9 Steps for Effective Dreaming

DREAMS

dreams are doorways to self awareness

Make the most of your dreamtime

9 Steps for Effective Dreaming

With practice you will gain confidence in using your dreams for the wealth of inner guidance they provide. Identifying the details will give you the basic text for study and application in your everyday life. Learning how to put the elements of your subconscious mind's messages together will take time and practice. Responding to the meaning in your dreams will free you to expand your awareness of your whole Self.

Keep in mind the nine steps to using the language of mind:

1. Have a dream. Remember dreams are real. Recurring throughout each sleep cycle, all you need to do is become aware of their presence. If you have difficulty remembering your dreams, try this. Before going to sleep, write down in your dream journal "It is my conscious desire to remember my dreams for my soul progression." Read this aloud, then put the next day's date on your steno pad in expectation of the morning's memory. This conveys your sincere desire to listen to what your inner Self has to say, and gives a conscious command to your subconscious mind which will work on your behalf for the fulfillment of your desire.

2. Develop conscious concentration skills to experience the dream fully. The more details you consciously remember, the more detailed the information for you to use will be. In this way, you will receive clearer and more complete messages. Practice focusing your attention on one object or thought at a time during your waking state. Too many people pride themselves on dividing their attention. They do not realize they are scattering the mind's intelligence and energy. By employing mental concentration, you will readily access the information being placed into or retrieved from your computer-brain.

3. Place the information in your brain so you can draw upon it at will. To improve dream recall, practice using memory in your waking life. The memory you want to build is in your conscious, waking existence. By directing your undivided attention to what is at hand you add the full reception of this experience to the information stored in your brain. How you store information determines what will be available for later use. With focused attention you will store all information available to you, thus recall becomes much easier.

4. Recall the dream experience. Immediately upon awakening, be ready with pen and pad. Record your dream. All the details will be fresh in your mind, and each part of the dream is significant. With practice, you'll discover that the memory of one dream will stimulate the memory of other dreams which occurred earlier in the sleep cycle.

5. Decipher the symbols. Use your a, b, c's to identify the universal elements in your dream. Refer to the dictionary section of this book for assistance. A teacher fluent in the Universal Language of Mind will aid you in mastering the language.

6. Combine the symbols. Form thought-words and thought-sentences by using reasoning so you understand the complete meaning of the message. Keep in mind, dreams are a spiritual-mental phenomenon; in order to understand their message think spiritually and mentally! Also, remember to cause your conscious mind to be honest.

7. Determine how the dream relates to your life now. Analyze your conscious thinking and action in relationship to the new insight you have gained from interpreting your dream. In this way you are fulfilling the purpose of dreaming in your life. Be open minded using the power in your conscious mind -- reasoning.

8. Determine the action you will take with your newfound insight. Choose how you will add to your whole Self by using the information given in your dream. Avail your Self of knowledge and application that will produce understanding and wisdom in how the mind functions and why.

9. Be receptive to feedback from your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind will supply you with feedback to the change you are making in your thinking. Be alert to this inner truth, for it will aid you in fulfilling your desires.

As you use these nine steps repeatedly, you will become adept at communicating in the language of mind. Your dreams will still entertain you. Now they will also serve as keys to greater and greater Self awareness. After many nights of recording dreams, eventually you will have a mental novel recounting the history of your inner life and your soul progression.
As your curiosity and awareness of your dream grows, so will your temptation to tamper with the scene, theme, characters, and script of your dreams. Many times I have talked with people who have discovered they can cause the action in their dreams to stop or change at will. This is a capability we all possess and it can be refined into a productive skill that will further your soul progression. What is often missing in the awareness of the curious is the understanding of the language of mind and how the inner levels of consciousness function. For this reason I advocate learning to control your dream under the guidance of a teacher who is skilled in this art. In this way, you will fully understand the changes you are causing by making your dreams do what you want.

Remember how you learned to drive a car? By riding in a car from a young age you became familiar with the motion of the vehicle. As you grew older and began to set goals for driving, you watched the driver more closely. You noticed things you'd never noticed before, where the key was placed, what made the car stop and go, what you would need to do to signal a turn or to make the car go in reverse. With these pieces of information gained from someone who knew how to use an automobile, it was still helpful to have an experienced driver giving you instruction at the time you were first behind the wheel of a car.
This is true of using the inner levels of consciousness. Instruction in how and why the whole mind and its parts operate as they do is intrinsic in gaining the mastery of mind you desire. For when you change something in your dream state, you change something in the inner levels of your consciousness that will eventually manifest in your physical life.

A young man attending a lecture on dreams told of a dream where a tiger was about to attack him. He became aware that he was dreaming and chose to create a dream-gun so he could kill the tiger, which he did. He was amazed and pleased at this newfound ability and most insistent about his ability to control his dream. I discussed the meaning of his dream, affirming his ability to control the action in the dream. Then I asked a simple question, "Do you know what habit you have changed and are you ready for the manifestation of that change in your life?" The man stopped his thoughts. He had not considered that his action in his dream would have any repercussions other than the immediate thrill of being able to manipulate his dream state.

When we fail to interpret the dream so we know the content and subject matter, we are tampering with the inner level manifestation of thoughts we have already set into motion. When we change the structure, quality and element of these thoughts to something different, the original thoughts cease to exist. The new thought structure will continue to manifest through the inner levels until it becomes visible to the physical eye in our lives.

Upon further discussion, the young man realized that the animal in his dream represented his habit of running five miles each morning. The original subconscious message had been telling him that he was losing control of a habit. Since he had changed the dream by killing the tiger, he had changed the habit in the inner levels of his own consciousness. The habit no longer existed in its previous form. Since the time of the dream, the man had begun to notice that he could not run as far as before without becoming tired, winded, and experiencing pain in his muscles. He had indeed taken control of the habit but without conscious awareness of what inner transformation he had caused, therefore he experienced the pain and discomfort that occurs when change is forced upon outer consciousness. Had he allowed the dream message to run its course, he would have received the full message his subconscious mind was offering which might have included insights into how the habit was controlling him and what actions he could take as a response for greater conscious productivity. Because he interfered, in effect interrupting the subconscious mind while it was speaking, he discarded the message by refusing to fully receive it.

As we avail ourselves of those who have gained mastery of the language of mind, we can learn to approach controlling the dream state with confidence and knowing. Our dreams become a step in speeding our spiritual growth as well as enhancing the quality of our daily lives. We can learn to control our dreams with awareness of what will manifest, thus preparing ourselves consciously to respond rather than react to the changes.

This ability is produced with study, application, and skill of using the conscious mind first, then expanding the awareness to include the inner levels of consciousness. We train our conscious minds with Self discipline which produces the ability to use the inner levels of mind at will. As this talent is built we further our objective of enlightenment -- the ability to function in all levels of consciousness simultaneously. This ability has been demonstrated time and again by all the great Spiritual Masters of the world. It is this enlightenment that gave Jesus the ability to heal, Gautama the ability to drink poison without harm, Zarathustra the ability to expel demons, and Quetzlcoatl the ability to control the rain. In fact all holy scriptures of the world were penned in the Universal Language of Mind, the same language your subconscious mind uses for communication. Once you become fluent you will be able to read and interpret the inner Truths of all holy scriptures and you will realize they are all describing the same Universal Laws and Principles that guide mankind's evolving awareness as a spiritual being.

The desire for mastery is part of the inner urge within each of us. This inner urge is present at any age, in any incarnation. The key to responding to your inner urge is ever present within you when you understand the Universal Language of Mind.

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