Dreaming

"No amount of skepticism and criticism has yet enabled me to regard dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and ingenuity to read the enigmatic message from the nocturnal realm of the psyche. Seeing that at least half our psychic existence is passed in that realm, and that consciousness acts upon our nightly life just as much as the unconscious overshadows our daily life, it would seem all the more incumbent on medical psychology to sharpen its senses by a systematic study of dreams. Nobody doubts the importance of conscious experience; why then should we doubt the significance of unconscious happenings? They also are part of our life, and sometimes more truly a part of it for weal or woe than any happenings of the day." Dr. Carl Jung

It is said the average dreamer experiences blurred black and white images, with sketchy memories of the details of the dream. Then there are those who dream in color, with a remembrance of certain parts of a dream, which can be recalled vividly. Then there are some of us who dream in Technicolor, with intense smells, sounds, emotions and physical sensations. Dreams that can stay with you from the time you wake up, till you go to bed again. Dreams that live and breath.
Some say dreams are just life on another level of reality. That the occurrences there are as real, or important as the ones in the physical world. There are five different kinds of dreams
I. Mundane: Aimless ramblings of the brain at rest. Pictures of the days events, worries, concerns.
II. Psychological Messages: An attempt of the subconscious to get a message though to the conscious mind.
III. Psychic: A psychic dream can be about events that have yet to occur. They may also be messages from a loved one who has or is about to cross over to the other side. In this kind of dream can also receive guidance from "God/Goddess" or Spirit Guides. In some cases people can communicate through dreams, yet this requires psychic ability on both ends.
IV. Astral: The Astral plane is another name for "The Other Side." This is where we go when our spirit is no longer in our bodies, be that in death or in sleep. Here also you can contact Spirit Guides, and Divine beings. Most who have dreamed about flying have been "out of body."
V. Combination: Several types of dreams can run into one another.

The Journal:
Many teach us to have an entirely separate journal for daily events, dreams, meditations, visions and spiritual thoughts. I have found keeping it all on once place helps me to interpret the synchronicity between these occurrences. Store your journal somewhere in the bedroom so that you can begin writing before your dreams fade away. I write down every dream, no matter how fragmented, or vague. I have found that a single dream symbol such as a yellow flower can speak volumes of meaning. Do not let your conscious mind edit the dream in any way. Everything that occurs in a dream is valid to the subconscious. We understand logic and language with the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is an intuitive, symbolic, emotional, spiritual realm. The best book on dream interpretation that I have found is Dream Dictionary by Tony Crip. His Jungian approach to deciphering dream symbolism is spiritual and logical.