Psychic meaning of dreams
3 Types of Psychic Dreams
Psychic,Spiritual |
July 22, 2014
By Keen Editorial Staff
Dreams demonstrate that there are few limitations on what we can perceive through the subconscious’s psychic powers. Through dreams, we can predict the future, communicate with someone on another continent, and experience events that may affect our world. Every night, our dreaming body (astral body) escapes the conscious world’s confines and enters a dimension where existence is timeless. We realize that we are connected soul-to-soul and to everything that exists. In this dimension, we are all psychic.
There are three types of psychic dreams, and they are quite common: precognitive, telepathic, and clairvoyant dreams. Once we are awake, these dreams baffle us because we define ourselves as separate from others and see events through constructs of space and time. Having psychic dreams can open up doors you never knew existed.
1.
Precognitive DreamsA dream that seems to have predicted a future event is identified as a precognitive dream. For example, dreaming about a friend you have not seen in years and then running into the person in a supermarket the next day would be deemed precognitive dream experiences.
The good, the bad, and the ugly: These dreams can predict good news as well as bad news – even death. They may be quite accurate in revealing even the smallest details of an event that will take place sometime in the future. Dreams of death are one of the most common precognitive dream experiences. Many individuals report an uncanny power to predict the death of a loved one days or months before their passing. However, those who frequently dream of death view it more as a curse than a blessing.
The interpretation: When it comes to interpreting dreams, it is essential to differentiate a precognitive dream from dreams that are more personal and relate to the constructs of the dreamer’s psyche. It is often difficult for the novice to verify a paranormal dream since the event it predicts can arrive far after the dream vision.
The dream experience may not manifest in the life of the dreamer until years later. For instance, it is not uncommon for a woman to have her “dream man” and future husband show up in a dream as much as ten years before his actual arrival. This is just one of many examples of having psychic abilities through dreams.
2.
Telepathic DreamsA dream where we may have touched another person’s consciousness and have accurately revealed their thoughts, actions, or life situation is referred to as a telepathic dream. For instance, dreaming that a relative is sick and discovering that he or she is in the hospital demonstrates our ability to communicate with each other in the dream state through telepathic channels. The dreaming mind may receive information about a loved one as far away as another continent or as close as the next room. There is no distance or barrier between two close souls.
Secrets revealed: Even those with whom we are in constant contact with every day have secrets they withhold from us.
It is not uncommon for a wife to dream about her husband’s escapades and infidelity or a mother to dream that her son is drowning in emotional grief. The dream will render the psyche cues into a metaphoric storyline revealing the subject’s secret thoughts.
Beyond the human world: Telepathy is not confined to the human species. I have a friend who often dreams she is swimming with a pod of whales as if she is a pod member. The dreams occur each year during whale season on Maui, just days before whales arrive in Lahaina harbor. Her dreams demonstrate interspecies communication, and telepathy is possible.
3.
Clairvoyant DreamsDreams, where we have psychically connected with an object or situation in the world, are referred to as clairvoyant dreams. These remarkable dreams include dreams of natural disasters and noteworthy social events. Having a dream of an earthquake and waking to a special news report on TV reporting an earthquake halfway around the world can give us goosebumps.
Intense: The dreamer’s clairvoyance in such instances is magnified. He or she has received information that may be very detailed, and that is seldom elicited. Individuals who receive such information regularly may experience a great deal of anxiety as a result. Some may turn off their intuitive powers or even stop remembering their dreams.
Natural connection: Clairvoyant dreams offer evidence that we are not separate from the earth’s body and that the dreaming mind can readily perceive changes or disturbances on the planet. Such psychic abilities are natural to those who are awakened to a hidden potential of the mind closed off or hidden during the normal waking state.
Multiple gifts: The night before the explosion of the Deep Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, I had a dream that I was swimming in the center of a group of otters. They were distressed and covered in oil, and I was trying to rescue them. The dream was both precognitive as well as clairvoyant.
Some unique individuals report having precognitive, clairvoyant, and telepathic dream experiences with great frequency. An individual with such ability is psychic sensitive. In a shamanic culture, an individual with such powers might take the role of a shaman/healer, using his or her abilities in service to other community members.
Some individuals have the uncanny ability to enter the psychic field of friends, acquaintances, or neighbors and dream about their lives’ intimate details. A common theme is visiting someone else’s house and exploring the rooms to discover secret information that only the subject could know about or riding around with the person in their vehicle. For instance, a year back, I had a dream that my neighbor had traded in his pickup truck for a four-door sedan. He is a single guy in his late 30’s and seldom dates. The dream was revealing his secret desire to find a mate and have a family.
Crossing the line: Most of the time, the dreamer has no conscious control over their nighttime wanderings, and the spying is entirely innocent.
But some individuals have trained themselves to become psychic dream spies and use their power to invade others’ privacy, something that is never recommended.
Difficult to pinpoint: Psychic dreams can be challenging to identify, and most dreamers can’t differentiate them from their dreams. An analytical approach to dream interpretation usually proves useless in determining whether a dream is a psychic dream. It is only the intuitive mind that can perceive the difference. By adopting an intuitive approach to dreamwork, one may more easily recognize the truth about a dream. Following up on hunches from a dream that is believed to be a telepathic message from a friend is one way of validating your intuitive powers.
