The Incredible Work of Your Sleeping Brain

I’m always amazed at the brain’s ability to craft dreams to accomplish its goals.  Your brain creates dreams to use the feelings you experienced in the previous day to recharge your sense of self, which is the generating force behind every moment in your life.  Your brain does this dream crafting without any effort on your part—this is just a natural part of its job.

In Quanta Change, we tap into your brain’s recharging time to permanently remove layers of the negative feelings your sense of self stores.  So, when you’re going through this process, your dreams give us a window into what your brain is unlearning for you.

Sometimes, a dream is just so clear in its meaning that I am excited about it for a long time.  In the dream below, my client’s brain ingeniously used the picture of his parents in a clandestine situation to unlearn the negative feelings they trigger for him.  As a bonus, his brain made a significant change from the theme of his frequently recurring dreams, which always indicates that big change is happening.

The Dream

“I am in a big closet, but it’s not mine.  In it, there are 5 feet of my dad’s shirts.  I am trying to get them cleared out and give them to my mom, so I can have room there for my stuff.  Over and over, I clear big handfuls of shirts out.

“The scene shifts, and I’m sitting in my car talking with a friend who is standing on the sidewalk.  She is encouraging me to do something, which seems like going to see my parents.  This can’t be right, as my dad has been dead for some years, so I revise the plan in my head to just go see my mom.

“I needed to turn my car around, and my friend tells me the route to drive in order to get back into this mall where my mom is.  At the last minute, I have to make a risky move to get into the mall lot, but I do so safely.  Then, I’m on a bike, and the fastest way to get to my mom is through a grocery store, although it’s in the mall.  I realize I should walk my bike, instead of ride it.  I do, and then I’m on the other side of the store and in my car, again.

“Instead of meeting my mom, I’m meeting a colleague for lunch.  She is late, so I turn on the radio, which turns out to be a ham radio.  On it, I hear my parents talking.  I realize that my dad isn’t dead—my mom has been hiding him all these years, because she was tired of sharing him and wanted him all to herself.”

Shift Theme

(Shifting is the daytime work of Quanta Change, where you tell your brain specifically what you want it to work on during sleep.)

My client was working on unlearning the feelings of, “I don’t matter,” “I’m not worth having what I really want,” and, “it’s not safe to express what I know.”  He had an event in the two days before this dream that triggered these feelings intensely.

Context

(You bring people, places, animals, things, situations, or time frames into dreams based on the feeling that they trigger within you.  It is these triggered feelings that you unlearn in the dream.)

Recurring Dream: My client has had recurring dreams for years of being in his parents’ house, protecting either his room or his closet, usually from his siblings taking over his space or taking his clothing.

Dad: His dad triggers feelings for him that it isn’t safe for him to matter or to “be the person who knows the most.”  Deep within, my client feels that it isn’t OK to really fully exist, openly express what he knows, or have what he really wants.

Mom: His mom triggers the feeling that if there is something wrong, it should be swept under the rug as quickly as possible to be hidden, so that “everything is OK.”

Friend: This friend is encouraging and supportive of him expressing his own voice.  She triggers the feeling for him that “I matter, and it’s safe and good for me to express and be myself.”

Ham Radio: As a ham radio operator, my client has volunteered in many disaster management situations, which has given him access to knowledge before the public knows about it.  It triggers for him a sense of “I have access to information that is hidden to most.”  Also, his parents weren’t licensed ham operators, so their radio conversation was illegal.

Points of Change

(In a Quanta Change dream, each time there is something wrong and you do something about it, you permanently remove a layer of Learned Distress from your sense of self.)

1. Usually, the points of change happen within the dream.  However, when someone has a frequently recurring dream, and the new dream is a significant departure, that in itself is a change.  In this dream, instead of the typical recurring dream where he’s protecting his clothes from his siblings, he’s trying to clear his dad’s shirts out to make room for his own clothes.  His brain has shifted to working on the feelings his parents trigger for him, which are often the most intense negative feelings we store.

2. This closet is filled with his dad’s shirts, so he’s clearing them out (multiple times) to make way for his own stuff.  He is “clearing out” the feelings his dad triggers for him, all centered around “I don’t matter” to make room for the feelings of “I do matter” and “It’s safe to express myself.”  This, in itself, would have made for a high-impact unlearning dream.

3. He’s supposed to see his parents, but realizes that his dad isn’t alive, so he changes the plan to just go see his mom.  The feelings that his parents trigger aren’t in charge anymore.  He is free to base his decisions on what he knows.

4. His encouraging friend helps him navigate the route to get back to his mom, and he is able to successfully make the risky move to get into the mall parking lot.  This friend (who triggers the feeling “I do matter”) sends him on a route back to his parents, who will trigger more of the negative feelings, so he can unlearn them.  It feels risky, but there is a shift to it being safe.

5. He navigates through the grocery store and changes from riding to walking his bike.  He says that he often irritated by people who ride (rather than walk) their bikes in inappropriate places, so here again, he is shifting to operating based on what he knows.

6. His colleague is late for lunch, so he passes the time by turning on the radio, which turns out to be a ham radio.  His brain’s use of the ham radio picture shows that he has access to hidden information, which in this dream turns out to be hidden negative feelings.

7. He realizes his dad isn’t dead, and his mom has been hiding him all this time.  His brain uses the picture of his mom (who triggers for him the need to hide negative feelings) revealing that she has been hiding his dad (who triggers “I don’t matter”) as a way to uncover the even more buried feelings of “I don’t matter” that he can unlearn next.

Result

Within a couple of days, my client was already feeling more that he is worth having what will allow him to thrive.  An opportunity came up for him to help teach a class on ham radio operation to a group of volunteer firefighters, which he immediately accepted.  Teaching hasn’t been something he was comfortable with, so it’s significant that he accepted an opportunity to speak and share his knowledge.  It’s very common for opportunities like this to come “out of the blue” in this phase of the Quanta Change Cycle.  This dream was so significant that I believe we will see even more changes in the coming days and weeks.

Do you have recurring dreams?  What people, places, or things appear in these dreams, and what feeling about yourself do they trigger?   This can give you a big clue to the feelings your sense of self is recharging over and over again.