Controlling Your Dreams

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Recommended: Introduction on dreams

Buzz! Click! This is what starts off my day as well as millions of other Americans. Sleep is essential to human growth and life. During sleep we dream, which is a way for our mind to set itself apart from the body and do whatever it desires. Dreaming is very complex and therefore hard to interpret since some can be controlled or linked to our feelings from a particular day.

We have all awakened in the middle of the night sweating and terrified of what just went on in our head, this is commonly known as a nightmare. A nightmare is more than just a bad dream; it is an intense experience that has an effect on the body and spirit. These can occur singly, as a part of a series, or as a reoccurring dream. There are many causes of night terrors; the most common types are those of an emotional origin. They often appear when our sense of who we are or who we want to be is being challenged.

In order to interpret our dreams, the dreamer must be able to translate and connect the images of the dream to their source outside the dream. Dreams are the language of the individual subconscious, speaking in symbol to help us see or work out inner fears or hopes and life desires. In interpreting dreams you should keep symbols in mind and how the subconscious uses them to get its message across to you. Sometimes they are referring to something that happened to you earlier in the day: at other times, something that happened long ago in your childhood. Even though we are the authors of our own dreams, we may sometimes be unclear as to what they are saying. At such times, we may need outside, objective insights to help us explore the dreamscape. If you find yourself in that place, it may be time to consult a professional dream interpreter.

Lucid dreaming is dreaming while being aware that you are dreaming. To become lucid in a dream, you merely have to recognize you are dreaming. Lucidity usually begins in the midst of a dream, when the dreamer realizes that the experience is not occurring in physical reality. Sometimes people become lucid without noticing, thus varying the quality of lucidity. When lucidity is at a high level, you are aware that everything experienced in the dream is occurring in your mind, that there is no danger in anything that you do, and that you are asleep in bed.

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