Dreams? the Regia (oldest and longest linking road) into the unconscious?

Dreams what are they and how can they help us better understand ourselves?

It is 6.49 am on the 24th of July 2021. Less than a week until the Hebridean Way and things feel bizzzzzzeee. When things get busy, my mind gets busy and although I have developed wee self-care practices that help me cope in the waking day, my busy mind often unfolds at night in my dreams.

Last night I had the strangest dream, which is not abnormal, I usually dream A LOT. But usually when I have lots of things on my mind my dreams intensify…

Recently, I have been thinking about how the things I do in a day impact my dreams. These thoughts were inspired by many things including American existential psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr. Irvin Yalom who looks at the impact of dreams and what they might be telling us.

“Irvin Yalom writes that dreams are the regia (oldest and longest linking road) into the unconscious”

What do dreams tell us?

Not to get complete hippea “dreams control our life mannn”, but they can tell us more than we often talk openly about. I LOVE Joe Rogan's comedy bit about dreams. He talks about the idea that we question everything, but no one questions that we just ALL switch off for 8hours a night. No one knows where we go or what we do. We could enter another dimension every night and no one talks much about it!! Yet we focus on the craziest of small things in the waking world.

2mins 43 seconds in

My experience

Sometimes I dream about the past; people or experiences, sometimes I dream about what happened in a day; people I spoke to even podcasts I listened to! And sometimes I dream about the book I was reading just before bed. Other times I dream about things that feel COMPLETELY random and strange.

I have always found dreams fascinating. Especially when I was living in Orkney. I moved to Orkney to heal and find peace. Interwoven through that intense journey was a lot of “self-exploration”- unraveling some of my thought patterns, discovering the roots to some of challenges I had been facing and finding out why I had put so much pressure and expectation on myself… throughout that journey my dreams were WILD.

There were many things during that time that helped ease my mind and unravel a lot of the depressive symptoms I had been carrying around. I often think about it like I was carrying a humongous bag of mental stuff around with me and my experiences in Orkney slowly but surely allowed me to begin the life-long journey of unpacking and letting go of the contents of the bag we ALL carry around.

I remember the shift starting, it was around 2 months into my first summer living in Orkney. The began to feel lighter, my mind and body started to feel less tense and puffy. I began to recognise myself again and slowly found my way back to my true authentic self.

So, what does this have to do with dreams?

Well, there were lots of factors that contributed to me feeling better in Orkney:

· The BEAUTY of the island

· Nature immersion

· The sea

· Wild camping alone

· Meeting wonderfully relaxed at peace new people- including one of my most favorite people in the world Kay

· Daily yoga/meditation & breathing practices

Alongside these wonderful things^, two things that really allowed me to make sense of my own mental healt

h were Journaling- which I talked about in the last blog, and Dreams (and dream journaling).

Like I mentioned in the previous blog, I would journal every single night. With no idea what was going to come out. I would sit and just allow for anything to come up. After doing this for about two months I began to see a real shift in my dreams. Like I was working through things, letting go of past pain, finding acceptance for things that had felt sore, and I started to feel hope, hope is one of the most powerful emotions we can feel. Without hope we have nothing. And the tarrying thing about depression is it can steal your sense of hope. The worst part was that it was my first experience of depression- so I had no idea if my sense of hope would ever return.

My dreams were so imaginative. It’s like being on an island with less distraction gives your mind the space and time to tap into another dimension. (Side note I met a man on the isle of Hoy from Italy who rents a house in Orkney every summer to write and paint- he said that the energy of Orkney transforms his creativity).

My dreams became almost psychedelic sometimes. I remember one dream in particular during the time I was reading “if Women rose rooted” and I dreamt I was part of a Selkie Seal community. We lived in and around the Orkney waters. Swimming as a seal felt so real in my dream that when I woke up, I was in a wee bit of a daze. This dream probably felt more real because I saw seals often in Orkney and I felt, and still do feel really connected to the selkie seal mythology)

I could write about dreams all day, maybe on the next blog, I will share the dreams I had with gran. I have only ever had two and both were equally profound.