I know that there are many people out there who claim that they never dream at all, but this is impossible. They may not recall their dreams when the awaken, yet they still had them. Test subjects who had their dream cycles interrupted over an extended period of time, developed emotional stress and displayed a loss of physical health.

So, are dreams important? Yes, of course they are. No aspect of your existence is ever trivial. But, to appreciate the importance of dreams, we must understand something of from where they originate... and why.

Obviously, dreams are not a product of the conscious mind. They occur while we are asleep, when the conscious mind is at rest. But, the subconscious mind is not capable of logical and independent thought, putting out only what has been put into it. Where, then, does that leave us? The complex, imaginative, and weirdly well orchestrated images of our dreams must come from somewhere. The only possible source, apparently, is the higher "Spirit" mind that many scientists know today as the superconscious mind.

When you consider the source of your dreams, their personal significance becomes crystal clear. Your higher Self expends a lot of time and energy creating and transmitting dreams. The least you can do, therefore, is to try to understand what they mean to your life and your spiritual growth.

Many people have spent countless hours trying, unsuccessfully, to interpret the seemingly senseless muddle of dream images and symbols. Yet, even through their failure, they persist and continue to tell other people what their dreams mean, usually for an exorbitant fee. Their clients only end up becoming frustrated and confused by their vague and often contradictory decipherings. The problem does not stem from the process of interpretation itself, but from the interpreter’s ignorance and a simple misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of dreams.

Dreams are complex, and almost limitless, combinations of universal and personal symbologies. They may be emotionally therapeutic, spiritually analytical, or even prophetic in nature. The vast majority of dreams are of the therapeutic type. That is, they serve as a kind of emotional "safety valve" for releasing the energies of pent-up feelings or compensating for psychological deficiencies. If a person goes to bed with violent emotions, such as anger, he or she may dream of physically throttling the person(s) toward whom their anger is directed. Or, if the person has an over-inflated ego and delusions of grandeur, he or she may be taken down a few notches by dreams that depict him or her as being weak and inferior. Thus, dreams may act to help one overcome character defects.

Repressing emotions (good or bad) will steadily lessen one’s ability to feel emotion, so that increasingly stronger measures must be taken in order to feel anything, until the only feeling left is pain. And, since a person must feel something, he or she will strive to feel pain, real or imagined in a dream.

Suppressing emotions, on the other side of the coin, is a conscious act of personal discipline that sets aside strong feelings (good or bad) to be experienced at a later time, when they are more appropriate and can be enjoyed in a more controlled manner. It is not an attempt to deny the emotion, as is repression, so does not usually result in emotionally explosive dreams.

A small percentage of dreams are analytical in nature, serving as a means for the higher Self to comment on one’s spiritual development in accordance with the events of everyday life. These are the only dreams which can be interpreted as messages, and they are few and far between. Perhaps, less than one dream in fifty are of this variety. But, whenever one does occur, do not immediately jump to the conclusion that because you had a dream about your Uncle William, or your Aunt Josephine, or whomever, that something is about to happen to him or her. No, just the opposite. The principle characters in your dreams are actually symbolic representations of yourself, or some aspect of you. The higher Self is not concerned with the well-being or affairs of other people. They have their own Selves to watch over them. So, your dreams revolve completely around you and you alone. Every person who inhabits your dream world is only a mirror for you to see and analyze some particular quality or trait that you would not otherwise notice or understand about yourself.

Prophetic dreams, the rarest of all, only occur when you need to be prepared for a physical event of great spiritual significance in your not too distant future. You may not consciously recall the details of such a dream, or even be aware of its existence, but it will come to you, just the same, preparing your subconscious mind for the lesson(s) that need to be learned. But, not all prophetic dreams concern monumental events. In fact, some may even appear quite trivial. They are important, just the same, since no event is without some significance to your spiritual unfoldment.

In order to interpret the emotional, symbolic or spiritual importance of your dreams, the first step is, obviously, to remember them. If you have trouble recalling your dreams, it may be that you have ignored them for so long that your Self no longer tries to bring them into your conscious memory. You will, therefore, need to retrain your mind to consciously retain their experiences upon awakening. This can be done through a series of gentle commands, or affirmations. Just before you go to sleep each night, say to yourself: "I will remember my dreams!" Do this three (3) times. Release the thought and think of nothing for a few minutes, then repeat the command three (3) more times. Release the thought again. Then, for a third time, repeat the command one last time. You will have given your mind seven (7) repetitions of this affirmation, making it very difficult for your subconscious to ignore it. Do this every night for one (1) month and you will never again forget your dreams.

The next step is to record your dreams. Keep a small notebook and a pencil beside your bed for this purpose. When you awaken, either in the morning or during the night, immediately jot down every detail you can before it fades away. Also, make a notation about your emotional responses during the dream. Write down everything, paying close attention to such things as color and the number of objects. Every detail is important.

In the morning, look over your notes and let them jog your memory, so that you can see the dream again in your mind’s eye. But, do not be concerned with its meaning just yet. Wait a day or two before examining your notes again. By then, it should be obvious to you whether the dream is merely an emotional release, a symbolic message, or a look at things to come.

If something leads you to believe that the dream is a message, such as it repeating itself for three nights in a row, you should begin the task of interpretation. But, do not dash out and buy a bunch of dream books. These books are not only misleading, but are totally unnecessary. Each of us has our own completely individual and personally unique language of dream symbols. No book can tell you what these mean to you. For example, one such text may tell you that a dog stands for loyalty and obedience. In your childhood, however, you may have been savagely attacked by a canine and see them as evil, dangerous creatures. Your interpretation and the one in the book simply do not relate to each other. So, you will need to write your own book of symbols, based upon your own personal experiences and feelings.