Paul Bradley changed his entire life after experiencing some vivid dreams and is now a specialist in the area, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL
ABOUT 15 years ago Paul Bradley’s life underwent a significant change. Having moved to Australia, Bradley was intent on climbing the corporate ladder and advancing in his chosen profession of sales and marketing.
Yet his subconscious had other ideas. “I had a series of very vivid dreams that changed everything. I started looking into the whole area of dreams and studying and doing courses and workshops in that area,” says Bradley.
“The series of dreams I had really altered the course of my life completely. I had a 10-year plan outlined for myself in terms of climbing the corporate ladder, which I abandoned.”
Bradley points to Einstein’s comment that “You can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it” as evidence that dreams can have a significant impact on life decisions.
He says the type of dreams he had which made him reassess his life were “archetypal dreams”, ones which can be very vivid and have emotional resonance long after their memory fades.
“Those dreams I had made such an impact on my life. They made me question everything I believed in. I was living in Sydney at the time and I ended up living in a caravan in the bush for about nine months.
“It made me completely look at my whole life situation and realised what I was doing was not for me. I went from the corporate world to training as a psychotherapist.”
From his experience interpreting dreams, Bradley says that 90 per cent of us will forget our dreams within 10 minutes of waking up. Because of that, for anyone looking to analyse their dreams, it’s very important that people keep a notebook.
“One of the challenges dreams present us is language and the language is one of images. It’s difficult in that they often don’t fit into the logical western mindset.”
Some scientific evidence indicates that we may dream during particular phases of sleep, while other theories exist that we dream for up to three hours per night.
Bradley points to the recent film Inception, which was based on the premise of lucid dreaming where the person is conscious of the fact they are in a dream.
He argues that the huge popularity of the film highlights society’s interest in dreams and dreaming.
“It was a fantastic entertainment piece, and when you have a movie capturing the public imagination like that, it reflects something deeper going on with the collective psyche of people.
“There is a lot of evidence that people are having more and more lucid experiences when they dream.”
Even nightmares, he says, can have healing properties. “Nightmares can be hard for people when they are waking up terrified. And while they can physically wake you up, they also act as a psychological wake-up call.
“Nightmares are essentially bringing to your attention that there is something urgent that needs looking at in your life,” according to Bradley.
Paul Bradley will give a day-long workshop on discovering what dreams really mean at One Meeting Place in Temple Bar, on September 19th. The course costs €90. Tel: 087-9598840.
Wake up call: Interpreting your dreams
Bradley presents and interprets some common dreams:
RECURRING DREAMS: keep repeating in an effort to get across an important message.
THE HOODED MAN:"It is dark and I am walking home. I look around and realise that I am been followed by this figure wearing a hood. He chases me into an alleyway. I have nowhere left to run. I scream at him 'what do you want from me?' At this point the dream ends." – This recurring dream came from a 36-year-old woman at a crossroads in her career.
Two weeks later she had the dream again, this time with a surprising outcome leading to a significant breakthrough. "Once again the figure comes closer and I scream what do you want from me?
"He then removes his hood and calmly says 'I just want to paint!'"
The figure in the dream symbolised her long-lost talent for painting that she had as a teenager.
This is a striking example of how dreams are always actively working to remind us what our unique gifts are.
COMPENSATION DREAMS: can help us to expand our limited perception of ourselves.
MY CRAZY BOSS:"I see my boss stumbling along the road, he gets into his car and is driving erratically."
This dream came from a 35-year- old man who had an overly idealised opinion of his manager. At a vital development stage in a project his superior had disregarded his input. Subsequent events proved the manager to be wrong. This dream helped him to place a much needed higher value and appreciation on his own judgement.
ARCHETYPAL DREAMS:These are the "big" dreams and they tend to occur at important phases of life.
Composing of vivid, bizarre or extraordinary images they have an urgency and significance that is not present in other dreams and their memory can last for months or even years. Archetypal dreams are very important and may appear at a period preceding a very significant life change, and are usually concerned with fate or destiny.
