Re-Creating Your Self in Your Sleep - Automatically

Re-Creating Your Self By Christopher Stone

Last time, we explored how my own search for all of the tools for personal change eventually led me to the subject area of dreams. I admitted that I once held false and self-limiting beliefs about the benefits and value of dreams. After an extensive re-examination and re-evaluation of the subject, I saw the importance of dreams to waking life. I came to understand that our dreams can help us to become the person we want to be, living the life we desire. I incorporated dream work into my Re-Creating Your Self process for personal change.

Finally, last time, I touch upon how Sigmund Freud had given the value of dreams a new vogue when his Interpretations of Dreams was published in 1900.

Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, went Freud one better. He speculated that we actually try out experiences mentally in our dreams before creating those experiences physically in waking life. Jung’s theory is similar to that of the ancient Egyptians who believed that physical events are often first assembled in the dream state. If this is true, then we have an explanation for the occurrence of precognitive dreams - a phenomenon whose documented history spans the recorded history of humankind itself.

My personal experience agrees with that of the Egyptians and Dr. Jung. My remembered dreams, faithfully recorded in a dream diary, often prove to be precognitive, revealing “previews of coming attractions” from everyday life. And I’ve come to understand the “déjà vu” feeling of having already experienced something that would seem to be a first-time event. When I get that old “déjà-vu” feeling, I often remember that I have dreamed previously about the event that I’m presently experiencing physically.

Re-Creating Your Self In Your Sleep - Automatically

How many times have you said, or heard someone else say, “I could do that in my sleep!?” The implication is that this or that activity is so automatic and easy that you could even perform it while unconscious. You can accurately say that about Re-Creating Your Self: Whether or not you remember your dreams, you automatically recreate your self - both physically and mentally - in your sleep every night. Better yet, you do it automatically: No conscious effort is involved.

The sleeping state automatically regenerates your physical body. When your body is asleep, everything slows down. Your rate of metabolism is at its lowest. Your blood pressure drops. Your pulse rate is slower, and so is your breathing. Even your temperature drops slightly. In this restful, slow mode, your body’s tired organs and tissues are restored, re-created; your blood is cleansed of impurities; repair work is successfully done. Likewise, the dreams you form while asleep automatically renew you mentally. They give you undisturbed time

to work through problems you’ve been unable to solve while awake. This is one of the most practical and important functions of the dream state - a function that is necessary in order to maintain your personal well-being. In fact, scientific studies reveal that people cannot go for more than a few days without dreaming before they show signs of severe mental stress.

Have you noticed that you require more sleep when you’re going through a personal crisis? If you believe this extra sleep is simply a way of escaping your difficulties, you’re wrong. Rather than escaping, or setting aside, your problems, you use this time to work them out naturally and automatically on another level - the dream level. When you’re faced with a problem, or when you want to change your life, your dreams automatically “pitch in” and help. In such dreams you experiment with different methods of solving your dilemma, and you mentally experience the results that each method will produce.

Though you may not consciously remember your therapeutic dreams, your subconscious mind never forgets. Later, in the waking state, the answer to your problem may seem to come to you “out of the blue.” More likely, you are consciously recalling the solution that yielded the best results in your dream experiments.

In addition to the automatic, therapeutic benefits of dreams, you can consciously use the dream state to help you re-create your self. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can create specific dreams, and you can dramatically improve your ability to remember your dreams.

A Re-Creating Your Self Thought:  Most sleep scientists believe that many people underestimate the healing effects of sleep and dreams.  Sleep and dreams, they concur, are vital for health. Sleep is the time when the brain heals the body. The therapeutic value of dreams begins as the body rids itself of the clutter it has collected during the day.

Coming April 1: Remembering Dreams You Have & Creating Dreams You Want

Have a Re-Creating Your Self comment, observation, or a question? Please send them to me at recreatingyourself@mail2teacher.com

Copyright 2010 by Christopher Stone.