• Tending to our dreams has the ability to save us time in our growth and conscious development. There is a wisdom in dreams that assists us, when we allow it, in identifying areas of ourselves that are calling for attention.  We are able to gain access to the core of an issue at a heightened rate of speed as the images themselves hold the homeopathic medicine necessary for healing regardless of whether that healing is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.

• The ego longs to understand, analyze, and logically explain a dream image, whereas the psyche and soul are curious and receptive by nature, and therefore long to relate to and with the living images.  As we meet the dream images on their own behalf, something shifts. We begin to develop relationship with the images, developing a respect for their presentation.

• As we hold the vision and intention of who we are becoming, dreams assist in keeping us on path, nudging us back on course each and every day so that mindfully, we move towards that intention.

• It is our responsibility to set up communication with our unconscious, to develop an intentional relationship with it so that we may work in conjunction with each other.  A wonderful way to do this is through dreamwork.  The reason this is so important is because if we do not “meet” the unconscious, if we do not develop a relationship with that part of ourselves that is so often at work in ways we are not even aware of, it can begin to appear in ways that are distorted. Nightmares are an excellent example of this vibrational discord. One of the quickest ways to see where we are out of alignment to that which we are wanting to create is to tend to our dreams, for they will almost immediately show us the areas in which attention is required to align with our highest self.

Incorporating dreamwork into our life allows us the ability to create an even richer, deeper life experience. Any time that we make a conscious choice to connect with a higher knowing, we are supported by the dreamtime as it offers guidance and information throughout our journey.  All we have to do is begin by paying attention, and listening.

If you would like to begin or improve working with your dreams, please click on the link below and access my gift to you, a FREE eBook titled, The 10 Best Kept Secrets for Remembering Your Dreams

Dreaming of people is probably the most common image we remember when recounting a dream.  Sometimes we dream of people we know, other times it’s someone we’ve never met.  And sometimes, we dream of celebrity actors and actresses. Regardless, we tend to dream of people that represent significant character aspects or qualities of being which is called an archetype. Simply stated, the word means a universally recognized image that is used to repeatedly represent the same thing.   Examples of this would be dreaming of people who represent the warrior, the damsel in distress, the lover, the tyrant, the injured, the child, the addict, the healer, the martyr, the victim and so forth.  In the dream we can be the one witnessing people displaying these qualities or we may actually be the ones exhibiting these qualities.

As an example, actresses that represent the archetype of the Goddess or Enchantress include Marilyn Monroe (Some Like it Hot), Scarlett Johansson (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Halle Berry (Catwoman), Michelle Pfeiffer (Scarface), Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct), or Angelina Jolie (Wanted), etc.

Examples of actors that represent the archetype of the Hero or Warrior include John Wayne (The Alamo), Christopher Reeve (Superman), Russell Crowe (Gladiators), Tyrone Powers (The Mark of Zorro), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), or Sean Connery (James Bond), etc.

Actors are frequently recognized as the embodiment of these archetypal energies or recurring character types who have starred in story after story throughout the human experience just as they have for millennia.  Part of the movie experience is suspending our disbelief and allowing ourselves for a time to become part of the story. That in turn evokes an emotional reaction from us which we often experience for hours after the movie has ended. If the person we watched on the screen resonates with something happening in our life, consciously or unconsciously, we might dream of them or their character.

For example, in the movie Serendipity, John Cusack plays a man named Jonathan who unexpectedly meets a girl named Sara who believes that fate should determine whether or not they should be together. Over the course of the film, we watch as their own stories unfold and they both end up engaged to other people. Despite their situations, they each hold the dream deep inside that they will one day meet again.  Throughout the film, Jonathan’s qualities include being the seeker, the detective, the visionary, the knight and ultimately, the lover.  Now let’s say I’ve just watched this movie and I go home and fall asleep and in my dream John Cusack appears.  Since I have associated him with the qualities above, one of the ways I could work with this image is to notice the desire for that type of fateful love in my life, or I might observe the way in which I feel called to pursue my own dream, whatever it is, with that much passion, purpose and determination. What will determine my interpretation is looking at everything that happened in the dream.

