Listen to your dreams

She’ll be providing tips on how to interpret your dreams at the next community talk (May 28) at NSCC Burridge, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in Room B147.

Grandy says that during her 15 years of interpreting dreams, the most common remark she hears is that people can’t remember them. She has a solution.

“The subconscious mind is easily programmed; if you really want to remember your dreams just tell yourself you want that information and it will provide it,” she said.

With a background in teaching and facilitation, including public health nurse and community development work, health promotion and illness prevention, Grandy believes that dreams and the messages they contain are the “biggest piece of the puzzle”.

“Everybody dreams every 90 minutes at night. Everybody. Five to seven dreams per night… thousands and thousands of dreams in a lifetime. They’re there, and they’re there for a purpose. What happens in the dream world is real,” she said.

The concept is hard for people to understand she realizes, but recites a quote from Michel de Montaigne to illustrate, ‘Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... We sleeping wake, and waking sleep’.”

Although Grandy doesn’t interpret dreams, she does try to assist people to evaluate their own lives and dreams using various techniques.

She recommends the book ‘The Mystical, Magical, Marvelous World of Dreams’ by Wilda Tanner for symbol interpretation.

She talked with the late author for an hour and refers to her as a genius. “I use her book on almost a daily basis,” she said.

The topic of dreams is a vast one and includes dream incubation whereby the subject asks a question before sleeping in hope of receiving direction in a dream and lucid dreaming where the subject is awake in the dream and able to take control.

“What you control in that dream actually can manifest in your waking life. A friend of mine was having trouble with an employer. One night in her dream she sat down and talked with him and they sorted things out. The next time she saw him things were a lot better between them,” said Grandy.

She believes that dreams are connected to our path in life, and also to spiritual growth.

“It’s like there’s a river of knowledge that runs through our body and at night when asleep, we are in that river where we can see things that we shut off in our waking world. At night we tap into the wisdom. People do it in the daytime too… people daydream. Those that do are often very wise people,” she said.

Even for those who don’t remember their dreams, there is a benefit. Grandy says they serve the purpose of nocturnal visions every night and that it’s better if we try to remember and work with them because they are messages from our sub-conscious mind to our ego on what’s going on in our life.

“One thing about this is you don’t push this stuff. The dream world has no past, present or future. It is timeless and spaceless. Sometimes the information provided is so far beyond our understanding it might be years down the road before we really understand,” she said.

She stresses the importance of recording dreams immediately upon waking, with pen and paper or tape recorder.

Within the first 10 minutes, 50 per cent of the dream slips away but you will only lose 90 per cent if you capture it within the first minute.

“You’ll catch the tail end of the dream and from there you work backwards. You have to hold still and change position slowly from side to side to collect more information,” said Grandy.

Two more Wednesday night community talks will be held NSCC Burridge for the spring season: On June 4 Joanne MacFarlane will present ‘Ancient Healing Techniques of Reiki and Reflexology.’ On June 18 Doris Landry will be talking about ‘Menopause’.