A word of caution......
It takes honesty and courage to investigate your dreams.
When you first start to pay attention to them, it's common to experience alarming ones, sometimes even
nightmares. This is nothing to be afraid of; it happens because you are bringing into consciousness, experiences
that you have accumulated over a lifetime and not all of those experiences will have been positive. Those that
frightened you may be represented in your dreams by monsters that chase you through dark landscapes. Those
that hurt you may appear as vicious dream characters that seem to want to do you harm. Such things appear in
dreams when something has, or is, happening that is causing your subconscious to experience the underlying
emotion in a literal way. So for instance, if you're frightened that your business is going to fail and you're not facing
up to it, your fear could manifest in your dreams as a pursuer who seems intent on killing you or stealing your
possessions. Often, a situation in the present elicits a similar emotion from the past, this will often result in
something from that past experience being brought into the dream. This would tell you that the emotion is still
active in your life, and if this is a negative emotion there is the opportunity to examine it in full consciousness,
transform it and integrate it into your psyche. This will allow you to move forward and make informed choices
about your life.
When psychic energies are denied and pushed away into the abyss of forgetfulness they become distorted and can
become powerful because they attract the energy of emotionally similar situations. They can rear up into
consciousness unannounced or, more usually, find expression in our behaviour or beliefs. They can trap you in a
world of self-delusion, self-denial and destructive patterns. You become your own jailer. By analysing your dreams
you can free yourself from this self-imposed prison.
Having the courage to do this is the first obstacle; often we feel safe within the narrow confines of our projected
persona; safe within our own illusion. When you strip this away you are exposed and vulnerable; the iron bars that
once kept the demons at bay are gone.
The second obstacle is to have the courage to face those demons and, in facing them, find the inner strength to
either vanquish them or accept them as a part of yourself and begin to heal and integrate them. It is only by doing
this that we can hope to achieve inner peace and harmony. It's always worth remembering that those things in our
past that may have caused us pain, actually may hold within them the seeds of new growth. Take the child whose
natural talent or ambition was stifled because the childhood environment in which she grew up was not conducive
to developing that talent. This may have caused a great deal of sadness at the time, to such an extent that the child
may have started to hate the thing she loved the most, or maybe diverted her passion into something more covert.
Re-discovering the pain associated with that denial can result in the rediscovery of a dormant talent that can now
be brought back into full consciousness and enjoyed with the heart and mind of the child who was denied it.
There are many roads to self-discovery; analysing your dreams is only one way. It is not an easy option but I
believe it is more honest and more powerful than many other methods. It can be done at your pace and in the
privacy of your own home.
Are you are ready to face the truth about yourself and your life?
Remember, you need to seek out and slay the dragon before you
have a hope of finding the treasure.
When you first start to pay attention to them, it's common to experience alarming ones, sometimes even
nightmares. This is nothing to be afraid of; it happens because you are bringing into consciousness, experiences
that you have accumulated over a lifetime and not all of those experiences will have been positive. Those that
frightened you may be represented in your dreams by monsters that chase you through dark landscapes. Those
that hurt you may appear as vicious dream characters that seem to want to do you harm. Such things appear in
dreams when something has, or is, happening that is causing your subconscious to experience the underlying
emotion in a literal way. So for instance, if you're frightened that your business is going to fail and you're not facing
up to it, your fear could manifest in your dreams as a pursuer who seems intent on killing you or stealing your
possessions. Often, a situation in the present elicits a similar emotion from the past, this will often result in
something from that past experience being brought into the dream. This would tell you that the emotion is still
active in your life, and if this is a negative emotion there is the opportunity to examine it in full consciousness,
transform it and integrate it into your psyche. This will allow you to move forward and make informed choices
about your life.
When psychic energies are denied and pushed away into the abyss of forgetfulness they become distorted and can
become powerful because they attract the energy of emotionally similar situations. They can rear up into
consciousness unannounced or, more usually, find expression in our behaviour or beliefs. They can trap you in a
world of self-delusion, self-denial and destructive patterns. You become your own jailer. By analysing your dreams
you can free yourself from this self-imposed prison.
Having the courage to do this is the first obstacle; often we feel safe within the narrow confines of our projected
persona; safe within our own illusion. When you strip this away you are exposed and vulnerable; the iron bars that
once kept the demons at bay are gone.
The second obstacle is to have the courage to face those demons and, in facing them, find the inner strength to
either vanquish them or accept them as a part of yourself and begin to heal and integrate them. It is only by doing
this that we can hope to achieve inner peace and harmony. It's always worth remembering that those things in our
past that may have caused us pain, actually may hold within them the seeds of new growth. Take the child whose
natural talent or ambition was stifled because the childhood environment in which she grew up was not conducive
to developing that talent. This may have caused a great deal of sadness at the time, to such an extent that the child
may have started to hate the thing she loved the most, or maybe diverted her passion into something more covert.
Re-discovering the pain associated with that denial can result in the rediscovery of a dormant talent that can now
be brought back into full consciousness and enjoyed with the heart and mind of the child who was denied it.
There are many roads to self-discovery; analysing your dreams is only one way. It is not an easy option but I
believe it is more honest and more powerful than many other methods. It can be done at your pace and in the
privacy of your own home.
Are you are ready to face the truth about yourself and your life?
Remember, you need to seek out and slay the dragon before you
have a hope of finding the treasure.
Copyright J.C.Harthan, PhD 2002
