Most of us have experienced the moment of waking from a dream – maybe your heart was racing, and a sense of panic flooding your body? Maybe you’ve woken feeling confused? Or wanting so desperately to go back to sleep so you can finish off the beautiful movie your mind was playing for you? Or perhaps you’ve woken knowing that something deeper, something more was happening behind closed eyes? Perhaps you’ve woken in the middle of the night with the intention of remembering, but when you fall back to sleep, it all just disappears?

One thing I’ve learnt is that dreaming is one of my super powers! I have come to understand that my dreams contain powerful messages from myself, from my soul, from my guides and spirit connections. While I always try to embrace my dreams with an open mind and sense of curiosity, I also have to admit that I often experience a fear response upon waking, which makes me a little afraid of dreaming in the first place. For me, understanding my dreams helps me to overcome the fear. Perhaps sharing my understanding will help you to understand your dreams as well?

There are different types or categories of dreams, let’s just focus on a few…

Nightmares – illicit a fear response in your body. They cause you to wake with your heart pounding and your breathing short and sharp, as a sense of fear floods your system. Nightmares are your brain’s way of processing stressors – these could range from things in your daily life to trauma. Night terrors are a more intense form of nightmare, but often people awaken from night terrors with the fear response but no memory of the dream that sparked it.

Recurring Dreams – are dreams that happen more than once. A common recurring dream that I experience is being chased. I often dream of fleeing a group of people who are out to capture me. The setting is always different – I’ve dreamt of being chased through a city, on an island, at a school, in some kind of dystopian life and in the water, just to name a few. However, the theme is always the same. I am running from people dressed in black, who are trying to capture me for their own purpose. Recurring dreams may be a product of unresolved or difficult emotions, or problems in your life. They also may be a sign of unmet psychological needs such as the need to feel safe, or the need to feel connected to others.

Visitation Dreams – These really are beautiful and they don’t happen often. I’ve experienced a few visitation dreams. My Pop came to visit me in my sleep on the night of his funeral. He simply wanted to tell me he was okay. My Great Aunt came to visit, a couple of days before her passing, just to let me know that she was okay and enjoying being reunited with family. I have also had experiences with unknown spirits visiting me in my sleep. I distinctly remember a dream I had where I swear I was awake, sitting up in my bed looking out of my window into the night. Standing in my window was a young girl, wearing a white colonial style dress. I asked her why she had come, and she showed me her hands, clasped in front of her, bones dropping from her hands to the ground and disappearing. She told me, “my bones are in the ground.” When I woke, I was sitting on the side of my bed facing the window. I was able to verify this somewhat by discovering that there were unmarked graves in the street I lived in. These dreams usually cement in our memories, they are impossible to forget and generally leave us with a feeling of euphoria.

Vivid Dreams – are the dreams you swear are real, where you feel like you are living the dream. It’s like watching a high-definition movie in your sleep. Often vivid dreams are your subconscious saying, “hey, look here. Pay attention to this.” They contain messages from your subconscious.

No matter the type of dream, pay attention to it, because chances are, it is telling you something important. I sleep with a journal, or easy accessible paper and a pen by my bed at all times, because often I wake up and lose track of the dream, can’t remember bits and pieces of it, or find myself so busy in the morning that I don’t have time to sit down and record my experience. But in writing it down, I can come back to it later.

It is a powerful process to unpack your dreams. Even the colours in your dreams can have meaning. Your dreams often communicate with you through symbology. For example, you can experience music in your dream state that means something to you, smells that trigger memories of people, animals that have a significant meaning, and scenes from movies that trigger something within you. There are many pages online that can help you interpret the symbology of your dreams – the key is to find the meaning that resonates with you. This will get you started, and the more you start to unpack your dreams, the easier it will be to find the message in it for yourself, without needing to ask google.

Recently, I have been wrestling with a decision – my ‘where to next’ decision – and this surfaced as a message in my dreams. My journey to finding my path really began on Magnetic Island, at my first spiritual/self-growth conference. My dream took me right back there, only this time, I was stuck on Magnetic Island. I was with friends and my dog and we had lost our ticket on the ferry that would take us home. I tried to speak to the ferry staff and they were able to get us on the next sailing. We made our way to the boat, and as it was leaving the dock, I realised that my friends had fallen overboard. So, I jumped in and attempted to swim to them, to save them from drowning. My dog followed me into the water. I made it to my friends and we made it to shore, but my dog did not. She drowned in the waves. I woke up in fear response, because in the dream, I had lost the one thing that was most important to me.

In unpacking the dream, I realised that it was a message. I had not moved forward from Magnetic Island, and that was holding me there in place. In jumping for others, I had sacrificed the one thing that was the most important to me. There were parallels in my real life. I was putting myself second and making decisions that put others before myself and my own needs. I needed to move forward from Magnetic Island in order to find my way home. I would like to add though, that my experience on Magnetic Island wasn’t terrible, in fact it was beautiful and powerful and transformative. Magnetic Island gave me hope and the connections I built were beautiful and authentic. But I’ve been holding onto something there that I need to release.

My advice, start paying attention to your dreams, strive to unpack and to understand them. When you wake – as soon as you wake – take some notes about your dream. Those notes will help jog your memory when you do come back to it. Even if it’s a list on the Notepad Ap on your phone. Get it down. Come back to it in the morning and journal it out in detail. Examine it closely. Use google to help you understand the symbology if you need to. But, dig deep to find out what your dream is trying to tell you.

As always, I would love to hear about your experiences with your dreams and the messages you are able to decipher within them. Reach out through the Positive Pathways Coaching Facebook page. You are seen, you are heard, you are valued!