How to Incubate a Dream
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Dream incubation is a method of accessing deeper levels of consciousness by asking for a question to be answered, a sign to be given, or a spirit to be contacted while you are asleep and dreaming.
Basically you are asking to have a dream, the nature of which depends a lot on the nature of your specific concern.
Dream incubation might sound a bit strange or mystical but it isn’t unusual, rare, or new. The Old Testament of the Bible contains many references to dream interpretation and to signs and answers provided by dreams.
The first book written and published by the famous Victorian psychologist Sigmund Freud was entitled, The Interpretation of Dreams.
Freud was interested in neurology and planned a career in neuroscience until the University of Vienna excluded him because of his religion. (Freud was a Jew, and at that time the university excluded Jews, no matter how brilliant they were.)
Freud chose a topic near to the one he really wanted to study, and in doing so ended up founding a new discipline. He is often called "the father of modern psychology."
Many other famous scientists and thinkers, including 20th century mathematician Albert Einstein, have noted that elusive answers to complex problems frequently come to them very suddenly in dreams. Einstein famously said that he valued creativity over intellect, noting the important role his dreams and intuitive flashes played in his work.
Asking for an answer to a vexing question in a dream is not at all unusual, and it can be surprisingly effective. It’s a little bit like when you forget where you left your keys, but no matter how hard you try to remember they just seem to get more lost. The minute you quit looking for them, boom! Their exact location pops into your head and you can’t even believe you lost them!
Incubating a dream is a little like that. You ask for the solution to a complex problem in your life that you can’t seem to solve while awake.
Usually you will get an answer, maybe not the first night, maybe not the seventh, but eventually, a dream will come.
When it does, you might be surprised at what you find.
A Personal Example
Dream incubation is especially helpful when it comes to finding the answers to ‘big’ questions about spirituality, life path, vocation, loved ones, and/or personal problems that seem to persist no matter what you do.
For example, since leaving my job in the financial sector in October of 2008, a question that has bothered me a lot in varying degrees is, “Now what?”
For several weeks I worked on incubating a dream that would give me a good answer, or at least a new direction.
When you lose a job that has absorbed lots of your energy for years and years, the process that follows can feel a lot like the stages of grief.
At first I felt stunned to be unemployed at this age, but also relieved to be out of a toxic work environment. For several weeks I didn’t really care what happened next for me, so long as it didn’t involve a headset, a cubicle, a corporation, or a weekly evaluation by a drone supervisor.
To say I was burned out is the understatement of the century. For weeks I walked the dog a lot and wrote tons of articles about how the financial industry is run by evil, greedy jerks. It was good to get all that anger out of my system, and I had plenty of it to get out. (Plus, the financial industry really is run by evil, greedy jerks…but that’s another article.)
Then, once that feeling of relief subsided and I had gotten some much-needed rest and written out the last drop of my pent up rage, I slowly began to feel restless and even depressed. Things looked bad. The job market looked bad. I looked bad. It was hard to summon a positive thought on any subject.
Those feelings gave way to a sense of panic and sporadic attempts to plug something new into the vacuum left by the toxic job. Anything. Maybe I could go back to school (again???), or maybe I could go into the medical field (at 56? How many new medical workers can Michigan really absorb?)
I moved through denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and finally, acceptance. My job was gone. Another like it wasn’t likely to pop up in this economy and I didn’t want another one like it anyway. I was kind of old to be starting a nursing career and I faint at the sight of blood so probably not a good backup anyhow.
Finally I accepted my situation for what it is. Over. I asked every night before bed for a dream that would show me what work I needed to finish before I die.
That was my dream question: “Now what?
The Answer
Often when you try to incubate a dream, the answer doesn’t appear instantly. People can go weeks waking up each morning with no memory of a dream at all, much less an answer to whatever question they were asking.
When a dream does come, it often comes in symbolic language or story form. You have to do some deciphering to get to the meaning. You might get only a partial answer, or a strange answer that seems to be the answer to an entirely different question.
Whatever you get, write it down and keep your mind open. Even if the dream doesn’t make immediate sense, there is a good chance that something will click later that will knock you over.