Need help with a dream interpretation? A psychic reading can help! Book a session with one of our advisors the next time you have a psychic dream that overwhelms, confuses, or scares you.
Keen Editorial Staff
Keen's Editorial Staff is made up of world-class writers, astrologers, psychics, and advisors with diverse experience and spiritual sensitivity.
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Dream Interpretation: What A Psychic Wants You To Know
Dreams. Sigmund Freud once described them as the royal road to the unconscious and suggested that by taking the time to study them, we could uncover hidden and unconscious desires. Whilst some of our dreams are downright bonkers and probably hold very little meaning, one psychic is convinced that others are our ‘spirit guides'' way of trying to communicate messages with us.
According to Spiritual Medium, Kendall the Medium when you dream, you travel to the ‘astral realm’ or the ‘astral plane’. “Some believe this is the 4th dimension,” she says. “Your body stays on the physical realm while your soul travels outside of it into another vibrational field.”
Kendall believes that some dreams are just your body's way of releasing old pent up energy, but others are actually a ‘mission’ your soul is on. As she explains: “While your physical body is resting, your spiritual body is working.
A lot of the work is forgotten but some of it sticks with us. The reason it sticks with us is because the work needs to be utilised in the physical realm."
Intrigued? Here are eight key things people dream of and what your spirit guides want you to know.
Forests
Dreaming of forests or trees are your spirit guides' way of letting you know it is time to ground yourself and become one with your spiritual body and your authentic roots. Forests represent the connection our soul shares with nature. That we are one with nature. It is a sign from your guides to take a step back and remember who you are naturally. It also represents growth coming from finding peace and contentment in your environment.
Birth/Pregnancy
Dreaming of birth or pregnancy can quite literally be a sign that you are in tune with your own body and you may very well be pregnant, about to give birth or are going to be pregnant soon. But that being said, pregnancy and birth can also be very symbolic.
When you dream of pregnancy your spirit guides want you to know that it is a time of looking inward, it’s time to focus on your authentic self and what lights your soul on fire; it’s time to create. When you dream of birth, it is your spirit guide's way of letting you know that something you have created is about to be seen and relevant in your life. Something you’ve worked hard on is ready to be revealed and celebrated. Dreaming of birth and pregnancy can also suggest that you are going through a personal transformation, you are shifting timelines and being ‘reborn’.
Your ex
Whether you are dreaming of an ex lover or an ex friend, dreaming of your ex is very symbolic. This is your guide's way of letting you know that there is unfinished business within the connection whether they are coming back or not, a lesson with this person was not fully processed by you. It is time to allow yourself to process the emotions from the situation so that you can release the residual energy that is being carried by you whether it’s consciously known or existing in your subconscious only.
Every person comes into our life to teach us a lesson, as we are in theirs to teach them one as well. Take time to ground yourself and become one with your own energy as you process these emotions. Honor your energy by releasing all that no longer serves you.
Falling
Dreaming of falling is your guide's way of letting you know that there is unstable energy in your environment. You are feeling helpless or as if you can’t control your life. Your guides are asking that you ground yourself because you have become disconnected with your higher self by trying to control your outcomes too heavily instead of allowing yourself to exist in the moment. Take time to focus on your own energy. Meditation is a great way to ground yourself but it isn’t for everyone. Some other ways to ground yourself are through exercise, art, music, baths, nature walks, simply touching the earth, whatever resonates most with you and allows you to connect solely with your own energy stream.
Being chased
To dream of being chased is equivalent to dreaming of running away.
You are turning your back and escaping from a situation or person instead of confronting them. Your guides are asking you to remember that you can not live a life of running. You must face what you fear in order to create movement in your life.
A place you’ve never been before
If you dream of a place you have never been before you may be experiencing a memory from a past life. Your guides are wanting you to pay attention to the detail, what does the place look like? Does it look like a different time period? Does it look like another planet or dimension? The message your guides are trying to convey is that there is trauma from that life where healing needs to be utilised in this life. Pay attention to the emotions you feel within the dream realm. Are these emotions something you’ve been feeling lately? Was there another person in the dream? What emotions were brought up by seeing them? When cycles are brought from past lives into current lives it’s because there needs to be acceptance and forgiveness towards yourself and a situation so that you no longer have to continue the cycle in further lives.
Death
The message behind dreaming of death is dependent on if you are the one who is dying in the dream or if it’s someone you know. If it is you who is dying, your guides are letting you know that you are going through a personal transition where it is the end of an old chapter, beginning of a new chapter. Death is symbolic of an ending of something major within your life. Many people dream of death when they are currently or about to go through big life shifts like job transitions, moving homes, ending a relationship or simply changing their perspective in their everyday environment. You may just literally be killing off a part of yourself that you no longer need, for example a negative mindset or toxic behaviors. To dream of someone you know dying is your guide's way of letting you know that there is a fear of losing this person. The relationship may be more important to you than you thought. This can also represent that you are letting go of a quality they have within yourself.
For instance if the person who is dying in your dream is a big partier and you are wanting to not party anymore it represents you are letting go of that version of yourself that aligns with one of their most prominent qualities.
