With the Covid-19 situation, many people around the world find themselves in lockdown or having their daily activities limited. Working from home, furloughed, homeschooling or doing other home-based activities, instead of going to work and socializing outside the home, has turned our lives upside down. Multiple news sources have reported that unusual and vivid dreams are increasingly common during this period. They even have a name: “pandemic dreams”.
Some experts seek to explain this phenomenon by saying our worries about the pandemic are finding their way into our dreams whether in a literal or symbolic sense. Vivid dreams may serve as a coping mechanism, or our brain’s way of processing new circumstances. Furthermore, with changes to our routines, people are experiencing changes to their sleeping patterns. REM sleep (when rapid eye movement occurs during deep sleep), where we frequently dream, can be affected by changes to our regular schedules. Some people might sleep longer, and others might sleep less, with the result that they can remember their dreams better. Some might be staying up later, binge-watching dramatic TV shows and news, which then can enter their dreams.
But dreams are so much more than this. They have always been central to our evolution and creativity throughout the ages. Dreaming can be a practical and potentially world-changing activity, when we apply the correct approach to understanding them, followed up by the right kind of action. Thus our dreams at this time can lead directly to creative and fulfilling options for the future. At a time when everything seems to have ground to a halt, we take a deep breath collectively and individually, and reflect on our lives.
So often the things that we dismiss as having no significance: our dreams, our imagination, and synchronicities, often referred to as coincidences; are the very things that can be sources of guidance and inspiration. Creative people have long had access to their secret studio of dreams. Dreams can help us to solve problems in our sleep and coach us for future challenges and opportunities.
Now dreaming is more essential than ever and we realize this at some level. We’re in a new world, and we can look at life in a different way. We can travel without leaving home. We can go to places of healing, higher education in the imaginal realms that’s no less real than the physical world. A journey can be a powerful reset and upload for new information, from the past, present or future.
It’s not “only” a coincidence that I felt called to return to New Zealand at this time and start my coaching service “Dream Life” dreamlifenz.com . It’s more like synchronicity, a kind of divine timing where events have meaning.
I took early retirement from an international organization last year, where I had been working for 27 years in Central Europe, the Balkans, and the USA. By the end of 2019, I was ready to return home to New Zealand and share my experiences and knowledge with others, including how to make life a more fulfilled life. In future blogs, I plan to share more information about the Dream Life coaching services I’m offering, and how I augment my daily realities.