Something discussed on Subtle Traveler's thread urged me to start this thread.

I suppose dreams can occur in different ways, but going by my dreams, and some dream accounts of other people I have read, I have found that much of the symbolism we experience during dreams, comes from the creator of the dreams, not our interpreters. Our interpreter becomes involved when we try to figure out what we were shown, means.

Our higher self/guidance uses such symbolism for several reasons. 1) if such guidance is too direct, we might become lucid, and the dream our guidance created won't be able to continue, 2) if we try to feel what the symbolism means, we take part in an opportunity to develop our intuition and connect to the knowledge level that intuition connects to, 3) if we become curious about where the symbolism comes from, we might find that it comes from an intelligence beyond our body-based intelligence, and 4) so we can decide whether we want to become aware of what the symbolism represents.

Regarding reason number 4, there have been numerous occasions while awake, when my higher self/guidance has provided me with the option of becoming aware of something or considering an option. It might do so by doing something such as having me experience myself in a room nonphysically, I'm shown a door, and I have the option of deciding whether I want to see what is behind the door.

Regarding the "choosing" factor, there are occasions when our higher self/guidance knows that we are ready to become aware of something about ourselves or something else, but they leave it up to us to decide whether we want to become aware. Sometimes this "something" can be a challenging thing to become aware of, but often, not as challenging as we imagine. We can handle pretty much anything, if we connect to love, our higher self, and what our higher self connects to.

I am connecting dream experiences with awake experiences, because I have found that the same higher self/guidance/spirit friends are present during both waking and dream experiences.

I believe it is good to view guidance in the way you would view a wise and loving friend. Such a friend will provide you with perspectives and such, but he or she won't try to run your life.

We can learn from so many things, so why not out spirit friends? I believe we knew these friends before we incarnated in this world. Therefore, they aren't strangers.

Spirits that are unfriendly, you can often feel that something is off with them. I consider such meetings to be retrieval opportunities.

Dream contact is preferable in that, going by my experience, unfriendly beings don't have anything to do with my dreams. I can't speak for everybody else.

When awake, I usually make contact with friendly beings, but occasionally an unfriendly being will come along and try to intimidate me. I respond with love and courage rather than fear, and they never harm me. This morning an unfriendly spirit appeared and he called me a coward. I responded with "May God's love and light be with you," and the amount of love and peace I was feeling immediately increased to a noticeable extent. I mentally told this spirit that with his choices he is hitting himself on the head with a hammer. I told him that he is innately divine. I told him that his way of being doesn't impress anyone, but we understand, without judgement. I gave him a strong feeling for the wonderful future that awaits him, if he chooses it. I told him that this is his Soul's destiny. I don't know what happened after this, but he didn't keep hanging around. Sometimes after responding to an unfriendly spirit this way, a little while later, I will be told "thank you," usually by being shown the words "thank you."

I have found that there is some connection between the symbols I receive while awake and what I have received while dreaming.

It happened while I was awake lying in bed. I have received a lot of messages (or in this case, peanut gallery comment) while awake.

I have received messages while doing things such as walking around.





Vicky wrote on Jan 1^st, 2018 at 6:26pm:

Vicky:

Walking around messages don't occur frequently. I'll either hear a voice, or be shown a symbolic visual message. I'll hear a voice pretty much like I hear a human voice. 

One day I was walking in a hallway at the place I worked, I was shown a stop sign, I stopped walking,  and a lady came walking around the corner quite quickly. If I would not had stopped, I probably would've walked right into her, and she has a back problem.

Another example, I was driving home from work one day, I tried to think how to overcome a tendency,  I heard a voice say "look behind you," I looked in my car's rear view mirror, and I saw a Volkswagon car. For me,  Volkswagon is a symbol for "volition," "willpower."

Volkswagon became a symbol for me one morning as I was meditating. I was shown a shinny green Volkswagon. For me, green symbolizes love. The green Volkswagon drove into a shiny yellow Volkswagon. For me, yellow means willpower. As soon as these two cars merged, they quickly drove away as one. I intuited that this message meant "that if I merge love with my willpower, I'll reach the state of being I'm seeking."

