Mariam El Halawani Art Psychotherapist MAAT, ATR
Freud, also known as the father of Psychoanalysis, described dreams as “the royal road to the unconscious. Along with many other psychologists, Freud believed that dreams often reveal something about ourselves that we weren’t aware of. If we take the time to better understand our dreams, we can learn so much more about who we are. There are many ways that the unconscious material presented to us through our dreams can help us lead a more aware and intentional life.
So, why should we pay attention to our dreams?
Dreams present us with emotionally charged images that our conscious egos may not be ready to receive. Working with the dream symbolically can help us slowly integrate these images. In a sense, dreams help us confront threatening, yet necessary information about our internal and external worlds.
Because there is no “right” or “wrong” in dreams, they can help our process of connecting with our authentic selves. Dreams don’t need to consider cultural or societal expectations, and often help us see who we really are.
Dreams can also help bridge our conscious and unconscious minds and build harmony within our psyches. This bridging can also facilitate healing and help us access our sense of wholeness.
Working with dreams can help us acquire important skills such as self-reflection. Being able to reflect inwards can help enhance our self-awareness, emotional regulation and ability to understand and navigate difficult life circumstances.
Dreams can help shift our focus from the external to the internal, which can help us better understand our emotional needs and responses. Dreams will bring forward the areas that need our attention the most.
By illuminating information that may not be conscious to us, dreams can really help with our decision making and sometimes, can offer us a corrective to a life course.
With all the benefits we can gain from working with our dreams, some might think that this process would require a huge amount of time and effort it. However, the first step to this process is simply to start noticing our dreams. Once you start to notice your dreams, you begin to cultivate a curiosity towards them. I often recommend writing down the dream or drawing a quick image to capture its main symbols as a consistent practice. This helps make dream content more accessible, and the reflection process becomes richer.
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