Dreaming: How to Remember Your Dreams

“I had the most wonderful dream last night!” “What do you think this dream means?” “I had a nightmare.”

What is it about dreams that make them the topic of so much thought and conversation, including conversations people have had with Samuel over the years? In part-two of this blog post I’m going to condense some of Samuel’s teachings about the types of dreams he talks about and how to interpret them.

Types of Dreams

Samuel says that generally speaking there are three types of dreams:
1) the brain working through the day, finding patterns, and releasing stress;
2) real dreams; and
3) dream school.

What are these?

Brain Salad, the brain working through the day. This is the most common type of dream, and has to do with our brain simply categorizing and filing away the events of our day. These dreams might have you working through an embarrassing situation, such as the famous “can’t make it to class on time,” or “walking down the street without clothes on” dreams that all if us have had at one time or another; or, they can be fragmented in that there’s no storyline, or if there is one, it suddenly flips to a totally different scenario so that there was no real flow to the dream—no coherence, perhaps because there’s an abrupt ending, or no middle, it’s just a jumble of conversations and images.

These are “good mental health” dreams because they help your brain in its daily sorting, categorizing, and associating processes necessary when we have far more information coming in than we can process at any given moment. These dreams are a window into your working brain releasing stress. Brain salad dreams are important, but rarely have anything new to teach you beyond awareness of your waking mental state. The message, if there is one, might be as simple as, “it’s a stressful time, take a hot bath and relax.”

Real Dreams and Personal Symbology

On the other hand, there are dreams in which, as Samuel describes it, they flow as though you are watching a film. These dreams have a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Most often you watch and learn as an observer in your Real Dreams, but you can experience them as a participant as well, all towards helping you grow spiritually.

Real dreams tend to be the most common version of dream that I and many friends I’ve spoken with about dreams have. In my personal review of these dreams I always try to peel apart the various things I’ve seen or experienced within the dream itself so that I don’t miss any of the layered teachings that are available to me through these dreams.

Often these dreams are filled with personal symbolism, so once I’ve journaled my dream, I will go back and pay attention to details: the colors and objects that made up the dreamscape, as well as exactly what was happening and how I was feeling at the time. Once I’ve listed as many of those details that I can, I’ll ask myself what that color, object, or situation means to me. An illustration Samuel often uses to help us understand personal symbology is to think about a fire truck. To someone who visited the Fire Department on a school trip when they were eight years old and got to play on the fire truck, meet the firehouse dog, and talk to real heroes, a fire truck would be associated with a wonderful experience; however, for the child whose house burned it would bring back the unhappy memories and hardships created by the precipitating problem that brought the fire truck. Therefore, to one person a fire truck in a Real Dream would mean something great was going on, but to another it could be a warning of loss and unhappiness. Knowing what something means to YOU is the key to understanding what your dream is trying to teach you.

Let’s say your dream is be centered around a classroom situation in which you’re teaching something (I often find myself teaching spiritual principles or even—duh—channeling), and in the class are a lot of people you know as well as those you don’t. You teach the class and afterward go for dinner at a local restaurant. While you are eating you see a family member who is no longer a part of this world. Perhaps you greet that person happily and you have a short conversation. Eventually you go home again and the dream is over, so you wake up (and groggily reach for your dream journal, right?).

To interpret the symbology in this dream I’d start by asking myself what I generally feel about classroom situations, i.e., do I remember them fondly, or was I unhappy in school? Am I comfortable teaching, or is it a difficult challenge for me? I’d work to interpret the emotional tone of dream. Once I’ve established that, I’d ask myself what is going on in my life that I’m learning from right now? In what ways am I teaching others—and what is it I’m teaching? How does that relate to teaching in the dream classroom? My answers are helping me understand the framework symbology of that Real Dream.

Additionally, I’ll pick up on colors and objects I specifically remember from the dream so I can learn from my personal symbology within the dream, as well.
With colors (in décor or clothing) I will think about what each color conveys to me. As examples, personally I usually associate pink with Love, white with spiritual qualities, blue with communication, green with growth and balance, red with action and passion, orange with healing, yellow with happiness, and black with emphasis or strength. Looking at what the color means to me gives me a clue to the emotional tone of the dream. But remember, everyone’s personal symbology is unique, so work to understand what that color, object, or scenario means to YOU and not what it means to someone else (even if they wrote a book about dream interpretation).

Continuing, I’d think about how I felt about the people in the classroom, including those friends I recognized, so I could give myself a quick emotional check-up about my communications and relationships. If people I love and am secure around are peopling my dream, that’s a good sign, but if my dream is full of strangers or those I’m uncomfortable around, that is telling me something important about how I’m feeling within the message of that dream—perhaps a warning of sorts.

When it comes to seeing people in my dreams who are no longer alive, I always pay careful attention to what the conversation was between us because I’d know I was getting special information there. Samuel has often said that those who have passed out of this dimensional experience can communicate most easily with us when we think we’re dreaming—so pay attention to what’s said!

Additionally, I try to look at all aspects of my dream such as transportation (how did I get from the class to the restaurant and home again?), did I realize I was dreaming during the dream (and if I did realize it, did I take any action based on that, such as stop the dream or change a conversation?), and generally just tease out of the dream all of the information I can based on what I remembered of the dream (and an experienced dream journaler will remember a LOT).

Real Dreams provide information that can help you move through your day-to-day life, but it often shows up symbolically, and only you can determine what those symbols mean to you.

Dream School

My favorite type of dream is what Samuel calls “Dream School.” In these dreams you’re making use of your time asleep to do sacred service of different types, or to learn from higher levels of Light Beings who can more easily communicate with you when your brain is calmer than it is during the distracting day.

These dreams usually work outside of the typical space-time rules, allowing you to move from place to place and scenario to scenario at the speed of thought. And “speed of thought” is the key—in these dreams you are lucid within these dreams and always able to direct them, Samuel says. Probably the biggest difference between these dreams and any other is that in Dream School, rather than being an observer, you are an active participant. In these dreams, if you are in a classroom then you’re actively learning information that wasn’t previously available to you, such as how a particular core issue is a part of a pattern from several lifetimes, lifetimes, and the dream will take you to those lifetimes because there is no time or space limitations. In dreams like this I’ve found myself sitting in what appeared to be an actual classroom with alecturer feeding me the information I needed—all so I won’t miss the importance of what was being said. I know multiple people who have information given to them in this way—it’s a quick way to download a lot of information in a way that my waking brain won’t resist, and that’s very helpful!

Your Dream School dreams might take a different turn, and you might be sent to another part of the world to act in service to the One by working with an individual or group. An example might be finding yourself in the midst of a protest in Lebanon where you are able to understand (and perhaps even speak) the local dialect. You find yourself drawn to a specific person or persons and begin speaking with them—and the dream, along with your part in loving service—unfolds from there.