Whether it’s battles or reconciliations, hopes or disappointments, beginnings or endings, heartbreaks or soul mates, we identify on some level with what we perceive the actors to represent because it mirrors something happening within us. They play the parts of people fighting or masterminding crimes, taking or saving lives, finding or losing perfect love, creating or destroying, saving or being saved and overcoming the impossible against all odds.

Have you recently had a dream of a celebrity?  If so, here are a few questions you can ask yourself when finding yourself conjuring celebrity images to see what they may be representing in your dreams:

~ Have you recently seen this actor in a show or movie? If so, what part did he/she play?

~ What archetype, or quality, does this actor represent to you? Use adjectives to describe him/her.

~ Are there any associations you make with this actor?  For example, what comes to you as you think about that person?

~ What emotional response is evoked within you as you think about them?

~ How are you similar to, or opposite from them or the part they played?

~ Is anything about this person’s behavior reminiscent of anything currently happening in your life?

Working with celebrities in your dreams will give you additional insight into what stories may be playing out within your own life. They can often show you changes in behaviors or beliefs that need to be integrated or eradicated in order to live more authentically.  As always, dreams are constantly communicating with us and it’s up to us to discover what they’re saying. Sometimes they appear to reveal how you truly feel about something or demonstrate what you desire to be, do or have in your life.

Whenever a person commits to their dream life and begins to work with their night time dreams, something else begins to happen.  We become much more in tune with ourselves because dreams create a self reflective mindset by nature.  When we journal and build a relationship with our dreams, we do so with the intent to connect with ourselves on a deeper level in order to gain insight, get answers, and receive guidance.  We begin to notice similarities, recurring images or scenarios, giving us an idea of what they may be revealing.  We see areas where we may be stuck, places where our true thoughts and feelings about someone or something may be far different then we allow ourselves to acknowledge. We get ideas for new ways of doing things or prompting us to take action on behalf of something bigger than ourselves.

Because of the mindfulness required to paying attention to ones dreams, they ultimately help us to be more conscious and awake individuals.

If you are a person who is on a personal journey to self awareness, then incorporating dream work into your daily life can be just as important as eating healthy, exercising, taking time for meditation, or whatever it is that helps you stay balanced and connected.

In fact, committing to your dream life will also speed up the process because it will point things out to you that you may not even be aware of, therefore, giving you the opportunity to take appropriate action.

Having spent the past 30 years working with my own dreams, I find I listen deeper, I see clearer and my intuition is heightened.

If you are interested in learning how to begin remembering and journaling your dreams, please visit my YouTube channel for instruction videos at http://www.youtube.com/bambicorso.

You see, Bambi is my real name. It is a name that my mother chose for me when she was five years old, twenty three years before I would ever be born.  She had gone to see the Disney classic Bambi* when it came out in 1942, and when the film was over, she decided that if she ever had a daughter, she would name her Bambi.  And she did, with my father’s full support. This is one of the blessings of being born to entertainers; they are intrinsically creative, especially with names though the name Bambi is also taken from the Italian word bambina or bambino, meaning baby or little child.

My mother is an extraordinary woman. She spent her childhood training herself how to dance and do acrobats, which eventually led her to New York where she lived her dream of dancing on Broadway. She was determined to do what she loved.  She was exceptionally talented and continued dancing until moving to California to eventually marry my father.  Once here, she put all of her passion and love into her family, while still staying connected to the entertainment industry through various shows and local functions.

I was the first born, which earned me the youthful promise she made to herself at five.  Throughout my life, I have been teased about my name.  It never really bothered me because I was proud to wear the gift my mother gave me. For someone to name you after something that touched their heart so deeply is an honor.  But I certainly have dealt with my share of recurring comments such as, “Where’s Thumper” or, “Do you want to play in the forest?”  And I still get, “Have you ever seen Bambi meets Godzilla?” But overall, all I can do is smile.  After all, this IS my name. And, I get just as many compliments about it as I do giggles.

