Dreams have fascinated and intrigued mankind since the beginning of time. The oldest written record of dream interpretation is to be found in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh recorded on clay tablets in 3000 B.C. We know that the ancient Greeks and Egyptians practiced "dream incubation," where dreams were artificially stimulated by suggestion in temples or sanctuaries devoted to healing. The Bible contains numerous references to individu­als being guided by dreams. Joseph predicted for the Pharaoh seven years of feast followed by seven years of famine by cor­rrectly interpreting a dream. In the Aztec hierarchy of gods the highest and most respected god was the bringer of dreams. The North American Indians had dream lodges where the el­ders of the tribe would interpret dreams received during vi­sions and ceremonies, and make decisions based upon their interpretations. Until recently most people in modern society dismissed this aspect of our psyche as unimportant, and as a result lost a vital source of guidance and connection to the inner self. Fortunately, this is now changing as individuals in growing numbers pursue this rich source of meaning and understand­ing in their lives. What makes dreams so interesting is that dreams are where the conscious and subconscious meet, where the images of day-to-day living encounter the hidden wisdom of the subconscious.
Many scientists first dreamt of solutions to problems they were struggling with, only later working them out con­sciously. Einstein dreamt he was riding on a beam of light long before he developed the theory of relativity. Numerous artists, businessmen, researchers and men and women of all walks of life are guided to creative solutions in their dreams. Certainly there is now enough evidence to suggest to even the most skeptical that there is more to dreams than just meaningless random images.
I wrote in the previous chapter of Dr. Banting and Elias Howe who made their breakthrough discoveries through the aid of their dreams. Let me add another example to this growing list.
Nobel Prize-winner Dr. James Watson was led to discover the enigmatic properties of the DNA molecule through a dream he had one night. He had been working on trying to understand the molecular construction of DNA for years, to no avail. One night he had a dream in which he saw two snakes coiling around one another. He woke up instantly and exclaimed, "I wonder if that's it? I wonder if DNA is a double helix twining around itself?" This form did not exist any­where else in nature. He followed this trail and it indeed led him to decipher the enigmatic genetic coding for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize.
Dreams are the forgotten language of our race, and within their strange symbols and allegories are hidden meanings and messages that can guide and instruct us if we can learn to de­cipher them. I have studied and analyzed my dreams for a number of years now, and by observing my dreams over this extended period of time and attempting to interpret them, I can say with certainty that they reflect a superior intelli­gence, a wisdom which speaks to us. Our dreams show us where we are wrong and where we are unadapted, bringing to our attention the root cause of inner disharmony or emo­tional distress. They reveal a deeper meaning in our lives and consistently and regularly convey illuminating insights. Dreams show us how to fulfill our destiny, how to realize the greater potential of life within us.
We dream an average of five to seven times a night. This might surprise you, as perhaps you feel that you seldom dream, but in fact everyone dreams every night, whether we remember those dreams or not. We know this because when we dream we exhibit "rapid eye movement," a phenomenon which psychologists and scientists can measure, thereby de­termining how often we dream.
Babies are dreaming about 50 percent of the time they are asleep; premature babies 70 percent. We dream more frequently after days full of worry and stress, after intense learning experiences, after traumatic events or new and stim­ulating experiences, suggesting perhaps that dreams are im­portant in helping us cope with changes in our lives. 

PROGRAMMING YOUR MIND TO DREAM
1. Inform your mind just before you go to sleep that "tonight I will dream and I will remember my dream." Repeat this to yourself about twenty times.  You can even suggest what it is you wish to dream about, what area you wish to explore, but remem­ber that dreams often have their own agenda. They know better than we what we need to understand.
2. Place a pad of paper and pen by your night table. This is symbolic as well as functional. You are demonstrating your willingness to explore your dreams. Your attitude towards dreams determines their attitude towards you. As you prepare for dreams, respect and acknowledge them. Doing so will cause them to more readily come to you.
3. Upon awakening don't leap out of bed, but remain still as your consciousness returns. This in between time is very valuable. It is the crack between the two worlds. Is there a shred of a dream vaguely flut­tering around in there somewhere? If so, observe it like a hunting dog silently watching its prey. Try to bring as much of it hack as possible, piece by piece. Rerun the dream in your mind several times, adding detail each time. Keep doing this till you have re­constructed as much detail and story as you can. Now rise and write down your dream, adding more detail as it comes to you. Once the dream has been recorded, you can begin to interpret it or leave it and return to it later.

DREAM INTERPRETATION
When interpreting your dreams an attitude of intense inter­est, rather than one of frivolous curiosity, will assist you. Think of yourself as an explorer in a new land, or an archeol­ogist digging up clues at an ancient site. In many ways dream interpretation is like the work of an archeologist; not only do you have to find the relics but you must interpret what they are and what they mean.
The dream mentioned previously in this chapter, and the dreams in the chapter on the subconscious, are all fairly easy to understand and I used them because they clearly illustrate how dreams can guide us. However, because they are so eas­ily decipherable, they are the exceptions. Ninety percent of your dreams will make little or no sense whatsoever. They will seem like nonsense, like a foreign language that you don't understand. However, if you're willing to work with your dreams, and you understand some of the keys to deciphering them, they will open up an exciting new world for you.
Dreams use the vocabulary of symbols and allegory to convey their message. Symbols are to intuition what words are to thought. The language of dreams is more like art and poetry than linguistics. Interestingly, one of the suggestions as to why our subconscious uses symbols rather than language is that this part of our consciousness predates language.
