Yes. Research over the last four decades has shown that every human being has regular periods throughout the night during which dreaming takes place. This the most common FAQ on dreams.

Another common FAQ on dreams. Dream recall differs from person to person. Research indicates that some people recall their dreams very vividly, and others only occasionally.  Some others believe that they are non-dreamers. Generally speaking, most dreams are forgotten unless they are written down. Sometimes a fragment of a dream is suddenly remembered later in the day or even days later. This suggests that the memory is triggered by an incident in the waking state  but for some reason very difficult to retrieve. Sleep and dreams are also affected by fatigue, drugs, medication and alcohol.

This FAQ can be answered as given below:

• Dream is a memory of a series of images occurring involuntarily in the mind during rapid eye – movement (REM) stage of sleep.
• It can be loosely referred to as a daydream to mean a fantasy or reverie.
• A state of abstraction or trance.
• A wild fantasy or wish.
• An aspiration or ambition or a state of achievement that is longed for e.g. a dream of becoming a film /rock star.
• Exceptionally gratifying/fulfilling object e.g. my sports car runs like a dream.

A very common FAQ that comes up in every session. Most dreams are in colour because colour is a natural part of our visual experience. However, there are people who report dreaming in black and white. Everything in dreams including color is significant for deriving meaning.

A recurring dream is spurred by incidents, thoughts and feelings. Recurring dreams   remind the dreamer of an unresolved issue of the past. Understanding such dreams can sometimes help resolve an issue the dreamer has been struggling  for sometime. I have discussed  more on this in the chapter, “We Shape Our Dreams & Our Dreams Shape Us” in my book.

Many people often get confused between the two, so this FAQ. Nightmares are caused by stress, traumatic experiences, emotional difficulties, illness, drugs or medication. They are quite common among children and also adults. A frequent occurrence of a dream would be a recurring dream. But with a nightmare no such pattern of frequency is associated.

It is true that a dream experience is inherently subjective, a personal viewpoint and a personal perspective. What is important to remember here is that dream is an  experience that makes sense from a certain perspective. For example, research has established the effectiveness of painkillers in spite of the fact that pain is a personal, subjective perspective.

Hence, it can be stated that privately experienced things can be made public. This is possible  to the extent that they are a part of our shared reality.

Much of subjective experience does not appear to fit into the accepted scientific viewpoint. There is a common belief that science describes reality on the basis of the data received only from the senses, i.e, from experiences of the physical world. Science does not take into account the broad spectrum of inner realities that are intangible. This includes the  vast range of experiences of conscious awareness, intentionality, memory, volition, aesthetic sense, which describe the other aspects of reality. Dreamworking teaches us  that we need to acknowledge the existence of multiple interpretations of reality.

Is working on dreams an exhaustive process or something that can be managed with our work schedule ?

Studies have shown that dreams are not only psychologically meaningful but even physiologically so. It is on account of their physiological importance that each one of us dreams every night, irrespective of recall. Actually, when we sleep our brains continue to function, like computers during off-line processing. They ‘tidy’ up memory, merge new experiences with the old, discard outdated information, relabel and integrate files. In short, while we sleep the brain just switches from the verbal to the visual. Dreams continue the work begun during waking life, although we are unaware of this. For instance, it is a common experience that when we sleep on a problem it gets sorted out. When we awaken the next morning the solution is clear to us. All that we do through dreamwork is create an awareness of this fact. We explore ways and means of harnessing the innate problem-solving function of our sleeping mind.

Dreams have for long remained shrouded in mystery. They have been associated with parapsychology, the occult and the supernatural. Until Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams there had been no truly scientific approach to the understanding of dreams. However, the discovery of the cyclic nature of sleep in 1952 exploded many long-held myths about dreams and also replaced fantasy with fact.

 

As a result, ‘dreaming’ as a subject has come within the purview of scientific study, which has demystified dreams. Contemporary dreamwork has established that a dream is the product of a dreamer’s thoughts, feelings and experiences .  A dream is a  resource to be harnessed, not ignored or be frightened of.

What can often cause discomfort is the fact that dreams hold a mirror in front of us and what we see reflected  might not be very flattering. It can force us to take a harder look at ourselves and face up to the fact that we have anxieties.  These are pent up  hostilities that we do not want to accept, even to ourselves. It can leave us feeling that we were better off without this new piece of information. This has been a classical attitude whenever anything new is incorporated in the already existing body of knowledge. Dreams often also reveal the hidden talents, unused creative potential and ideas we never credited ourselves with.

This can be best answered by a story. A human factors’ expert was once asked: ‘How do you build a frog? Do you study the croak, the famous “leap” or the hyperbolic eyes?’ ‘No’, the expert said, ‘you study the pond.’ The environment or the pond will give a clue to the frog you have been asked to build.

So is the case with dreams. A dream is an environment where an actually lived life really unfolds. Future managers are expected to excel in an environment which is continually being shaped and reshaped by change. This change alters not only the essence of business but also the nature of the skills necessary to govern it.

If this analogy is applied to organizational systems, then it is the environment that encourages people to explore new ideas and take meaningful risks. Hence, the most successful innovation systems are environments, where curiosity is as much valued as any other technical skill.

My study with managers from diverse business sectors  indicates that dreamwork can be imparted as a training in executives’ education.  It provides an opportunity for learning new skills and enhancing creative potential.

The only learning that significantly influences behaviour is self-discovered learning. Dreamwork provides a chance for such learning that leads to the development of greater flexibility, adaptability and a broader behavioural repertoire. This further enables managers to function in a variety of situations.