Thoughts from Terry

The following are short articles composed by Terry has written and shared in hopes they help you understand some of the basics of dream interpretation and creating the life you want. A description of the classes offered can be found here. Ready to register for a class? Visit our Events page for upcoming opportunities. 

It’s Only a Dream

It’s only a dream? Hardly!

Have you ever told someone your nightmare and they dismissed it saying it’s only a dream?  You knew they were wrong.  You couldn’t shake your uneasiness.

Every dream has meaning and every dream is important. Dream worker Kevin Todeschi said, “Nothing significant ever happens in your life that you didn’t first dream it.” So, how can you harness the power of dreams to help you?

Some sources report you have 60,000 thoughts each day. It’s impossible to process that many thoughts, interactions, and feelings. In fact, you can have more than 60,000 thoughts each day, but you might only process about 5% of what you experience . That seems a small percentage until you take into account the types of stimuli you encounter. You probably don’t notice the air conditioner cycling on and off. You ignore your heartbeat and respiration. You take those things for granted. You probably don’t even notice you sneezed. When everything works properly, you don’t pay attention. You only notice when something out of the ordinary happens. If the room becomes too hot, you investigate the air conditioner. If you sneeze repeatedly, you might blame your allergies and take an antihistamine.

That’s where your dreams can help.  The 95% of unnoticed experiences is stored in your sub-conscious. Overnight, it’s your dreams’ responsibility to sift through your daytime events. What isn’t important, the solitary sneeze, is pushed from your short-term memory and set aside. It’s not forgotten entirely, though, because the memory of that sneeze might become important the day after tomorrow when multiple cold symptoms become apparent.

What about subtle warning signs? Let’s suppose you pass two co-workers conferring in the hallway. You catch part of their conversation and pay no attention. You don’t notice they stopped speaking as you approached. It might not occur to you that they were talking about you.

Again, your dreams will jump into action. As your sub-conscious sifts through the rubble of the day, it will focus on the most pressing matters in your life, highlighting important interactions you missed. For instance, if you are in competition with one of those co-workers for a promotion, the conversation you vaguely overheard might contain critical information.  Your dreams will tell you what you need to know.

It would be convenient if your dream announced on a billboard that the co-worker is sabotaging your chances for promotion by feeding your boss faulty information about a project you’re managing. However, the language of the sub-conscious is symbolism. You must crack the symbolic code to decipher the warning. You must interpret the symbols.

The following nightmare tells you what you need to know about that hallway conversation:

You enter a dark room. Suddenly you walk into a spider web. Part of it gets caught in your hair. A giant black widow spider moves slowly toward you. Horrified, you can’t move. You try to scream, but no sound comes out.

You awaken in a cold sweat.

Dreams with strong emotion carry critical messages. Fear is potent. The scarier the dream, the more dire the consequences of ignoring the communication. However, you won’t learn the meaning unless you understand the symbolism. Let’s interpret the dream.

A common dream symbol is a house. It can represent you and can indicate a current situation in your life. Are you “in the dark” about something? Are you paralyzed, unable to get out of harm’s way? Could the type of spider be important?  It might be if one of the co-workers is a widow. Is she spinning a web of deceit?

Once you understand the dream’s imagery, contextualize the answers. Then, plan a course of action.

If you fail to receive the dream’s theme, don’t despair. You’ll get another chance to decipher the code when your dreams send you the same warning using a different scene tonight!

Deliberately Create Your Heart’s Desire

Think of a time when you wished for something and received it.

Was it something big you had wanted for a long while—like the perfect job? Was it something small you’d wanted on a whim—like a parking spot next to the grocery store entrance?

Would you be surprised to know that the amount of time or effort you put into getting what you want makes no difference? It doesn’t matter if you worked for several years or if you literally just snapped your fingers and it appeared.

What does matter?

How you think and feel about what you want makes all the difference in the world! Thoughts become things. Every time. Whether you believe it or not.

The process for creating anything in life is relatively simple:

• Visualize what you want. Get excited. Imagine enjoying it as if it’s happening now.
• Believe it’s yours for the asking.
• Take small, sweet steps toward getting it.
• Show gratitude for what you have and what’s coming next.
• Repeat the process until you manifest all you desire.

Let’s look at how the process might work in this example: Getting that rock star parking space.

• Visualize what you want. Imagine enjoying it as if it’s happening now. See the scene in your mind’s eye. The stall by the entrance is empty. You feel giddy pulling into the spot. You are literally twenty feet from the store. There’s a bounce in your step. The door glides open and upon entering, you smell fresh pies from the bakery.
• Believe it’s yours for the asking. Someone will park next to the door and that person is you. You deserve that space. It’s yours. There’s nothing stopping you from getting that spot.
• Take small, sweet steps toward getting it. Turn into the parking lot. Steer toward the door. Keep your foot on the gas pedal. Pull into the stall.
• Show gratitude for what you have and what’s coming next. “Thanks for this terrific parking spot and for the one I’ll get at the post office.”

