Dream Interpreters Make Better Parents

by Paul Blosser

Just a few days before this year's National Dream Hotline® , a newspaper reporter asked if anyone had ever studied the dreams of prisoners or murderers. "Not that I'm aware of," I answered honestly. Desiring to give him more, a Universal Truth popped into my brain. "Troubled people have troubled dreams," I said, explaining also that peaceful individuals such as Jesus, Mother Teresa and Gandhi would have dreams reflecting their consciousness.

As I was being interviewed, a terrible tragedy occurred in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, students at Columbine High School, entered the school cafeteria armed with handguns, rifles and pipe bombs. They selectively shot and killed 15 other children and a teacher before killing themselves. "Troubled people have troubled dreams." I reflected on that thought when I learned about the Columbine tragedy. Dreams reflect the consciousness of the dreamer. The thoughts that populate the conscious waking mind are revealed to the dreamer while asleep.

When the dreamer's consciousness is of family, love, God and community then dreams will reflect the harmony between the conscious, waking mind, and subconscious mind, soul. If the dreamer's consciousness is filled with anger, hatred and prejudice, then the dreamer will have nightmares reflecting the disharmony that exists between the desires of the soul and the turmoil in the conscious mind and brain. The dreams of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have told volumes.

This is why there is a National Dream Hotline® , I thought to myself. The hotline is a public service to educate all of humanity about the importance and meaning of dreams. It exists so people can call with questions about dreams. It exists so an adult puzzled by a childhood dream can find meaning and clarity. It exists so a parent can have information for a child with a troubled dream. It exists so everyone will know that spiritual evolution is quickened by remembering, interpreting and applying dream communication to life situations.

The hotline will have the most impact as parents begin to interpret their own dreams and understand them, then teach dream interpretation to their children. Parents will know their children better by discussing each child's dreams. Parents will become better parents by interpreting their child's dreams.

A recurring question raised following the Littleton shooting was how the parents could fail to know or at least suspect the boys' preoccupation with weapons and plans of destruction. When parents learn to interpret their child's dreams, they will be able to tell how they are parenting. They will know how their own thoughts, attitudes and concerns influence the formative mind and body they have brought into the world. Without a doubt, parents can know their child is bothered. Yes, even if the child won't talk about what's on his or her mind, dreams give that child and his or her parents insight and guidance.

My one-month-old grandson fell asleep in my arms recently. To date his life experiences revolve around Mother, Father, eating and sleeping. As I watched him, his mouth moved and I realized he was dreaming about eating. These were the thoughts and experiences that construct his one-month-old consciousness. This was reflected in his dream.

B is a 10 year old female. Her dream reflects the mental and physical transformations maturity brings. "I had a mom and a dad, but it was not my real mom and dad and we lived in a three story house and we heard news about a tyrannosaurus and velociraptor in town. Me and my family were driving to the store and we felt the vibration of the dinosaurs feet and we drove back home and hid. The dinosaurs came and roared and chased after us and I woke up."

What can her parents discover by listening to B's dream? Let's interpret the symbols first:
dinosaur - a compulsive way of thinking
animal - a compulsive way of thinking
house - structure of the mind
dreamer - conscious aspect of Self, waking self
parents - superconscious aspects, closest connection to God
strangers - unknown aspects of Self

Every dream offers a message to the dreamer about her current state of Self-awareness. This dream is about B's spiritual evolution. Her compulsive ways of thinking, represented by the dinosaurs, are out of place with who she is becoming. She is adjusting to some new ways of thinking represented by the unfamiliar parents in her dream. These new ways of thinking foreshadow the physical and spiritual maturity that arise with the awakening of the kundalini energy and physical puberty.

A young girl's body (and a young boy's as well) may seem to play cruel tricks with all the changes that occur at puberty - children become embarrassed by the changes and feel like they have no control over what is occurring to them. This dream might stimulate B's mother to talk to her daughter about the spiritual aspects of life, why the soul inhabits a physical body and why the physical changes are occurring in her body. It will be important for B's mother to help her daughter to know she is a soul using the physical body of a young woman to experience life and cause soul growth.

Sometimes, a dream may have a mystical quality. A parent must be able to offer an explanation for the dream as well as understand how the dream message relates to their child. A woman sent the following e-mail regarding a neighbor's dream: "Last week my 15 yr. old son was skiing with friends and his friend J (who was snow boarding) hit a tree and was killed. As you can imagine, we are all devastated. I spoke with J's mom last night and she was telling me of a dream that her 10 yr. old daughter(A) had last Friday night.

