Dreams According to Merlin

“Ho there Arthur, you just about fell asleep and you have a bite on your line!” exclaimed Merlin.

Arthur had been sitting lazily on the edge of a babbling brook and he kept drifting in and out of a dreamy state. He really didn’t care about the fish on his line because he knew he could create anything he needed by the mere thought of it.

“Thank you Merlin but that one got away to play for another day!” Arthur murmured. “You know sometimes I have visions or ideas that pop into my head when I am most relaxed and in fact when I am not really focused out there!” Arthur said pointing to the world around him. “Yes, some of my best ideas come either at night when I am just drifting off to sleep or when I am not trying to think of anything at all.”

“Well, Arthur this happens all of the time with most mortals, however the challenge is to catch those dreams! This is why the ancient seers used dream catchers! Yes, they may just be symbolic but there really is something to our dreams and if we can remember them, they give us clues on how and what we can do to create magnificent lives!” Merlin said.

Merlin’s Wisdom

There are six basic kinds of dreams and often you will remember snippets from several of them. As you begin to work with dreams more and more, you will recognize the differences and determine the value each is offering you. There is the clarifying or clutter dream, educational dream, problem solving dream, precognitive dream, prophetic dream or visionary dream and the outside interference dream.

Clairifying Dream

These dreams clarify the input from the day. Your mind sorts through mental and emotional clutter and reruns the day’s experiences. Often your mind is still running a mile a minute when you first begin to go to sleep. If you are worried, anxious, or stressed out, these dreams begin the process of releasing useless concerns and integrating helpful ones. They also help the mind and body to relax.

Educational Dream

You usually have one important educational dream a night. This gives you information about problems you are facing, or shows you higher teachings from advanced sources. These dreams prepare you for what is going to happen during the next 24 hours. You may have a déjà vu experience because the supra-conscious is remembering what is stored in the subconscious memory bank during the dream state. Maybe you already knew what you were going to say or do with a particular person, but this dream reinforces the correct way. The educational dream is concerned with what you are presently going through and how best to deal with it.

You may find yourself sitting in a classroom, giving or hearing a lecture or walking with a teacher in some beautiful surrounding. You may be hearing information you never knew before and have good recall of it upon awakening. Many discoveries and inspirations have come from higher sources regarding these educational dreams

Problem Solving Dream

These are dreams you have programmed or asked for. You may be seeking insight on understanding a difficult relationship, solving a scientific mystery, or asking for the plot of a new novel. All knowledge and information is available to you when you learn how to tap into it. Learning how to program dreams and understand their messages is one of your most valuable inner resources.

Precognitive Dream

These dreams give you a glimpse of something in the future. It is different from the déjà vu experience because precognition is usually about some particular knowledge regarding a future event rather than a feeling that you have been there before. Precognition means foreknowing. There is a special sense or feeling to the precognitive dream. As you learn to recognize it, you will know which images are symbolic and which may happen to be literal precognitive events. It is a fourth dimension or higher psychic level phenomenon.

Most precognitive dreams are given to awaken people to expand dimensions of their mind. Often individuals who do not meditate will have them, for then they are forced to ask how they know such and such about a particular person. The mind, of course, is not bound by time. Hopefully these dreams direct your attention inward so that you become more interested in developing and learning about the inner self or subconscious mind.

Prophetic or Visionary Dream

These dreams come from the highest dimension of the soul. It is a message from Infinite Intelligence or the God-Self and concerns spiritual growth. It comes from the mystical dimension of awareness. It may have a personal message or may contain a universal truth. The vision is on a much larger scale than what you commonly associate with dreaming. It has a totally different quality of awareness about it. You know you are awake, yet also realize you are in the dream state which is often referred to as lucid dreaming. Prophesies of old and mystical teachings have come through the visionary dimension of consciousness. A vision has many qualities within it; insight, understanding, expansion, realization of the oneness of all life, power and love. You may have only one vision a year, but it is always worth waiting for.

Outside Interference Dreams

These dreams are produced when something in your physical environment is causing enough disruption to cause an integration into your dream story. For example, you dream you are very hot and awaken to find too many covers piled on top of you. Ringing phones, barking dogs, cold feet or anything else can be a part of the dream, with no real message from the supra-conscious or higher self.

Also, if you fall asleep watching television or listening to the radio; any or all of that information can affect your dreams. It is always best to sleep in a quiet and serene environment. There is enough entering into your subconscious mind throughout the day without adding more to it during your sleep time. Just be aware when interpreting your dreams that you may be picking up outside interferences.

