After working with dreams for more than 30 years, what continues to amaze me is that we dream at all. For dreams show us—even as we sleep and regardless of their particular content—that we are creative beings.
No one knows why we dream. Theories abound, but one thing is quite clear: Dreaming is essential for our survival and overall well-being. Here are some interesting facts regarding dreams:
1. On average human beings dream about two hours per night.
2. Our REM cycles increase in length as the night progresses. The first cycle is about 15 minutes long, the second one is about 20 minutes, and so forth for four to five cycles per night.
3. The average person spends six years of their lives dreaming.
4. The neurons that course through the dreaming brain are firing like mad when we’re dreaming—and are more active during dreaming sleep than they are at any other time, including our most motivated waking states.
5. What floods our dreaming brain is a biologically ancient chemical called acetylcholine. Its function, strangely enough, is “wakefulness” and it works to focus our attention vividly. From the biochemistry, it’s like our dreaming brain state provides the perfect conditions for us to learn. Curiously, acetylcholine is what the brain loses in people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
When we allow ourselves to become curious about our dreams, we find that we become open in the process. We soon begin to sense that dreams mean well for us, that they back us up and urge us on. At times, they even try to teach us what we cannot seem to learn when our day-world, waking-brain is active.
Besides continually make up new things to give us, dreams understand us more deeply than we understand ourselves. Paying mindful attention to dreams continues to reveal itself as a life path for me, a “practice.” The curiosity, wonder, and mystery with which I approach the dream is also the attitude that I seek to carry into personal and community engagements—bringing a “witnessing presence” to what life offers. If you’ve ever wondered about your own dreams and are curious to learn more, please join me, Dr. Renée Coleman at the Balance Point Spa (located at 18285 Soledad Canyon Road in Canyon Country) for an evening lecture on Tuesday, October 19, at 7 p.m. The cost is $5. New dream groups forming all the time.
For more information or to schedule your free introductory dream-tending session, call 661-288-1901 or email: dreamtending@gmail.com.