Nightmares
Everyone has nightmares from time to time and when they occur it's easy to worry or stress about them, but they are fleeting and should diminish as quickly as they came. Sometimes people suffer them more often and, in this situation,, it is well worth trying to work out the reason behind them.
Nightmares can be split into categories:
Obstacle Dreams
Dreams where we you are fighting against several types of obstacles that stop you from accomplishing a task, reaching somewhere, getting away (running is always impossible) or fulfilling a task etc.
Obstacle dreams symbolize the difficulties in our lives that we are trying to overcome and how well you are managing can be shown to you through your dreams. If you do not know if you managed to overcome your dream obstacle, then this shows how it is not yet known how you will manage to negotiate obstacles in your life.
Another common obstacle dream is the walking dream where you don't seem to be getting anywhere let alone to your destination. This dream happens when you do need to take life one step at a time, there are some things that you cannot rush.
Blindness is also an obstacle dream and becomes such because there is an obstacle stopping you from seeing things clearly, sometimes it is your own attitude preventing you from seeing a situation for what it really is. Blindness can symbolize spiritual blindness and not being able to see other people’s needs as well as your own or not seeing the bigger picture regards to what goes on behind beyond your everyday existence.
Spiritual ignorance presents as blindness in dreams because you are ‘closed off’ to the possibilities of there being more to life than the things that you can see before you. Blindness can also symbolize being blind to someone’s faults. Any type of blindness dream is telling you to open your eyes and your mind to all the possibilities that there are for you to grow and develop as an individual.
There are many different types of obstacle dreams and sometimes they occur simply to remind us that we are actually our own obstacle.
Fear Dreams
Dreams where we are having to face a fear like death, our teeth or hair falling out, being blind, being disfigured or hurt and also dealing with wild animals, monsters or any evil force or presence.
Fear dreams become more prominent if you need to learn to face certain fears in your life, this links well with obstacle dreams because the real fear could be in having to change yourself in some way. You are the better judge of what your fears actually are but it could be anything from giving up smoking to a fear of the dark, your fears of death and loss can be examined this way, and especially a fear of the unknown. We get these dreams to help us come to terms with our fears if our fears are getting in the way of progress.
Fears of death and dying are explored through our dreams, often the symbol of death is referring to the death or ending of something rather than someone, like when a relationship is ending or a phase of life is coming to end. Death dreams are common when the teenage years are coming to an end and individuals learn to cope with new responsibilities. View death dreams as new beginnings and the fear will be alleviated somewhat.
Any dream that provokes fear happens so that you can learn to overcome that fear in a way that is easier for you to deal with, so that if and when you are faced with your own personal fear in real life, in your mind you have already dealt with it.
Pain Dreams
Dreams where we you are wounded and can feel an actual physical pain.
If any kind of affliction or pain is felt in a dream it is to bring the dreamers attention to hurt that they have suffered which has not healed in the usual way. The dreamer needs to work out not only the cause of the hurt but also spend some time considering the remedy. Pain that is felt on the inside like heartache for example can filter into our dreams as an actual felt pain because it needs us to make a conscious effort to repair the damage that has been done. Inner pain needs positive action to kick start the healing process and in dreams this can manifest into felt pain that you are not able to physically deal with in your waking hours. Occasionally pain filters into our dreams because we are actually in physical pain.
Dreams of Evil forces
In dreams evil forces can symbolize the negative things in our life that affect us both physically and mentally, so if you are trying to escape from someone or something evil in your nightmare then it often means there is a negative influence in your waking life that you are trying to escape from.
Only you can decide exactly what the negative influences are, it could be quite basic like an unhealthy lifestyle or the use of drugs or alcohol, anything that has a detrimental effect upon your complete well being. More commonly the evil can be symbolic for a negative person or someone whose influence you do not need or want in your life. Monsters and evil looking people in your dreams can quite literally show how you have to fight your own inner demons and not an external source of negativity.
Why do dreams go to such an extent to get their message across? It would seem that the reason for frightening people in some circumstances is because it is important that the dreamer try to understand the dream and its contents, because when a dream is frightening it will be taken notice of and not easily ignored. If the information is important enough it will be delivered by any means necessary.
When children have nightmares regularly it is important for their parent or care giver to try and discover any underlining cause, a young mind is not able work out what has triggered their dreaming mind to go into overdrive.
