Can We Dream About Our Health?

One of the most common forms of dream imagery are those related to health, illness and recovery. This is when a dreamer has images relating to a health condition occurring in waking life. For example, a man who suffers migraine headaches may have images relating to foods that trigger the condition. A woman with digestive issues may have imagery relating to situations that cause stress, which in turn, trigger digestive problems. Dream images in this form are very helpful for alerting dreamers to situations that can help health-related conditions in waking day. By paying attention to one's dreams, information about health and possible solutions to healing will be revealed in imagery. A second and most helpful form of dream imagery is the "prodromal dream" which is alerting the dreamer to a health condition BEFORE it appears in waking day. A woman is alerted to a pain in her leg in her dream and then suffers the condition several days later. A man finds himself waking from a dream with food-poisoning only to discover this very situation a few hours later. How can this be? Several theories offer explanations of these dreams stating that the body "knows" of the condition before the conscious mind has it in awareness. The body may be sending signals to the mind that the condition is developing yet symptoms have not yet manifested. No matter what the reason, prodromal dreams can be very helpful for early detection and treatment of illness. If we pay attention to the imagery and are alert for the condition, it can be treated quickly and effectively, rather than being completely blind-sided by it. So once again, dreams occur because they are helpful to the dreamer, no matter how difficult or challenging the imagery may be. If the waking day situation cannot be changed, the imagery will help the dreamer to cope with the challenge. If the situation can be changed, the imagery will provide a road map. Either way, this complex and varied form of sleep mentation will act as a guide for navigating one's waking day life in terms of health and healing.

Are Dreams Important and Meaningful? What's the Skinny on That?

Many people ignore their dreams or brush them off as not having any importance for their waking day life. Scientific research has attempted to unravel the mystery of dreams and dreaming as it is a pervasive human phenomena which has not ceased. Clinical practice continues to use and explore dream interpretation to help people deal with waking day issues. Illness, relationships, jobs, parenting, money issues and all other challenges will appear in dream imagery. Are these helpful and if so, how can they guide waking day life? See it here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1qgkrYJ5l4

New Video Series on Dreams!

Please join me for my new Video Series on research and the applied practice of dreams and dreaming. Video 1: Dreams During Pregnancy www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaY_MrsOOJ4

International Association for the Study of Dreams-Toronto Conference April 2015

Dreaming about Relationships

Relationships are one of the most important ways in which we learn about ourselves. Having conscious relationships will surely change the quality of life, both in waking and dreaming life. Read about it in: http://consciouslifenews.com/consciously-attract-relatio…/…/

Dreams in "Living Beyond the Five Senses"

Dreams play a vital role in living beyond the five senses. They provide much information beyond what we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell. A chapter in the new book "Living Beyond the Five Senses: The Emergence of a Spiritual Being" discusses the role that dreams plays in this phenomenon. The book can be ordered at www.amazon.com www.amazon.ca www.divineartsmedia.com

Living Beyond the Five Senses with Dreams: The 90 Day Test

My recently published book "Living Beyond the Five Senses: The Emergence of a Spiritual Being" (Divine Arts) discusses dreams in a new light. Chapter 11 covers the concept that dreams provide information that connect the mind and body to a life that can be lived beyond what we see, know and feel. A large body of research has certainly brought the dreaming mind and sleep mentation (dreaming) into new light. Research on nightmares, precognition, dream content, illness, and problem solving are just a few areas of dreams that have come forth in recent years. However, the best way to test one's own dream content is to follow the dreams and see what relevant information they provide to waking life. The benefit of dream information is that it's personal and can be put to the test by each and every dreamer. If information about waking day arises in dreams, it can then be followed in waking day over a period of time, to test whether it's in fact relevant or not. For example, if dream imagery around illness arises it can be followed through in waking day events to see what transpires. The dreamer becomes the expert on his or her own dreaming life. The proof is either there or it is not, and the dreamer decides for him or herself. I suggest giving a test run of 90 days in order to see how dreams and dream imagery manifest themselves. Like muscles that are not used much in a sedentary life, dream images also need to be worked in order to get results. 90 days should do it and it takes only one dream to connect to waking life in a dramatic way to see if dreams really are meaningful or not. Only the dreamer can be the judge of that.

New Book Available for Pre-Order

The new book entitled "Living Beyond The Five Senses: Emergence of a Spiritual Being" is now available for pre-order on Amazon sites and will be released in bookstores in November, 2014. This book includes a chapter on dreams as well and new information on how we are evolving as spiritual beings. The role of dreams and other transformational processes have been vital in this evolutionary shift.

Paranormal Dreaming

Research conducted with blind studies has provided results that people can accurately dream about events or other people, or, that people can dream about a future event. What is the next step in this research to show that these phenomena are global and stable?

Ontogenetic Patterns in Female Dreams

Current reseach by Allyson Dale at Ottawa University exams the pattern of female dreams across their lifespan. This study has an N=375 from adolescence to old age. What would be the value of this study and what are the long-term implications of the findings?

