Dream Big, Live Bigger: Night Visions as Guides for Growth
Dec 31, 2024 ● By Theresa Cheung
Photo credit by leszekglasner for Adobe Stock
Dreams are symbolic, not literal messages from your higher self, reminding you that you are loved. If your dreams are more anxiety related, it may be because you don’t believe in the existence of your higher self.
You can ask your dreaming mind to send you a dream that reveals roadblocks to this belief. This is empowering, and the ideal question to begin with because in our waking hours, we are often our own worst enemy. We often don’t realize that it’s not other people or circumstances limiting us, but rather ourselves.
What you think and feel tends to attract similar experiences into your life. These thoughts and feelings often stem from how you were taught to think and feel by others—parents, carers, siblings and teachers. These mindsets are not your own, but they become ingrained.
Some beliefs are positive, but even positive ones can become outdated. If you’ve ever said, “That’s the way I am,” you’re really saying, “This is how I believe I am.” Your dreaming mind wants to show you that whatever you believe about yourself doesn’t have to be written in stone, because what you believe about yourself at any moment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will also show you that saying, “That’s just the way I am,” is a recipe for unhappiness, as it limits the opportunity for change. Life is change, and limiting change paralyzes you both in your dreams and in waking life.
Night after night, your dreaming mind is doing all it can to show you that you don’t have to continue thinking or behaving in a certain way. It wants to remind you that what you choose to think and feel about yourself is what tends to come true.
Changing your thought patterns can heal your life. The problem is most of us aren’t aware of these patterns, and that’s where dreamwork comes in. Dreams can spotlight draining feelings of unworthiness or fear and show the limitations they place upon you.
The wonderful thing is that dreams also remind you that, while your thoughts are powerful, you are the creator of them—and infinitely more powerful. Every morning when you wake up, you can change that inner narrative. Every moment is a new beginning. You don’t even have to wait until your next dream. You can start right here, right now, in this present moment.
Dream Direction
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Pause for a minute and analyze how you are currently thinking about yourself. If it isn’t making you feel good, why are you choosing it? If you ate something once and it made you feel sick, you wouldn’t choose to eat it again. Do the same with your thoughts. Catch and course correct them as often as possible and notice how your dreams begin to mirror that shift. Dreams that feel more energizing and creative are a sure sign that your personal and spiritual growth is heading in the right direction.
Don’t panic if your dreams aren’t there yet. They will come when you are ready. You can’t plant a seed and expect it to grow overnight. Be patient and trusting with yourself. The more you focus on what you want in your waking life, the more you’ll forgive yourself, release limiting beliefs and feel empowered from the inside out. Keep experimenting in your waking life, dreaming big, and don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes.
Remember, mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow. Whenever you feel broken or empty, it’s a sign you’re about to grow. Sometimes, growth hurts. You are about to emerge from the darkness, spiral rather than loop, and see yourself and your life from a higher perspective. Hang in there.
Your dreams are forever guiding you to a place where you love yourself enough to look into your own eyes—the windows to your soul—in a mirror and tell yourself you are enough—and believe it. In some ways, dreaming is looking deep into your own eyes every single night. The experience can feel unsettling and electrifying at the same time.
Always keep that sacred respect for your dreams, whatever they reveal to you from the inside out. When you respect and fall in love with decoding your dreams, you are respecting and falling in love with yourself.
The Eyes Have It
Why not find a mirror or camera now and take a moment to stare deeply into your own eyes? Notice how this makes you feel from the inside out. Notice what thoughts come to mind. Looking into your own eyes is perhaps the place where all your dream decoding should begin.
Before you start brainstorming the meaning of any dream, take a moment to look into your own eyes for the love and vision you need to decode the symbolic wisdom of your dreams and find your own answers.
Theresa Cheung is a Sunday Times bestselling author and dream decoder with a degree from Kings College, Cambridge. She has written numerous books, including her upcoming title, The Dream Cure: How Recalling Your Dreams Can Heal Your Life, which will be released on January 8 by Llewellyn Publications. For more information or to purchase the book, visit TheresaCheung.com