Your dreams are messages sent from your subconscious to you, and as such they are showing you something about your­self. Dreams are always about you and your circum­stances-where you are stuck, what you're avoiding, what you're missing, what you're ignoring, where you need to go. Ninety-five percent of the time all the characters, creatures, monsters and strangers in your dreams represent aspects of yourself. When you go about interpreting a dream assume that all the people in the dream are you (except when you recog­nize the characters-children, spouse, parents, co-workers, and so forth-and even then they are sometimes you).
As an example, let's say you have a dream where a burglar breaks into your home and is trying to steal and harm your children. You confront the burglar and a life-and-death strug­gle ensues. You wake up.
Interpreting the dream subjectively, you would first of all assume that you are both the burglar and yourself in the dream. You begin asking yourself questions. What part of me is harming the children? Maybe you feel you're working too hard and not spending enough time with them. Is your dedi­cation to working long hours perhaps stealing your children from you?
Another interpretation might be that your children are the carefree and innocent part of you, and the burglar is your serious and logical side. Is the "adult" part of you suppressing your natural, easy-going, more spontaneous nature? Perhaps your dream is telling you something is being taken from you by living too much this way. Get the idea?
Remember to avoid translating your dreams too literally. Say you dream you are driving a fast sports car at ninety miles per hour around dangerous curves. You lose control, crash and die. Does this mean you're going to have a car crash and die? Highly unlikely. It is far more probable that the dream is telling you something much less literal about yourself. Are you losing control of some part of your life? Where do you need to slow down? Perhaps the dream is suggesting that if you don't slow down you'll "crash," i.e. you'll get sick, lose something valuable, or alienate someone important to you. Death in a dream usually means change, transition, the end of one part of your life and the beginning of another. Are you heading for a change? Maybe a change is coming very quickly. Does any of this fit?
A nightmare is your subconscious trying to shock you into looking at some aspect of your life. It is as if the subconscious is saying, "Look here, this is urgent." Likewise, dreams that re­peat themselves are messages trying to break through. When you correctly interpret them, they will cease. They are only continuing because you're failing to hear their message.
Here are a few techniques to apply when interpreting your own dreams:
Name the dream. Give it a title. It doesn't matter whether the title makes sense or not, let your intu­ition come up with something. The title may give you some clues.
To illustrate how this might work, many years ago I was about to invest some money in a venture that looked like a unique opportunity. Shortly before we were to consummate the deal, I had a dream in which one of the partners was walking a skunk on a leash. 1 remarked, "What are you doing walking a skunk?" He shrugged it off as normal. I woke from the dream and tried to make sense of it. I gave the dream the title, "Something Stinks," and as a result, I decided not to in­vest. It looked like I was throwing away a golden opportunity, yet two years later all the parties involved were bankrupt. Listening to my dream saved me from losing my money.
Go back into the dream during waking hours and speak to the dream characters. Find a quiet spot where you will not be disturbed for five or ten min utes. Closing your eyes, recreate the dream in your mind. See it happening exactly as it did the night before-the same scene and people. Project yourself back into the dream and let the drama unfold, only this time you can react in any way you choose. For example, in the dream where the burglar breaks into your house and tries to harm your children, recreate the dream exactly as it happened, except that when it comes time to fight the burglar, instead of fighting, enter into a dialogue. Question the burglar: Who is he? What does he want? Why is he doing this? What are you trying to tell me? Since you now control the dream, you can do this. Perhaps talk to your dream­children and ask them questions as well. You may be quite surprised at what they say. This technique can be invaluable in helping to make sense of it all. And yes, they will speak to you.
Compare the dream to a drama and examine it un­der these structural headings:
1. Introduction. The setting of the dream and the meaning of the problem presented.
2. The plot. The action, the ups and downs of the story as it unfolds.
3. The ending. How does it end? Was the problem resolved or unresolved? What message or theme is implied by the way the story ended?
In examining the dream in this way you should ask what the main symbols are. What might these symbols represent? What are my past associations with these symbols? How are they speaking to me now?
Examine, too, how do you feel in each part of the dream? This is a clue to its meaning. Do you feel relieved, terrified, confident, empowered? Perhaps you dreamt you witnessed a murder, but instead of being terrified and upset you were happy and excited. You woke up confused by this. The fact that you were happy and excited is the clue. What part of you or your life needs to change (be murdered)? Would you feel excited or relieved if there were changes in this part of your life? What changes may it be suggesting? Examine all the clues.
Sometimes dreams reveal themselves right away. Mostly they need germination time, a few days or weeks before they begin to make sense, and sometimes not even then. But even if you don't decipher every dream, (you'll be lucky in the be­ginning to decipher one out of four) the very act of working on your dreams allows for valuable growth and change within the subconscious. No work is without compensation on one level or another. Nor is dream interpretation some­thing you can do with rational effort alone. One depends as much on intuition as on logic.
Every dream remembered and correctly interpreted makes a lasting connection. One is forever linked with it, and through that dream one is linked with one's inner center. When our interpretation hits the mark, something inside us clicks. We say, "Yes, that's it." We feel empowered. Whenever we understand a dream properly, it is nourishing, something becomes peaceful and satisfied within us. We have gained di­rection and insight from within. Dream interpretation is al­ways a living dialogue with our own subconscious. With practice we come to know that we are connected to some­thing powerful and infinite within us.