THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS

With many of our problems, at home, in business and in relationships, the root cause is often due to, inadequate thinking, learning, reasoning, and unenlightened behavioral styles.  It can also be due to poor planning and strategizing, lack of organization with little follow through, and inadequate leadership skills.  These imbalances in our interactions with the world can lead to mental chaos and emotional confusion and frustration.  Our thoughts and beliefs create words, which create actions, which impact on and create policies, laws and rules.  Thus our thoughts, behavior, and attitudes effect our relationships in the workplace and in the larger world.  Most of us desire to make our lives more vibrant and creative.  One answer is to pay attention to our dreams.  Nighttime dreams can help us solve some of our waking problems 

There are many methods and techniques to help develop a powerful high performance mind and to eliminate stumbling blocks to success and happiness.  By exploring and learning effective methods for developing better: thinking, reasoning, memorizing, creating, conceptualizing, concentrating, contemplating, and visualizing, we gain both tools for living and wisdom about ourselves.  If we but pay attention, dreams can offer solutions to both waking creative projects and inform our lives through inner personal awareness.  Creative dreaming, or dreams that help solve waking life problems, have been experienced by individuals down through the centuries.  Just a few examples are below.

CREATIVE DREAMING:

Throughout history, people have had extraordinary experiences through transformative dreams.  Some of these dream experiences have literally made history, caused civilizations to advance, and profoundly revolutionized certain fields. Such experiences can be important to business, science, medicine, politics, and in many other life endeavors.

Transformational dreams have also had a profound impact on individuals, science, law, religions, wars, and humanity. Dreams can be useful for personal decision making, creative discoveries, new ideas, and reflection on personal relationships. There are numerous instances of the importance of creative dreams.  Here are some examples:

Sir Frederick Banting, scientist: Dreamt of insulin, a well-known treatment for diabetes.

Ludwig van Beethoven, composer: Claimed that musical inspiration sprang from his dreams.

Niels Bohr, quantum physicist and Nobel Prize winner: Dreamt of the planetary system as a model for atoms.

Johannes Brahms, composer: Remarked, “When I feel the urge I begin by appealing directly to my maker, and my inspiration comes from dreams and other states of altered awareness.”

Karl Gauss, mathematician: In his dreams and altered states of awareness, which he compared to a “flash of lightning,” he discovered the law of induction, a very important foundational concept in physics, electronics, and magnetism.

Friedrich Kekulé, chemist: Dreamt he experienced atoms and molecules coming together, like a snake seizing its tail, to form the benzene ring. This discovery laid the foundation for organic chemistry, bio-chemistry, molecular biology, and pharmacology.

Otto Loewi, physiologist and Nobel Prize winner: Dreamt about chemical transmission and nerve impulses, the basis for physiology and medicine.

Mahatma Gandhi, India’s leader of independence: Had a dream which helped him call for peaceful demonstrations against the Rowlatt Act of Great Britain.

Dmitri Mendeléev, chemist: Reported, “I saw in a dream a table where all the elements fell into place as required!” This is how he created the Periodic Table of the Elements, a fundamental concept in science and chemistry.

Srinivasa Ramanujan, prodigy: A poor uneducated boy in India who received dreams of advanced mathematical equations.  He had no math training, and his exposure to math was minimal.  His story is corroborated by Scientific American magazine and mathematicians from Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the United Kingdom.  He claims that the Goddess Namagiri gave him the formulas in dreams that even the top mathematicians at Cambridge couldn’t solve.

Richard Wagner, composer: Dreamt of an E-flat major melody, the prelude to the masterpiece “Das Rheingold.”

Dreams have also influenced strategic war decisions by famous military leaders such as, Alexander The Great, Hannibal, and Genghis Khan. 

These are a few examples illustrating how creative dreaming can inform our lives, sometimes in ways not imagined.  So the next time you are faced with a problem in your life you might try looking to your dreams!

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