As a holistic nursing practice I use the concepts and processes of exploring dreams to provoke an understanding of life's issues, including illness and injury. Dreams hold information about spiritual realities, self-development, mythological archetypal themes and the health of mind, and body. Dream research and contemporary techniques, for remembering and analyzing dreams guide me in the work necessary to help my clients achieve health and wholeness through a deeper understanding themselves through dreams.

Did you ever wake up in the morning with a strange dream fresh in your head and say to yourself "Now, where did that come from?" Then dismiss the phenomenon as "only a dream." You are not the only one, for the last four hundred years or so people have widely dismissed the dream as a meaningless jumble of images or seen only in terms of telling the future. In the not so distant past, dreams held special meanings for the dreamer. To primitive tribes the individual dreams were, and in some place still are, shared with the whole community as having special meanings for the tribe.

In the last hundred years in our own culture others have noticed the value of dreams. Freud thought dreams held sexual meaning, Adler believed they represented a struggle for identity, Jung saw archetypes or basic patterns of human behavior that is universal (Taylor, 1992). Others have seen an existential meaning for a dreamers concern with death, a psychic or pre-cognitive meaning for the future, information about the health of the physical body, and religious meaning in terms of spiritual realities.

Physiologically, according to dream research, our dreams are, in fact, part of an innate biological rhythm of a cycle; they ebb and flow throughout our sleep like waves upon the shore. Our central nervous system undergoes activation every ninety minutes or so while we sleep. During sleep the body undergoes several changes; brain waves slow down, breathing becomes more regular, heart rate lowers and steadies, body temperature falls, and large muscles relax. These changes continue through four stages of progressively deeper sleep. After a phase of restful sleep, we gradually come through increasingly lighter stages until, about ninety minutes after falling asleep, we burst through to a stage of sleep called rapid eye movement (REM) and we begin to dream (Garfield, 1991).

Psychologically, the images are thought to come from a level of consciousness named by Sigmund Freud as the unconscious mind. Before Freud, mystics of antiquity described the attributes of this same consciousness and called it soul.

Anyway you want to look at it this level of consciousness is a universe of energies, forces, forms of intelligence and distinct personalities that live within us. It is a larger realm than we can realize, one that has a complete life of its own running parallel to the ordinary life we live. This place in us is the source of much of our thought, feeling and behavior. It influences us in ways that are all the more powerful because it is unconscious (Johnson, 1986). Two examples of the unconscious working in your life might be: that a sudden intuitive insight comes to you about an issue you have been struggling with, or an image and plan suddenly arises from your imagination to inspire you into action.

Nature of Dreams

Everyone, without exception, dreams. Many factors influence dream recall. Sometimes people forget, or repress, dreams because the content is too disturbing and challenging to their current notion about the world and themselves. The categories of linear time and separate ego consciousness with which people organize their waking experience are irrelevant in dreams and resonate better with the timeless and transpersonal realm of the archetypes or mythological figures (Johnson, 1986). It is just possible that people don't remember their dreams because they don't realize their value. More effort would be placed on remembering dreams if people recognized the positive potential for self-realization inherent in the symbols of the dream world.

Dreams enable the dreamer to contact unrecognized emotions and subtle sensations about what's happening to the body during a period of injury or disease. Dreams can help clients understand their reactions to treatment, express emotions and rid themselves of negative impacts thus relieving tensions. Dreams can warn about present or future health dangers and how to find peace amidst the grip of physical pain. Dreams can teach clients how to contact the curative powers within their minds, obtain personal healing symbols, find creative solutions to difficulties and assess progress in stages of healing (Garfield, 1992).

Dream images can be symbolic signposts that come in service to help evaluate healing in our clients. The house, automobile and the horse usually (but not always) symbolically represent the physical body. The condition of the symbol will give the nurse clues to a client's physical condition. For example a staircase may represent the spinal column and the windows of the house may represent the eyes or "windows of the soul." One day I was feeling quite tired. During my nighttime dreaming I dreamt of my car with doors open and a run down battery which symbolically suggests a physical body low on energy.

The nurse should be aware that clients often report images of green plant growth in their dreams as they recover from illness or injury. Positive "new growth" in various forms is usually indicative of an inner and outer healing. The client should be encouraged to work with the dream images, by drawing them (using art materials) or other methods of contemplation. This can bring positive feelings to full flower and speed healing. If a dream image is particularly significant one might encourage the client to work with the image/symbol for lengths of weeks or months for maximum benefit.

