“Sleep On It”: The Power Of Our Dreams | Asha Gill

Here’s a little riddle for you:

What do Frankenstein, the structure of Benzene, James Cameron’s The Terminator, Dali’s Persistence of Memory, a sewing machine, the Periodic Table, Paul McCartney’s Yesterday and Jack Nicklaus’s winning golf swing, all have in common?

All of the above and millions of other creations, inventions, world-changing decisions and discoveries in medicine, art, music, history, film, sports and just about every field that requires human thought, have arisen through the world of dreams.

Literally, people through the ages have gone to bed and switched off the light, snuffed out a candle or turned away from the fire keeping them warm, then dozed off and woken with fragments of ideas to full blown solutions. All seemingly arisen out of nowhere from the slumbering depths of their dreams.

The only difference between Mary Shelley, Cameron or Dali and us, is that they used these insights, took action and created the reality of their dreams in their waking world.

Imagine if we could do that?

Well, it is not just possible, but already actually happening to us every single night. The only difference is that we aren’t paying enough attention to what our dreams are saying.

Let’s face it, most people “poo poo” dreams as nothing but nonsensical gibberish.

You hear people say, “Oh, I had the strangest dream last night,” and they go on to explain the absurd, have a laugh if it was funny, feel a little unnerved if it was odd or even scary, but nothing more comes after this except for a dismissive “Oh well” before they move on to the next agenda for the day.

But what if your dreams were actually messages from you — to you?

What if all your dreams were trying to tell you something significant, important, a warning, a reminder or even give you that answer to a question you have been mulling over?

Perhaps all the guidance, advice, truth and help you are so desperate to get from your higher self or even your intuition — which you find so hard to feel or hear — are helping you at night, in your sleep, when you aren’t being so controlling?

The difficulty comes from the fact that our “sleeping” brain uses metaphors and images as a form of communication whilst our “waking” brain uses language. So there seems to be a disconnect until you take a closer look at how the two are part of the same “24-Hour Mind” that you use and they are in fact your partners in crime!

Your “sleeping brain” can’t talk to you, lest you start fearing nightly possession, worry you’re next if a resurrection of the Salem Witch trials comes around, or worse — you are going insane (also considered by some to be the Devil’s work 

So what your “sleeping” brain does is simply this:

Pulls a collage of images that you will recognize into a constructed sequence to tell a story that you will be able to decipher. Kind of like your own personal hieroglyphs a-la-modern picture flash cards. It will use snippets from movies, bring up certain emotions and put them into play by adding people, animals, a song, settings and places, things from the past and some seriously odd additions — like in one of my dreams — a melting sandwich of jam and gooey oozing cheese that I was unsuccessfully eating in the middle of a meeting with my boss.

This is why we think they are ridiculous and don’t deserve attention because they are so “whack,” “out-there,” or “wrong.”

When in fact, they are evidence of how crazily creative we truly are, that we have pulled together such a fantastic and realistic movie message just for us that screams for attention.

The only bummer is that we forget most of our dreams upon waking. However, that is often remedied with a simple journal and a pen.

If you’re still not convinced about looking into your dreams further, let’s just go to a very common phrase that is always bandied about:

“Sleep on it.”

I am sure you have said this or told someone else to do this. At that time, it might have been an off-handed comment to buy some time or create a distance between needing an answer now so you can give a more considered one later.

But seriously, think about this phrase, “‘Sleep on it.” Where did it come from?

To a large degree whilst it’s common to dismiss dreams, we don’t dismiss the idea of sleep being the provider for solutions, clarity, and therefore inspiration. We just don’t connect the dots of dreams + solutions.

Aha! You see that gap? So when sleep helps us get to the answers, we readily gobble up the solutions and off we go with them, never wondering where they came from.

And usually, it’s because we can’t remember our dreams, that we have forgotten where our ideas actually came from.

Let’s use Elias Howe, the man who invented the Sewing Machine, as an example, 

In 1845 Elias Howe had an idea about creating a machine that would use a needle to stitch a piece of cloth, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out the head nor tail of how it would work.

Then one night he had a nightmare about a group of cannibals who grab him and take him outside, where they danced around him and then, one by one, started stabbing him to death in a most gruesome frenzy!

Because this was a dream, instead of dying, he noticed the holes they were puncturing into him from the thrust and angle of the spear. When he woke up, he knew exactly how to create his machine.

Maybe he remembered the dream because it was so scary, but, say you didn’t remember the thrusting of spears because you just remember a nightmare about cannibals. Later on, as you sat at your desk, taking up yesterdays problem and trying to figure out how it would work, the solution might just “pop” into your head, seemingly out of nowhere!

You think you’re lucky, but actually, you are smarter and more creative than you could ever imagine, because you provided the right answer for yourself — you just don’t realize it yet.

Our dreams are a great barometer to what’s really happen with us — emotionally, mentally, in our relationships and life.

They help us see what we are really afraid of, what we really need and how to fix certain things. Most importantly, though, our dreams are a way to get to know ourselves so much better.

Knowing ourselves well leads to having a more authentic life, a stronger connection with our intuition and so much more self-belief! And when you get really good at this, you can go to bed at night with a problem and relax, knowing that by the morning, you are well on your way to the solution. How amazing is that?

So give your dreams a chance by embracing your inner artist, scientist, mad inventor. Don’t just keep a daily diary. Get yourself a special journal and pen for your dream diary. Keep it by your bedside and the minute you wake up, whenever that is, jot down the first things or images that come to your head. Try to capture the message you have for yourself.

Remember, even our nightmares, just like Elias Howe’s, may have some very amazing information for us.

— Asha Gill, Host of Mindvalley: Spirit & Soul

Source: http://blog.mindvalleyacademy.com/spiritual-growth/power-of-dreams-asha-gill