After weeks of asking, “What next?” and “What work is my work?” I had the following dream:
I am in need of a job, and I find myself in a busy restaurant where I recognize one of the head waitresses is a young woman I lived with while I was in college many years ago.
This young woman worked as a cocktail waitress back in those days, and I’m shocked to see that she still waits tables, this time at a busy high-end restaurant. She looks as young and vibrant as when she was in her 20s, and to my surprise she not only remembers me, she gives me a job with barely so much as a word.
I realize that although she is in service to people much wealthier than herself, her position is one of strength, power, and great honor. She is important in a quiet but very powerful way. It is not that the people she serves are less important or less valuable than she is, but rather that being in a service position for many years is a great honor in itself and confers much in the way of influence and respect upon the server.
It is clear to me that this woman was able to give me a job because of the great respect the staff and patrons feel for her. Her position is solid as a rock and she does everything easily, gracefully, and with a quiet dignity.
I, on the other hand, am a bit of a nitwit. I repeatedly oversleep, forget I have the job, show up late and drop things, and so forth. I am assured of keeping the position, and she is patient and unbothered but other people who work there are annoyed with me for being such a ditz. I realize I have got to get it together, focus, and just to what’s in front of me.
No sooner do I make this resolution than the dream shifts and I have been given an important task, but it is one that alarms and frightens me. I am charged with cutting the frozen limbs off certain patrons who wait in line, desperate for this service.
Mostly it is their lower legs and feet that I am charged with sawing off, but sometimes it is their hands. These body parts are literally frozen solid. They cannot feel anything in them.
They know that when I cut them off they will feel pain, but they want this pain. They want it badly. They want to feel something, even if it is pain. They are actually waiting in line in the restaurant for this service.
I save the limbs and they are carefully stored and cared for someplace else. I don’t know what is going to happen to them but I get the sense they are not to be discarded but rather restored and eventually returned. I think that this is a weird job but it is the job I have been given, and I have to just do it.
Weird dream, huh?
So how does this dream answer my question? I’m supposed to go be a waitress and saw people’s legs off? Isn’t that kind of gruesome?
I think the dream was telling me two things:
1. Service is an honor. To care for others even in the most mundane way and to do this for many years is a privilege. Although in this world service is often degraded, in a higher sense, service is an honorable calling. In a server/served relationship it is the server who holds the greater power and the greater responsibility. The mundane caretaking I do matters.
2. Part of my work involves helping people to feel again. This work is hard and sometimes distasteful to me but it is as much a service as waiting tables or washing dishes. If it is put in front of me to do, that is what I should do. It doesn’t need to make sense. I don’t need to see the whole picture to do the work.
So there you have it.
Honestly, you do have to have a taste for this sort of thing and I do. I find dreams fascinating, and could write a book on odd dream phenomena.
Have you had a weird dream or gotten an answer to a question in a dream?
Feel free to tell the story in comments if you feel so inclined.
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Comments
I have short OOB's but I haven't posed a question directly so I haven't received an answer to something in particular. Lots of dreams about space ships, being on other planets or worlds, wars in space with missiles, even 'saw' the bombing of Atlantis by two really incredible looking ships which dropped two silent , blinding bombs. Hubby gets answers to help handle situations - even rebuilt a carburetor. He made noises, LOUD noises, at 3 am as he 'tested' the vehicle - sounded like a race car shifting gears. Annoying, but cute.
Excellent hub, as always, pgrundy! When I first read my email alert, I didn't have on my reading glasses (cursed over 40 eyesight!) and I thought your hub was entitled "Lubricating Your Dream" which sounded pretty interesting too. :) Then I realized there weren't enough letters for lubricating and decided to pop on over and read it anyway.
Incubating your dreams are a fantastic way to get the much needed answers to things that seem to elude us. I do it regularly.
One particular time, I remember tearing the house apart for weeks trying to find a remote control to the TV. I had asked for the information before going to sleep one night. A day or two later I had a dream where I saw a specific corner of a specific piece of furniture in my living room. When I woke up, I went straight to that piece of furniture turned it over, pulled back the material that was fastened there, reached in and retrieved the remote. It was the freakiest thing ever. I would never have known to look there without that dream. When I went through the motions there was no doubt in my mind it would be there.
