Interestingly, religion takes a far more divine viewpoint; many religious individuals believe that our dreams come from God himself. Dreaming is portrayed as a way for God to speak with us, rather than something that occurs in our subconscious mind. Ashley looks into oracles, divination, and contacting the dead through dreams, all of which are considered black arts in most religions and are outlawed.
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Even when daydreaming, the soul will wonder but will remain closer to the body than when sleeping, according to Islam. Dreams were thought to be sent by Allah, while bad dreams were thought to come from bad djinns (genies).
The thought of the spirit wandering while sleeping is intriguing. One concept has been addressed in a number of horror films, including Insidious and Nightmare on Elm Street, in which the soul is revealed to journey to a new level of reality. Of course, in these films, it's usually to a gloomy, demon-infested location.
What is the spiritual meaning of dreams?
There is no conclusive evidence as to what dreams are made up of, however it is widely assumed that dreams are made up of a combination of ideas, struggles, feelings, events, people, locations, and symbols that are somehow connected to the dreamer.
Dreams as therapists
Dreams could be a means for you to deal with emotional turmoil in your life. And, because your brain is operating at a far more emotional level than it is when you're awake, it may create connections about your sentiments that your conscious self would not.
Dreams as fight-or-flight training
The amygdala is one of the brain areas that is most active during dreaming. The survival instinct and the fight-or-flight reaction are linked to the amygdala, a region of the brain.
According to one idea, the amygdala is more active during sleep than during waking hours, and this could be the brain's way of preparing you to deal with a threat.
Fortunately, during REM sleep, the brainstem sends out nerve signals that relax your muscles. You won't try to run or punch in your sleep this manner.
Dreams as your muse
One explanation for why we dream is that it aids our creative abilities. Dreams have been credited by artists of all types with inspiring some of their most creative work. You could have awoken with a brilliant idea for a movie or a song at some point in your life.
When you're sleeping, your thoughts and ideas are unrestricted by the logic filter that you might employ in your waking life to limit your creative flow.
Dreams as memory aides
One popular view concerning the purpose of dreams is that they aid in the storage of key memories and lessons learnt, the elimination of unimportant memories, and the sorting of complex thoughts and feelings.
Sleep, according to research, aids memory storage. If you learn new information and then sleep on it, you will be able to recall it better than if you were asked to remember it without it.
It's still unclear how dreams effect memory storage and recall. However, dreams may aid memory and learning by allowing the brain to more efficiently store crucial information while shutting out distracting stimuli.
How do you know if your dream is spiritual?
Do you dismiss your recent nightmares as a result of anxiety? Or a means for your harried mind to assimilate the events of the day? While these components are likely to play a part in the development of dreams, they may not give the whole picture. We don't know what causes dreams, but I'm willing to bet that spiritual forces control a significant portion of our dream lives.
There's no denying that we're all feeling more anxious these days, and some dreams can just be a method for our minds to unwind after a long day. But what about those other dreams that disclose hidden sentiments we're too busy to notice? Dreams that were linked to your waking life and came true? Spirit guides could be the source of these profound dreams.
Why are our dreams symbolic?
When it comes to dream symbolism, the pictures and symbols we generate in our dreams communicate with us in ways that go beyond ourselves. They also aid in the communication of our dream experiences when we share them with others. The word “metaphor” comes from the Ancient Greeks, and it means “to communicate some attribute from one item to another.”
‘The most skilled interpreters of dreams are those who have the faculty of recognizing resemblances,' wrote Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and dramatist. He remarked on our dreams' metaphoric ability to link and transfer meaning. Artemidorus was a Greek scholar who wrote Oneirocritica, the first modern dream dictionary. “Dream interpretation is nothing more than the juxtaposition of similarities,” he explained.
Why do my dreams come true in real life?
Dreams can sometimes come true or predict future events. Experts claim that if you have a dream that comes true in real life, it's most likely due to: Coincidence. Poor recall.
If it's a long-ago ex
“Dreaming about a long-ago ex, particularly a first love, is really common,” Loewenberg explains. “That ex becomes a symbol for passion, unbridled desire, fearless love, and so on.”
This is your subconscious mind's way of informing you that you need more spice in your life.
If it's a recent ex
It may appear like your mind is attempting to undo all of your hard work in the waking hours to get over this individual.
“Your subconscious is actually trying to help you recover and understand how you're feeling about the breakup,” Loewenberg explains.
If they were abusive
Malina explains that dreaming about an abusive or toxic ex (physically or mentally abusive, serial cheater, etc.) is a normal trauma response.
If you're dreaming about an abusive ex, Loewenberg says it's probably because you're still trying to figure out why it happened during the day.
If you're “beating yourself up” in your waking hours about this old relationship, the dream could represent the abuse you're now inflicting on yourself by obsessing.
If you miss them or they miss you
What characteristics did your ex possess that you don't have in your life right now? If your ex was humorous, for example, set up a Zoom date with another funny pal.
What traits did your ex assist you in developing? It's time to use them without your ex's help!
If you want them back or they want you back
Again, consider the qualities you enjoyed in your ex or the ones you wish he or she had when you were together.
