Dreams can be immensely useful in gaining self-knowledge. Psychologist Ernest
Rossi has proposed that an important function of dreaming is integration of split-off
parts of one’s personality. According to Rossi:
In dreams we witness something more than mere wishes; we experience dramas
reflecting our psychological state and the process of change taking place in it.
Dreams are a laboratory for experimenting with changes in our psychic life. ...
This constructive or synthetic approach to dreams can be clearly stated: Dreaming
is an endogenous process of psychological growth, change, and transformation.
The Tibetan Buddhist Tarthang Tulku writes:
Experiences we gain from practices we do during our dream time can then be
brought into our daytime experience. For example, we can learn to change the
frightening images we see in our dreams into peaceful forms. Using the same
process, we can transmute the negative emotions we feel during the daytime into
increased awareness. Thus we can use our dream experiences to develop a more
flexible life.Tools for Dream Control
Journaling helps to mobilize intuition as people begin to understand their personal
symbols. Because the dream journal is intensely personal, it should be kept private
unless the dreamer chooses to share it with others. The entries should be dated so
they can be correlated to significant life events in the present or future and recurring
themes, places, and situations should be noted.
Giving dreams titles or headlines like a newspaper headline often reveals a dream
message that may be otherwise overlooked. People are encouraged to go back over
their journals at regular intervals to note connections between dreams and waking
events.
In the midst of nightmares, people who realize they are dreaming frequently choose
to wake up. Many therapists believe, however, that the essential issue is to discover
what elements from the past, mixed with current events are creating the nightmare.
Insight into the source of the nightmare can help people face and overcome the ter-
ror while remaining in the dream. Nightmares can be transformed into more pleas-
ant experiences. People are encouraged to remember that nothing in their dreams
can hurt them.
Conscious dreaming, as a form of mental imagery, has potential to aid in the pro-
motion of health and in the healing process. Evidence supports the idea that the
vividness of mental imagery determines how strongly it affects physiology. Dreams
are the most vivid form of mental imagery most people experience, and therefore,
they are also likely to be a source of highly effective healing imagery.234 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TOALTERNATIVE MEDICINE