Fear | Dreams For Healing

There are four foundational principles that I use when doing dream interpretation. These are explored in greater depth in my EBOOK Unlocking the Power of Your Dreams and I’m going to break down one of the most important ones in this article: Take the Metaphoric Meaning Before the Literal.

These four principles establish that dreams are the universal language that connects the whole human family. These principles make it possible for me to hear a dream from anyone in the world and be able to discern it’s meaning in a significant way for the dreamer. The four principles are:

All Human Beings are Equal
Humans are Dual-Natured (lower nature & Higher Nature)
All Dreams Guide Us to Develop our Higher Nature Qualities
All Dreams Use Metaphors to Convey These Messages of Growth

Catastrophic-Type Dreams and the Metaphors

Often times when people dream of a catastrophic event, such as a flood or school shooting, they wake up fearing the dream is prophetic and they want to do something to prevent it. They wonder why are they having this dream and what does it mean to them. The vividness of details of these kinds of dreams stick with the dreamer long after they awaken.

The tendency is to think the dream came to warn them that something catastrophic may happen in the future. While this is somewhat true, it’s not true in the way the dreamer first thinks.

All dreams exists outside of space & time. Dreams come in advance of situations in order to prepare us. The dreams show us areas of growth. For example, if you have a dream of a school shooting, there may be a lot of fear that comes up. That fear is the key to the solution for the dreamer.

To get to a state of not feeling fear, the dreamer needs to have a lot of Courage to look at things in new ways, to do new things, to develop new skills. When they develop these new skills that prepare them for the situations they’re facing in real life then they won’t have fear anymore because they have the skills.

It’s like when someone is just learning to drive a car. In the beginning, there’s a lot of fear and that’s good, there should be fear. Driving is a big responsibility and if not done properly can cause injury or damage to the driver or someone else. So the fear signals that there’s a need for learning new skills. Once the new skills are learned the fear goes away and the driver is capable and competent to drive on roads now.

Our life circumstances are like that as well. When a situation is occurring that requires new skills, our dreams will reveal to us that we have fear and the fear indicates where the learning is needed.

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Ultimately, the dream is showing the dreamer where there’s an area that needs developing and if the dreamer develops these qualities then if the horrific dream scenario does end up happening in real life the dreamer will be prepared to help because they are not limited or constrained by the fears they may have had if they did not have the dream.

How do you use a metaphor in a nightmarish situation to transform your Self?

The key to transforming metaphors in nightmares is to become the positive opposite of the nightmare. So if you are in a flood in the dream then you need to flood the environment with positivity. If you are being shot at in the dream, then you need to “shoot out” encouraging words to others in real life. If you are being buried beneath an avolanche in the dream then you need to be an “avalanche of positivity” in real life.

This isn’t going to happen over night but it gives the dreamer a vision to work towards. Gradually, over time, skills develop and fears subside. Then if a catastrophe ever were to occur in real life, the dreamer will be calm and fearless and be able to help a lot of people.

This is one of the key strategies in dream interpretation.

What catastrophic dreams have you had? Leave them in the comments below and tell me what other dreams you would like to read about.

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Dear Richard,

How are you? I trust you are enjoying the holiday season.

I have been receiving a dream that keeps repeating itself and growing in intensity. Although I have been trying to interpret it myself I think there is something I am missing and the dream I had last night prompted me to write to you.

The repetative dream I keep having is about me and my daughter. In each dream she is talking so much and I become very angry with her. In each dream I am violent to her to get her to stop. I hit her, slap her, or put my hand over her mouth sort of suffocating her, or even put my hand in her mouth. She always resists. Never stops and it makes me more and more angry. The dreams just end with me doing these horrible things.

So this is not at all the way that I parent, making it hard to even share that I am having these dreams. However, I have learned so much from your interpretations and I do believe that the dreams are teaching me how to be more peaceful. These dreams remind me of how I felt when I was Grace’s age.

Some adults “smothered” (metaphorically and sometimes literally) the way I am smothering her in the dream. I suspect I still have pain here and some forgiveness is needed.

But why in the dream is it me being violent to my daughter instead of me as a child? It has been my life’s passion to be a loving and nurturing parent, to have a peaceful and spirit-filled home. But is the dream telling me if I don’t change some things the consequence is that I will have a negative impact on my daughter the same way adults had on me?

Well, I am sure my emotions around this topic prevent me from gaining the insight. I’ll pray for detachment and in the meantime await your response.

Last night, I prayed before bed and reflected on my current waking life situation with Grace. I prayed for guidance about how to understand what the violent dreams are telling me.

Then I dreamed this:

Grace and I were at an amusement park and were going down to see the whale show. The bleachers were set up beside the ocean. We go down there and there are 3 orca whales that are interacting with the people in the front row. They are playful and beautiful. So magestic. Grace comes down and is in a great mood then she just jumps right into the water. I’m not concerned at first. I know she can swim. But then instead of coming up to me she swims farther into where the whales are swimming and even past them. A lifeguard jumps out to get her. The whole audience is hushed as they wait. The lifeguard gets her and brings her back. She had swam very deep and very far away. Never coming up for air but not appearing to struggle. I hold her and hug her and say ‘Oh my girl. I love you so much. You scared me.” She doesn’t understand what the big deal was. I don’t know what to tell her.

(In the time when the lifeguard is swimming out to her and the audience is hushed I am feeling ashamed that she just jumped like that and I didn’t protect her. I feel that the audience is judging me and that it appears she doesn’t respect me.)

Thank you Richard.

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Dear Rachel,
It is nice to hear from you. In the first dream you can think of yourself as your daughter, while in the second dream you can think of your daughter being you and it being her.

In the first dream you (as your daughter’s age) want to speak, but you as the mother want to her stop in a violent way. So you can say that you are violent with yourself from speaking out more probably in a positive way about the big dreams you have and the things you want to do. The second dream is clearer about it. You have 3 big dreams (goals in your life) which are symbolized by the 3 Orcas and at first you can just dive into to achieve them, but then you get fearful of going too deep and too far and begin to panic so you send out the rescue to get yourself back to where you are right now.

The way you are raising your daughter and leading your life is allowing her and you to have big dreams and to go for them but you are fearful of going too deep and too far so then you do everything you can to stop them even being violent as in the first dream. The fear began at the current age your daughter is and that is why you are violent to shut it down because you are so fearful that something bad is going to happen to her because something bad happened to you at that age.

So you can say that you are doing a wonderful job raising your daughter and that is leading her and you to be able to have big dreams and aspirations, but there is a fear that something bad is going to happen that keeps you from going after the bigger things and thus encouraging her to bigger things.

As soon as you address the fear you can be thinking much larger about your life.

Sweet dreams

Richard

Dear Richard,

Okay – thank you so much! It is always nice to hear from you too 🙂 I thought you’d enjoy reading these 🙂

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REFLECTIONS ON RICHARD’S INTERPRETATION

The Three Orcas –

1) STABLE AND PEACEFUL HOME – I am so grateful to have been living in a stable and peaceful home for years now. My personal relationship with myself and others is comfortable and peaceful now.

2) AUTHOR AND SPEAKER – I am so grateful to have something meaningful to write about around the topic of transformation from Poverty To Prosperity and how it relates to dreamwork, change work, and fitness.

3) DAILY SPIRITUAL PRACTICE – I am so grateful to experience a daily spiritual practice which gives me inspiration, guidance and calm even in some of the most challenging life storms.

Please God, let me eliminate the fear that is preventing me from going deeper into these dreams.

A Dream Dictionary For Healing Trauma