INDIAN BEAUTY PARLOR: WAKE UP TO YOUR WORLD OF DREAMS

INDIAN BEAUTY PARLOR: WAKE UP TO YOUR WORLD OF DREAMS

What we dream about may have a bearing in the world of reality. Often dreams which appear meaningless are actually reflections of our everyday life and its problems

Thrice in three months, Bernie Bell, an Indian Christian settled in Delhi, India, had the same dream. All she saw was a banyan tree standing on a small plot of land. Soon after, she and her husband John, a Lebanese settled in India, moved house close to what is now the Escorts heart Institute and Research Center in Delhi. There she saw something familiar: a solitary banyan tree on a plot of land, similar to the one in her dreams. A week later, she had the same dream again: but this time, standing near it with hands folded and a halo round her head was the Virgin Mary, saying to her "Yaadro". To Bernie, the word meant nothing.

She mentioned the dream to John, who was amazed. " 'Yaadro', in Arabic, means May it Happen, or may it come to pass. But how did you dream of a word in my mothertongue?" Bernie was convinced that her dream carried a significant message: in essence, that the plot of land was meant to be theirs. They hoped to open a beauty parlor there one day. It seemed impossible; Bernie was earning all of Rs.1,200 a month as a beautician, while John was looking for a job.

On Bernie's insistence, they traced the landowner, who had already committed the plot to a grocer. That night, Bernie had another dream in which the Virgin Mary stood on a huge sphere Earth crushing the head of a large snake. In her hand was a beauty parlor which she handed over to Bernie. Bernie awoke convinced that the Virgin Mary, by crushing the snake, had crushed the obstacles in her way to getting that land.

Three months later, a miracle happened. The landlord came to offer them the land. Stunned, John asked him why he had changed his mind. The landlord said " My brother owns the rear half of the land. He feels that if I give the front portion to a grocer, the value of his land would drop. Both of us feel a beauty parlor would be better." John confessed that he had no money. The landlord said that they could pay him in installments.

Bernie's card reads "Yaadro Beauty Salon, Sarai Juliena". In the center of the card is an emblem of the Virgin Mary with a halo around her head, hands folded—just as she appeared in Bernie's first dream. The banyan tree outside the salon now stands as silent witness to the belief that dreams do come true. But what was Bernie's dream? A fantastic coincidence or a guiding finger that pointed her in the right direction?

Bernie, in talking about the fascination dreams have for her, says: "There are many things we don't know about ourselves. But there is another part within us, which knows. That part which knows speaks to us through our dreams".

Bernie has very succinctly given the gist of the power of dreams and their relevance to our lives. We believe that all our solutions come from our waking, rational self. That is not the full picture. The range of our dreaming intelligence stretches from a dream like Bernie's which guided her towards a future event, to those that deal with our every day anxieties, fears and problems.

Dreams direct, warn and help us in a manner entirely different from our waking self, throwing light on an existing dilemma or a future event. The old adage, sleep over it, is based on the belief that sometimes having gone to sleep with indecision or anxiety, we wake up remarkably clear headed and full of hope. This happens because our dreaming intelligence has offered us a convincing point of view, which, without known why, we can trust implicitly. It is now recognized that the purpose of sleep is not only to rest the mind and body, but also to dream.

Radhika has a horror of bats. Twice she dreamt of thousands of bats lifting her off the ground. She awoke in complete fright. Nightmares may well be a way of drawing our attention to an emotionally charged situation in our lives.

Dr. Manju Mehta, a clinical psychologist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, says: "We dream much more when we are upset. Our mind is active and looking for a solution. Our dreaming mind keeps us in touch with thoughts and feelings which we may normally not acknowledge. In dreaming about them, we ventilate our deepest emotions and purge ourselves of many disturbing feelings."

Dreams not only tell us about our fears, but also help in conquering them. African tribes use dreams for this purpose. A fearful youngster is expected to go to sleep visualizing a hunt, lucidly imagining how he will vanquish the animal. For a few nights nothing may happen. Then if he dreams of charging, spear in hand, and killing the animal, he would be cured of all his earlier fears.

That is what lucid dreaming has been used for in recent times, to help control and conquer fear and anxiety. Lucid dreaming is realizing that you are dreaming. Apart from the dreamers knowing that they are dreaming. Another characteristic of lucid dreaming is that the colors and details are far more vivid than when you are awake. It is often the fantastic nature of the imagery, which causes the dreamer to exclaim: "This is impossible. This must be a dream."