Dreams can be a wonderful source of guidance in our daily lives, once we understand their purpose. Who is giving us this guidance? Perhaps it is our angels or our higher self, but whatever the source, there are reasons why we dream. Our dream time is a complex puzzle that few understand. No one truly knows why we dream as we do. From my own personal experience, I feel dreams fall into many different categories.

Some dreams are like oddball stories that make no sense. Keeping a dream journal is extremely helpful for sorting out these types of dreams. I have a pad of paper and pen next to my bed. Before going to sleep, I ask my angels to “show me what I need to know.” That’s when the fun begins! Now, be forewarned. If you choose to ask for lessons, you will get them, and the angels don’t mind waking you up in the middle of the night so you’ll remember your dreams. Also, make sure you specify, “And help me to remember my dreams,” or you may have lots of interesting adventures that are a vague, blurry jumble when your eyes flutter open in the morning.

If it truly is our angels who give us these messages, how do they make themselves understood? Pictures, or symbols, are the universal language. When the angels tell us a story through our dreams, they are actually giving us a symbolic message. The key to figuring out this message is to write down your dream as if you are telling yourself a story. Just state the facts. Here’s an example of a dream I had with a very strong message.

I was at a time in my life when I was hoping, with all my heart, to become published. Sometimes, it felt like an impossible feat. One night, I asked for assistance and was given the following dream. I was climbing a steep hill. It was arduous and I struggled and sweated, trying to reach the top. Then, quite suddenly, I realized that I could walk around the hill to the back side. When I did this, the path was quite simple to maneuver, and I found myself standing on the top of the hill with my arms in the air, victorious. Upon waking, the message was quite clear. My goals were easier to attain than I thought. It was all about my own perspective and not seeing it as a struggle but as something that was achievable.

You should also understand that the symbols you experience are individualized. A rose may mean romance to one person or a love for gardening to someone else. Only you will know what the symbols mean. It is important to write down exactly what is happening in your dream story. Always remember that the story is not meant to be taken literally, but rather as a dramatic symbolic message – almost like playing charades. Perhaps you dream about being with a group of friends. You are all fighting a terrible monster that suddenly turns into a cuddly teddy bear. Is there someone that you all know who acts like a monster? Perhaps this person is not as horrible as you and your friends imagine him to be.

Maybe he is more like the teddy bear, at heart.

Another type of dream is the “pastlife” dream. Often, these are triggered by some event in your waking life. Meeting someone new will often launch a pastlife memory that appears in your dreams. The secret to knowing when you are dreaming about a past life is when you see someone that you intuitively know to be you, but the person doesn’t look like you. Others may appear in the dream who feel like your mother or brother or friend but they, also, do not look like themselves. You may see yourself in another setting that feels very familiar, such as a strange city or a rural village. These dreams are often crystal clear in the morning. You wake remembering all the details of the dream. You may also have several dreams in this setting or as this person, peeling away the past-life memories like an onion, layer by layer. Upon waking, reach for the feelings and let your imagination have free reign. Sometimes, this leads to spontaneous flashes or visions. Trust what you have discovered and go inside your heart to discern the truth. You may also be led to “clues” through the internet or other sources, which confirm your suspicions.

Once, I dreamt that I was a young boy in a village that felt like an eastern European city within the last hundred years. I saw the village and the rocks which I was scrambling over before I began to fall. As I stretched out my hand, my sister reached for me, clasping my wrist briefly before I fell to my death. A few days later, I was at work when a close friend told me she had dreamt of me the other night. She saw herself reaching down to grasp my hand because I was falling down a rock ledge. As she tried to help me, she was unable to hold on as I fell to my death. I was shocked by the validation of a shared lifetime that was revealed to both of us in our dreams.

You may also have what I term “fear dreams.” These are not necessarily nightmares but rather dreams that may hold warnings. You need to use your intuition to determine whether these dreams are reflections of actual events that could occur or if they are fear-based, telling you of something you may be worrying about and are not acknowledging in your waking life.

We all have fears. Often, we don’t admit our fears, so our dreams help us to rid our conscious mind of those things we are actually worrying about, even if we don’t know it. It has been my experience that fearful dreams are more of a cleansing agent than a prediction of true events to come. Always use your intuition with these dreams to determine their true message.

Another category is the pre-cognitive dream. Often, we will dream of people or events such as a conversation with a friend or another “story” dream that feels like a premonition. This is where your dream journal is invaluable. Many times, that inconsequential chat with a friend in your sleeping world will manifest into the waking world the following day. Or you may find repeating patterns in your nightly sojourns. If you are constantly dreaming about big changes in your workplace, listen to the dreams. They may be telling you of events that are likely to pass. Or if you find yourself traveling the world in dream after dream, in various settings and circumstances, perhaps this means you will be traveling in the near future.

One other note about dreams – often, you may hear a song playing in your head when you wake up. Write it down, even if you only know bits and pieces of the song. When you get a chance, search the Internet for song lyrics with the key words you remembered. As the words appear on your computer screen, read them over, for this is also a message from your angels. Many times, you may hear songs that you barely know – songs that you never truly listened to before. This is always exciting because you can rule out the possibility that your subconscious mind was giving you the message.

I have also found another interesting phenomenon that you may wish to explore. In the morning, as you are rousing from sleep, you are in a very powerful state of mind. Words may be floating through your head or images flashing in your mind. If you are able to, grasp the words, no matter how odd they may sound, and write them down. Once again, you can search the internet for meanings. It is at this special time, when you are in the deepest delta wave and REM dream state, that many people become clairaudient, hearing messages that appear as a “voice.”

One time, I heard the words “Caliope and David crashed to the ground,” very clearly, upon waking. When typing the phrase into Google, I discovered the song “Blinded by the Light”. It's message speaks of an angel, Caliope, who is brought to the ground by a stone from David’s sling shot. For me, the message was very clear and related to a personal situation happening to me at that time. After that, I listened to the “voice” and received wonderful guidance that was always completely in tune with what was occurring in my life at that moment.

At the end of that delta wave and REM phase, upon first waking, you can also state positive affirmations or imagine your day going exactly as you would like. It is a very powerful moment when your mind is still in “creation” mode as we are connected to our higher selves. We are all divine co-creators, and this is the time when our minds and souls are at their purest point, unburdened by the cares of our day-to-day lives.

Some people also experience astral travel dreams where they visit other universes and receive profound messages. Anything is possible in the dream world, which can be a wonderful place of adventure and ultimate freedom!

Your intuitions are always the key to interpreting your dreams. What do you feel the dream was trying to tell you? You are always the expert when it comes to your own dreams. You will know the meaning and type of dream if you listen to your inner voice. If you are having nightmares, your angels are making great efforts to get your attention. Once you accept your dreams to be loving messages from a higher source, you will find the journey to be most exciting and the messages to be an unlimited fountain of daily guidance. Happy dreaming!Kathryn Diamond is the author of two books – The Awakening which is about three ordinary people who experience bizarre events that lead to their own spiritual awakening and Paradise on Lady Gaia which is visionary fiction about life in the year 2015 when mankind ascends into the fifth dimension.

Kathryn Diamond is the author of two books: The Awakening which is about three ordinary people who experience bizarre events that lead to their own spiritual awakening, and Paradise on Lady Gaia, which is visionary fiction about life in the year 2015 when mankind ascends into the fifth dimension.
Visit her website at: www.kdiamondbooks.com for more information about the author or her work.