傾聽夢境 建立自尊

Jan Brehm of Portland woke up from a dream confused and shaken to her core. Lisa Espich of Tucson woke so deeply disturbed by a dream featuring her husband that she knew her marriage would never be the same. Jennifer Lambert of Virginia Beach felt such agitation over her dream that she cried for 30 minutes straight when she woke up — and then called her sister, from whom she'd long been estranged.
波特蘭的簡布闌從夢中驚醒，內心惶惑。圖森的麗薩艾碧醒來後心煩意亂，她夢裏的主角是丈夫，她知道自己的婚姻將要發生變化。弗吉尼亞海灘的詹妮芙蘭波爲夢所感，醒來後足足哭了30分鐘——然後打電話給她疏遠已久的妹妹。

Dreams can rock us, scare us, and in some cases, inspire us. But is listening to our dreams right up there with calling a psychic hotline? Not at all, say leading experts. "People are now using their dreams as tools to make their lives better," comments Marcia Emery, PhD, a psychologist at Holos University.
夢境會使我們受到震撼、驚嚇，有時是鼓舞。但是傾聽我們的夢境僅止於象打一個靈媒熱線嗎？權威專家說並非如此。“現在人們把他們的夢作爲工具，使生活變得更美好。”霍洛大學的心理學家瑪莎艾默裏博士評論道。

This is relatively newfound respect. Many researchers used to believe that dreams simply reflected the random firing of nerve signals while we sleep. "The thinking was that the dreams were meaningless and didn't serve any function at all," says Harvard psychology professor Deirdre Barrett, PhD. But today, many scientists feel that dreams play the vital role of clarifying what truly matters to us. "Dreaming is thinking — just in a different biochemical state," explains Dr. Barrett, author of "The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Dreams for Creative Problem-Solving — and How You Can Too." "It's a mode of contemplation that's much more visual, intuitive, and emotional, as opposed to the patterns of waking thought."
這是相對較新的發現。過去很多研究者相信夢僅僅反應了我們睡覺時神經信號的隨機發射。“他們認爲夢毫無意義，不起任何作用。”哈佛心理學教授戴隹巴瑞博士說。但現如今許多科學家認爲夢在澄清什麼是我們真正的問題上，扮演了一個重要角色。“做夢就是思考——只是不同生化狀態而已。”《睡眠委員會——藝術家、科學家和運動員如何利用夢境創造性地解決問題——及你如何也能做到》一書的作者巴瑞博士解釋道。“夢是沉思的一種形式，相對於清醒的思想模式，它更形象化，更直覺，也更情緒化。”

It's that intuitiveness that makes so-called "epiphany" dreams such a valuable resource. "Dreams can provide inspiration or help you get unstuck from problems because your mind is working on things in this different way," Dr. Barrett says. Case in point: When she gave subjects instruction in a technique called "dream incubation," half of them dreamed about a problem they had focused on prior to going to sleep, and a full 25 percent had a dream that provided an actionable solution.
直覺使得那些所謂“頓悟”的夢成爲寶貴的資源。“夢可激發靈感或幫你擺脫問題，因爲你的心智在以這種不同的方式工作。”巴瑞博士說。案例分析：她給受試者一項稱爲“孵化夢境”的技術指導，一半人夢到睡前苦思冥想的問題，而25%的夢提供了可行的解決方案。

Finding the meaning in your dreams is like growing a garden, the pros say: The more you do it, the greater the insights it yields. "If you're regularly tending your dreams, once in a while you'll have a breakthrough that grabs you by the throat," Dr. Barrett says. Here are two women whose dreams provided just such a revelation.
發現夢的含義就象培育花園。韻律學雲：多思多得。“如果你經常留意夢境，有時會有關鍵性突破。”巴瑞博士說。以下兩位女士就從夢中得到了啓示。Jan Brehm, 56, Portland, OR
簡布嵐，56歲，波特蘭，俄勒岡州

Actress with two daughters
演員，有兩個女兒

The dream: "I went into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. There was my daughter, now twenty-six, at age ten months. I felt a wave of horror. She was sitting in the tub shivering, and her lips were blue. I had forgotten I'd left her there. When I woke up, I was so disturbed that I couldn't shake off the image."
夢境：“我走進浴室，拉開浴簾。我的女兒在那兒。她現年26歲，而在夢裏是她十個月大的樣子。我感到一陣恐懼。她站在浴缸裏發抖，嘴脣是藍色的。我不記得自己把她留在那兒了。醒來後，我心亂如麻，無法擺脫那個形象。”