WOW. I am totally worn out reading your fantastic HUB.
When you described your dream I kept reading faster and faster. I lost my place several times. I had to stop and take a deep breath. My head began spinning. I felt nauseous. My God are they making Solient Green with those limbs!!!!
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am glad you found your answer, and thank you for your HUB.
I have some really weird dreams. I guess everyone does. I used to have a friend who said he had a dream one time that he was fishing over a fence and caught a cow. We all thought that was so hilarious.
I love this hub!
Ever since I was in high school I've had a special category of dreams. "Plotty" dreams happen where I'm not myself. I could be anyone -- male, female, young, old, any race or nationality, sometimes alien or an elf or something. What they all have in common is this.
If I dream that I'm not myself, then I'm having a WONDERFUL nightmare!
It will have conflict. It will have adventure. It will happen to a fascinating person and I'll experience the dream from the point of view character's point of view for that opening scene for a novel.
The entire opener of Raven Dance in its roughest draft was a series of dreams I had in high school. I was a vampire in one dream, then in a later one dreamed I was a werewolf meeting the vampire. All the dream sequences were clear fragments of the first few chapters and knitted together perfectly.
A friend of mine, when I was telling her the dreams said "It sounds like you're writing a novel. You should write all these down and do the novel!"
Thus began the notebook with the dreams, then the first rough throwaway manuscripts. The ideas didn't leave and I never forgot the dreams because I retold them enough times. Eventually I had a good draft and edited it and the book is now available in print.
Since then if I ever dream I'm not me, I know it's something I need to write. Another good book being piped up from the skunk works in my unconscious.
If I dream that I'm me in some weird situation it's probably symbolic and relates to my life, not as content for writing. Those tend to be more surreal and much less coherent as stories. They'll have more dreamish juxtapositions, not a clear backstory consistent through all the repeated later episodes of a plotty dream sequence.
If I snag it at the first dream and write the book, then it doesn't continue. If I don't, the plotty dreams will continue until I get hooked and write it. There are some earlier repeated dreams that I had as a kid that I think may be good material for a novel when I get around to writing it-- they keep coming back to me.
So that's what I do in my sleep, it's a lot like that. I can think of ideas when I'm awake too but if I'm not paying attention to my writing, it will come knock on my head while I'm sleeping till I do!
I was reading with wide eyes,as I wanted to get to the part where you recieved your answer, was truly curious. LOL! I love this stuff, and even more when I read of the guidance received. If I remember correctly, don't you have a degree in psychology? Helping people to feel again, is sage advice, coming from a higher part of yourself.
Years ago, I asked over and over again, what should I do with my job in banking, should I leave or stay, and woke up hearing a voice, telling me "do what you love, if your heart and mind agrees, you will find happiness". At the time my level of spiritual awareness was not where it is today, so I didn't understand the answer in a practical way.
I am going to give the dream incubation another try. Thanks for writing this and the reminder!
I had never heard of dream incubation before reading it in this hub. I know I've experienced it and lately more than ever. I guess it also must work on a subconscious level- without you even realizing you are looking for an answer. Great topic. Thanks.
Awesome hub,.. I have always been fasinated with dreams, I have had unusually dreams since I was 4, most of them take place in the 1700's - 1800's. I do beleive that dreams have a way of guiding us in real life.
PGrundy - Nothing short of awesome! Although I didn't have a name for it, I have been practicing dream incubation for many years. In fact, it was very helpful to me while I was working out the theoretical and measurement issues in my dissertation! Talk about some weird dreams and flashes of insight! Great topic, and thanks for sharing.
Wonderful Hub. Throughout my life I have had many major dreams, and sometimes they scare me. Example, I dreamt about buildings collapsing two days before 9/11, and many others. Whenever I dream in color, I write down what I can remember, and often get frightened at the outcome. Thank you for sharing.
