Dreams: The Healer and Teacher

“Every night – as we dim the light of consciousness – we enter the realm of the dream.”

• - Dream Analysis.Info

Leadership specialists, motivational speakers, inspirational advisers, and other encouraging counselors are now being widely sought by people. These mentors are now gaining popularity in the United States of America because many people are very much in need of counseling and advice, especially in the business sectors like managers, CEO, team leaders and others. This emphasizes the truth that everyone, even those people who are earning much, is facing challenging problems, and these difficulties urge one to ask for help from experts in order to come up with the solutions. It is an innate characteristic of a man to seek the help of others if the solutions are no longer foreseeable in his sight. But there is an article that informs how one can rely on himself in forming a solution, states that there is a part of a man’s being that exerts efforts in order to offer some help, and gives explanations and breakthroughs which confirm the rationality of this information. The article from dreamanalysis.info, entitled “Jung's Rediscovery of the Dream”, explains how dreams can heal a person’s problems and teach him how to find the answers by himself.

source: selfhealingexpressions.com

According to the above mentioned article, historically, dream was held to be the voice of God. The ancient cultures believe that the Great Spirit is the one sending dreams and that these dreams offer advice and instruction. The article stated that the divinity of dreams can also be traced back from the ancient Egyptian and Greek cultures. An evidence of which is the existence of temples designated for dreaming and receiving healing or instruction from the Gods. But, as the time goes by, this divinity about dreams gradually ceased as the dominance of Christianity starts to grow. As the article further explains, Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, regarded dreams as the works of the devil, and thus, revelations given by dreams are all diabolic. Also, the rise of rationalism and science further weakened the significance of dreams.

Even up to this day, there are still skepticisms about the importance of dreams and negative feedbacks and rebukes are still predominant towards this field of study. Many scientists reproved those experts who specialize in the study of dreams and argued that painstakingly examining dreams would not lead to ground breaking breakthroughs. But that’s before the astonishing discoveries about the magnificence of dreaming and how it can provide solutions to an individual’s problems have been proven by numerous psychologists, neurologists, oneirologists, and other experts in this field of study, and that include Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

As what has been stated in the article, the significance of dreaming has been rediscovered by those two great psychologists who labored so much in the study of this wonderful realm of life. According to the article, Sigmund Freud’s theory about dreams is centered on revelations that dreams wanted to disclose but which the dreamer would rather keep hidden. Through examining dreams, one was forced to confront what was suppressed and rejected within him. On the other hand, Jung had another interpretation. Jung believed that dreams reflect what was missing from the dreamer’s consciousness, and the disclosure of this missing piece will pave the way towards a person’s wholeness and indivisibility.

In addition, the article “Jung's Rediscovery of the Dream” also stated that Carl Jung discovered the healing mechanism of dreams for the brain through his patients. Jung encouraged his patients to understand their own dreams and that their understanding will heal them. As a result, many patients have solved their original problems and, surprisingly, their dreams seemed to delve deeper to more complex and untouched problems in their lives and would again provide the healing and answers.

Dreams do offer solutions, what one really needs is the understanding. If each person can really understand his own dreams, it will never be difficult for one to solve his own problems. But that is the exact limitation of this field of study. Not all people can interpret their dreams and that is an additional problem. One may come up with a possible interpretation, but what if it is not what the dream portrays, or worse, what if it is the exact opposite? The interpretation may either lead to solution or destruction.

Carl Jung, as further explained by the article, observed that dreams can sometimes contribute to one’s personality development. He termed this as the force of individuation, which is the birth of the idea about Self-development. The drive that acts within the unconscious is the force that seeks consciousness, the force by which one will realize his greater capability.

source: teaching.monster.com

Many studies confirmed that dreaming is a way that the unconscious wanted to be made known to the dreamer. People often realize that their dreams wanted to give messages to them, and that is how the unconscious acts. It discloses things that it wants the dreamer to know, like the solutions to his problems and the ways how the dreamer can improve and heal his own personality and way of thinking.

Through Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s works regarding dreams, this majestic dimension of a person’s being regained its position in the field of science and other schools of thought. Dreaming regained its status as the source of wisdom and healing through the solutions and encouragement that it provides to the dreamer.

Often times, during healing ceremonies, it is being emphasized that the sick is the healer of himself. It can often be heard that the extent of the healing greatly depends upon one’s faith. Numerous accounts have proven that hopeless patients have been cured from fatal diseases through his faith, and those are still inexplicable in scientific terms. What if this mystery is closely similar to the healing trait of dreams? That the dreamer is also the healer, as how the sick can also heal himself? That the extent of the solution that dreams can provide will also depend upon the willingness of the dreamer to find the answer? Although there is still no direct explanation on how the dreamer can force his dreams to provide him the solution that he needs, still, knowing in the first place that dreams can heal and teach is a good start, a good stepping stone towards future discoveries. So just listen to dreams. Learn, and be healed.