What it means: According to Loewenberg: "When you dream about someone very close to you, human nature is to figure out if the dream is literally about that person. But it may instead represent some part of your current life. I asked Jan what was going on with her daughter: Was there any guilt she was feeling? Jan said that was not the case, which was why the dream scared her so deeply.
釋義（據婁溫伯）：“當你夢到某個非常親近的人，人性需要弄清楚夢是否如表面所見，的確跟那個人有關。但其實它可能代表了你目前生活的某一部分。我問簡她女兒發生了什麼事:她感到愧疚嗎？簡說沒這回事，因此才被夢嚇到了。

"Since there didn't seem to be an issue with her daughter, I suggested that the infant might symbolize something else in her life that she'd been neglecting. We often refer to our ventures and projects as 'our baby,' because, like a baby, they are things that we must nourish and care for so they can reach their potential.
“既然看來問題與她女兒無關，我提出那個嬰兒可能象徵了她生活中一直以來忽視了的別的東西。我們經常用“我們的孩子”來指我們的企業和工程，因爲它們象孩子一樣，得到養育和照顧才能發揮潛力。

"You might not expect such a frightening dream to be associated with something joyful. But Jan's dreaming mind chose to send the message through a strong negative emotion in order to grab her attention."
“你大概不會想到把這麼可怕的夢和快樂的事聯繫起來。可簡的夢中心智爲了抓住她的注意力，選擇了通過強烈的負面情緒來傳遞信息。”

What she did: "Several years back, I'd started to write and produce a DVD series on menopause, but when I couldn't get the funding for it, I stopped working on it," says Jan. "So when Lauri asked me if I had a creative project that I had abandoned, it stopped me cold. I knew instantly that the shivering baby was the menopause series. I plunged myself into the work, and I launched the DVD two years ago. The dream gave me the impetus to move forward."
她的說法：“幾年前，我開始創作一個關於更年期的DVD系列。但我拉不到資金，就放下了。所以當羅莉問我是否有放棄了的創作項目時，我不再害怕了。我立刻明白那個顫抖的孩子就是更年期系列。我投入工作，兩年前推出了DVD。那個夢給了我前進的動力。”Jennifer Lambert, 35, Virginia Beach, VA
詹妮芙蘭波，35歲，弗吉尼亞海灘，弗吉尼亞州

Her grandfather had died 3 weeks earlier
她祖父3周前去世

The dream: "My grandfather came to our house, and I was so excited to see him that I wrapped my arms around his neck for a hug. His first words were 'Don't be angry at your sister anymore.'
夢境：“我祖父來到我們家。我見到他非常高興，用雙臂摟住他的脖子擁抱他。他的第一句話是“別再生你妹妹的氣了。”

"At the time, my sister and I couldn't even be in the same room. While I'm the older one, she is definitely more aggressive, so I always held back what I thought for fear of her retaliating. When I woke up, I cried for about thirty minutes."
“那時我和我妹妹簡直都不能待在一個房間裏。儘管我年長，但她肯定更氣盛。所以我總是剋制對她的報復的恐懼。我醒後哭了得有三十分鐘。”

What it means: According to Dr. Barrett: "Sometimes it takes a dream to 'see' our grief and sadness, like what Jennifer felt toward her sister. Dreams are more likely to let the more divergent feelings inside us rise to our consciousness.
釋義（據巴瑞博士）：“有時我們需要用夢來“發現”我們的痛苦和悲傷，正如詹妮弗對她妹妹的感受。夢更容易把我們深埋內心的歧異感情上升到意識層面。

"The timing — just three weeks after her grandfather's death — suggests that this loss may have stirred up feelings about someone else Jennifer was missing: her sister. Her grandfather is someone she associated with a loving attitude, and it's usually people with a particular trait whom we select in dreams to voice an aspect of ourselves that's getting shortchanged in waking life. It would be difficult to offer her sister an olive branch when their relationship appeared so deadlocked, but the dream gave a clear push in that direction."
“時機——正好在她祖父離世三個星期後——提示失去親人可能激起了詹妮弗對其他讓她牽掛的人：妹妹的感情。在她心中，祖父是與愛意相連的人，而且我們通常也會選擇這樣一個特定的人，在夢裏向他表達我們在清醒生活中越來越畏縮的一部分自我。在關係陷入僵局時，向妹妹伸出橄欖枝是困難的，但夢境起了明確的推動作用。”

What she did: "A few days after the dream, I spoke to my sister and told her that I didn't like the way our relationship was going," recalls Jennifer, "and that I wanted our connection to be more like our mom and our aunt, who were very close. We still had a few rocky spots after that conversation, but now we're best friends. I don't know if our reconciliation would have happened without that dream."
她的說法：“做了那個夢後，過了幾天，我告訴妹妹我不喜歡我們一貫的相處方式。”詹妮弗回憶道：“我希望我們的關係象媽媽跟阿姨那樣，她們非常親密。那次談話後我們還是有些不對付的地方，但現在我們是最好的朋友。如果沒有那個夢，我不知道我們會不會和解。”