To Sleep Perchance To Dream

Creating a sacred space for healing

I woke this morning remembering some very strange dreams. Dreams that included information learned yesterday, world troubles, my own life history, a grieving for the people I’ve loved and parts of myself lost through trauma. A whole kaleidoscope of imagery and colour woven together in some strange way. And these are just the bits I remember. There would have been hours more.

And I awoke feeling better.

I awoke feeling peaceful and inspired.

Photo by Parag Mehta on Unsplash

What a wonder unfolds under the cover of darkness.

Dreams do seem to come in many forms. And while I’ve had a few dreams that were more like premonitions, a deeper ‘knowing’ (which have turned out to be true), most often I dream dreams that are more random, a natural processing of my lived experience. To respect the privacy of my inner mind, I’ve learned not to analyse my dreams, not to try and understand them or meddle with this sacred space. Instead, to consider them only briefly, and then let them go, to honour the space in which a part of me is sifting through, consolidating, and healing the experiences of my life.

Touching on the ancient wisdom that views dreams as a portal to the future which can offer guidance, while at the same time Freud’s perspective that dreams enable psychological release from unconscious conflict, a recent scientific report in the journal Nature speaks of how our dreams can provide a safe space in which to process emotions, especially the negative ones, helping us to feel better…

… the emotion regulation theory of dreaming proposes dreams play an active role in reprocessing and regulating waking affect^9,11,12,18. According to this theory, dreams provide a safe space to experience and process emotions, particularly negative ones. The emotion regulation theory of dreaming is different from the continuity theory of dreaming as it proposes that dreams lead to a functional change in emotion regulation during waking. For example, a person who is anxious about giving a speech may have an emotionally charged dream related to this experience due to the anxiety they felt throughout the day, and the next day they may report feeling less anxious. In one seminal study by Cartwright and colleagues… (r)esearchers found that depressed divorcees who dreamed about their ex-spouses were more likely to have a significant reduction in depressive symptoms at 1-year follow up¹¹

Zhang, J., Pena, A., Delano, N. et al. Evidence of an active role of dreaming in emotional memory processing shows that we dream to forget. Sci Rep 14, 8722 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-58170-z

And this has become my lived experience too. When supported to heal my own emotional wounds, my sleep quality improved and with it my trust in this innate wonder.

We are designed to heal emotionally, as surely as we are designed to heal our physical selves. It’s no surprise the two are often interrelated.

Science now has decades of research on the importance of sleep and dreaming for healing our emotional selves. Watching what seems like a holding pattern for this reservoir of wisdom, I can only wonder at what point the theories will translate into public awareness that when we sleep, when we give ourselves permission to create this sacred space, we initiate our own healing. How incredible that is.

My work as a P.S.H. therapist is to support people to remember this wonder within themselves. To help them rediscover their innate ability to support their own healing. When I first experienced this therapeutic approach for myself so many years ago, I remember being told not to be surprised if my dreams changed… I laughed at the time thinking what a bunch of woo-woo… how ignorant I was.

Sleeping is something I look forward to now. The inner work I do at night such vital preparation for the next waking day.

In the words of Shakespeare… I ‘sleep perchance to dream’ - to heal, to resolve problems, to remember the important things while forgetting the rest.

Instead of seeing sleep as a sign of being lazy, or the idea that sleep is a waste of time, how much healing might unfold for all of us, and globally, if instead we learned to prioritise sleep, to create a sacred space for healing to take place, and to honour the part of our consciousness that is so incredible that it helps us to heal quietly and privately when our thinking mind takes a break… and to know where to go for help when the wonders of our sleep-healing systems needs that little bit extra support.

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P.S.H. (Private Subconscious-mind Healing) is a natural therapy modality, a completely independent, stand-alone therapy that supports people to utilise their own natural healing ability.

People seek a P.S.H. therapist to help them solve the problems and symptoms they’ve not been able to deal with using conscious effort, willpower, medication or other conventional modalities.

To learn more about P.S.H. or find a qualified and registered P.S.H. therapist, please visit https://www.psh.org.au/

Disclaimer:

Please note that P.S.H. is not meant to be, nor is it claimed to be a substitute for medical treatment. It is the most effective means we have to help people deal quickly, effectively and with a wide range of problems and issues that are the result of subconscious dynamics. If you have concerns about a medical or physical condition, we recommend you first seek the advice of your medical practitioner. Please also seek medical advice before making any changes to medication(s).