The Building Blocks of Dreams

Dreams often present themselves in three steps. First they give the time reference of the problem, situation or program you are running. For example, if you are dreaming of a house you lived in when you were a child; the house represents an old program or awareness that started back in early childhood.

Second, a dream will show you how the problem is manifesting now in your life and present awareness.

Third, it will present the solution to the situation, or how to learn from it and move beyond the problem which is limiting you. Most educational dreams will follow this format. If you remember seeing a car, house, school or person from your past, that is usually part of the first phase of the dream.

Interpreting Dream Symbols

The most curious thing about dreams, is that they speak to you in symbols. This may seem strange, but once you understand the meaning, it creates greater clarity than your usual way of attempting to understand others and yourself.

Why does the dream state use symbology? Many experiences are misinterpreted because of our blocks and perceptual filters. Therefore dreams are given symbolically to get you to pay attention to the message. Symbols are a kind of shorthand in a sense and are much easier to understand then verbal messages.

Working with dream symbols might be compared to playing the piano. When you first begin you are certain that this has to be the most awkward and complicated thing you have ever undertaken. But after a routine of regular practice, your new skill becomes a naturally flowing easy part of your life. Think of working with dream symbols as learning another language that enables you to become aware of your higher self as an inter-dimensional being.

Show Time

There are primary dream symbols which usually have the same meanings. A good place to begin is to realize that everything in the dream is you. You are the producer, writer, actor and director. People in the dream usually represent qualities you have projected onto them. Male and female figures represent your own masculine and feminine energies. A child represents your child part, and an aged person represents an old part of you and one that is wise or a part that is dying because you have outgrown it. Animals represent feelings you have about specific animals or the characteristics associated with them; for example, a wolf is danger, like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a fox who is crafty.

A house, building, store or other structure is you. If it is large, it indicates great potential and awareness of opportunities and or inner resources. If the rooms are cluttered, you obviously are not keeping your mental household in order. If some of the rooms are dark, they are parts of the self you do not know or understand. The attic or upstairs represents the spiritual self, the ground floor the physical or everyday self. The basement is the foundation and spiritual aspect of the self. The various rooms and how they are decorated and arranged indicate that particular aspect of your life; bathroom – cleansing, eliminating, and releasing; dining room – nurturing, relationship, friendship and so on.

Any vehicle – car, plane, spacecraft, boat also represents the self. It is your mode of traveling or being in the world. A car is your physical vehicle and indicates how you are traveling in everyday life. Going backward, or downhill is the wrong way. Got a flat tire? Are you speeding ahead in perfect control? A boat or ship is your emotional vehicle and lets you know what is going on in your emotional life. Are you being tossed upon the seas of life, going up and down? Are you in dry dock? Are you at the helm? Do you have an anchor?

An airplane or any airborne vessel is your spiritual vehicle, and if you dream you are on your way to the airport, you know you are preparing to take off to new spiritual understanding.

A motorcycle or bicycle means you need balance in your life.

Water represents the emotions, fire is purification, air is the spiritual self and earth is the physical self (or a degree of grounding).

Once you begin to recognize a few basic symbols, than begin to look for colors (you do not dream in black and white), clothes, people, scenery, objects, sizes, shapes, numbers, words, letters and so on. Everything has its own significance. Fences or road blocks indicate that creative thinking is needed to get beyond a particular problem that is now facing you. The kind of road on which you find yourself traveling represents how smooth or rough your journey is at the present. If you are on a freeway, it is easy going. If you are traveling over a bumpy road, you are getting there but the ride is a bit rough at the present. If you are paving the road, you are making your own way for the future.

Any symbol given to you, whether in fantasy, meditation or guided imagery are all the same. They are coded messages from the Self to the self. When you “get the picture” you understand the situation.

You have the Final Say

Remember that you are always your own best interpreter. You have the final say on the meaning of a symbol for you. Nothing is off limits in your dream. There is no such thing as a bad dream symbol. The most frightening dreams have the most positive insights once they are worked out. Remember, dream images are just trying to capture your attention, so do not resist them. You are being guided by your higher Self; the God-Self within you.

Job 33:15-16

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction.

Please note: I am thanking you in advance for posting your comments. They are all read so just know that I really appreciate your efforts even if you do not hear back from me. Blessings – Cody

Dreams According to Merlin