Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about love and sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means. This week, a reader asks Lauri:
I was involved with someone for years off and on. We had a spiritual connection and were even best friends. Our love survived me doing four years at college and him getting in and out of bad marriage. The last time we tried I really hurt him but I have been able to apologize since then. I know in my heart that he was and is my soul mate. So now he is married again and I see him every week at church. He always stares and I dream of him every other night. I don’t know what to do. I want to let him go but I don’t know how and I have become consumed with this issue. Are my dreams signs I should pursue him or a sign I should find closure?
Lauri: Well, without having any details from your dreams to work with, what I can tell you for sure is that as long as you keep him in your thoughts he will continue to appear in your dreams. You see, the dreaming mind works with what we give it. So if this guy’s always on your mind, you’re not giving the dreaming part of your mind much choice. Your dreams aren’t going to move forward until you do.
That’s not to say you can’t use your dreams as a nifty little tool that can help you have closure because closure is a must. He’s married. That means off limits, forbidden territory, do not enter! Here’s what you do, tonight at bedtime, write down your dream. When it gets to a point where the forbidden might happen, change it up. Instead open up a dialogue. Write out what you’d love to say to him if he were standing right there, “I’m sorry I screwed this up. Boy did I learn my lesson. I know you’re married now and that means hands off so, I just want you to know I really wish you well and I am going to leave myself open so that I can find someone that lights my fire like you do!” Of course, that’s just a cheesy example but you get the idea. You need to write it out, almost like it’s a contract with yourself, that this is good-bye.
When you feel you’ve gotten everything out of your psyche and on to paper, rip it out of your journal (as this represents ripping him out of your constant thoughts), and throw it away. Then turn out your light and see what kind of dream you get. Odds are your dreams tonight will show your progress. Remember, as long as you are holding on to him, you can not move forward towards what is right for you. As long as you have your heart set on him – a married man, by the way – you leave no room for someone else.
Got a dream you want Lauri to analyze? Click here to submit it. Anonymity guaranteed! And don’t forget: you can get access to Lauri’s free Dream Dictionary on her site.
you must remember everybody send this lady emails that this is her interpreation on the story. so thats only one pov. i would rather post this story on a fourm and ask alot of people. because 100 is better than 1.
also dmt is relesed in brain every night by pinal gland. dmt is the most psycedelic molecule know to man.
I was just pointing to one of many studies about sleep. Here’s another one on Lab Rats learning in REM: http://learnmem.cshlp.org/content/11/6/714.full There are hundreds more online, in peer-reviewed journals. Just take a day and do a general search. We can compare ourselves to lab animals, because at the end of the day, we are still animals.
The human brain is an amazing thing. Give it the appropriate stimuli and you can see amazing things. Psychotropic drugs for example, show just how subjective Reality is. Optical illusions (without the aid of drugs) also show that our brains are easily tricked. We are not built without faults.
Studying dreams for years, in a non-scientific context, doesn’t make anyone a professional. There are plenty of people that study wire pyramids that you stand under to become telepathic, or heal aids… Plenty of others have ‘studied’ crystals as a real healing method, throwing out modern medicine, and putting themselves and others at risk.
Some dreams are for entertainment, others for learning difficult tasks that we couldn’t solve while awake. There is no evidence for deeper meaning in dreams. Unless you believe that the stars control your future, then sure dreams are magic.
When I was with my ex husband, I had many dreams that were telling me we didn’t belong together anymore.. One where I had skin cancer, another where I was walking down a gravel road and on one side there was an old building that needed to be tore down, and on the other side there was a site where something new was about to be built. The most common dream I had was where I was in a house that I was familiar with, but I’d find new rooms.. like I needed to find a new person in my life.. and I did!
Lauri,
I called into a radio show last summer where you analyzed my recurring dream of being caught in a house fire. I would run upstairs to my closet and would always wake up after hearing footsteps approaching the door. I never saw who it was that was there. You said it meant that I suffer from anxiety and until I forced myself to stay asleep and see it was me who opened the door I would continue to suffer. After hearing this analysis I went to the doctor and was indeed diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. I tried night after night to take myself back to that dream and force myself to stay asleep long enough but it took me months to do it. When I finally saw it was me, it was like a weight was lifted, both in my dream and in waking life. I have been taken off my anti-anxiety medication and no longer suffer with the disorder. Thank you so much. It means the world to me that you helped me solve this problem!!!
Don’t be so quick to dismiss this powerful part of the human mind. The article you refer to is commenting on NREM sleep, the part of sleep in which we DO NOT dream.
Also, by comparing the complex human mind to that of lab animals (i am aware of all these studies as I am a Dream Researcher)you are reducing the human brain to that of a rat. Not a fair comparison by any stretch of the imagination.
After you have dedicated 15 years of your life to researching the dreaming mind (which includes a comparitive analysis between dream imagery and content from the previous day of well over 50,000 dreamers) then you come back and we’ll have this debate.
Sweet dreams.
Dreams don’t MEAN anything. They are a tool our brain uses to learn while we sleep. There are multiple studies on the subject, one of which can be found here: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2810%2900352-0
There have been numerous studies on lab animals to show the usefulness of dreaming when learning difficult tasks.
Dream interpretation is just as real as hollywood’s perception of witchcraft.