Repeat the process until you manifest all you desire. Simple. Easy.

Are you skeptical? You wouldn’t be the first person to think, “It sounds easy, but…” Are you mentally listing doubts? Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m never that lucky. Someone always beats me to the stall. I’m stuck parking in the far corner of the lot. In the rain. Without my umbrella.” You’ve been thrashed by disbelief!

If people aren’t getting what they want, it’s usually because they let nagging doubts overtake their positive thoughts. There’s good news, though. One positive thought is more powerful than 10,000 negative ones. You don’t have to be positive 24/7. When you find yourself thinking, “Someone always beats me to it,” notice the thought and shoo it from your mind. Replace it with a statement more interesting like “I deserve this. It’s mine for the asking.”

Take a look at your life. You are surrounded by evidence proving you are successful at manifestation. Perhaps you already knew thoughts become things or maybe this concept is new to you. One thing is certain. When you apply the process, you are deliberately creating your life. Happy manifesting!

Recurring Dreams

I’m sometimes asked to interpret a recurring dream from decades ago. Recently, a man approached me and described in vivid detail a childhood nightmare that haunted him for years. The terror on his face looked as fresh as if he’d just awaken from the dream. When he finished recounting the nightmare, he crossed his arms and asked, “So, what does that mean?”

He was disappointed when I told him we might never know.

Dreams have a shelf life. They come to tell us what we need to know to help with our current dilemmas. An urgent problem this month might be resolved by next month. Then the dreams will shift focus to offer insight into the next problem.

The first thing to consider with a childhood dream is at what age did the nightmare start and how long did it persist.

Next, it’s important to know what was happening in the child’s world during that particular time. Unless we know that information, an interpretation might not be relevant.

Dream symbols and themes are dreamer specific. Only the dreamer can decide the meaning of the message. When a correct interpretation is uncovered, the dreamer often has an “aha moment.” They might even feel a tingle. So, the question becomes, is it possible for an adult to know what explanation might have resonated with the eight-year-old version of themselves?

Dreams must be contextualized. The messages apply to the most pressing matters at the time. If the child was being bullied at school, a hungry dinosaur might chase them in their dreams. However, if the theme of bullying continues throughout the dreamer’s life, the dream settings and images will change to be age appropriate. The metaphor might change from a T-rex to a stalker in a dark alley.

The key to working with dreams is to recognize the stronger the emotion evoked, the more urgent the message. If you wake up angry or scared, the dream’s message holds relevance and importance. The sooner you understand the symbols and take action to resolve the situation, the sooner the nightmares will cease.

Dream Weavers offers ample opportunities to learn how to interpret your dreams and practice sessions to hone your dream interpretation skills! Visit the Courses and Events page to learn more about this month’s offerings and to register.

The Genesis of Dream Weavers

Seven years ago, I taught my first four-week dream interpretation workshop.  It was a dream come true—literally. Here’s the story of the dream behind the dream.

In 2013, I enrolled in the Advanced Writing Program for Creative Non-fiction at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  My favorite course was Experimental Essay. Each week we were tasked to write a paper using a creative format.

When I was stumped for a topic, I often turned to my dreams for suggestions.  They never let me down. One essay I called “My Muse.” In it, I explained how twice Tom Hanks had appeared in my dreams. The dreams were quite memorable, lavish in vivid details. By working with the dream symbols, I discovered my topic.

Many times, we were asked to share essays with our peers to solicit comments. When my classmates read my essay inspired by Tom Hanks, they protested. They argued I’d breached the wall of creative non-fiction; clearly, my essay was fiction.  They wondered; how could anyone get answers from their dreams? Nothing I said could convince them of the power of dreams. That’s when I knew I would someday teach dream interpretation.

I received an “A” for my essay which was written using only one sentence. Please enjoy the essay!

My Muse

My nighttime dreams often deliver the answers to my daytime puzzles, so several weeks ago, before falling asleep, I set an intention for the topic of my next essay to be born within my dream, which resulted in two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks staging nocturnal appearances for a series of nights, and I accepted him as my muse, processing the sign from different perspectives, including reviewing his filmography ending with his recent movie “Captain Phillips,” a story in which Somalian pirates hijack an unarmed, merchant ship captained by Richard Phillips (Hanks), which led me to imagine stereotypical  pirate traits:  a squawking parrot perched on the shoulder of a rum-soaked, whiskery buccaneer with a peg leg and a black leather patch over one eye, then — voilà —I had my essay topic:  the yin and yang of my odd eyeball that required me to wear an eye patch as a child; I earned an “A” on the paper, so I asked myself why not dip my cup back into the same creative bucket, therefore, I again set the intention of dreaming another essay topic and once more Tom Hanks emerged, insisting I consider him a close friend while he accompanied me to a swanky gift shop onboard our cruise ship, and I awoke with a strong desire to heed his advice by shortening his moniker to first initial and last name: T. Hanks…THanks…thanks—and  I passed the day reckoning life’s miracles with the infinite forms of eternal bliss.