Studying Dreams for Personal Growth
Studying Dreams for Personal Growth
Posted on June 21, 2022 / Edited by llika M.
You may have found yourself unable to remember the last time that you had a dream. Studies, however, have shown that dreaming starts to occur 90 minutes after we’ve fallen asleep. At this point, we enter the rapid eye movement stage which is when our dreams begin to occur. According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average person dreams four to six times per night.
I apply philosophical midwifery approach to study dreams—a form of a dialogue, formulated by Dr Pierre Grimes. This approach is based on the ancient Greek art of having a dialogue first introduced by the philosopher Socrates. Philosophical midwifery works on the premise that our dream world presents us with dreams intended towards our personal growth. Each dream picks up memories, images, people, places from our past and present and manifests into a drama in which we participate while asleep.
The unfolding drama in our dream are often facilitating in exploring ourselves as they bring forth insights into our problems and conflicts. By exploring these dreams, we can become more self-aware and contribute efficiently to our personal growth.
Our dreams tend to fade once we wake up, sometimes to an extent that we forget them; yet, the feelings we experience during the dream may stay for longer. Studying dreams using philosophical midwifery require one to write down their dream or take notes about their dream. Within the framework of the written dream, the counsellor and the client work in collaboration to explore the meanings embedded in the dream.
Tap into that insight by noting down your dream
Allow yourself some time alone in the morning, without your phone. Try to hold onto what you felt during the dream or focus on the particular image that you remember from your dream. This will help you recall the events of your last night’s dream. Keep a dream journal or note down your dreams on your phone. Just how you would narrate a story to someone, dreams are to be written similarly. While recording or writing your dream, be cautious of not attempting to connect the missing pieces from the dream. Write them as you remember them even with if it seems incomplete or incoherent.
On the whole
You may think ‘my dreams are random’ or
‘analysing dreams sounds spooky’ or even
‘what meaning could such a trivial dream hold’.
This way of looking at or studying dreams focuses on exploring the states of mind that the dreamer experiences while dreaming. The prevalent feelings or states of mind experienced by the dreamer while dreaming are nonetheless experienced during waking life as well. The incidents and riddling images of the dream aren’t taken in the literal sense. Instead, the focus is on understanding ‘how you behave’ and ‘how you feel’ about finding yourself in a particular situation or about being around someone in your dream.
Dreams present us with insights that offer self-fulfilment and self-realisation in our journey.
Through philosophical midwifery, dreams can be approached as a new realm of possibilities for living with more awareness and clarity on oneself and one’s reality.
To quote Carl Jung, ‘Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. So why should I henceforth not love my dreams
and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?’