The other night I was out dancing in a club with a new friend when I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to catch a plane in the morning but hadn’t packed any snacks! A stranger, who reminded me of a painter I know, called me a car to get back to my friend’s apartment. I was so grateful because I couldn’t figure out how to make my phone work. Then an elevator let me off on a random floor of a hotel, and I had to try to find my way down to the parking lot through a fancy lobby that I recognized from a movie. The whole time I was feeling bewildered that I had forgotten to pack snacks for such a long flight. Then I woke up.

What interpretations about this dream occur to you? I would love to hear them!

In this soft, spacey month of August I’m thinking about dreams and their power to convey information, prompt awareness, frighten, and entertain.

I used to be afraid to talk about my dreams because I worried what they would reveal. I blame Freud, who taught that dreams were “concealed realizations of repressed desires.” It’s also personal — my father’s father wrote a book on dream analysis in the 50s. He was a psychoanalyst trained in Vienna by one of Freud’s disciples. My father is also a psychiatrist, and I remember once telling him as a child about a nightmare where I was trying to close a door while some terrifying, snarling monsters were pushing to get through. He said that they were my own feelings of anger and aggression that I was trying to suppress. And when I pulled out a gun and started shooting them, that suggested I had penis envy. Not what I was expecting!

Putting the Freudian lens aside (as most of us have at this point, including my dad!), I still use many of the interpretive techniques I learned as a kid. For example, that in dreams a house often represents the body. Water can represent emotions and also birth and the cycle of life. (I had an incredibly vivid and meaningful dream when I was pregnant involving a flooded house teeming with prehistoric sea creatures.) That all the characters in a dream can be seen as different versions of yourself. (He was probably right about the snarling monsters!) And also that dreams are often filled with insignificant images, visual detritus that we’ve absorbed throughout the day. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

These techniques have served me in my intuitive work as well. The unconscious speaks to us in symbols, whether awake or asleep. I often perceive symbolic imagery in my clients’ energy field — animals, objects, plants, people — and deciphering them can help prompt a deeper understanding into any illnesses and challenges.

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
- Edgar Allen Poe

If you’re looking to understand or access more of your dreams or your intuitive visual perception, below I suggest a few tips and practices. I’ve also created a ten-minute guided meditation and energy clearing practice to use before bed that can help create favorable conditions for dreams. Find it here to stream or download, along with my other free guided meditations (password: chakragift). If you give it a try I would love to hear how it goes!

Premonition? Or anxiety?

Have you had a disturbing dream that you worried might be a premonition? From my experience, a premonition or an experience of precognition has a very different feel from a regular dream:

1. It follows our rules of time and space instead of jumping around like dreams often do.

2. It doesn’t have an emotional charge.

If in your dream you receive clear, detailed information that is conveyed calmly and it feels as though it were really happening (you’re in an actual space and time is proceeding as usual), then I recommend paying attention! Otherwise, a disturbing dream is most likely an indication that you have some intense emotions and experiences to process.

Dream Tips

The best way I’ve found to remember my dreams is just to start writing them down. I find that when I get into a regular practice with a notebook by my bed, I tend to remember my dreams upon waking more often. Keeping my eyes closed when I wake up for a few moments can also help me recall the dream before it slips away.

While it’s tempting to go online to read interpretations, I’ve found that writing down the gist of a dream and then looking back at it later can be more revealing. I include major “plot points,” personas, whatever images pop out most clearly, as well as the emotional charge. Over time, recurrent themes often emerge that weren’t clear at first.

And although listening to someone recount their dream can feel like a chore, hearing the dream content spoken out loud can sometimes bring sudden clarity to what seemed obscure or random.  

Our dreams communicate to us in our own symbolic language as well as more universal archetypal imagery, and I think that establishing a personal vocabulary can be more valuable than trying to force “standard” interpretations. I used to dream about hermit crabs a lot, and I can imagine there are all sorts of interpretations out there of what they might symbolize. But I know it’s because we owned hermit crabs, and what they symbolized to me was very personal. That said, if you’re really stumped, look at what other people suggest, take what resonates, and leave the rest!

Third Eye Practices

Dreams and all things visual are governed by the brow chakra, or the “third eye.” Here are a few exercises that can support your ability to visualize.

Figure Eights + Head Cradle
This exercise is great for mental clarity and focus, to relieve eye strain, and to activate and balance the third eye. With firm to light pressure, take the middle finger of one hand and trace figure-eights over the eye sockets. Start on the bridge of the nose and loop over the brow, across the cheekbone, and up and over the bridge to the other brow and cheekbone. Try it a few times with eyes closed, then again with eyes open. Next, repeat the same pattern over the “third eye,” in between and slightly above the brows, without touching the skin, maybe an inch or so in front of the face. Finish by placing one palm across the forehead and the other across the back of the head. With eyes closed, take a few deep breaths to soothe and settle.

Engage Your Mind's Eye
A visualization practice I like is to switch between a "here" and "not here" perspective — from my physical eyes to the eyes of my imagination. With eyes open, try overlaying your real surroundings with an imagined landscape. Imagine you’re looking out over the ocean, or into the woods, or up at the starry sky. Try to sustain those simultaneous "views" for a few moments and notice where you seem to be “seeing” from. As you practice, try adding more details and switching back and forth between focusing on what your physical eyes are taking in and what your mind’s eye is perceiving.

A variation on this practice is to try to recreate in your mind a room that you know well. Picture yourself looking around and try to conjure up as much detail as possible. What is the texture of the furniture? What’s on the shelves? The walls? This is also fun to do with people’s faces, animals, and familiar places. Doing this with eyes open is a good way to engage the “overlay” experience indicative of an activated third eye. Alternatively, try it with eyes closed and your gaze lifted to the brow point, just above the eyebrows in the midline of the forehead.