Wow, Pam. This was amazing! That was quite a dream you had. I loved how you approached the dream and analyzed it yourself in a very productive manner.
I had one dream years ago in which I was a kid again and was playing around my block with the rest of the kids. This one bully was crouched over this one boy--I don't remember either boy's name for the life of me. What happened was that the boy had fell off his bike and his head had cracked open like a coconut, revealing his brains. The bully was molesting the boy's brains with his fingers and playing with the gray matter. I remember talking, actually, screaming at the bully to stop, but he continued on. I hated that bully and always will. It took me about a week to figure out what was going on: Much like your interpretation, I had to help others. At the time, I wasn't very empathetic towards others and so had to remedy that.
Thanks, Pam.
There was a time when I wrote a lot of poetry and I would wake up with lines, having dreamt in words. "Fishing for bird calls", and such.
Later, when I was studying Russian, I'd study before bed and it helped me to remember. I read something once about introverts processing short term memories in their sleep - that's why we often understand things better the next day than on the day we learned it. But, I'm digressing.
I've been feeling a bit lost lately, myself. I went back to school in my 30's because I thought it would help me provide a better life for myself and my kids. Now, I'm out and can't even find a job. Is the universe trying to tell me something? Tonight I will lie down (with intent) and listen.
Thanks.
Wonderful hub. I will have to try this as I usually don't remember my dreams at all when I wake up.
Another good hub, pgrundy. I like your hubs so much. Thank you.
I had a dream just the other day, and it was a weird one. I dreamed I was back in college, and lost. Completely lost, wandering around different huge buildings. It was night, and in the dormitories, people were in their nightwear. I found myself in a classroom with an ecomonics teacher that I liked a lot when I was in school. He was teaching abstract math, for some reason, and I looked at all the arcane math symbols in the formulas on the board, and I was so frightened to find I didn't have a clue what the symbols meant, even though at one time I studied math in college.
I wandered away from the school, and there were two roads going into the misty night. I couldn't find my car. But I knew when I did, I would have to choose one of those roads, though they were identical and deserted.
It was a strange, disorienting and disturbing dream, and it stayed with me for some time after I woke up. I have no idea what it means.
I'm somewhat familiar with the idea of dream incubation, though I haven't read anything about it since I was in my teens. I think I'll find out more about it, after reading your great hub, (and after having this strange dream).
Hi everyone. Thank you for all your great comments and for sharing your dreams here.
GandalftheGray--Thanks for the vote of confidence.
Cathy--I lOVE alien stuff. I could picture everything you described there--You should write it all up!
KCC--Sometimes if I can't find something, I will stop and mentally 'ssk'--like, "Where is it?" as if someone could really answer me, and 9 times out of 10 the answer will pop into my head. It's very weird.
advisor4b--Catching a cow, wow. You know, cows are pretty cool, but every time I see one, as a city girl, I'm shocked all over again at how BIG they are. Cows are very LARGE critters.
Robert--That is so cool that you dream your novels. I'm sure many novelists would envy you that. I've come up with short stories in a dream, and novels I wanted to write, but never actually finished a novel. I'm still on for NaNoWriMo though! Got an outline and almost a chapter.
Violet Sun--Thanks! I took the helping people feel again that way too, but it's still hard to decipher. I don't know what I can do that actually accomplishes such a thing. It's weird too how gruesome and bizarre the imagery was. Thanks for your always excellent insights!
Belly Up--Thanks for taking the time to read this and comment! Much appreciated. :)
Army Infantry Mom--That's really fascinating that so many of your dreams are from that specific time period. I wonder if you are remembering an actual past life, or if there is just something about that era that resonates with you, that has something you need? Thanks for sharing.
jiberish--Wow, that must be scary, to have a prophetic dream of something horrible and not be able to do anything about it but know it may really happen. Shades of Cassandra!
dohn--That does sound similar to my dream with all the gore and everything. I think for me it was kind of like, "quit looking for some big career and worrying about yourself Pam, pull yer head outta yer butt, and do what is in front of you! But the sawed off legs was weird. As I've let it settle I know I get irritated with unfeeling people and my tendency is to turn away, but perhaps I have the ability to get to the feeling parts more than I realize, which is why I find them in front of me so often (in the dream they were standing in line to have their legs sawed off). It's hard to imagine YOU as an uncaring person dohn, but I know we all feel that way sometimes. I sure do!