False Awakenings
False awakenings happen because we are trying to gain control of our dream, usually because we do not want to be in it, this can overlap into real life as there are usually some circumstances we wish to escape from. It is time to wake up and take control of your life in the same way that you are trying to wake up from and control a dream.
If you are in a dream that is horrifying there is a tendency for the mind to think that this scenario is so awful it cannot be real, quite often when you realize this you will then begin to find a way to wake yourself up from the nightmare.
False awakenings occur when the dream plays out in such a way that when you are convinced you are awake you are in fact still sleeping and so the nightmare continues. False awakenings are a way for you to understand the frustration of trying to gain control in circumstances that are out of your control ironically.
It is a common feature of nightmares to be overpowered or restrained by an evil force and the only way to release the clutches of this evil is to start praying, which many people admit to doing whatever their religious beliefs are. It has been reported on many occasions that praying seems to dissolve the negative energy and you are then released and wake up from the nightmare for real.
Maybe the lesson from this is to understand that ultimately we have to accept that we are only human and need help from time to time from an external higher power to get us out of situations that other people control.
These types of dreams are very common with spiritual people who are exploring God or the divine energy source and its place in their life, it is done to help them understand that there is no higher power that can protect them or save them from evil or negative forces.
Recurring Dream
These dreams happen when you have not worked out what you need from the dream, they also continue if you have not moved on from an issue, they will recur until a situation has changed or you have dealt with the unresolved issues.
When you understand the dream in its entirety it will stop, or at least some aspects of it will stop. This is why recurring dreams often keep the same theme and pattern, although small features may change. This is because you are making some effort to deal with a recurring issue but not enough for it to stop entirely.
Sometimes things cannot be changed because it is not us who needs to change them, our life is affected by the choices and decisions of other people and therefore some recurring dreams are reliant on the actions of other people.
· Resolve an issue to stop recurring dreams happening.
Vivid Dreams
Everyone has dreams from time to time that seem completely real, these dreams are important and need to be remembered, they often translate an important message to us that must not be forgotten, or needs to be understood completely, these can be our premonition or warning dreams.
Warning Dreams
Warnings are usually given in dreams by the use of signs that you personally will recognize, what is noticed as a warning in one person's dream could be different for someone else. Most dreams that we have are warning us in some way or another, warning us of upcoming situations or issues that we are coming up against.
A warning will most probably be shown through a dream in a way that relates to the warning that you are being given. For example traffic warning signs might be trying to warn you about motoring issues or could be referring to your life’s journey, telling you to slow down, plan the way forward or to stay on the straight and narrow. Warning dreams simply warn of events or circumstance that you need to prepare for or try to avoid. You might need to change an aspect of yourself so that you can continue being progressive rather than regressive.
The warning that is given to you through a dream is fundamentally aimed at helping you see pitfalls caused by your own actions or the actions of other people around you. These types of dreams happen to show you the greater plan, when you need to understand that there are certain times in your life when you cannot escape destiny.
Our bodies send us warning signals through our dreams as well, like when we dream of being hurt physically this can transcend into the dream scenario to prompt you to think about your own physical or mental well being.
As human beings the biggest obstacle we are presented with is 'change' we do not like it or want it, and warning dreams usually happen to inform us that changes are on the horizon or need to be instigated.
Warning dreams can seem to predict the future and are experienced to help you gain some knowledge about important events or changes. You might not be able to change the outcome or alter the events but the prior knowledge you have gained through your dreams can help you to understand or come to terms with events should they come to pass. Just knowing that something was destined to happen is helpful in itself because it assists towards the acceptance of it.
Finding answers to problems using your dreams seems difficult to most people but the important thing to remember is that ultimately your dreams are trying to give you more information so that you can move forward in your life and grow as an individual no matter what obstacles you are presented with.
I have only ever met one or two people who have said that they never dream at all, or at least never remember their dreams. I also met one young lady who said that she only ever dreams if she sleeps at somebody else’s house. I myself have experienced non dreaming times but I noticed that more likely I was just not remembering any of the dreams I was having. If you get straight up when the alarm goes off and begin a busy day the likelihood of remembering a dream is reduced. I believe that we all dream and it is the strength of attachment or care that we give to the dream information that increases the ability to recall or remember our dreams.