Inspirational Dreamers aren’t only famous dreamers or authors, but they are you and me! Even so, I find it fascinating to talk to authors who are passionate about dreaming, to hear their stories and trace the roots of their passion back to a key moment or dream. So in this way, we are ALL “Inspirational Dreamers” who can share our dream stories! When I launched my blog on Facebook, I asked prominent dreamers and authors to share the story of their journey with dreams with my followers. It was so well received that I wanted to expand it into a regular series for my blog so more people would see it. The truth is, when we share our dreams and our experiences with dreaming, we inspire others. I shared how you can become an inspirational dreamer in the original post on June 17, 2015.
Today’s Inspirational Dreamer is…Teresa DeCicco!
Dr. Teresa DeCicco is a Professor of Psychology at Trent University in Canada as well as an Adjunct Professor at Queen’s University and a Research Associate at both Guelph University and the Centre for National Research in Italy. She has published numerous scientific papers on dreams, dreaming and spiritual psychology. We first met, though not in person, when we were the featured dream experts (along with Dave King) on the same television show, In Dreams. We finally met at one of the conferences for the International Association for the Study of Dreams and once we withdrew our projections on each other, lol, we clicked over the topic of spirit and dreams! Her latest book is Living Beyond the Five Senses.
Do you remember any of your childhood dreams? What’s the earliest?
I remember many dreams from childhood because my mother asked us over breakfast if we had had any dreams during the night. In essence, we were doing breakfast dreamwork but I did not realize this for many, many years. My mother paid attention to dreams, her own and ours, so this gave me the impression very early in life that they were important.
When did you first become interested in understanding your dreams?
I became interested in understanding dream meaning when I was a graduate student doing an internship at a cancer hospital in Canada. I was part of a program to help cancer patients cope with their illness but they kept wanting to share their dreams. I quickly came to realize that their dreams had important themes such as making meaning in their illness, progression of the illness, factors for recovery, and for some, imagery of transition to death. This became very profound and important for me to understand so that was the starting point for delving into the science of the dreaming mind.
You have just written a book “Living Beyond The Five Senses”. Did dreams play a role in your healing?
Dreaming is certainly a “Beyond the Five Senses Experience”. The dreaming mind has an incredible capacity to obtain information beyond the 5 senses and we certainly do not yet understand this great mystery. Dreams will provide information for problem-solving that cannot be had during waking day. Dreams will answer questions with incubation if a dreamer really wants to know the answer. Future events are foretold in dreams before they will occur in waking day, if a dreamer is willing to pay attention. The phenomena of dreaming is a rich and complex process that provides incredible information about waking life when we pay attention to our own dreams.
If you could give one piece of advice to those who are just starting to listen to their dreams, what would it be?
One piece of advice I would suggest is to begin keeping a dream journal and begin dream interpretation with any method of interest. Once we befriend our own dreaming mind it will begin to reveal its secrets and we will be given much information for waking life. In terms of understanding our dreams we can begin with any method that works for us. Over time we can add more methods and we can delve deeper into the process. Understanding our own dreaming mind is one of the greatest adventures available to us. This is one we just don’t want to miss!!
Find out more about Dr. DeCicco’s work at: www.livingbeyondthefivesenses.com and www.teresadecicco.org
Follow Dr. DeCicco’s blog: http://livingbeyondthefivesenses.com/2015/06/08/the-girl-next-door/
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