Greta--That's lovely, waking up with poetry lines in your head. What a beautiful thing.
Thanks Red Sonja! Try it. It may take awhile, but eventually you will get a hit. :)
Paradise7--The school dream is a very common anxiety dream that many people have when they are feeling unsure of themselves or of their performance in some area. I have them periodically--In mine, I'm always suddenly in high school again in class, naked, but no one notices--I don't know how I got there, don't understand the class, don't understand anything. Your dream at the end about the two roads is interesting though--as if there is some decision you are putting off by staying in a situation that makes you uncomfortable. I'd save that and see if it 'clicks' after a bit! Cool dream! Thanks for sharing it. :)
Wow Pam that was a great read and very enlightening.
Hi Pam - Great Hub! It's wonderful that you had an example to put in your hub - it makes it more real. I've also been using dream incubation for years and can say that "Yes, it really works!" When we let go and trust our inner selves the solutions we create will always be the best ones for us. I also wrote a hub on dream incubation a while back.
Thanks Scott.Life--More fun than politics, that's for sure! I've been less and less interested in the news lately, and spending more time reading about stuff I actually like. :)
Susana S--Thanks! It does work really well usually. It's so easy to over-think everything (for me it is!) and dreams can be such a good way around that.
Pam, this is a wonderful hub and not at all weird. We spend so much of our lives asleep and so much goes on in our minds when we dream, it seems silly to ignore the dream world. Your suggestion of dream incubation seems like a wonderful way to search out a path or resolve a problem, kind of like the wise men of ancient times. My only problem is remembering the darn things.
Great Hub Pam.. I enjoy this stuff too and have interpreted many dreams as well. I especially love answers to my problems or when I find things in odd places through a dream (just as KCC Big Country mentioned).
I thought I would take a crack at yours, Pam, and Paradise's since I got a slightly different interpretation:
Pam, you mentioned the medical field.. I thought (before reading your own interpretation) maybe you ought to look into a service that's in a not-so-high-profile but deeply needed area was forensic science (doing autopsy work where you help to answer many people's agonizing questions about their loved one's died) or another area of forensics such as forensic psychology... Also, it's likely that your friend may end up helping you in your new line of work (whatever it ends up being).
Paradise, it sounds to me like you have a difficult decision to make and you have some anxiety over it.
Dolores--Thanks! It is hard to remember the darn things! I find though that if I start to write them down in a dream journal, it isn't long before I remember them more easily. I don't always do it though!
kaloomba--Wow, interest that you should bring up forensics. I actually have been leaning towards something kinda similar--thanks! Also, I think your interpretation of Paradise's dream is good too--I also got that sense--that she is avoiding a difficult decision and it is causing anxiety in her current life. Not avoiding in a bad way--I mean, if it was easy the decision would be made!
Pam, I'd been asking that "Now what" question for years. I think I found it but I wish I'd used your method earlier.
Hi Jewels! It works eventually but sometimes it does seem to take forever, and then you get these weird dreams sometimes in answer (OK, usually, not sometimes). It would be cool to have a dream interpretation thread somewhere--maybe at Eye on Life? I'd like to be able to go somewhere where we could all pick out dreams apart. :)
Hi! Great hub, as usual! I have had lots of dreams in my life, and I remember many of them. I've had the ones where I was either in underwear or missing things I really needed for whatever task I had to do. Many times, I've had dreams where I was trying to get someplace and would encounter obstacles all along the way. Once, I dreamt I was driving and trying to get home throuhg streets that normally I was very familiar with, but the streets kept getting narrower and narrower, until I was in an alley at a dead end. In the dream, I was really confused and wondering how I'd gotten to where I was!
Also, as a kid, I'd had my share of nightmares, so, I learned how to determine if a dream is going to turn that way, and, sometimes, while dreaming, I've managed to either make the dream turn away from being a nightmare, or have woken myself up before the really scary part comes. It doesn't always work, but it has worked for me on occasion.