Working with Dreams

In working with my own and other people's dreams, I find that the unconscious mind (or soul) has a dynamic relationship with the conscious personality. It reflects and validates our waking reality when we are whole and centered, and compensates and corrects when the personality becomes too one sided. One who has learned the art of dream work is able to take some degree of control over his or her spiritual growth and psychological health. One does this by learning to think and work symbolically with the emotional and physical events in life.

In my practice, I recommend that clients accept their dreams as spiritual gifts that come from, a deeper more authentic part of themselves and be open to the messages inherent in the dream. Symbolically, they hold information that can help a person get in touch with and express emotions they weren't fully aware of, discover meaning in past experiences, receive guidance for future and present actions, evaluate current health conditions, and learn to enjoy life at deeper levels of the self.

In my experience, sharing of dreams with a trusted group is valuable because it can help the dreamers overcome natural fears that cause them to hide from themselves and one another. Group members begin to notice they aren't as unique as they thought; other people have the same insecurities, fears, and perceived character flaws. They discover the underlying life myths or themes that all human beings have in common. As they begin to recognize an authentic self, dream workers begin to share deep and loving communion and compassion with others in the group.

Currently, finding training and certification in this important modality may be difficult. A nurse who is in touch with her/his own intuitive abilities and who can work with concepts symbolically may only need to learn a few techniques to understand the process. Applying dream work to a holistic nursing practice requires the nurse work with his or her dreams first. I recommend the classic information of the books listed under References at the end of this article to study dream work intellectually. When learning dream work it is imperative to work your own dreams alone and with a group of friends. Nurses should work this way until they feel confident in themselves and receive reassuring evaluations from other group members. This practice will ensure adeptness in dream work before working with clients.

The following are five basic guidelines to help the novice dream worker get started.

1. Keep a dream journal beside your bed and write your dreams down immediately upon awakening. Write them in first person as if you are still in the dream. Give the dream a date and title. Notice the feeling state and correlate it to what is happening in your waking life. Write your analysis after the dream. You may want to wait until later on in the day and give this some thought.
2. All dreams come to us in the service of health and healing and if you experience a "bad dream" it is because dreams sometimes take on a dramatically negative form to get our attention because they have something important to impart.
3. Only the dreamer can know with any certainty what the meaning of the dream is. The certainty usually comes with an intuitive "ah-ha!" response and is the only reliable indicator that the message of the dream has been received by conscious awareness.
4. When working with others about their dreams it is wise to preface your remarks with words to the effect that "if it were my dream this is what it would mean" and keep your commentary in first person as much as possible. This is a polite and less invasive way to communicate to each other about the very personal information in the dream.
5. All dream group participants should agree to maintain confidentiality of all discussions involving dream work. Members should be free to discuss their experiences openly outside the group, provided no one else's dreams are identifiable in their stories.
6. Dreams can have more than one meaning and dream images can have multiple layers of symbolic meanings.

The meditative discipline required in remembering and recording of dreams can lead to increasingly clear awareness of our subtle experiences both asleep and awake. If one takes the time to contemplate and understand your dreams you will find guidance, illumination and attitudes for healing the conscious part of yourself by learning to express a deeper part of yourself. You will not only learn how much you have in common with others but also increasingly realize your own uniqueness. It is important to keep in mind that the full healing potential of dreams will not be realized unless they are followed by conscious effort towards growth and development.

References

1. Garfield, P. (1991). The Healing Power of Dreams. New York: NY, Fireside, Simon and Schuster, 20-21, 59-85, 189.
2. Johnson, R. (1986). Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. New York: NY, HarperCollins Publishers, 3, 11.
3. Taylor, J. (1992). Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill. New York: NY, Time Warner Co, 3-11, 20-21.

BACKGROUND

In addition to teaching psychology at a local college, I have a private practice at my wellness center in Jefferson Oregon. As a certified holistic nurse with an education in psychology and transpersonal studies I offer an array of healing arts techniques to enhance wellness and prevent illness.

I have had a life long fascination with dreams, their interpretation and how they apply to life. My grandmother was a minister who introduced me to the concept at about twelve years old. I began trying to interpret dreams at that time but was not able to actualize this talent until about the age of twenty-five. At forty I took undergraduate classes in Jungian psychology which included a class in dream work which added to my repertoire. With a mentor (who had a doctorate in transpersonal psychology), I explored dream interpretation during my studies at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. I have used dream interpretation in my private practice, with individual clients and in therapeutic groups, for four years and occasionally teach a class called Dream Analysis at a community college. I can be reached at (541) 327-7749, toni@tonigilbert.com.