Looking in the mirror
Dreaming of looking in the mirror is your spirit guide's way of letting you know it is time to reflect on a situation or yourself. It is time to see from a new perspective so that you are able to look past just you. It is a time of internal healing in order to bring peace to your external environment.
psychotherapist on the interpretation of dreams - Offtop on vc.ru
Longread on how to improve the quality of life with the help of dream interpretation and psychotherapy.
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This article is a transcript of Alexei Zverugo's podcast about physical and mental health, hosted by Olga Kapitsa - psychotherapist, psychologist and sleep specialist.
The full version of the conversation can be found in video format on YouTube, or in audio format on podcast platforms: Yandex.
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On the demand for psychotherapy in our time
Psychotherapy began to be used a very long time ago, back in the time of Freud, but then only a rich person, for example, an aristocrat or a person who is engaged in creativity, could afford it. Now there has been a direct boom in psychotherapy: it is actively recommended to maintain mental and mental health. Why did our generation suddenly need psychotherapy and why was it so actively used?
The therapist always has supervision and intervision. Supervision is when you bring your cases to a more experienced specialist for analysis. And intervision is when you communicate with specialists of the same level, on very different conditions - on paid, free. Some time ago, I found such an intervisor group for myself too, and supervision separately.
They do not exclude, but complement each other.
In one of the intervisor groups, the topic of money and how to make money on therapy comes up from time to time. We talked about how Freud made his money. As it turned out, Freud's consultation cost as much as a good suit . And if you shift it to money now, then a “good suit” has very different criteria. But you can imagine how much a good suit costs now, and how not everyone could afford psychotherapy in Freud's time. Although, already at the end of his life, Sigmund wrote about the availability of therapy: he would like therapy to be more accessible in the times after him. What is happening now.
You have endless possibilities to compare yourself to other people every day. And very often people do not feel very good after their session on Instagram - which has been experimentally proven.
Regarding our generation and the boom in therapeutic services now, there are several factors here.
The first factor is the boom in services in general. The service economy turns when we get tired of buying things. We start buying other people's time. And psychotherapy is very well correlated here.
Then everything sped up a lot. Life has accelerated a lot, and we are already unable to cope with the requirements that society makes us and ourselves. All of a sudden, our reference group is classmates, friends or colleagues right now... What was the reference group, let's say my mother had her colleagues, 40 people. What is the reference group for me and you? It's all Instagram.
It turns out that you have endless possibilities - compare yourself with other people every day . And very often people do not feel very good after their session on Instagram - which has been experimentally proven. I am glad that social networks are changing now, and from what was accepted at the beginning of social networks - a completely “photoshopped” picture - people with real skin, real bodies and real gray hair appear.
With real flaws that we accept as part of ourselves.
Why do we need therapy? I am deeply convinced that counseling, psychotherapy, any contact "person - person" - was always needed. It's just that we legalized this possibility only recently: it's no longer a shame. And this can only be rejoiced at. If you are currently at some difficult stage in your life, attract all the support that you can attract and reach.
Do you agree that there are a lot of myths and skepticism around psychotherapy now? I like the broken arm analogy: the bone won't mend itself - either you don't like the result or you don't like the time it takes to mend that bone. Nevertheless, it seems to everyone that it will pass by itself. Speaking of skepticism, how can we dispel it?
British professor Russell, if I'm not mistaken, recently mentioned this in his research, so I'll share - about "it will pass by itself."
It is believed that almost any depressive episode - if we are talking about major depressive disorder - passes, changes.
Your condition in any case will change for the better within 6 months . With therapy, without therapy, whatever.
And for me, as a therapist, there is hope in this, and there is some kind of misunderstanding: what kind of study is this, I want to see how this effect was specifically explained.
There are people who, however, go away on their own. But don't compare these people to yourself. Therapy is now used not only as a means of solving problems, but also as a means - I do not want to use the hackneyed expression of "personal growth" - spiritual growth.
I want to improve the quality of my life. If I have the opportunity to bring my anxieties to some person for 50 minutes a couple of times or once a week, then the quality of life is likely to increase unspeakably.
About psychosomatics
I would like to discuss with you the topic of psychosomatics - the connection between the physical and the mental.
Psychotherapist Viktor Frankl in his book "Man's Search for Meaning" spoke about the times of World War II, which he spent in a concentration camp. He noticed that the highest number of deaths occurred in the week between Christmas and New Year. This is because the prisoners have been waiting all year for their release by Christmas, with the hope that they will return to their loved ones, and everything will be as before. But when Christmas came, there was no news of the release - the immunity weakened, and they were overcome by an infection that lived throughout the camp. This is such an example from the book, how the mental is connected with the physical. Do you have real cases from practice that you can tell about such a connection in psychosomatics?
Yes, Frankl is a great therapist. If I am not mistaken, it is he who is the founder of the existential trend. Existential therapy is also one of the types of humanistic therapy - the therapy of finding the meaning of life.
I would say that all therapies are equally effective , they just might not be right for you at a particular time in your life. Or the individual therapy provider may not be right for you at the time.
As for psychosomatics, I want to immediately warn those who will watch and listen to us: if you come to an ordinary therapist or any doctor who deals with the body, and he tells you that psychosomatics is happening, you need to ask what exactly he understands by psychosomatics. If he implies that you have invented everything for yourself, and that nothing really hurts you, then maybe he just underexamined you.
There are 7 psychosomatic diseases in psychosomatics. I won’t name everything now, but they google very well: they are on Wikipedia as well. Psychosomatics in the ICD 11th edition - is a disease in which there is an affected organ, which is greatly influenced by your mental state . For example, a drop in immunity or severe stress, from which a person starts a rash on the skin again.
Stress occurs - and the body begins to make itself felt.
In psychosomatic medicine, there is always an affected organ and a mental state that affects this organ. Therefore, if they say “psychosomatics” to you, you need to be alert, do not be shy and ask what exactly they mean. Because people very often hang out in front of doctors.
Basic meaning: if the word “psychosomatics” is mentioned, it means that you should be treated by two specialists: a specialist in the psyche and a specialist in the affected organs. They will work together.
Whether it is useful to dream and what they reflect
Let's get straight to the topic of our issue and talk about sleep. I wonder why we dream?
We don't know why people sleep and why they dream. There is no clear theory that would explain absolutely everything. There are various hypotheses.
So it turns out that in a dream a person is vulnerable, does not communicate, does not reproduce, does not work, after all.
In a dream, a very long respite is obtained. And if this respite is removed from our lives, then we will die quickly, be it a person or an animal.
Sleep is very important, otherwise it would be a big evolutionary mistake - 8 hours thrown out of life . But it's not, sleep is really important.
There is a funny hypothesis accepted in the scientific world called the "sympathetic homeostasis hypothesis". Neurons - the functional units of our nervous system - communicate with each other using synapses. Synapse is the chemical transmission of an electrical impulse. Right now we are talking, and neurons are activated, remember this information. “Remember” is very conditional, of course.
Thus, with the help of neurons, our nervous system processes signals from the outside world. Or from our inner - meaning, rather, the body. And neurons "get tired" .
In a dream there is a very long respite. And if this respite is removed from our lives, then we will die quickly.
The Sympathetic Homeostasis Hypothesis is a neuronal clearing hypothesis that says we need a time when neurons don't receive new information. This is now the most dominant explanation. We need to go offline for 8 hours .
Good. We go offline and, most often, we see various dreams. What do our dreams reflect?
Here we have to go back to Freud, because he had an old book that many people read and quoted in therapy: The Interpretation of Dreams .
There is a theory that in sleep there is a daytime rest of our life. And there was an interesting study: students were asked for two months to write down everything that happens to him every day, and also to keep a very detailed dream diary.
If during the day we experience pleasant emotions, we are more likely to have pleasant dreams, and events-colored in any way. We can see anything.
Thus it was proved that Freud was partly right.
He was wrong about the blocked desires that are expressed in dreams. But he was right about the day's balance. But the rest of the day is not eventful, but emotional: if during the day we experience pleasant emotions, we are more likely to see pleasant dreams, and events-colored in any way. We can see anything .
If we experience heavy thoughts during the day, then during the night, it is quite possible that our dreams will be associated with these emotions, but eventually, again, anything can be there.
Is it useful to dream? Because there are people who do not see them at all.
Yes, there is. A couple of years ago, I would say that there are no such people, they are just people who do not remember their dreams. But now there is a hypothesis that during the night we also read the outside world.
For example, thanks to this ability, we can hear the alarm clock and wake up. Some people are so anxious that they can't get away from it: they want to have some control even when they are sleeping .
They see some images that do not transform into a dream. But it still remains - something like thoughts and images, a person is not involved in a dream. Therefore, it may be that during the night sleep, like a dream, did not occur.
Now it is believed that during sleep (namely, dreams and during REM sleep, we structure our memory: throw away unnecessary , something that we will quickly forget. And we recognize something as very necessary and put it in a piggy bank.
There is such a hypothesis of "night psychotherapy", which is connected to a greater extent with nightmares. But I think I'll come back to this a little later.
Suppose a person does not dream - what to do about it, and is it a problem?
This is absolutely a diagnostic criterion, but I'm not sure if this is a direct problem. Probably, this is a problem for a person who is used to seeing them and attaches great importance to this.
During sleep, we structure our memory: we throw out the unnecessary, what we quickly forget.
And we recognize something as very necessary and put it in a piggy bank.
In LinkedIn, people asked questions under the post about our upcoming conversation with you, and one of the questions was, among other things, how to remember dreams.
First of all, the good thing is to pay enough attention to them. Forgetting dreams is absolutely normal . This is the most natural process that can ever be. When you wake up, you are back in the real world, and dreams, if you do not pay attention to them, will simply be erased. That's how memory works.
But how not to forget?
Put a notepad with a pen next to you - preferably not an electronic medium. Because there is a chance to be distracted by something else. Put down a physical notepad and pen. And immediately, before anything else, start writing down what you saw. After a while, this will become a habit, and dreams will be remembered better.
Forgetting dreams is absolutely normal.
This is the most natural process that can ever be. When you wake up, you are back in the real world, and dreams, if you do not pay attention to them, will simply be erased. That's how memory works.