Gaming and Dreams

Research by Gackenback et al (2007) found that the continuity hypothesis of dreaming was supported with gamers. That is, that what people do in the day will show up as imagery in their dreams. The more emotionally salient the waking day events, the more likely people will dream about the events as imagery. Can there be any long-term effects of this phenomena with respect to gaming and if so, how might that occur? Also, are there benefits or detriments expected from this?

Dream Intensity

One of the important indicators of dreams is the "intensity" of the imagery and emotions. This function is important because it triggers waking day connections for the dreamer, it provides important information to researchers about the dream, and is a function that can be explored for clinical purposes. Calvin Yu (2010) published the Dream Intensity Profile which is a scale useful for evaluating components of dream intensity as clinical markers. This research provided strong evidence that the scale of dream intensity can predict specific disorders. Comment on this finding and how research should progress in terms of clinic applicablity.

Current Study

A current study examined sleep mentation (dreaming) during NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep in relation to brain activation (measured using functional imaging). The general findings suggested that by using machine-learning models for decoding neural activation, it is possible to determine the content of dream imagery by examining brain activation (Horikawa, Tamaki, Miyawaki, & Kamitani, 2013). How might this be useful in research, clinical practice, or popular culture?

The Storytelling Method

The Storytelling Method of dream interpretation has been used as a dream therapy to decrease negative dream imagery and nightmares with cancer patients, pain patients, soldiers returning from war, people with anxiety and depression, recovering alcoholics, and with relationship issues. It has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Chinese so it can be used in therapy with these languages. What would be the next logical step for expanding this therapeutic tool in terms of research and practice?

Dreams, Depression, Anxiety and Meditation

Recent research conducted by Nicolle Miller examined the effect of meditation on dream imagery and waking day anxiety and depression levels. In her study she measured depression and anxiety levels as well as had people record one dream. She then taught them how to meditate and instructed them to meditate in a basic way for 10 minutes twice per day for one week. Results showed that mood changed over one week and dream imagery also changed. Preliminatry findings from this study suggest that mood can be regulated to some degree with meditation and the mood is also reflected in dreams. How might this be helpful and what are the next steps for this research?

About Dream Dictionaries.......

While dream dictionaries are fun to read and fun to consult, they do not have any grounding in reseach methods nor have they been found to accurately reflect a dreamer's waking life. Though we all would like it to be that easy, that we just look up an image and get it's meaning, we have to actually do a dream interpretation on our own dream imagery to get meaning. For example, if a phobic person dreams of dogs and a dog lover dreams of dogs then each person will have a different meaning attached to that image. One may have the meaning of "fear" but the other will have the meaning of "love". We just cannot have a list of images and their meanings in a global way. Therefore, in clinical and applied practice we only use scientifically tested dream interpretations to gain meaning from our dreams and we never tell other people what their dreams mean. We ensure that they do the interpretation for themselves. Given this information, how is The Storytelling Method of Dream Interpretation helpful in clinical practice and for use by the general public? Please respond to the previous person's post rather than starting a new topic.

Dreams, Sleep and brain studies

The scientific literature on dreams and sleep have been kept fairly separate in the past, as two bodies of literature. The sleep literature has it's theories and studies as does the dreams literature. Only recently have the two been put together in a new model of sleep and dreaming which also measures brain activity during the period of dreaming. Why is it important to now amalgamate the two bodies of research and how can this be helpful to the growing science of dreaming?

Why we study dreams and dreaming.

Dreams have been a fascination in the literature and popular culture since the beginning of time. Though we all dream and may not remember our dreams, research has shown that dreaming plays a very important function. One fact is that dreams are connected to the waking day life of the dreamer, which is known as the continuity hypothesis. Have you had dreams that reflect your own waking life is some way and if so, was this important to you in your waking life?

Paranormal Dreaming (replies accepted until Dec 10th)

Dreaming about the future, about other people accurately, or about events that are occuring that one cannot know about appear to be common occurances. Over the years people have reported these forms of dreams but because scientists could not explain them, they igorned them. More recently scientific studies have begun delving into this realm of consciousness and found that they do in fact occur. Why might humans have the ability of paranormal dreaming (which actually appears to be normal dreaming) and what would be the advantage of this evolutionary phenomena to persist in humans?

Why would dream therapy be important to women with breast cancer?

Breast cancer is an illness that often is accompanied by repeated nightmares or negative dream imagery. This in itself is a symptom that should not be ignored but rather, treated along with other treatment modalities for the illness. A study by DeCicco and colleagues found that women with breast cancer in treatment found working with their dreams particualarly helpful in that they found deep meaning in their imagery which directly related to waking day life. For example, they could find meaning in their treatments and in their recovery process. The meaning they found went beyond the illness itself and into other areas of their lives such as their waking day relationships. Given the findings from this study, what important avenues should this research now take in order to help other people suffering from negative dreams or nightmares? How should this research be conducted?