Why Dreams are Important

January 1, 2010 | By Amy E. Brucker

Until recently, many people in western cultures haven’t paid much attention to the meaning of their dreams. They considered dreams to be:

1. Meaningless images
2. Random neurons firing in the brain
3. A useless recycling of past days’ events

But that’s changing. As scientists begin to discover quantifiable evidence that dreams are important and meaningful, people are are simultaneously beginning to pay more attention to the wisdom of their dreams.

One needn’t look far to find the relevance of dreams and their impact on humanity. They have inspired countless people to subtly and radically change the course of human history:

Harriet Tubman dreamed of escape routes that helped her guide slaves to freedom.
Jasper Johns produced the dream inspired and famous painting, The Flag.
Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed about a man who radically transformed after drinking a mysterious potion. Upon waking, Stevenson started to write Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Handel heard portions of Handel’s Messiah in his sleep.
After a terrible nightmare, Elias Howe realized his dream images offered the perfect solution for creating a functioning sewing machine needle.
General Patton developed effective military strategies by listening intently to his dreams.

*Source Our Dreaming Mind by Robert Van de Castle

Additionally, dreams provide health warnings and methods for healing (read the inspiring story of breast cancer survivor Wanda Burch in She Who Dreams: A Journey into Healing through Dreamwork by Wanda Easter Burch).

Dreams can foreshadow cataclysmic events and help people avoid dangerous situations.

Dreams inspire career changes, shifts in perspective, and help heal mind, body, soul and heart.

In short, dreams can enrich our lives by providing

Entertainment
Creative Inspiration
Solutions
Foreshadowing of events
Warnings
Methods for healing mind, body and soul

Of course, in order to benefit from the wisdom of your dreams, you have to remember them and listen to their deeper messages. Pay attention and you can revolutionize your life. Start a journal, share your dreams. Then let the magic happen.

To learn more about the intersection of dreams and psychology read Carl Jung and Freud.

Velva Heraty says:

March 13, 2011 at 11:38 am

A paragraph or two about core theorists like Jung, Freud, Gestalt and Gendlin would help the new dreamer get grounded. Hard to describe without psychobabble but more core to the process and emphasize the need to go deep. VDC book is out of publication so to quote it seems to date this section. Please trust my feedback is from a place of admiration for your efforts.