Scientific research has shown we all dream at least four to five times a night. But there are different kinds of dreams. Some dreams can be taken symbolically and others can be taken more literally. Some are about big changes in your life, while others are about minor things that still want to be acknowledged. And there are dreams that can have a huge impact on you!
Various dreams
Processing dreams: Experiencing everything consciously
The most common dreams are processing dreams. You process what happened on the previous day or days. Usually, it’s about small things: a fight that is still simmering in your subconscious, for example. Something that bothers you. Or an opinion you’ve kept to yourself. Something beautiful that you have experienced, but which you have not yet consciously paid attention to.
These dreams contribute to fully experiencing and processing everything in your world. That way, you can start the new day with a clean slate.
Deeper processing dreams: Trauma comes to the fore
You can also have dreams in which deeper pain surfaces to be processed. These dreams can be associated with painful events from years ago, from early childhood and even from past lives. Sometimes the events appear in symbolic form in the dreams.
These dreams are often a mixture of symbolism and fragments of your real past life or childhood regressions. Sometimes, you can completely relive a part of your past life. It can be like being in a movie. The main point is that the trauma that comes up in the dream is also relevant to your life now. It’s not coming up for no reason. Usually, it concerns situations or triggers that are relevant in the here and now—and want to be resolved.
Dreaming for insight: Receiving advice and wisdom
Our dreaming mind is able to reduce the most complicated psychological situations to a symbolic story and fill it with wisdom and insight. That is, if you can understand the language of your dreams. It takes some practice. If you work more with your dreams, you will get and understand more insightful dreams.
In these dreams, you will be presented with psychological insights and wise advice (sometimes, thanks to hilarious inner commentary on your own daytime behaviour). You are, of course, free to accept these insights or not. Dreams tend to accommodate you in that. As my psychology professor once said, “People who go into analysis with a Freudian therapist get Freudian dreams. And people who do Jungian analysis get Jungian dreams.”
Nightmares: Clear messengers
Nightmares, of course, are not very popular. But when I have a therapy client who presents a nightmare, I always get very happy. Nightmares are, in fact, very clear messengers from our unconscious or superconscious, which wants the best for us.
They show in plain language what is troubling us: our fears. Significant trauma that has not been processed. Things we would rather not face, but which are very important. Unhealthy relationships. The future or immediate consequences of wrong choices that do not serve our highest good. They are literally or figuratively played out in our nightmares.
When you face them and can interpret them yourself or with help, you will see that nightmares are a blessing in disguise. They can help you heal old fears, rethink important life decisions and turn things around for the better. They can provide major steps in awareness and personal growth.
Predictive dreams: An unconscious preparation
There are also prophetic dreams. Some are to be taken symbolically, some are to be interpreted literally, and some are a mixture of both. Often, you only find out that a dream was predictive when the actual situation occurs! Because such dreams unconsciously prepare you for an event, you can often choose how to deal with the situation more consciously when the predicated moment presents itself.
An example of a prophetic dream that was both symbolic and literal in nature: In my dream, I saw an outer wall in the garden, between the house where I grew up and that of the neighbours across the street. In the dream, there was a large crack in the wall, which was clearly caused by a fire. Because the dream with symbolic meaning yielded nothing, I let it go.
A few months later, I was visiting friends in another city. I got a call: ‘Wendy, you have to come now, your house is on fire. The flames are blazing through the windows.” I was shocked, of course. But immediately I remembered my dream. In the dream, the damage had not been that bad: a big crack, that was all. A strange calm came over me as I thought of the dream.
I quickly went home. The fire brigade had kicked in my front door. There had indeed been a huge fire, but in the house of the next-door neighbour. His apartment was completely burned out. As I cautiously entered my own apartment, I saw that there was only some water damage. And there was a crack in the partition wall from the heat of the fire—just like in my dream.
Dreams in which a deceased loved one visits
Many people experience visits from loved ones that have passed over in dreams. When this is an actual encounter, the dream is usually very vivid and lifelike. When it is a processing dream, the dream is usually less clear and is often still coloured by emotions such as sadness, depression or fear.
