Chapter 1

Opening Your Dream Door

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the function of dreams and the benefits of working with dreams

Navigating the dream process

Understanding the dream cycle

Dreams really are, in the truest sense, a doorway: to greater self-awareness, knowledge, success, and the possibility of a rich, full life. Sounds great, but how do you open and walk through that door? This chapter is a great place to begin. You'll see that there is an actual pathway, with clearly delineated steps, that can take you from wishful thinking about dreams to a reliable dream habit. You'll find your previously mysterious, invisible inner life can be revealed on a regular basis to assist you in many useful ways.

In this chapter, you'll discover some specific benefits of an active dream life, familiarize yourself with the steps in the dream process, and fine-tune your understanding of sleep and dream dynamics. This way, you can build motivation and enthusiasm, be aligned with the natural flow of dreams, and get out of your own way by becoming aware of what inhibits dreaming.

Dreaming Fully

You can engage with the dream process better after you have some ideas about what dreaming does. Scientists write dreams off as the haphazard firing of neurons in the brain, but when you work deeply with dreams over time, you begin to understand them quite differently, seeing their spiritual roots. The following sections will help stretch your context for dreaming and inspire you about their vital importance in maintaining a healthy and happy life.

The function of dreams

The best way to begin understanding more about your dream life is to first understand how dreams function:

• Dreams are restorative. When you have uninterrupted sleep and go through a series of deepening dream cycles during the night, you touch into and revisit your spiritual core and life purpose. Dreaming helps you stay on track, remember who you really are, how you fit into the whole, and renew yourself with fresh life energy and motivation.
• Dreams are about creation; the ultimate Dreamer is your soul. Most cultures where mystical spiritual experience is valued believe that the soul projects (think "movie projector") or "dreams" the personality and entire physical life into being. "Life is but a dream," we so often hear. When you remember that you are the soul, or the Dreamer, and not the dream itself, you have more power to change the "dream" and create a life where your destiny can unfold instead of suffering and pain. You're not stuck! Dreams show you what's possible. All you have to do is dream something different! You're only as limited as your imagination.
• Dreams are about learning to be superconscious - and you're learning 24 hours a day. You're dreaming not only at night but during your daytime waking reality, too. Your nighttime dream world is as real to your soul as your daytime world. They feed into each other, inform each other, teach each other. You, the soul, are never unconscious! You're always focusing on themes and issues that further your growth, flowing through different realms of your awareness. By interpreting day and night dreams, you can discover what's going on in your innermost life.

What's in it for you?

A productive dream life begins with being fired up and motivated. You won't get started or stick with it unless you understand the benefits that dreaming provides. So I've listed some important ways you can improve your life by working with dreams:

• Entertain yourself and grow your imagination: Dreams give you many interesting, fun things to talk about with your spouse, friends, and family.

  If you do nothing more than fly without an airplane or interact with dragons in your dreams, you'll be far richer than if you'd lived by logic alone. Dreams keep you childlike and open, and help promote a free, joyful spirit. Since anything goes in dreams, it's not much of a stretch to extend the same dynamic imagination to your waking reality. Imagination may be one of the most undervalued skills you have. It determines the quality of your life, since what you can imagine is truly as far as you'll let yourself go. Dreams show you it's not so hard to move beyond your comfort zone.

• Discover what's what in your psyche: Dreams provide firsthand contact with the fascinating mystery "Who am I?" They teach you about your psychological process and the subconscious beliefs and fears that interfere with growth and happiness. Your dreams can show you how to be more flexible, tolerant, loving, and lovable.
• Tap your inner wisdom: Dreams relay accurate, inspired advice from your higher mind, or soul - the part of you that always knows the truth. They may even warn of problems that are brewing or help you prepare for an upcoming event. Dreams reveal your unlimited creativity and notify you when you're off center and need to realign with your life purpose.
• Be all that you can be: Dreams expand your sense of personal identity because you realize you're composed of energy, emotions, thoughts, and higher patterns of awareness. You'll start thinking of yourself as more than a physical body and have access to new realms of experience that empower you to be more, know more, and do more.
• Develop intuition and innovation: Recalling dreams, interpreting them, and intending them are all acts that require intuition and imagination. The more you work with dreams, the more you'll learn to trust yourself, and you'll realize how naturally intuitive and creative you are.
• Increase real-life success: Dreams help you in real ways - with problem-solving, decision-making, improving communication, healing yourself and others, even manifesting the help and resources you need. The dream state is a fertile field awaiting the seeds you sow.
• Melt barriers of time and space: Dreams expand your capacity to know things that are in the past, the future, in other locations, and other dimensions of reality. Dreams that come true or give you information you couldn't obtain by normal means can open you to know, not just theorize, that we are all much more vast than we realize.

Understanding the Steps in the Dream Process

To develop a conscious, intentional dream practice and receive the full benefit from your dreams (for more on the benefits of dreaming, see the section "What's in it for you?" earlier in this chapter), it helps to know the steps in the dream process. Each step is important, and each feeds energy to the others. Drop one step out and the whole process falls apart. The following stages are expanded in more detail in subsequent chapters. The more times you repeat the full sequence of the following steps, the stronger and more second nature your dream habit will become:

1. Choose to remember a dream.

   The best way to launch your dream process is to have a strong resolution to know your own mysteries. Then be more specific. You can prepare your awareness to be fertile and receptive, but if you want to dream, you must have a need or curiosity that serves as an energetic magnet.

   Decide what kind of dream experiences you want to have. Do you want to visit an exotic place or connect with a relative who's died? Do you want to heal psychological or physical wounds? Perhaps you'd like to go to school or to the inventor's library and learn about future technologies. Maybe you need help solving a problem. Pick something specific or ask for general guidance; then program your subconscious mind before sleep: for example, "I will remember my most important dream in the morning," or "Bring me an insight concerning which job offer to accept."

2. Sleep well; wake up well.

   If you're too stressed or wake often during the night, your dream cycles will be disturbed. If you try a few pointers from the lists of dream inhibitors and dream enhancers later in this chapter, you can learn to get a better night's sleep. When you wake in the morning, take a few moments to gently rise from the depths of sleep to come back to daily reality slowly, so you can maintain a connection with your dreams. Maintain the subtle feelings and sensations in your body before your mind kicks into gear.

3. Recognize dream activity.

   It's important to develop a habit of turning your attention immediately to your dreams as you awake. Let your first thought of the day be What have I just been doing? Dreams come in various forms: a cinematic saga, a fragment, a single symbol or word, or even a highlighted experience later in the day after you awake. Speak in present tense about dreams: "I'm swinging on a rope, jumping from tree to tree. I sense I might fall." Speaking to yourself in the past tense can distance you from the dream.

4. Record your dream.

   Once you've learned to preserve your live connection with your dreams, you must do something to make the dreams real and physical to your body. This way your body, which is intimately connected with your subconscious mind, knows you meant what you said the night before when you asked to remember your experiences in other dimensions, and...