Every person on earth dreams about every night, and the evidence shows that all mammals do. It follows then, that something important is happening when we sleep and dream, but the industrialized world, most people little attention to dreams, and sometimes short-change themselves to sleep, because it is perceived as a waste of time, or at best unproductive hypotheses. How surprising that we generally ignore this third (and possibly far more) of ourselves. An appropriate analogy to the grandeur of this mass misunderstanding is the incredible inertia in the middle ages against the idea of earth being other than flat until repeated point-blank evidence like Galileo’s observation of other planets and their moons and the journeys of Columbus and other explorers across the ocean proved conclusively otherwise.
The challenge was that people’s everyday experience contradicted the idea of a spherical earth because nobody had yet gained perspective from outside of the system. Airplanes and especially photographs from space were not yet available, so there was little firsthand evidence of a new paradigm that was quite a great leap beyond the old. Fortunately, people eventually began to come around, and the shift triggered an ensuing surge of exploration as the realization and acceptance finally dawned that our world really isn't flat after all. Dreams, in the same way, covering a different dimension of experience, a world unexplored by most, in a fascinating area of research activity and waits for the harvest is possible for a greater satisfaction in waking life.
The challenge is again the same - The common experience of every day for the average person gives little indication that this other reality, not to mention the potential usefulness of this other dimension of experience, may earn less from the perspective of away from day 9 to 5 job and a purely scientific purpose.
Dream related mental skills such as dream recall or dream interpretation and information on subjects such as the meaning of nightmares or precognitive dreams isn’t often taught in our schools, and the majority of our parents knew or passed on little about the value of dreams as we grew up. So it's no big surprise that many adults remember few or no dreams, and even more rarely contemplate or set out to interpret the guidance and mine the jewels of creative inspiration hidden just below the surface of consciousness in dreams. Basically, nobody told us or showed us how dreams can be extremely practical.
Current misguided concepts about the value of dreams are not only crucial misunderstandings, but also represent and even bring about a lack of connection with the subconscious and our own deeper, intuitive nature. This long-standing trend of modern society often disregarding dreams has created an artificial rift within many individuals, and may indirectly or even rather directly be the source for many of our current cultural, social, personal, political and planetary environmental challenges. Dreams do indeed offer opportunities for fun, adventure, wish fulfillment, creativity, deep personal insight and healing dreams offer all.
Jill Magso is a member of the Silva Team and contributes to spreading enlightened ideas and sharing teachings about meditation practices. The Silva Method encompasses a variety of powerful exercises that take you deep into Alpha and Theta levels of the mind so that you can work within your subconscious as well as your conscious mind.