Controlling nightmares

As a child there was an occasional dream in which I was falling, nothing under my feet but space, water, rocks, concrete, whatever might be below something from which I might fall. Since I was told by my superstitious mother that dreams were a predictor of future events, they became even more alarming. Whenever I was in a high place, awake, I would begin to get violent tingles behind my knees and my heart pounded.

It had never occurred to me that dreams, or even nightmares, can be controlled by the sleeping mind. Now, I'm not talking about today, but rather, more than 60 years ago; a time before computers, sleep and dream studies, brain scans, instant knowledge through the Internet, and search engines. At that time, surrounded by belief in the Evil Eye, the need for things to be blessed, fasting and communion, everything seemed beyond human (or, at least, my control).

By chance, I read an article in Reader's Digest, one of the few sources of information from outside my family at that time, which described that dreams of falling are quite typical and that, since no one has ever landed from that long fall and lived, one doesn't actually land or die in those dreams. That fit my dreams, so the next time I had one I told myself in my dream that I would not land. I held my arms out and swooped up like a bird and watched the earth below me get smaller and smaller. To this day, though a whole lifetime has passed, I rarely on occasion see myself falling. Then find myself flying above my world, effected simply by talking to myself in my dream and saying, "You can't and won't hit the bottom, fly away."

In today's world I find that people make a living by teaching people to do this. It is now called lucid dreaming. It is not unusual to find many people re-inventing the wheel. Most of us have been told forever that a way to control one's temper is to count to ten before speaking or acting on it. Years ago, working for a behavior therapist, he announced in a co-therapy session that he had invented a new behavioral technique to control angry outbursts, He called it 'time delay'. The patients and I eagerly asked him how to do it. He said, "You pause and count to ten before you do or say anything."

We all too often assume complexity and impossibility when simplicity is before us. Interpreting someone else's dreams is about as accurate as reading tea leaves, using tarot cards, or other rip-offs of gullible people. There are lots of people out there ready to 'interpret' your dreams....at a price. My personal belief is that your brain, a computer, gets de-fragmented at night as it shifts information around from short to long term storage and makes choices. You have some control as to how disturbing this may be to you. There are many other factors involved and much research continues, as I continue to happily dream on.