If someone is apologizing
Rather, it's your mind creating up a scene in which your ex said exactly what you hoped he had said.
And what if you're the one making the apology? There's a good chance you've lately done or said something you regret. Your initial attempt to make apologies = the dream.
If someone's confronting the other about past wrongs
“If you have a dream about facing someone, you're confronting the part of you that has been wounded by that person,” Loewenberg explains.
If you're getting back together
Babes, it's time to dig deep and consider whether or not you'd go back to an ex if they came crawling.
If that's the case, it's time to reflect on why you split up in the first place. Those were probably some pretty solid reasons! (A therapist or a protective BFF can be really beneficial in this situation.)
If, on the other hand, you have no interest in such ex during the day, the dream is a sign that you've made peace with the relationship and mastered the lessons it taught you. Exciting!
If you're falling in love again
According to Loewenberg, it means you're longing to be cared for and cherished right now. Isn't that an understandable desire in the midst of a pandemic?
If you're getting physical
So, think about if you really want to reconnect with your ex. Making a list of the reasons you broke up can be useful in this situation as well.
“If you have a child together, it's not about the sex or kissing,” Loewenberg continues, “it's about connecting for the sake of the child.” That's great to know!
If you're fighting
“Dreams like this indicate a present issue in your life,” Loewenberg explains.
This is to be expected, given that we're all going through huge routine change right now.
If someone's cheating on the other
“If you're dreaming about your ex cheating on you, it's an indication you're carrying feelings of suspicion into your current relationship, according to Loewenberg.
“Even if they didn't, if you're dreaming that they did, it's likely that something in your current relationship is making you feel like the third wheel.”
If you break up all over again
Was it a long time ago? Consider what else is making you feel rejected in your life. Have you recently been dismissed as a result of COVID-19? Has one of your best friends started texting or phoning you less frequently?
If they're in danger
If you play the knight in shining armor, you'll most likely learn something from the connection.
Did your ex, for example, bring out your more extroverted side? Your subconscious is nagging you to practice your schmoozing skills in real life.
It's actually an indication that you're letting go of that relationship if you didn't try to save them. Buh-bye!
If you kill them
Goodbye, baby! Most likely, you're having this dream because you've put an end to any remaining resentment toward your ex.
This dream could imply that you still have a lot of anger and hurt to process against your ex if you're still carrying around a lot of anger and hurt toward your former.
Where do we go when we dream?
During dreams, the entire brain is active, from the brain stem to the cortex. The majority of dreams take place during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. The reticular activating system, whose circuits stretch from the brain stem via the thalamus to the cortex, controls this component of the sleep-wake cycle.
The amygdala, which is mostly connected with fear and is especially active during dreams, is part of the limbic system in the midbrain, which deals with emotions in both waking and dreaming.
What happens in your brain when you dream?
Although it is said that time heals all wounds, my research reveals that time spent in dream sleep heals the most. When you wake up the next morning, REM-sleep dreaming appears to take the sting out of difficult, even traumatic, emotional episodes that occurred during the day, providing emotional resolution.
Only during REM sleep does our brain become fully empty of the anxiety-inducing chemical noradrenaline. At the same time, when we dream, critical emotional and memory-related brain areas are reactivated during REM sleep. This means that emotional memory reactivation takes place in a brain that is free of a major stress hormone, allowing us to re-process traumatic memories in a safer, calmer atmosphere.
What evidence do we have that this is the case? Healthy young adult volunteers were divided into two groups to watch a series of emotion-inducing images while inside an MRI scanner in one study at my sleep center. They were presented the identical emotional images 12 hours later, however half of the participants were shown the images on the same day, while the other half were shown the photographs after an evening of sleep.
Those who slept in between the two sessions reported a significant reduction in emotional reactivity in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain that produces painful feelings, and their MRI scans showed a significant reduction in reactivity in the amygdala. Furthermore, after sleep, the logical prefrontal cortex of the brain reengaged, helping to maintain a calming effect on emotional reactivity. Those who remained awake throughout the day, on the other hand, showed no similar reduction in emotional sensitivity over time.
That in and of itself says nothing about the importance of dreaming. However, we had videotaped each participant's sleep between the two test sessions, and we discovered that unique brain activity during the dream state, which showed a decline in stress-related brain chemistry, determined the success of overnight therapy from one person to the next.
Because the emotional content of dreams is accompanied by a drop in brain noradrenaline, dreaming has the ability to assist people de-escalate emotional reactivity. A research by Murray Raskind on veterans with PTSD, who frequently suffer from debilitating dreams, provided support for this hypothesis. The warriors in his study who were given Prazosina blood pressure medication that also works as a blocker of the brain stress hormone noradrenalinehad fewer nightmares and PTSD symptoms than those who were given a placebo. Newer studies suggest that this impact can also be seen in children and adolescents who suffer from nightmares, though research on this is still in its early stages.
The data indicates to one of dreams' most significant functions: to help us cope with our terrible emotional experiences while we sleep so that we can learn from them and move on with our lives.