I first became aware that many of my dreams are created by an intelligence beyond my own, after having three back to back dreams that each ended with my thinking that I must be dreaming, because these events don't relate to my regular life. Then I had a strong intuition/understanding that these dreams were created by an intelligence beyond my own. I woke up in an expanded state of consciousness. At the time I had been seeing spirits as points of light. On this occasion, with my eyes open, I saw many flashing points of light at one time. I asked if I am in contact with my "I-there." (I used Robert Monroe's term for Disk because at the time I had yet to read any of Bruce Moen's material.) I heard voices answer "yes." A voice also said, "Just as you found inconsistencies in your dream state, find inconsistencies in your waking state."

Not only did the above experience help me understand that some of our dreams can be created by our higher self/guidance, it also helped me understand why I was seeing visual imagery as I meditated. My guidance was trying to communicate with me this way. After finding this out, I started to communicate with my guidance in such a way, quite often imagery takes place in the form of short waking dreams.

My rational mind didn't allow me to fully accept what I learned above, right away. Therefore, for a while, after I would wake up from a dream, turn on my night lamp, grab my notebook and pen, and start writing notes; my guidance would provide me with additional information as I wrote notes. They would show me additional visual imagery. Another thing guidance would do is have bright white points of light flash on certain words as I wrote them, in order to emphasize such words. Sometimes they would flash such a point of light on my right hand, in order to say "right/correct" for the the interpretation I just thought as I wrote a note. These points of light felt as if they came from a love-based spirit realm.

After it became quite clear to me that many of my dreams are created by my higher self/guidance, the above additional imagery and points of light stopped occurring. They are no longer required.

A person doesn't need to have the above effects in order to   gain the understanding that some dreams are created by their higher self/guidance, they just need to consider their dreams more closely. Are all of the things that take place during a dream nothing more than the random meanderings of their subconscious mind, or is their another explanation?

Once a person becomes aware that guidance can be received through dreams, a person is more likely to receive guidance in such a way.

Subtle traveler:

Perhaps related to what you just said, during awake and dream experiences water has at sometimes meant, "spirit" or "spirit world" so riding on a ship can mean traveling within the world of spirit or a spiritual path. The "friends" part is obvious.  The song represents the spirit of adventure.

For me "riding a bicycle" can be a symbol for spiritually progressing in a positive direction, riding on a bus or train can represent traveling in the spirit world, going down a flight of steps or elevator represents not progressing, moving downwards, while going up represents progressing upwards.

If I am in a house or car,  such house or car can represent me, and the things within the car or house represent what is limiting me. There have been occasions where I was meditating, and suddenly I would experience myself in the back seat of my car, and the person who drove my car, the standout personality trait of that person represented what limited me. (I haven't experienced this car message in quite a while).

I understand what such symbolism means through some form of intuition, inner knowing.

I haven't thought in terms of metaphors. Have you read Tom Campbell?

Actually, I do think of analogies, which I suppose is the same thing as metaphors.

Perhaps symbol and metaphor have some common meaning, because when I think about it, many of my dreams were metaphors.

Recoverer 2 wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2018 at 1:06pm:


Your symbols are really close to mine.  I've been keeping logs of my dreams since I was a teenager and these dream symbols have the same meanings for me.  For instance, the house being me...when I dream I'm in a basement that's dirty, rusted, dark, no way out, and it's got my childhood favorite toys scattered and ruined and uncared for, it's obvious to me that's me dealing with some pretty deep, old issues and wounds.   

Sometimes my house dreams involve water, which is emotion.  Like water could be leaking down a wall from the ceiling, or it could be coming up from the floor beneath me, or maybe the bathroom is flooded. 

Spiritual dreams for me usually involve some form of transportation like a car, escalator, or airport terminal.  My Guidance once took me via a cruise liner to visit my dad.

I really love keeping track of my dream symbols and finding the patterns and codes.

When I thought in terms of symbolism while analyzing my dreams, I believe I already covered the metaphor part.

Subtle Traveler wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2018 at 6:33pm:

Recoverer 2 wrote on Jan 5^th, 2018 at 1:56pm:


Recoverer2 ...

That's fine. It was merely suggested.

So that others reading along here understand my suggested idea and comment, I frequently go back and review my journals and find it very helpful. I see them sometimes with a newer perspective. I did this last night myself before sleep, and I was given a significant new nugget (and a new metaphor) about my two experiences shared on my subtle travel thread. The new metaphor and connection significantly expands the meaning of the experiences for me.