Email Interview with "Dream Specialist" - Rebecca MacBride

By The Night Watchman

"PART TWO - WHY TRY TO PARTICIPATE?"

Night Watchman: I find that when I have had a lot of dreams during the night, I, as well as others, tend to wake up groggy and not well rested. I was wondering if participating in one's dreams would alleviate the grogginess? What's been your experience?

Rebecca:  My split second response is - if the dream participation/direction is purely recreational - like flight, swimming, running (as opposed to being chased) - I feel GREAT no matter how many dreams I have had in a night or whether they are broken up or not. If I feel like I have finally figured out something important from a dream - like the school and going to the office for my timetable - I feel GREAT! In general, I would say my opinion is that participating in my dreams leaves me feeling empowered and ready to tackle the day's challenge.

When I have one main dream event that seems to last my whole night, I have a hard time shaking it in the morning and feel like I have dream hangover for hours. BUT, I have to say that those marathon dreams are usually the ones where I feel I am exploring a previous life experience and they can be very demanding emotionally and often have an element of trauma or physical violence. I think that is why they leave me feeling more drained when I wake up.

If I wake up on my own without having to get ready for work or without the intrusion of an alarm clock, it doesn't matter what I have been doing during dreamtime. I feel better than if I have to wake up to the alarm clock.

I suffer from anemia and severe iron deficiency and sometimes from bouts of insomnia. I have also spent the last two months with a severe injury similar to a burn which has required liberal use of painkillers. These induce very dark dreams and I never feel like I have had enough deep rest, waking up sometimes every hour or hour and a half. So, right now, my sleep and dream cycle is completely disrupted.

Night Watchman: I wanted to know if you had any thoughts or theories on the significance of dream participation and dreams in general. Do you believe dreams are just part of the make up of the human psyche, or is there a greater significance, i.e. spiritual, metaphysical, etc.

Rebecca: This is a difficult thing to put into words, but I will try to find the right ones to express my feelings.

I believe that the conscious, physical world is one place where we exist, interact, learn and progress, through physical experiences. I believe that there is another component to life - our souls - and this links us in a greater sense to everything that is non-physical. There are a variety of ways for us to tap into that non-physical reality and I believe dreams are one of the ways for us to do this. When you consider that the average person living into their 70's or 80's spends approximately one-quarter to one-third of their life sleeping, and that a great portion of our sleep is spent dreaming, it makes sense that dreams can be a very important and useful way to work out issues, to heal and regenerate after a difficult day or experience, to reconnect with an energy that links all of us together.

I believe there is a usefulness in dreams for simply their escapist pleasures, but I believe that learning to participate in your dreams can help to resolve some of the problems and fears that hold us back from living a more fulfilled life. Dreams put into symbols many of the things we find difficult putting into words.

I also believe that dreams allow us the opportunity to confront people and issues that we feel unable to deal with when awake. Dreams can provide us with a level of spiritual memory and recovery that we don't use in our awake-time. We can access people and places in our dreams that are unavailable to us when we are awake, such as people who have passed away, for example. And, I think, it is amazing that the mind can use symbols and recurrent dream actions to "candy-coat" certain lessons for us when we aren't actively trying to deliberately participate in our dreams.

I had a friend who almost died in a house fire. He was terribly burned. During his rehabilitation, which lasted a very long time, he used to dream that he was swimming, running, riding his motorcycle - very active and physical dream experiences. He said the swimming dreams especially were his favorites because he would feel more relaxed and able to deal with his pain following those dreams. As it turned out, his recovery was quite amazing. He had excellent doctors and they were not anticipating that he would make this dramatic or complete a recovery. He used to say that he gave a lot of credit to his dream activity in his healing process.

So, yes, I believe very much that dreams function on many levels and for those who choose to make the effort to examine their dream actions and symbols and who choose to apply them to their lives, dreams offer us an opportunity for self awareness, allowing us to move beyond our physical existence to experience the connection we have to everyone and everything.

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