Dream Thinking

Do you remember your last dream? Was it a beautiful dream or a frightening one? Did it come true.

You probably know that sudden waking from a nightmare as well. Drenched in sweat, the heartbeat racing somewhere far too high, that feeling as if you had just lived through the dream, even though you are already awake. The body reacts as if everything had truly happened. Our inner protection system does not distinguish between image and event. It adapts bodily reactions to the images we have received. Just as tears can start flowing when a scene in a film touches us deeply, the same can happen during sleep. And it happens in everyday life as well. Fears, worries, negative thought spirals work like a dream that keeps replaying itself over and over. An inner film that does not let go.

I was about five years old when, after a long period, I was finally able to sit again in the leg cast. I barely wanted to lie down to sleep back then. The fear was too great that after waking up I would once again be unable to sit or stand. The nightmare I had at that time was always the same and is still as present today as it was then. I was a captive princess in a castle. I was only allowed to lie on a mat on the floor and not move. Around me were wooden figures like marionettes, with evil faces and clubs in their hands. Every time I moved, one of the figures struck me with a club. At first I tried to resist falling asleep. I kept my eyes fixed on a poster with cute puppies, and yet I fell back into that dream.

I began to fight back. I chopped off the figures’ arms or tore off other body parts, but from every part a new figure immediately grew back. I was at the mercy of this dream. Until the moment a thought appeared. I am the princess. I hold the authority here. In that moment I experienced what is called lucid dreaming. I knew that I was dreaming and was still able to act. I stood up and threw the figures out of the castle. I fired them. That inner laughter, that sense of liberation, has woken me up more than once.

Lucid dreaming often brings exactly that—you wake up. I later used this ability in many other dreams as well. Today I look at my dreams with curiosity. Like new stories I do not yet know. I usually still know that I am dreaming, but I hardly ever intervene. Only when a dream feels too trivial or boring. I no longer have physical reactions in those moments, because that knowing is there. I am dreaming.

Back then, this experience gave me a tool. A way out of hopelessness. Nightmares can massively affect a life. And at this point I ask a simple question. What is the difference between a nightmare and your waking-state imaginings.

Are your imaginings also spirals of recurring dramas. Your health, your finances, your relationships, all resting on a ground of fear and loss. Where are you not allowed to move. What is holding you in place.

As a small child, imagination is alive. Images are alive. We do not just play, we are the play. We feel as if we are what we play. I was that princess. I was allowed to give orders. I did not have to obey. I did not have to defend myself. That feeling freed me from the nightmare.

Have you ever wondered why so many people are struggling. And when you listen to them, what do they talk about. Dreams or distress. Most of the time there is very little lightness in these stories. That is understandable. The media that reach us daily through all channels rarely carry positive images. Is it then surprising that life feels the way it does.

Very early on, imagination is taken away from us. Dreams turn into unfulfilled fantasies. Phrases like you cannot have everything or dreams are just dreams drain these inner images of their energy. But take a moment to think. How often have your worst-case scenarios come true. How often have fears been confirmed.

If uncertainty and fear are capable of creating entire trajectories, could it also be possible that images of a beautiful dream, of a wish, carried by feeling, pleasure, freedom, consciously created, could also become reality.

Imagine what might have happened along your life path if your childhood dreams had not been dismissed as nonsense. How would your path have unfolded if someone had told you to hold on to them, to believe in them. What did you leave undone because you were afraid of being seen as a dreamer or a failure, because no one believed that something good could grow from dreams.

And yet we see every day how entire dramas develop from negative imaginings. Why should that not also find fulfillment in the positive.

When I speak with people who are facing life-threatening illness, they often talk about things they would still love to experience. Things that never found space, because everyday life with its challenges and problems grew louder and louder. Only the prospect that life might soon come to an end opens the view again toward what is beautiful, toward what truly matters.

Does it really have to come to a drama before we begin to believe in our dreams again.

Perhaps the real difference between nightmare and dream lies far more in how seriously we allow ourselves to take them, and not in the dream itself. Fear is considered sensible. Caution is seen as smart. Doubt is framed as maturity. Those who express fear appear responsible. Those who think in catastrophes appear prepared. The dream, on the other hand, has to justify itself. It is relativized, softened, secured. The moment it appears, it is contained. Yes, but… That’s just how life is… You shouldn’t expect too much. And so these images lose their power before they even have a chance to unfold.

Fear, by contrast, simply grows, spreads, and continues through feeling into chains of thought. What if… and then… and then… The body follows these images and our decisions align with avoidance. This is how the nightmare is brought to life and uses the body as its stage. Attention guaranteed. One reason why the idea that imagination becomes reality works so reliably on the negative side.

The dream, by contrast, usually remains private, quiet, cautious, half-apologetic.

Yet both come from the same source. From the same capacity to create inner images. From the same imagination.

And still, an everyday life emerges in which many people live internally in scenarios they never want to experience. Thoughts about illness, scarcity, loss, failure run like endless loops. They are taken seriously, prepared for, safeguarded. Hardly anyone calls this dreaming. Hardly anyone speaks of imagination. And yet that is exactly what it is. A continuous inner film, fueled by fear.

Dreams, on the other hand, are quickly labeled unrealistic and require courage. Those who feel them often immediately sense inner resistance. That won’t work. That’s too beautiful. Life doesn’t play along. And yet, if you listen closely, body and feeling respond very differently to these images. Spaciousness arises, and for a moment life feels freer. Right there, the process is often stopped. Too dangerous. Too disappointing. Back to the familiar constriction.

Why should a dream have to justify itself in order to be taken seriously. Why do we strip it of its right to exist. Why is it not allowed to simply be there, the same way the nightmare claims that right.

Perhaps these questions are more radical than they appear. Because they touch how we create reality. Inside and out. Try Dream Thinking. On the positive side, there is nothing to lose—only creation.