Re-Enter Dream To ‘Get The Message’

Dear Nancy: I began having this dream more than two years ago and it’s always the same. I grew up in the house and I loved it. My parents sold it years ago, but I want to live there again. I always get emotional when I drive by it. What could this dream mean? - Gina

“I enter the back door of my childhood home and walk through the house to the front door and look out the picture window. I see the mailbox is overflowing with mail. I wake up.

Dear Gina: This is an unusual recurring dream. Were there major changes going on in your life when you began dreaming it? These changes could be on any level, emotional, physical or mental.

Dreaming of a childhood home reminds us of our childhood, good or bad. You said you had a good childhood and a wonderful father, but your mother was very controlling. What were the lessons you learned from living there? Are they what is sitting, unopened in your dream mailbox?

Telephones and letters are important symbols in dreams because they alert us that we have information available to us. They can illustrate important messages from our own unconscious mind, a new teaching or communications from deceased loved ones.

Try a technique called dream re-entry. Find a time and place where you will be undisturbed. Sit or lie quietly and go back into your dream. See yourself standing and looking at that mailbox, then imagine yourself walking to it and picking up the mail. Open and read the letters, as many as you want. Who are they from? Let your mind relax and play with this without judgment or censure.

How do these messages relate to your life? Are you dealing with some issues now that you had to deal with as a child? Recurring dreams usually stop when we “get the message.” Let me know what you find out.

Reader tip: With desire and practice, we can learn to be aware in our dreams. When we realize we are dreaming, we can explore the dream consciously while we are having it! We can talk to the people or symbols in the dream, ask questions and receive information and instant insight. Many dreamers develop this ability naturally when they become attentive to their dreams.

In the dream above, if Gina could have realized during the dream that she had been at that exact place in previous dreams, she could have said, “I’m ready to find out what all this mail is about,” and opened it while she was dreaming.

The same can be done with unpleasant dreams. When we are aware that we are dreaming, we can confront the thugs or thieves that haunt us in the night. We can stop running, turn around and face them and either befriend them or fight them to the death. We can question them within the dream, finding out who or what they are.

If you have a puzzling recurring dream, tell yourself that when you have it again you will take the next step by asking a question, facing your enemy, going through a door or whatever is appropriate. You can practice by imagining yourself doing it. This will signal your psyche that you are ready.