Another time, I had a dream within a dream. I'd gone to Las Vegas and had some sort of adventure, then "woke up" in the 'main dream" and told someone else who was in the room about the Las Vegas dream. Then I woke up for real!
I do find dreams to be very interesting and do know that they can sometimes give us real useful information.
I understand that the first middle east oil fields were discovered by an American who dreamt about them, then helped to find them in the 1930's.
Again, Great hub!
Hi myway! I've had those kinds of dreams too--especially the one about having difficulty getting somewhere. I've also had that experience of waking up in a dream and then waking up for real. Wow, that one feels REALLY weird! Interesting about the oil field discovery. Thanks for sharing!
I love your article,I gained insight about dreams because my dreams are usually of spiritual or unusaually creative in nature. I had a dream which was the inspiration for novel I have been working now (House Of Terror).Thank you for giving ways using my dreams to solve personal issues. I also dreams can boast creativity for writng and painting
Queendenise35
I had never heard of dream incubation before but it sounds interesting enough to research first. My nights are often full of weird dreams. No questions just weirdness. Could be my medication. I tend to write them down just in case it's the next great american novel. ;)
I love picking dreams apart. I get the prophetic type personally and they are rare, but I'm left in no uncertain terms that I'm to see it and understand it. Hindsight is an amazing thing, cause whilst it may be a warning, it's not until after the unfolding of events that I get the meaning - bit slow on the uptake perhaps. But I love picking apart dreams - top down/bottom up. We shall skype or eyeonlife it anytime.
Pam, as ever, well done. Perhaps you've given more people than you know (as in, more people than have commented) a way to access this powerful insight into what makes them tick.
Metaphor, simile...dreams present these things and beg us to find the meaning. The meaning is always there; it requires, only, discovery.
Incubating a dream is a conscious act, the end result being realized only by a giving up of the conscious that started the process.
Brilliant.
Thanks Sally's Trove! There was a really fascinating article in the NYT today about a secret book by Carl Jung that, after being locked away for decades in a Swiss bank vault, will be published next year. Should be fascinating! Here's the link:
In my 62 years I have had only very hazy and fragmented recollections of perhaps a dozen dreams.
I know everyone dreams every night. I just don't remember any of them.
Hi CWB--I think lots of people have trouble remembering dreams. I remember them some nights quite vividly and then others, not so much. Thanks for stopping by.
The Javanese people in Indonesia believe that dreams may be a sign from God. But only dreams that happened in the last one third of the night. If it happened in the 1st on-third of the night, it has no meaning.
BBudoyono--Interesting! I've read that there are actually different depths of sleep and dreaming too. Scientists have found that most dreams do occur in the hour or so just before waking. Thanks for the info!
Pam, that link to the story about Jung's Red Book is great. I would not have known about it so soon if it were not for your posting it here, as I am not an academic Jungian, although I may be a spiritual or philosophical one. Hope you will do a review of it on HP (or elsewhere) once it's published. Don't suppose they'll publish it to kindle. ;)
Hi Sally's Trove--Yes I'm looking forward to reading it! I didn't know about it either. :)
Fascinating HUB..I've been working with and drawn to dreams for many years. Loved your insight...Thanks
Your 1st dream was about you nurturing yourself emotionally. Food, caregiver, and position over you, is actually you. 2nd dream, your subconscious was aware of a threat and it is fighting itself to be all okay. Saying my fears will not take over me. Limbs are about activity. We learn nothing different when we sleep. We can predict when awake too. It's just a different style of communication, and we know it in our waking life to, we just don't use it a lot. Sometimes coincidences occur and we think a spirit has shown us the future. No, sorry. An accumulation of data leads to all types of research, and conclusion, and our brain is a machine, like a calculator etc
gandalfthegrey says:
2 months ago
Wonderful and topical. We of troubled dreams have gained some insight. Kudos. Release all that pent-up anger and emotion, you have an audience and "like minded fellow travellers."
Randy