Dreams
DREAMS. The category of dreams designates both sleeping and imaginal states of consciousness together with waking descriptions and other representations of these states. Sleeping consciousness includes healing dreams, prophetic dreams, archetypal dreams, nightmares, and lucid dreams. Imaginal consciousness includes guided fantasies known as waking dreams, omens, and visions.
Dreaming is both a sleeping and a waking experience that is activated whenever energy flows inward toward the spiritual and intellectual senses rather than outward toward the worldly and perceptual senses. When one falls into a trance or falls asleep, the worldly senses vanish inside, the everyday mind stops functioning, and one is sleeping. After a period of nothingness, the mind begins to function again, and dreaming begins. As this happens one slowly moves from private sensations, personal memories, images, and symbols to transpersonal imagining as an interactive social process.
The Cross-Cultural Study of Dreams
From the earliest times sleeping dreams and waking visions have been of considerable interest to humankind. Dream narratives have also been examined to learn how members of different cultures categorize and use their dreams. Some researchers have shown both the tactical use of dreams in social interaction and the cultural influences on dream content. Others have chosen not to focus their attention on dream narratives or social context but rather to use dreams to investigate psychological issues, such as personality and values.
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