Very often people start to dream during therapy because they have a safe space. They understand that there is a place where a person can bring this dream and talk about it.
About deciphering and interpreting dreams
You brought up the topic of the diary. Suppose a person writes down his dreams - how can he analyze and interpret them on his own? I know that you are trying to convey to your clients and readers that any interpretation is work primarily with a person, and not with dreams. There is a very cool story about performing on stage, that each person perceives performing on stage differently: for some it is a threat, for others it is an opportunity. If we talk about the analysis, interpretation and interpretation of dreams - how is the process going?
In the current trends in psychotherapy, many trends deal with dreams.
The most basic ones, which have their own theories of dreams, are naturally psychoanalysis; and that's Gestalt therapy - Perls has done quite a lot of dream work, and he has techniques that are more focused on what you can do on your own.
Modern psychotherapy says that is work with a person . All directions do it differently, but there is not a single direction where a person comes, tells his dream, and is told what it means. Such fortune-telling does not occur exactly anywhere.
I can illustrate with an example. Suppose a very strange situation happened - five people had the same dreams, these will be 5 different interpretations of . Because this is not work with sleep, as with an event, but with a person. And each next question in the interpretation of dreams is connected with the previous one, and not with the dream specifically. Even the algorithm itself is not related to the dream canvas.
For example, from the scientific, but what is quite similar to a dream book is the so-called "Jungian dream book" .
Again, this is also a canvas, there are no clear interpretations. But in the hands of some experts, this turns into a real dream book. From the series “home is you” – something similar. There are quite a lot of prescribed points that can be interpreted as a real dream book. But I would not recommend doing this.
A very strange situation happened - five people had the same dreams, these will be 5 different interpretations. Because this is not work with sleep, as with an event, but with a person.
About 8 years ago, I was in a therapy group, and we unfolded Jungian analysis a little differently - as just a set of symbols. And at some point you begin to notice how you begin to communicate with yourself through these symbols. That is, you were given symbols, and you: I would like to say this to myself. This is laid out in a dream, and then the interpretation begins.
Our brain is amazing, we heal ourselves in every possible way, and our post-traumatic growth and potential is simply limitless.
At least I want to believe it. And if you give symbols, then perhaps it will be easier for your unconscious. But Jungian analysis is not close to me, I am close to working with sleep as a metaphor.
Do you have examples of dream interpretation that you can share? And is it correct to tell customer cases?
This is a difficult question. Yes - incorrect, you need to get consent. In my practice, there was only one case when a person himself wanted me to share this particular dream.
It was a big challenge for me, because for the first time I am faced with the fact that for a client, putting his case on public display is something significant, it is such a manifestation: "I am no longer ashamed of what happened to me" . This is a very hard to read and touching case.
Work with dreams is a very deep work. And you have to be ready to hear anything. The client may want to share some of the most shocking and difficult things that have happened in their life.
You need to understand what you will do with it later.
The dream was that the girl was at that time in LA - for her this is a familiar place, she often goes there. She is at the beach with her father who offers to get a tattoo. I am not going to retell in full now. And they discuss a small tattoo, which she agrees to.
Then she seemed to wake up with a huge half-body tattoo. She had a drawing, I'm now afraid to lie, that's how it would not be Hitler on his stomach. She cries right in this dream, walks and asks people. And there was such a very emotionally charged phrase...
When I talk about emotionally charged phrases, I can read anything for myself. For me, there is one emotionally charged phrase, for other psychotherapists it is different. Therefore, if those people who are engaged in dream analysis in practice will listen to or watch us, always ask about the phrase, because you can take the interpretation in your very direction.
There was an emotionally charged phrase: "now everyone will know what happened to me, everyone will know what he did to me" .
And it turned out to be a case of violence.
A footnote is immediately needed here: work with dreams is most often very deep work, and anything can be heard. And you have to be ready to hear anything. The client may want to share some of the most shocking and difficult things that have happened in their life. You need to understand what you will do next.
Actually, she told about the violence that happened to her, and that they no longer communicate for about 20 years. It was a completed work, during two meetings we analyzed this dream and this particular case. And then the client asked me to talk about it, and it became a symbol of the fact that she is no longer shy.
I want our listeners to understand that we are not talking about esotericism, but about the science of dreams. I also had two examples, two dreams, with the help of which I understood how my psyche works. The first dream I had was that a big tsunami was coming towards me and I had only a small lifeboat to save me.
The tsunami passes, I hold on to this boat, but I always fall from it, it is very unstable, it turns over. I wanted to understand what this boat means in my life, something unstable, but at the same time saving me. And I turned to a specialist who helps with the interpretation of dreams. We started tracking other dreams, and in the second dream there was a similar situation, only with a new phone. I always put my new phone in my back pocket, and it broke under my weight. A new phone is a new opportunity, or a new part of me, which, like a boat, is very unstable and fragile. And so the interpretation of dreams with the help of specialists helped me understand myself and understand: what the unconscious is trying to point out to me through dreams, and what these small parts of me mean - a boat and a telephone. As it turned out, this is a great opportunity for my personal development.
