex as makes sense to you at the time. Some common examples: receiving a gift, being robbed, finding something hidden, flying over a situation, losing something, feeling lost, vulnerable, being caught off guard, being chased, finding a treasure, giving birth, etc. From that question, you look in your own life for subjective or symbolic parallels. “What might I be giving birth to right now?” “In what sense might I be being chased?” “What in my life might be symbolized by that item?” 

According to Dr. Estés, recurring or similar dreams indicate important messages that we are unaware of or have not yet understood. In these cases, the message returns in similar dreams until the “letter” is received and opened.

Study of dreams

Although some people believe they don't dream, the truth is that we all have four to five dreams a night. Dreams occur during the phase of sleep known as REM, a phase marked by high brain activation, which reverberates memories very intensely — in contrast to slow-wave sleep, marked by low electrical activity in the brain. Everyone cycles between these phases of sleep, what varies is that some people remember their dreams and others don't. Our biological ability to dream and remember dreams is largely due to a hormone called norepinephrine, responsible for creating memories and stimulating activity in the body and mind. Norepinephrine is present in the brain at very low levels during REM, and just after we wake up, levels of this hormone in the brain begin to rise. Because of this increase, the first few moments after waking up are the most important for remembering dreams. Other factors that can impact our ability to remember our dreams include the use of certain medications, alarm clocks, and our work pace, which does not always allow us to set aside time before waking to record what we dreamed about during the night. 

Before sleeping

If possible, replace white light bulbs with yellow light bulbs and turn on the sleep option on any screens you use at night to allow the pineal gland to produce melatonin. Try to reduce stimuli and turn off electronic devices at least an hour before bedtime. Leave your cell phone outside the bedroom and prefer a soft alarm clock that wakes you up slowly. As you lie down in bed, firmly declare your intention to dream: “I am going to sleep deeply, I am going to dream, I am going to wake up with a lot of energy, I am going to remember what I dreamed and I am going to record it.”

Upon awakening

We wake up with only a small memory of the dream we were having. Lie still in bed for a while longer, with your attention focused on remembering your dreams. Instead of jumping out of bed quickly to, say, check your text messages, take advantage of the increased levels of norepinephrine in your brain just after you wake up to focus on remembering what you were dreaming about. If you're lying in bed thinking about your dreams when the norepinephrine kicks in, you'll be able to retain more details.

to register

While still in bed, jot down the first images, feelings, or details of the dream that you want to remember, even if they seem irrelevant or meaningless. You can jot down the dream first in keywords and then write it down in detail. Finally, give the floor a title (the first one that comes to mind, such as “the spider dream”). Naming the dream will be helpful in identifying its central idea and in finding it easily when rereading it. Recounting your dreams, whether in a journal or to a person, is key to increasing your chances of remembering them in the future.Reading ancient dreams

When you look at an old dream and place the events of the dream in relation to what was happening at the time, you are learning the language of your own unconscious. Often, we are unable to decode our dreams immediately, but by looking back on them, it is possible to understand their messages more clearly. Read your past dreams to learn how to better interpret your future dreams.

This text is part of the 2020 edition of the Lunar Mandala 2020 Brazil

Text: Lunar Mandala and Mariana Bandarra

Illustrations: Julia Vargas (@jayacosmica)

References:

ESTES, Clarissa Pinkola. The Beginner's Guide to Dream Interpretation: Uncover the Hidden Riches of Your Dreams – Audio, 2003.

RIBEIRO, Sidarta. The Oracle of the Night. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019.

RIBEIRO, Siddhartha. Dreams, science and consciousness. Interviewed by Bruno Torturra. Podcast do Estúdio Fluxo, São Paulo, 2019.