Thursday, May 19, 2011

Becoming familiar with your dreams

As your dream journal grows and your dream recall increases, naturally you will become more familiar with your dreams. Certain people, certain places, and certain activities may be more likely to appear in your dreams. For example, you may have a majority of dreams in which you are at your office or at school or at the beach. Certain dream themes might also be more common than others. You might dream of being a hero or you might dream of being chased. These recurrent patterns in your dreams are your dreamsigns, and they will be the first stepping stones on your path to lucid dreaming.

By learning your distinctive dreamsigns, you will be able to further increase your recall. Making a list of your dreamsigns is a great idea. If you are having trouble recalling any dreams, you can run down your list of dream signs and question yourself to see if any of them will spark a memory. Sometimes, by jarring just one dream fragment loose you can recover the whole dream, so knowing and using your dreamsigns will give you just the edge you need to overcome a morning bout of dream amnesia.

By working with your dreamsigns, you will develop an intimate relationship with your dreams. They will become more accessible and easier to understand. It is helpful to ask yourself why you are dreaming what you dream. What do these dreamsigns mean to you? The more you understand not only your dreamsigns but what they mean, the more you will benefit from them in both your dream life and your waking life.

If at first you are having trouble identifying your dreamsigns, realize that your dreamsigns don't have to be something unordinary. As a matter of fact, they may be the most ordinary thing. For example, you may have dreams about your previous day or you may dream of cleaning your house. Whatever it is that you dream about, you need to be noting the patterns and commonalties. You can start with whatever patterns you notice no matter how insignificant they seem. Using these as a springboard, you will soon begin to notice more patterns developing. The process of looking for patterns may in fact create the patterns themselves so if you are having trouble finding your dreamsigns, just keep looking and they will emerge.

The quest to discover and understand your dreamsigns is a lifelong journey because your dream signs are continually evolving just like you. Some themes may last for only a week and then disappear, only to resurface a month later. Other dream signs will last much longer. As times change and you change, your dreamsigns being a reflection of you and your thoughts will change as well. Keeping up with your dreamsigns will keep you in touch with yourself.

With the help of your journal, you can easily spot the recurrent dreamsigns and you can get an overview of how they are changing. As you are making entries to your journal, you should make note of any dreamsigns that you spot. You can underline them or put a star next to them. Any notation will due as long as it is consistent and noticeable. The idea is to have them accessible at a glance so when you pick up your journal in a year you can easily see the change in the pattern of patterns, your ever-changing dreamsigns.

Identifying your dreamsigns also plays a crucial part in the lucid dreaming process. Your dreamsigns are in effect "signs that you are dreaming", and as you will soon learn, you can train yourself to notice your dreamsigns while you are dreaming and this will be the springboard into lucidity.

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