Dream podcast video version
Sleep problems and nightmares
If we continue our conversation about dreams, what is a dream from the inside? For example, if a person sees nightmares, or a fall in a dream, etc.
What sleep states signal problems?
Those dreams that do not allow you to go to bed signal problems absolutely . If there are dreams that keep you from going to sleep, you are so afraid that it will happen again, this is absolutely a problem.
Speaking of nightmares, nightmares are different. If a person comes to the therapist and talks about nightmares, you need to jump right into the subject and start asking in detail what exactly is meant by nightmares.
Why am I talking about this - there are several types of frightening dreams, and they can occur in different situations. The first situation is frightening dreams that a person sees sometimes, and they don’t bother him, there is a plot, but in general, seeing a nightmare once every two weeks is normal.
The second kind that can happen is if a person has nightmares every night, several times a night, but they don't really bother him. He just wakes up like this. This may be a physiological moment, because we know that a nightmare is the surest way to wake us up.
If you drink a lot at night, for example. I mean not alcohol, but liquids. Or sleep in such a position or in a place where it is very hot, uncomfortable for your body: the body is hot, the body wants to go to the toilet, the body is uncomfortable to lie down, the body has rested its hand - and the right way to wake you up is a frightening dream. A person wakes up quickly, changes position, opens a window.
Nightmare is the surest way to wake us up.
The third situation is when you see the echoes of traumatic events very brightly, very often, you are afraid that this will happen. Here - welcome to long-term intensive care, therapy groups and possibly medication support.
The last thing is that people very often confuse nightmares with sleep paralysis. When a client says “nightmares-nightmares-nightmares”, you need to ask: okay, there was a plot, and what happened after, and what happened before, and what your body felt.
Because sleep paralysis is where psychoeducation can help. It will just be necessary to tell that it is normal that 5 percent of people experience sleep paralysis almost constantly, to tell the physiological basis of this process.
Sleep paralysis is a very frightening dream, such waking hallucinations when you are already awake, but you cannot move any part of your body. People who have experienced this, firstly, report hallucinations. As if the brain is still sleeping, but consciousness has already turned on. There is a simple physiological explanation for this, some people are prone to it. In general, all this needs to be asked, because nightmares are different nightmares.
A dream with nightmares is at least some kind of dream. And if a person is overcome by insomnia - why does it occur, and how can it be dealt with?
There are a number of physiological reasons, there are a number of diseases that are highly likely to cause insomnia. But I'm more interested in sleep hygiene.
I am ready to beat my forehead against the wall and repeat many times that mental hygiene and sleep hygiene are the most underestimated areas of practical psychology .
Sleep hygiene is the conditions for preparing for sleep, which will make it healthy. Knowing that they have a physiological basis, such as taking medications that can affect sleep, people often neglect sleep hygiene so much that the physiological component there is only 5 percent, and sleep hygiene is 95. And this, in my opinion, is very sad. One of the causes of insomnia is very bad sleep hygiene.
About Lucid Dreams
There is a film called Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio where the main characters control their sleep. In general, the theme of lucid dreams is very popular in the West. It is not so popular with us, but, nevertheless, a lucid dream - does it make sense and what effect does it have on our mental state?
Lucid dreaming is quite an interesting practice.
You absolutely need to know that these are real things. There is a British lucid dreamer who is one of the few people who, after 20 years of lucid dreaming, has not slipped into the esoteric.
To the question - how does it affect our psyche: if you are constantly in contact with inexplicable things that are not connected with your senses and which exceed the possibilities of what the senses can give many, many times, then at some point you start to think that, firstly, you are special, and secondly, there is a lot of unknowable in our psyche, and this is explained not by science, but by some other things.
Once upon a time, the first experiments were carried out to prove the existence of lucid dreams: people were asked with their eyes closed, when they entered a lucid dream, to make something like Morse code with their eyes, several times - to the right, several times - up, give some that's a signal. It was 70-something year, and as one of the researchers said: “When we saw that the person sleeping in the laboratory was moving his eyes, it was just a scene from the movie, how NASA received a signal from aliens.
” Something like this: “Oh God, they exist!”. In general, lucid dreams exist .
Another question: do you need them specifically. This question is already more complex. There are two views on lucid dreaming. The first is simply the scientific view of lucid dreaming: when a person enters a lucid dream, he is in contact with his inner world. Roughly speaking, if in a dream I walk around the Verkhovna Rada, then I walk according to my idea of the Verkhovna Rada. And this is the first layer. And with this view I have no contradictions.
The second layer - if I'm walking around the Verkhovna Rada in a dream, then really at this moment - in the Verkhovna Rada. That is, my astral body at this moment is in the Verkhovna Rada. And here my inner skeptic can no longer accept this.
People who are engaged in lucid dreaming for a long time are constantly on this pendulum and all the time they meet evidence that they really are walking around the Verkhovna Rada.
In general, this causes me some cautious concern.
If you are interested in the topic of lucid dreaming, then there is the site of the Laberge Institute, now it can be called a good source of information on lucid dreaming. If you google the Stephen LaBerge Institute is an institute in the States, it has a website.
Lucid dreams exist. Another question is whether they are specifically for you.
There was a period in my life between jobs and I became interested in lucid dreaming again. I thought why not try. I remember that my early lucid dreaming experience was related to school. At school, everyone often has problems with classmates, and at some point you start to seem to go into a lucid dream.
There is also a physiological point here: when we are teenagers, our REM sleep phase is much longer. If you have long REM sleep, you are more likely to have a lucid dream during one of these REM sleep phases, or be so anxious that you become aware of yourself in a dream.
Teenagers can learn this much faster They just find it easier to do it.
It stuck with me that lucid dreams were such an escapist experience, you go into some very interesting virtual reality. And I decided to try again.
There are different ways to get into a lucid dream. At that moment, as a person who is not bound by work that needs to be done by 8 in the morning, I thought to myself: in some manual it was written that you can force your body to go into a lucid dream, being just very tired and sleepy .
I went to bed, slept for 4 hours, then went out to run. It was 4-5 am. She ran, got tired and went to bed again, hoping that lucid dreams would happen. It cut my day terribly, it really affected my sleep in general, because it was not a polyphasic dream where a person sleeps 4 hours, then walks, then 4 hours again - it was different. I really exhausted myself by running. Lucid dreams sometimes happened, not regularly, but they did happen.
Going back specifically to the groups - I had a group for people who are interested in this topic, and at some point a young man came who said: “I have lucid dreams absolutely every day, I can fly, I can grow trees in my from the palm of your hand ”- in general, he told the most incredible things. We were all very touched and interested. And when I gave homework: "Try to become aware of yourself," he says: "What do you mean?" - "Become aware of yourself in a dream." And then there is the silent scene. "Yeah, we're talking about lucid dreams here."
It seemed to him that a lucid dream is any very vivid dream in which you interact a little with reality. But a lucid dream is when you have access to your autobiographical memory , for example, if you remember the moment you went to bed. This can be an interesting experience.
I went to bed, slept for 4 hours, then went out to run. It was 4-5 am. She ran, got tired and went to bed again, hoping that lucid dreams would happen.
Can this be seen in another context? This is an interesting area of psychotherapy. If you can personalize your fear and interact with your fear in a lucid dream in a controlled reality, then it can really take away the nightmares forever. And maybe it won't. In any case, there is a huge therapeutic potential here that still needs to be explored. But walking around the Verkhovna Rada and thinking that this is the Verkhovna Rada is without me.
About the normalization of sleep and the impact on productivity
Before our conversation, I asked you a question: where is your interest now, and you answered me that in the field of the effect of sleep on productivity. How does the sleep-psyche-productivity chain work, and what benefits does a person get by normalizing their sleep?
Healthy sleep is when you go through 5 or 6 sleep cycles per night. Sleep cycle - most often, 90 - 100 minutes (if the dream is not broken and everything is in order with these cycles).
You need to pass 5 - it will be 7 and a half hours, or you need to pass 6 - it will be 9hours.
And then things get controversial, because there are many studies that show that if you sleep less than 8 hours, then you enter a state of so-called "incomplete physical, mental well-being" : you do not remember as much as you could; not as charismatic as they could be; you don’t do as much as you could, and you have to work hard and sleep little, and work hard precisely because you sleep little.
If a person sleeps little, then there is a high chance of getting into a car accident. Bad sleep is literally second cause of car accidents after drunk driving. And here is an interesting thing: we fall into a microsleep, which is why we do not react to stimuli, while being conscious. And all drivers know that these few seconds can really be enough. It turns out that if we do not sleep enough, then we put ourselves in danger.
Without sleep, we read emotions differently, and for example, a smile will seem like a smirk to us.
Imagine how this affects social interaction.
If we talk specifically about productivity, then the state of incomplete physical, mental well-being makes us feel pain differently. If earlier it was an imperceptible headache, then for a sleepy person it will be an all-consuming headache. Or other uncomfortable signals from our body.
There is some interesting data: if strangers are given the choice of who to talk to now, they will unmistakably choose well-rested people over sleepy ones. Considering they will look the same. Not that one is sitting in pajamas with a toothbrush, but the second: "yes, I'm ready to talk to you, let's talk." No, these are, conditionally, the same people. A person is able to read something, which is quite difficult to simply explain right off the bat.
If a person does not get enough sleep, then this greatly affects social interaction. For example, in the context of the fact that we do not read emotions, but those that we read, we interpret as negative.
Here, a lot of research has been done, and there is such a theory: due to the fact that we are tired, we react poorly to stimuli, the body believes that it is now weak, and any danger should be exaggerated. It has evolved over thousands of years.
But now, if someone is angry with you at a work meeting, it is not life threatening. Without sleep, we read emotions differently, and, for example, a smile will seem like a smirk to us. Imagine how this affects social interaction.
You just brought me to the final topic. I would like to ask you: based on your life and professional experience, can you name three main rules for maintaining mental and mental health? You can through the prism of sleep, you can through the prism of psychotherapy.
The first rule is sleep a lot close your five or six sleep cycles.
The second is self-compassion . The latest trend in psychotherapy - "self-compassion" , that is, compassion and caring for oneself, treating oneself as a friend.
And there are a lot of techniques that focus on that, a lot of great lectures. For me, this is much more meaningful than mindfulness .