As I look back throughout the years, I realize that something else happened along the way. Though I did, and still do receive the comments, the occasional odd looks as well as the teasing, the fact is that it has strengthened me in ways I could not have foreseen.  Because people did not always take me seriously, or gave me a hard time about the perceived profession of a girl named Bambi, I had to work my way up through the ranks of corporate America to prove myself in business and show that I am much more than a name.  This eventually led me to become a founding member and Chief Operating Officer of a multi-million dollar hair beauty brand in North America and recently I started my own business as a Law of Attraction Life Coach and Business Consultant.

The biggest reward, however, came as I learned who I am as a person, and what is most important to me.  And that is to be authentically myself, and proud of it.

* The film was based on Bambi: A Life in the Woods, written in 1926 by Felix Salten (pen name of the Austrian novelist, journalist, and theater critic, Siegmund Salzmann), and published in the United States in 1928.

There has never been a time on the planet when people did not dream, just as there has not been a time when people did not eat, sleep, talk, dance, or reproduce.  Dreaming is one of the functions that we all share in common, it is an activity that happens while we are in human form, and while we give a tremendous amount of attention to the other things that we do, we don’t often give the same amount of attention to our dreams.

Is the reason we don’t pay as much attention to our dreams because we don’t understand them? And if so, why is it so difficult to understand our dreams? Perhaps it’s because dreams are like a foreign language, a language that we have not learned, a language that has existed throughout time, but has been forgotten.  Yet, over the centuries, there have always been people who worked with dreams. Everything from the Bible to the Talmud speaks of dreams and dreaming.

Dreams come to us on an instinctual level. Dating back in time before there were words, the original language was symbols and images in the form of hieroglyphs, drawings and paintings on cave walls.  We are naturally drawn to symbolism because it is an expression of something that we want to communicate and it has the ability to evoke an emotional response within us. This is what makes the creative arts so powerful, because there is always something being shown that represents something else in image form. The unconscious is the instinctual part of ourselves that doesn’t change no matter how technologically advanced we as a society become. The unconscious does not get faster, more efficient, more computerized as time goes on.  It has its own way, its own speed, its own life. Therefore, in order to understand the imagery in dreams, we too must slow down and meet the dream in its way, at its pace.

The portals to our unconscious come in two ways – Dreams, and Active imagination.  This is the way in which we access the imaginal realm. Our responsibility is to set up communication with our unconscious, to develop a conscious relationship with it so that we may work in conjunction with it.  You may ask, “why is that so important?”  The answer is because if we do not “meet” the unconscious, it starts to appear in ways that can be distorted, such as nightmares.

So, in order to create a working relationship both with our unconscious and our dream images, here is an exercise I have developed to show you a way of working with dream images that is simple and fun, yet will also prove to be powerful in getting to the heart of a dream, as well as demonstrate the actual experience of learning this forgotten language.

Exercise:

Take a piece of paper, and get something to draw with such as a crayon, chalk or pencil.  Imagine that you only have the ability to express your dream in drawn form, like a hieroglyph on a cave wall.  Then, using very simple sketches begin at the left side of your paper and draw out all of the major events that are going on in the dream and continue it as if you are telling a story.  When you have finished, look at what you have drawn out.  As you look at it, what do you notice? What stands out and gets your attention? When you look at your dream as a story in this way, does it change? Does it express anything that you may not have noticed before?

Remember, every time we do something on behalf of dreams, whether writing them down, having fun with them as in the exercise above, sharing them, or integrating them in some way, we build a deeper relationship with ourselves, and therefore everyone and everything around us.

The truth is that dreams come to us every night to help us work out issues from the day, give us guidance and to help heal us on deeper, more spiritual levels. As you continue to pay more and more attention to your dreams, the more they reveal to you about your own psyche, state of mind, belief systems and how you truly feel about things. In addition, dreams come to inform us about our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. Working with the Law of Attraction, dreams allow us the ability to move into a deeper, feeling state. And, as we know, it is that emotional guidance system that helps us realize whether we are moving upstream, or going with the flow in our lives.