"A dreamt that she could see J up in heaven with a pair of wings on but no halo as he hadn't talked to God yet. He was with another boy who died in an accident (from this area) about 2 years ago (whom A barely knew). A told her mother that L (boy who died 2 years ago) had his wings and a halo and could fly higher than J. She said the boys were playing hockey and baseball and were having lots of fun.
"The next night she dreamt that J had his halo and could fly as high as L now because L had taken J to meet God. She said that J and L lived in their own house and it was a castle. J's deceased Grama and Grampa were also there but didn't live with J and L.

"How would you interpret this? And do you have any idea if A may be a small messenger of what is happening to J after death?" If this was your child's dream, what would you say? Would you dismiss the dream as a nightmare - "Don't worry, it's just a dream." or would you try to offer understanding? Imagine this - you are standing on a street corner and a stranger approaches you, speaking a foreign tongue. Would you try to understand what he is saying or turn and walk away? To think or say "Don't worry, it's just a dream," is like walking away - you never get the chance to know what is being said. As a parent, you would be turning your back on your own child when they may be crying out for your help.

These dreams offer the young girl peace and an understanding that her brother is with God. They also offer a message about her state of Self-awareness, revealing the thoughts, concerns and attitudes of the day. They provide insight about what she is doing and can do with her life. No doubt, her life has changed because of the death of her older brother and because of the mystical experience of her dreams.

The symbols in the dream are:
brother - subconscious aspect
brother's friend - subconscious aspect
wings - freedom
Heaven - superconscious mind
house - dreamer's mind
grandparents - superconscious mind
sports - games of life

This dream is about the young girl fulfilling her dharma, her plan for this lifetime. Heaven represents that part of mind where this plan is stored, awaiting her discovery. Perhaps the nature of the dreams themselves is a step towards fulfilling her plan. The two boys represent spiritual qualities or strengths A has built. The wings (and flying) symbolize the freedom of the soul or spirit available to A to live a fulfilling and rewarding existence. The house that the boys live in is separate from the house of the grandparents, representing the subconscious and superconscious minds respectively. The games the boys play represent how to learn and practice cooperation, interconnectedness and communication, many of the physical skills built in team sports.

What does this dream tell A's parents? How can they be better parents for A? The most important way that A's parents can use this dream is to recognize they have the responsibility to teach a highly developed soul. A is in contact with her inner spiritual Self and beginning to question, perhaps realize, how she can influence the world. A's parents must help her discover who she is as a soul and why she is here.

Often, nightmares are so real and so frightening that we take them into our waking state. Misunderstood or interpreted literally, they create their own set of fears with mental, emotional and physical results. A parent or grandparent can set a child free by helping her understand her nightmares. On Sunday evening of the National Dream Hotline® , a woman from Le Sueur, Minnesota called to ask "Is this where I call to find out about troubled dreams? My husband said this was the number to call." She was concerned about her granddaughter's nightmares, "She came home sick from school the other day because she was so upset." In the nightmare, the young girl was tied to a chair and forced to watch as her mother was killed.

I interpreted the girl's dream, allaying the grandmother's concerns and the girl's fears. I told her the granddaughter's dream was about unwanted change that was occurring in her life that she feels is beyond her control. The grandmother was relieved, saying that this was exactly what was going on; the young girl was graduating from high school (the change) and would be leaving home in a few weeks for army boot camp (beyond her control).

I think about my daughter Michelle, now 22, and how I raised her, how I influenced her life. I think about my grandson, Devan Michael and I've begun to create an image of my relationship with him and how I would like him to be raised. "Do you remember your dream from last night?" I will ask. "Let me tell you a story about your dream," I will say, interpreting it for him, creating a play that will describe who he is now and who he is becoming.

There is a new generation of children being raised, the first generation of the Third Millennium. These will be children raised as spirits because they learn from the moment they wake, talking about their dreams, realizing the importance, understanding the meaning.
Because they dream and know that everyone dreams, they will know they are connected with God, that they are related to everyone and everything. These spiritual children will know that thought is cause from daytime thoughts projected into their dream world and those dream messages then reflected outward into their waking state. Each will know they are soul and spirit, here on this earth for a divine mission. 

from Thresholds Quarterly May 1999