Things that go bump in the night can really be unsettling, particularly if the things are scary dreams or nightmares bumping around inside our heads! While nightmares can be frightening, they can also be a great opportunity for learning, personal growth, and self-exploration. The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown, and often nightmares are just mixed messages floating around in the subconscious or unconscious parts of the mind that need some rational thought applied to them to yield understanding, if not enlightenment.

If you are truly serious about wanting to understand the context of a dream or nightmare, I highly recommend starting a Dream Journal or at least having a pen and notepad near your bed. It truly is an invaluable tool to be able to write down exactly what you remember about the dream as soon after waking as possible. Before you can begin to interpret and understand the context of a dream, you first need to know what it was about. Try to jot down as many details as you remember as quickly as possible, but it's also important to include things like your intuitions, impressions, and feelings.

To illustrate my point, I will share one of my own recent nightmares as an example.

I am running around inside my house frantically because I know there is a tremendous storm. I can hear the winds howling and I can feel the floor of the house shaking beneath my feet. I have an infant in my arms and I am terrified that I am going to lose the baby. I'm so scared that I absolutely cannot think about what I should do or where I should go to find the safest place possible to ride out the storm. Suddenly, I hear a sound like an oncoming train and the wind furiously picks up. Intuitively, I know that a tornado is quickly approaching, and I finally decide that I have no other choice but to leave the house and try to make a run for it. I hug the infant tight against my chest and I open the front door. Immediately upon opening the door, the most incredible tornado I can even remotely begin to describe is spinning and spinning right at my front door. I don't even have time to panic. The only thought I can recall inside my head is, "Dear God." Then, I simply lay down into the spinning spiral of a tornado, trembling in fear and crying hysterically because I firmly expect that I and the baby will instantly be picked up, swept into the storm, and that we'll later be found dead some odd number of miles away. However, I fall on the ground and I am surrounded by the most peaceful calm I have ever experienced. I am safe. The baby is happily cooing. I dreaded the worst and yet I found a wonderful safe haven in the eye of the storm.

When I jolted out of bed, I still felt terrified. The imagery of the tornado and the power of the storm was nearly incomprehensible. The images and the message were not something I could easily shrug off the next day and over the course of the next week. With a little thought and analysis, this is what the dream really meant to me.

Recently, there was a small project that I'd been pretty much toying around with. It was a nice idea and something that I thought I'd eventually like to do more with, but I didn't necessarily feel like the timing was very practical for me to be able to pursue it more. In the dream, the "house" was representative of myself. I'm running around in my own skin, like a chicken with its head cut off and I'm trying to protect this tiny little baby that has been entrusted into my care. The little baby, in this case, was my "small project" that I'd been toying around with. The dream, despite being incredibly frightening to me at first, was actually a message for me to get ready and be prepared. Something incredibly huge was getting ready to happen with this "small little project" and when it did (and I mean when it arrived right on my front doorstep), I needed to just relax, lay down into it, and trust that everything was going to work out perfectly ok.

Scary? You betcha!

Is it still scary now that I know what it was trying to tell me? I'm not going to lie, it's a bit unsettling at times when I focus on just the tornado. It's the biggest whopper of a whirlwind that I could ever have imagined and when you think even for a second that it may just swallow you whole, that's definitely some scary stuff! Yet for the first time in my life, I got the message loud and clear that this particular project is not something that I, alone, am able to control because in essence it's naturally larger than myself. But, I am also left with an incredibly powerful and ultimately surreal feeling. If I put my everything into it and just lay down and go with the flow, things will be fine.

While a nightmare may not necessarily be our first choice as the easiest or best means of communication, it is indeed a message that is uniquely individual in nature. The mind is a powerful locked mystery and nightmares are wonderful opportunities to glimpse through the keyhole if we approach them with an open mind and a desire to understand. Whether the nightmare is something we are running away from or something that we might be scared to embrace, this form of communication does tend to grab our attention in a lasting impression sort of way. If it's got your attention, than you can guarantee that there is indeed a reason. If the nightmare or dream is recurring, than it's a safe assumption that the issue is an important one for your personal growth, yet you're somehow not getting the message.

If you're standing in a crowded room, how do you get another person's attention if that person is standing on the opposite side of the room away from you? Well, you could try to make eye contact, which may or may not work. You might politely guessture or wave, which someone else could misinterpret to be you waving to them. Then, when you'd tried everything you could think of, you might try shouting the person's name or even yelling. Nightmares are sort of like that as sometimes the only way to get through all the crowded thoughts wandering around in our heads is to sound the alarm.

If the nightmare is recurring, chances are you already have a good idea what the dream is about. Record these details in a Dream Journal and then examine some of the major themes, objects, or places in the context of the dream. Keep in mind that dream imagery is more symbolic in nature and less literal. The symbols also tend to be something that you personally can relate to or something that is of greater significance to you than to someone else.

In my dream, the baby image was very significant to me because I also have two small children. When I began to try and figure out the message, I first had to move beyond the fact that I initially felt more afraid because I thought the baby was literally my own child. However, I knew intuitively this wasn't the case as in the nightmare the baby was much much smaller than my own children. Yet, my maternal instinct was still there first and foremost. It took me some time to realize that I had indeed referred to this "small project" previously to a friend as a "baby idea." Then, things started to make a little more sense to me.

A Guide book about Dream Symbols can also be a handy reference tool. I have a couple, though admittedly, I seldomly refer back to them. I have always loved jigsaw puzzles and I never look at the picture on the box. Figuring things out on my own is just more fun! Yet, for those who hate puzzles, a Dream Symbols book can be helpful. However, do consider that to be just a guide and not the carved in stone truth for every single person in every single dream and nightmare. For a more well-rounded perspective you might try having two or three reference books just for comparison purposes.

Another great thing about a Dream Journal is that over time you will be able to discern some patterns among the symbols in your own dreams. The more familiarity you have with yourself, the easier your own personal dream interpretations will be.

If the nightmare comes back, you should now be better prepared about how to consider its message and put it in context. So, go get some rest! But in the meantime, if you ever need some help feel free to give me a shout! Dream Interpretation has been a lifelong personal interest and sort of a hobby of mine since I first learned about Jung, Freud, and archetypes in middle school. Friends and strangers alike have said I have a knack at finding the parallels between the conscious and the subconscious. If you're losing sleep over something and you can't figure it out on your own, there's absolutely nothing wrong with asking someone to help you figure it out.