Written by Alicia Cadiz, Licensed Psychotherapist, LMHC
Alicia Cadiz is well-known when it comes to relationships and breakups. She is a Licensed Psychotherapist, CEO, and Founder of Healing With Alicia, a mental health counseling private practice. Alicia helps clients holistically connect the mind, body, and soul as one, most importantly, in a safe space where you can fully trust your therapist.
Do our souls travel to another realm when we close our eyes at night? Are we visited by other forms of energy that send us divine messages? Or are these aspects of our anxiety and deepest fears buried in our subconscious, slowly creeping into our waking life of reality? Although there is no definite scientific answer to dreams, over the course of my clinical research and personal experience, I’ve gathered many theories and pathways to open the discussion gates as to what dreams could be.
What are dreams?
Dreams are arguably the most fascinating, intriguing, and mystifying topics of our time. Mostly because there is no straight answer to what dreams are and why they happen. Therefore, the mystery behind dreams as a whole gives way to the beliefs and hypotheses of what they could be and why they occur. Some experience dreams so vividly that they wake up feeling even more tired than before and recite a pattern as though they have traveled to a different realm of reality, expending excessive amounts of energy. Others experience dreams very minimally, feeling as though there is no meaning to them at all. A majority of society believes that our dreams mean something, whether that is a warning for the future, an alternate reality, or our subconscious and conscious minds simply connecting during our REM cycle.
Unconscious vs. conscious
The Conscious and Subconscious mind are completely separate in the human brain, however they work together in a mysterious way. Your consciousness is that little voice inside your head, guiding you through your everyday life. Your consciousness contains your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are felt and aware of in the moment-to-moment aspect of your daily life. Your subconscious is silent, however acts like a data machine storing your memories, fears, anxiety, and pain. The subconscious can be activated through certain triggers, pushing forward those unpleasant feelings and things we want to stay hidden to the forefront of our consciousness.
Freud and Carl Jung
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and a neurologist in the late 1800s and early 1900s, referred to dreams as the royal road to the unconscious. Specifically, a form of repressed wishes, desires, and wants hidden in our subconscious that aren’t fulfilled or processed in our waking life, therefore living out this fantasy within our dream state. Carl Jung, a Swiss-based psychotherapist from the early to mid-1900s, referred to dreams as the secrets that are hidden from the conscious mind. In addition, that our Intuition or gut feelings that are not felt during the conscious aspect of our waking reality come to light during our unconscious hours.
Carl Jung gave a great example of a ship sailing through the ocean in one of his famous lectures in 1934. Essentially, explaining that the ship is our conscious minds, and the ocean being our subconscious. Therefore, the fate of the ship is determined by the activity of the sea and what lies beneath. The direction of our lives is ultimately determined by our unconscious minds. Beneath the ocean there are treasures, sea creatures that have not been discovered by scientists, dangers and depths that are not seen from the surface level. Therefore, the basis of Carl Jung’s therapeutic approach was to bring light to the unconscious depths of our minds to our conscious forefronts.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung
Does our soul travel to different dimensions when we dream?
This theory is the most popular and common as of today. Some believe our bodies are vessels for our soul to inhibit in our waking life, and when we dream, our souls visit another dimension. Since our subconscious is our memory data bank, does our subconscious remember these visits to other realms and does our consciousness interpret this memory as a dream? And is this because we have not figured out how to access the fourth dimension quite yet?
Let’s talk about dimensions
When we talk about different dimensions, some might think “an alternate universe.” Let’s explore the first four dimensions to the universe and how we interact with these in our daily life. The first, second, and third dimension are categorized as length, width, and depth, we experience these three in our waking reality with all objects we see and interact with in our universe. Think of this as a string, a square, and a cube. Beyond these visible dimensions there are many others, the fourth being, time, we can only move forward in time, however the fourth dimension explores the connection between space and time.
Mystics believe that the fourth dimension is where spirits live because they are not bound to earth physically. So, does this mean to time travel we have to access the in the fourth dimension? And does this mean that when we dream our soul travels through space and time to an alternate universe where we are living a parallel life yet making different choices? this may be similar to Freud’s theory of our subconscious (our memories from another realm that we are living in) playing out scenarios that we do not act upon in our waking life of this reality. This could ultimately explain the people who have dreams that come true, whether they are warnings to us in this lifetime or act as guides to keep us on the right track.
What’s your theory?
The best aspect about dreams as a whole is that there is no right or wrong answer. They are intriguing yet captivating as it gets; the possibilities and questions are endless. Book a session with me today; let’s explore your dreams together and discuss how we can bring light to your subconscious, most importantly, in a safe place where you can fully trust your therapist.
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Alicia Cadiz, Licensed Psychotherapist, LMHC
Alicia Cadiz is a leader, breaking barriers, in the world of mental health. Alicia always knew she wanted to dedicate her life to holistically helping others reach their highest potential. She studied the work of Carl Jung at a young age and bases her therapeutic approach on his teachings. She explores every category of a client, mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual, as she helps uncover your shadows and unconscious self, bringing light and awareness to the parts of ourselves we want to hide. Energy does not lie and neither does the power of the universe.
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