If you have an interest in working with your dreams, one of the most important things required of you is your commitment to the process. You will be making an investment in yourself, so be prepared to find some extra time in each day to dedicate to your dream life. In getting started with dream work, it is very important to keep an open mind, and to be patient with yourself. Sometimes it takes a while to train yourself to remember your dreams, but that is not always the case. In order to start remembering your dreams, or just to have better recall of them, following are some suggestions that you may find helpful:

• To allow ourselves the delight of paying attention to our dreams, we need to first shift our perception about dreams. Create a sense of adventure within yourself as if you are embarking upon a new journey, and be willing to see undiscovered parts of yourself.

• Choose a special dream journal and pen that will be used only for the purpose of writing down your dreams. This kind of intention sets the stage for your dreams to be remembered as they are given special care and attention. And you will find that the more attention you give to them, the more often they will be remembered.

• Keep your dream journal open with your pen nearby and a flash light by your bed. This will keep your unconscious and conscious mind reminded that you want to remember your dreams. As you fall asleep every night, create intention by telling yourself that you will remember your dreams in the morning. Repeat this a few times, as it will sink into your subconscious and work with you to remember your dreams.

• Basic health measures can help you in remembering your dreams. It is important to eat a balanced diet, full of vitamins and nutrients to help keep you mindful and strong on your new dream journey.

Once you start remembering your dreams, the way in which you record them is also very important.

1. Each night, write the date at the top of the page of your dream journal, then write a few things about your day. These are called “Day Notes”. It doesn’t have to be detailed, just write about any of the highlights. This helps when you are working on the dream to see if there is a correlation between your waking life and your dream messages. In addition, you can also write a few lines about an issue you would like your dreams to help you better understand and resolve.

2. When you write the dream, write it in the present tense, not in the past tense. It is very helpful in showing how you really feel about things, and it helps us to see the dream itself more clearly.

3. Describe any feelings or emotions you felt in the dream. Make the dream a very real explanation of how you felt in it. If you were scared, yet felt a strong inner strength, write it that way. If you were happy, but apprehensive, state that. The feelings are very important.

4. Write the details of the dream as best you can. Maybe you see an animal that is very unique or different. Write down what makes the image different, including colors, smells, sounds or whatever comes to mind. Incorporate all the senses in your description. Include the landscape in which the dream takes place; was it the desert or the ocean, a city or a park, your childhood home or an office.

I am sure that once you start giving extra attention to your dreams, you will find them to be most insightful and a guiding force in your everyday life.

Best wishes on your new inner journey, and good dreaming!

Bambi Corso
Law of Attraction Life Coach and Certified DreamTender

©2009, Bambi Corso. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced via electronic or mechanical means without the express written consent of the author.

One of the very first questions I receive from people interested in dreams is, “I dreamt that… (fill in the blank), what does that mean?” We are conditioned to believe that our dreams are meant to be immediately interpreted, that they “mean” something if only we could figure out what that was.

In working with clients over the years, I find that the best way to work with dreams is to develop a relationship with them. Instead of rushing to find the meaning of a dream, it is important to take our time and get to know our inner landscape and imagery. Just as it can take years to truly know someone, the same is true for working with our dreams, and even then there is always more to learn. Our responsibility in the partnership is to get to know our dream images, to stop and question, to pay attention, to open ourselves and listen, to trust, and to develop communication with them for the long haul. Dreams are the storytellers of our lives, slowly sharing one paragraph at a time in symbolic language, offering invaluable guidance each and every night.

So let’s prepare for them just as we would prepare for a date with a special person. We start by setting our intentions to remember our dreams and decide what it is we want to know about them. Then, we invite them in by setting a notebook and pen by our bedsides awaiting their visitation. We can light a candle, read a poem, smell a flower, and make going to sleep a gentle ritual into the deeper realms of who we are. Let’s take ourselves on a Dream Date and be sure to write down all the details we can remember of the evenings unfolding story, whether we had a great time or felt disappointed. This is where we begin to cultivate our relationship with our own dream imagery.

The healthiest relationships are those in which others support us in our blossoming. Dreams offer us this gift, for the betterment of who we are, and who we want to become. All we have to do is say, “yes.”

©2009, Bambi Corso. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced via electronic or mechanical means without the express written consent of the author.