In a real encounter, those who have passed are almost always safe and sound. Sometimes they are at the age when they felt most themselves. They regularly wear their favorite outfit. Often, they have a message for the dreamer: comfort, encouragement, information or wisdom that they want to pass on.
Big dreams: The wisdom of our soul
In what are often called ‘Big’ dreams, you are presented with a piece of insight about yourself, your life, or your existence that is important for your development and awareness. These dreams are often symbolic in nature. Sometimes angels or guides appear, and transmit information through images or words. Often, these dreams are conduits for the wisdom of our own Higher Being or soul.
The heavenly navigational system
When I was about 18, I read everything in the library that had to do with esotericism, spirituality, dreams and reincarnation. In fact, I was looking for the meaning of life and the meaning of my existence.
One night, I dreamed that I was standing on a hilltop. An old wise man (with a traditional long beard) had led me there. I stood there alone and looked up at the starry sky. On the left side of the sky, the stars were scattered chaotically, as if they had been scattered by a careless hand. But to the right, I saw a double line of stars, which seemed to be on a fixed course and would one day intersect—as I had learned in math, that was inevitable.
It gave me a strong sense that everything in the universe has a purpose. There is no chaos or coincidence, and there is a higher sense and order behind the scenes that I can’t always see, but it is always there. Today, I would call it the ‘heavenly navigation system’. Synchronicity. The plan of the soul. This dream gave me the security I needed at the time.
Lucid dreaming: Wake up in your sleep
In lucid dreams, you are aware of the fact that you are dreaming. Often, they start as ordinary dreams, and suddenly, you realize that you are dreaming. Sometimes, because something happens in the dream that is so against the ‘normal’ reality, that you wake up in the middle of your dream. If you manage to sleep through and not actually wake up, you can have interesting experiences in this lucid state. Lucid dreams can, but don’t necessarily have to, be spiritual in nature.
As a child, I had a lucid dream in which I decided to grab into a car and drive away. Everything was possible in my dream. Apparently, I had the desire to literally grab the wheel to freedom. Where you choose to go in your lucid state depends on your level of consciousness and your wishes and desires. But lucid dreaming can certainly be a prelude to the next category: dreaming to awaken.
Dreaming of awakening: One with the Source
Some dreams are of a different calibre than those mentioned above. They are dreams that awaken you. Although they take place during sleep, they are more like out-of-body experiences or visions.
I had one a few years ago on my beloved Greek island. A dream in which I met a soulmate in a very prosaic place, a crossroads of the highway in my hometown, turned into a vision. Reality, as I perceived it, broke into pieces like a huge mirror. In the pieces, I saw wildflowers, rocks and details of the earthly place where I was situated—my Greek island—and I ascended to a dimension where I not only intellectually knew, but actually experienced that I was not bound to that limited view of reality.
I was one with my Higher Being, my angelic self, my soul and the Source. I oversaw everything, all timelines and all dimensions. And I was imbued with the knowledge that I was eternal and totally free to manifest what I wanted, to connect with whatever and whoever I wanted, not bound by space or time.
Still half asleep, I stumbled out of bed and went to the bathroom. But I remained in the euphoric state of perceiving reality through the broken mirror. I stayed in the limitlessness of the Source. Still in that state, I went back to sleep. When I visited my Greek friends in town that morning, they told me it was Αναλήψεως, Ascension Day.
Insights about your path on earth
In these Great Dreams, you transcend the astral planes, the area where your consciousness usually resides when you dream. You move on the consciousness level of the soul, the level of existence where you are more consciously connected with your multidimensional Self.
There, you can easily get in touch with your past, future or parallel lives. You can even more easily meet angels, departed loved ones and soulmates, whether they are in incarnation or not.
And there, you can more easily receive insights about the nature of existence and your own beautiful way here on Earth, from the highest perspective of the soul and the Source. These really are dreams to wake up to!
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image 1 Rogier Hoekstra from Pixabay 2 image by Nick Magwood from Pixabay 3 image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay 4 image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay
