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AM 820's Dr. Liz Hale ReportingThousands of years ago dreams were seen as messages from the gods. In ancient Greece, sick people slept at temples in order to receive dreams that would heal them. But what about today?
Modern dream science really began at the end of the 19th century with Dr. Sigmund Freud who theorized that dreams were made of our unconscious desires stemming from childhood. Today advanced technology like functional MRI's and PET scans might lend some new weight to Freud's initial ideas, since the most active parts of the brain during dreaming control emotion.
Bottom-line: Dreams give us valuable information about ourselves.
Lynne Finney: "One of the things that I've found so fascinating is that all of our dreams come from our source, wonderful positive information, or our still small voice."
Author Lynne Finney teaches dream interpretation and dream journeying through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Utah. She teaches students various ways to remember, interpret, and obtain key information from their dreams.
Lynne Finney: "There are wonderful things you can get from your dreams. You can get information about your health problems that might be coming up, future, ordinary day to day info, that would make our daily life easier."
What does Lynn Finney say to the nay-sayers, those who believe they don't dream?
Lynne Finney: "When people say they don't dream, what they're really saying is that they don't remember their dreams."
Finney says it's possible to program yourself to dream about questions you want answered, and she says what you dream about can even change your reality.
Here are a few tips to get the most out of your dreams:
- Get a good night's rest (It helps to get enough sleep so you have time to dream. You can resolve many problems by "sleeping on it.")
- Decide what to dream about (Tell yourself over and over again, before you go to sleep, what you want to dream about.)
- Keep a dream journal (Keep notebook by your bed and write down your dreams, thoughts and feelings as soon as you wake up.)
- Honor your dreams (Remember, you're the best expert when it comes to your own dream interpretation. Look for and honor the messages in your dreams.)
Dreaming can be a bit like our own storytelling time to help us know who we are, where we're going, and how we're going to get there.
If you want to learn more about Lynne Finney's course or dream interpretation you can the link to the top right of this story.