This seems to be really very important and can really be a very helpful practice. Because very often we do to ourselves and say things to ourselves inside that we would never say to anyone around us, without a complete loss of relationships. But you can take it with you. It is sad.
And how can I put all the power of therapeutic thought into the last third tip? If possible, give support and get the support you can reach . Feel free to support people, feel free to be kind to people. Being kind, compassionate and believing in what you are doing is very good for our mental health.
Conclusion
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The topic of the next issue is emotional granularity. With my guest - Dima Matskevich - we will discuss: how human emotions have evolved, the influence of emotions on decision-making, and how it gets along with our rationality and logic, why it is important to notice and experience emotions, including unpleasant ones, and how suppressed emotions affect health and energy.
This article is a brief transcript of Alexei Zverugo's podcast about physical and mental health, which guest was Olga Kapitsa - psychotherapist, psychologist and sleep specialist. The full version of the conversation can be found in video format on YouTube, or in audio format on podcast platforms: Yandex.Music, Apple Podcasts, VK Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud.
Read the book “Psychological interpretation of dreams. Theory and Practice” online in full📖 — I. S. Furtseva — MyBook.
© I. S. Furtsev, 2022
ISBN 978-5-4483-9855-1
Created in Ridero 9 intellectual publishing system0003
On average, each of us spends about a third of our entire life in a dream.
Closing our eyes and falling asleep, we imperceptibly find ourselves in the world of our dreams. It seems that these nightly dreams defy reasonable understanding and cannot make sense. And since this is all "nonsense" and "non-reality", then in the morning they are discarded, honoring, at best, ridicule or fleeting surprise. The frantic rhythm of modernity does not allow us to stop and think about what is happening to us. We are no longer able to take the time to listen to ourselves, and we have long forgotten how to do it.
Dreams are a product of our own psyche, a reflection of our inner reality, an inner Universe, and a reflection of how we know, understand and deal with objects of the surrounding reality. Dreams are part of us. And forgetting, not attaching importance, rejecting them, we thereby reject a significant part of our personality. In fact, every dream is a message from oneself to oneself. A message with deep meaning. And it should not remain uninterpreted, just as a letter from a best friend cannot be unread.
Meanwhile, dreams are almost always ambiguous. They have many semantic levels. And it is not surprising that various psychological schools in different ways, sometimes in completely opposite ways, answer questions about what a dream is, what are its functions in mental life, and, based on all this, what methods and techniques are best suited for interpretation. dreams.
In this work, a significant place is given to the discoveries, explanations and approaches offered by psychoanalysis. The bold theoretical and practice-oriented views of psychoanalysts for the first time allowed us to look behind the veil of the mystery of our nightly dreams. And to this day, representatives of the psychoanalytic direction continue the systematic study of the mechanisms of dream formation and use the interpretation of dreams as one of the basic methods of therapy.
But this work is not limited to psychoanalytic views and methods. There is a grain of truth in most current psychological approaches.
Many theories, techniques, methods not only in words, but in fact, have proven their value more than once. Based on such positions, this work attempts to reconcile and unite different schools. Moreover, the possibility of applying the interpretation of dreams as an independent, independent approach in practical psychology is considered.
Of course, the topic of dreams and their interpretation is extensive. She is not able to fit on the pages of this book. Therefore, one of the main tasks of the publication is to talk about the existing scientific theories of the formation of dreams, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to convey those basic practical knowledge and skills that psychologists and psychotherapists who want to replenish their baggage of working with clients cannot do without. The book discusses the mechanisms of dream formation, symbolism, archetypes, structure and methods of interpreting dreams in individual and group psychotherapy, and much more.
The logic of the content of the book - from the general to the particular, with the further integration of all this into a single scheme of therapeutic work with patients.
For example, the first chapter begins with a discussion of such vast and fundamental problems as the physiology of sleep and various psychological ideas about the functions of dreams, and also mentions the types of dreams. Immediately after this, attention is paid to such rather extensive areas as the mechanisms of the formation of dreams and the manifestation of the properties of the psyche in dreams. And only after all this there is a transition to even more specific questions, such as, for example, about colors, personality traits, and so on. In the last chapter on the practice of dream interpretation, many of the methods and general theoretical knowledge presented earlier in the text are integrated into a single system of therapeutic work.
Since this written work does not claim to be a truly scientific educational literature, and also for the purpose of banal space saving in the book itself, as well as the author’s time and effort, references to used or cited professional sources are not provided in the text.
Anyone who finds it important or interesting can look at the list of references at the end of the book.
Many of the examples in the book are borrowed from various sources. Some are taken from the personal practice of the author.
According to the author's personal conviction, in such a subtle and complex phenomenon as a dream, any one permanent system simply cannot exist. Everything offered in this book is only those basic knowledge, rules of conduct, and general recommendations that should be remembered and taken into account when starting to interpret. Their application will inevitably change, and the sequence of actions will be rebuilt again and again with each new person and his unique personality, special story and manner of narration.
One should not be deceived into thinking that it is always possible to interpret a dream. It happens that he never reveals his meaning, or this happens only after many years. It should also not be assumed that after reading this work, everyone will necessarily become a professional.
