Dream interpretation – How it saved my life

In 2002, I found myself in the biggest crisis of my life (so far!). I was fighting low self-esteem and I really couldn’t figure out how love worked. In reality, I did understand why I couldn’t make my love life work out, because who would want someone like me!? I knew I needed help and it took quite a bit of convincing myself to start seeing a psychologist, but I couldn’t see a way out of my situation, so I knew it was necessary.

During my third visit, the psychologist asked me if I was dreaming at night and if so, what I was dreaming about. My answer: “Dreaming?! I don’t dream and besides, dreams are just a load of hocus pocus. I’m having a hard time right now – why the f*** are we talking about my dreams?” That’s how I felt about dreaming and dream interpretation – the idea of paying attention to, and trying to understand the content of your dreams. Maybe because I’m a guy, but probably also because I completed a university degree where I was taught to be critical of everything that cannot be proven 100%.

But it was probably mostly because dreams weren’t something that was taken seriously when I was growing up or in my student years. Today, I know that remembering your dreams is a mental skill much like speaking a foreign language – if you don’t use the language and practice it, you’ll slowly lose the ability to speak it. In other words, if you’re not interested in your dreams, you will lose the ability to remember them. Back in 2002, I didn’t remember my dreams and I quite simply didn’t believe that I dreamed at all (p.s. – we all dream for about two hours every night!).

At the time, I was in a really difficult place, but I decided to give this whole dream-thing a chance – “OK, if this could help me in some way, I’ll try paying attention to my dreams.” For the first time in my adult life, I gave my dreams some thought. Two days later, I woke up with fragments of a dream in my head: “Hey, I am dreaming!” I was over the moon! Just by showing some interest in my dreams, I could suddenly remember them. The biggest Eureka moment came when I started working more intensely with my dreams with the help of my psychologist and at the same time read a lot of books about dreaming.

The process was very painful because of all a sudden I realized how much “shit” I had bottled up “in my head”, and that, in many ways, I was responsible for my own emotional state (as a grown man I couldn’t continue blaming the whole world for my misery). I also realized that I carried a lot of responsibility for my failing love life (I realized I myself did a lot of things to ruin my relationships). It was tough, but it was also a good process, which gave me hope that I really could change the course of my life – that I am the boss of my life!

The huge amount of invaluable insights from my dreams made me think: “WHY aren’t more people doing this? WHY aren’t more people using their dreams like this?” And I know why: because a lot of people feel the same way about dreams as I did. This is why I decided to try to get people interested in the field and make it easier for everyone to remember, understand and actively use their dreams. All with the aim of living a more satisfying and joyful life.

Best,

Michael