How I Learned to Have Meaningful Dreams

A business seminar taught me how to dream and my life has been better ever since!

When I worked as a senior scientific analyst heading a team of computer programmers for the Eyring Research Institute, on Thu 28 Feb 1980 I attended a manager's seminar about how learning to dream could help us be more creative and productive at work. I entered the conference room somewhat skeptical because I had not had any dreams at all since my youth. I just never dreamed, or at least I never remembered any. I felt dreams were reserved for spiritually gifted people and I was more of a pure scientist.

Dreams tend to be right-brained.
The main point of the seminar was that dreams tend to come from the subconscious mind and right hemisphere of the brain which is more picture oriented. Most programmers are left-brain dominant which seems good because that linear side works well with step-by-step computers. They said the reason we do not dream as adults is that we've discounted the importance of dreams, so the right brain has given up and stopped attempting to help us.

They said we could change all of that with two simple steps. First, as we go to sleep at night, we should tell ourselves, "I will remember my dreams." Second, we should get a dream journal to record them. This last step is paramount because it relegates our dominant left brain to become a mere secretary to attempt to describe in a thousand words even one picture supplied by the right brain. This gives huge encouragement to the right brain to start sending us meaningful messages and then watch the left brain struggle to record them.

All of that rang true to me, so I immediately decided to try it. The long story short is that it was totally life changing for me. Immediately I began to have 3-4 long, coherent, meaningful dreams every week! I've filled three journals with important dreams and my regular journal with many more of less consequence. They not only helped with with my work, my family, and health, but many key dreams were given me to help in my work on sacred calendars. They are important enough that a separate section of my website will report some of the most important.

Before desktop computers: I'm in work attire at a 1980 computer terminal connected to a big mainframe computer.
I'll share here the very first dream I had after the seminar. On Wed 12 Mar 1980 I dreamed that Tom Walker, my Air Force boss at Hill Air Force Base where I worked as a private contractor, called me to his office to tell me that my hours of work from 9 am to 6 pm were causing a problem and that they would prefer that I work from 7:30 am to 4 pm like everyone else. I happily responded that that would be just fine!

Before that dream, I had always felt that I just could not work efficiently so early in the morning because I've just never been an morning person. When people said I would get used to it, I replied that I did it for two years on my LDS mission and never got used to it. Thus, without the warning of this dream, I would have fought to keep my hours, especially because between 4-6 pm I could do almost a full day's work due to no interruptions. Thus, my response in the dream amazed me when I awoke!

Two days later on Fri 14 Mar 1980, Tom Walker did indeed call me to his office, which almost never happened. He said there was a problem. I immediately said that if it was with my schedule that I'd be glad to come in from 7:30-4:00 from now on. He looked so relieved and told me I had just solved the problem!

So my very first dream was prophetic! And it indeed help me out at work, which was the point of the business-sponsored seminar. But the most amazing result was I not only got used to the hours, but I soon was getting up early to play basketball at our ward gym three times per week from 6:00 to 6:45 am and generally even turned off the alarm before it went off! I would have thought that impossible!

I've had guiding dreams ever since, but not so much lately as I've learned to follow the Spirit nearly all of the time. Most meaningful dreams are cautions or warnings that we are on the wrong path, as I had been at work.