Dreams Guide Our Lives

Part I – What Are Dreams – Why Should We Care?

“If the dream is a translation of waking life,

waking life is also a translation of the dream.”

- Rene Magritte

Daylight hours are beginning to shorten, heralding the coming of the Autumn Equinox. The fall and winter months mark those times our bodies tend to follow Mother Nature’s clock to wind down. While looking forward to nestling into our favorite cozy chair and warm blanket, lingering over a mug of hot tea – rather like a bear preparing for hibernation – why not also begin a new journey without ever leaving home? Journaling dreams...

Sharing and understanding dreams has historically been practiced by all indigenous cultures, healers and mystics, all religious and spiritual leaders, and utilized by kings and queens the world over. Dream work was the common knowledge of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Tibetans.

The Greek philosopher Plato, called the dream realm “the metaxu” or “the between” where experiences in the spiritual dream realm and physical waking dimension were equally valid because they reflected each other. We are indeed spiritual beings. We simply have a physical body. Since ancient times, the symbolism of dreams was studied, taught, documented and practiced.

Carl G. Jung, founder of analytical psychology and considered one of the great masters of dream study and analysis, believed that dreams were the themes of human experience interlaced with the past, present, and future of the eternal soul. Popular author, speaker, and physician, Bernie Siegel, MD., is one of our modern day medical professionals who incorporated the practice of utilizing dream information as clues to health maintenance. He inquired about his patient’s dreams because he understood the valuable information dreams have in playing a role as a reference to health and well being.

When our conscious minds and bodies rest in slumber, our greater conscious soul personality – our spiritual selves – continues living, and traveling easily through space and time. We don’t stop actively expressing or creating just because our physical bodies are at rest. Interested?

Who Creates a dream?

Our eternal spiritual selves are the creators and the stars in our dreams. Ancestors, family, and friends from past and present will participate. We don’t do it all alone. The cast of characters that can play a role is an unlimited resource.

The stage of another time, place, and culture along with the necessary window dressing of clothes, mannerisms, lifestyle, décor, and food will appear to get our attention, and will usually point out backup resource data that applies to something in our current life – in other words, a past link is being pointed out for a present situation. We’ll retrieve past knowledge and meet past people that help us on our present journey. We can also view future possibilities.

As we interact with life, we learn from our personal experience as well as carry information passed down from others which develops into our beliefs, and how we define the world around us. All can be referenced in the dream or astral realm.

One person’s knowledge and experiences may be different from another’s which is also reflected in the dream dimension. Therefore, the meaning of a person’s dream symbols can be different from another person’s. For example, one individual associates the carnation flower with death because carnations were prominent in a mortuary and burial site. Carnations in her dreams represent transition and sadness. Another person may view carnations as beautiful pinwheels of color, reminders of vases of carnations in the house during carefree summers as a child. In both examples, the flowers are carnations, yet those flowers are perceived very differently!

Two Dreams That Set The Course To Re-Discover Old Talents/Gifts On A New Journey

I said goodbye to the human resources sector of the telecommunications industry and put my beloved 106 year old Victorian home up for sale. I was drawn to leave a lifestyle and work behind in Colorado to relocate to New Mexico – a place where I’d previously traveled, but personally knew no one.

The house was just placed on the market when I had this first significant dream:

I was standing in my Denver home next to a wooden table in the kitchen while my real estate agent was seated near me. I gazed out the window as I spoke. I told him that I’d been feeling pulled and I had to go to Japan even though I loved Colorado. He listened intently to me. End of dream.

This dream occurred within five months after my move to New Mexico providing a clue and a connective link for my journey:

I stood outside the door of a modest wooden house feeling great anticipation. The vegetation was lush and green. It was summer and I recognized the place because I knew the house was located on the outskirts of a wooded area.

Shortly after I knocked, an old man opened the door widely, as if expecting me. I saw him clearly and easily recognized him as my friend and teacher. We both smiled with affection, happy in each other’s presence. The old teacher looked ancient yet vibrant with vitality. His warm brown eyes were quite almond shaped and shown with wisdom and love. His hair was long and white as was his beard. He wore a loose fitting robe and long brown outer jacket with long wide sleeves.

The old man stepped aside and gestured for me to enter. We understood each other and spoke few words. Upon entering, I saw three Asian children sitting side by side on the floor against a wall. Their black short hair was neatly trimmed the same, and I knew they were the old man’s new students. The children bowed to me smiling and I could see, were eager to meet me. We all sat on the floor and the children gathered close around us.

Once the exhilaration of our reunion had settled, my teacher told the children it was time to take me to another room. The children became excited all over again because they knew what was to come. They entered the adjacent room first and with the jubilance of a child’s enthusiasm, but with care, lifted a big piece of brown loosely woven fabric off a beautiful large rectangular black lacquer chest. I recognized instantly it was my chest and I’d returned to get it. The old man had taken care of it for me for a long time.

The chest was intricately painted and had beautifully cut pieces of mother of pearl shell imbedded in the design. I’d almost forgotten how magnificent it as. I was happy.

I was in the cooking area early in the morning, helping the old man prepare a meal. The morning light glittered through a little vertical rectangular window on the left wall above the work bench in the kitchen while we prepared our food. The children were still asleep. Teacher stood in front of the wooden work bench cutting the food while I stood in front of a heavy black iron stove top next to the bench. We were enjoying each other’s company in silence as we’d done many times. A beam of sunlight danced over the top of the oil I was heating in a shallow and roughly diamond-shaped metal cooking container.

I knew in our silence that I’d cooked with him in that same cooking area and I felt deeply content. I also knew I was going to leave again – this time with the chest. End of dream.


The overall benefit of dream work is an awareness of our journey of growth and purpose as human beings. We discover we are not alone – we are not separate and disconnected from time and space as we construct it in this world. We instead, realize our connection to everything. We remember that everything is connected to and supporting us.

Begin to recall dreams by speaking a conscious intention to remember every night before bed. Purchase a special journal to record dreams, placing it and a pen close to the bed to document upon waking. Amazing insights and guidance await us when we re-discover we are so much more than what we have believed and our inner resources are truly abundant, always present to help us on our earth journey. This is just the beginning.

Next Month: Part II – The Physics of Dreams – Using Basic Dream Symbols

Live in Beauty and be well – Triza Schultz


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