Your dream state is a very individualized state of consciousness because it has many levels. There are seven levels to your dream state. All are very uniquely designed by humanity.

First Level

When you enter into your dream state, it is often a time that you process information, you process that which you do not have the time to process in your daily existence. Many times, all you are doing is processing information. Once the information is processed, you place it into your daily understanding and your daily life.

Second Level

When you go into your dream state that says, "I have processed, but I do not understand," it is a time that you can begin to integrate your understanding at a much more rapid pace than you necessarily can when you are in a conscious, awake state with many other life forms.

In your dream state you have the capacity to isolate what would be detracting to you. Now, you don't always do that, but you have the capacity to do it. So, oftentimes, you are processing. You are understanding what you have processed.

Third Level

The third level of your dream state is when you choose to interact with others. You are not interacting on the astral level that you speak of, but on an emotional exchange that you cannot do on a conscious level when you are awake.

You choose to interact in this time of dream state because it is a little bit safer. You're not having to look at that physical person. You're not having to interact with those that are going to be threatening. It's a rather safe time for you. Why do you feel it is so safe for you to do these things in your dream time? The reason that you feel so safe in your interactions on these levels of consciousness is because you designed the dream time.

You did not design sleep. Sleep was designed to allow you time to disconnect from everything you have entangled yourself in and to look at it again and say, "Oh, my goodness, this is a monster over here." Maybe the monster is going to be a wild animal in your dream that you have created. You realize, "Wow, did I do something over here? I have to look at what I created."

You know you're very safe in analyzing and experiencing during your dreams. Even if it is a nightmare, you will wake up. Even though you may be frightened for a short time, you recognize you truly were safe. The tiger did not literally eat your body in the dream. Had you gone into the cage with the tiger when you were awake, it may have eaten your body. Dream time is an extremely safe time of processing for you. Therefore, what you will not allow in your awake time, you allow in your sleep and in your dream time.

Fourth Level

The fourth level of dream state is your play state. This play state of your dreams is what you consider your out-of-body experiences when you have been out in the universe. You know you've been somewhere during the night, but you don't quite know where.

You may have traveled through out the universe, but it's not a serious thing. It's sort of a satisfying of the mind. The body can't get there, but your mind can in your dream state. Some have very vivid recollections of that and others do not. You will think it was a dream. Sometimes, you will say, "I know I was there," or you will be awakened and say, "I wasn't here. I don't know where I was, but I wasn't here," or you'll feel the "jolt" when you re-enter into your conscious state.

That is the play area. The play area will be designed as you choose to design it. If you want to put monsters in your play area, you'll put monsters in your play area. If you want to put those that have beauty and light, you'll put those in your play area. It is your play area. You control what you put in it.

May I encourage you to use it because it's a very healthy state of being for you. It is a process of release, of creativity and of lightness, even in your monster stage. It is where your nightmares will take place as well. You often drift from the third level to the fourth level, back and forth.<p>

Fifth Level
When you enter your fifth level of dreaming, you begin to take on an aspect of learning. It is truly a time when you are allowing yourself to connect with the higher part of yourself.

You will be in school. This school will be defined for you in many different ways. You may not see it as a classroom setting or you may have the sense that you have been in a classroom setting where you are truly learning. It is learning. It is not a remembering. It is a learning process. You are learning on all levels compared to just learning on the conscious mind level. All parts of you are choosing to learn.

In those schools of learning, you may only bring back to your conciousness perhaps one or two of the ten things you learned. The rest is going into all that you are in many other universes and many other dimensions.

This is occurring because everything is on a simultaneous happening with responses and connections in all sources. So, what you're learning, you're not just learning for here, but you're learning for perhaps twenty universes away in your existence there as well.

Now, that learning there may be an entirely different application of what you've learned than what you are going to bring back here. This is what you're doing when you think you've been in school. Sometimes this is very tiring. Have you ever woken up in the morning really tired? This happens because all night long your mind kept processing and processing. You are learning this new information.

Sixth Level
When you move to the sixth level of your dream state, you are beginning to process that learning. You are beginning to determine what that learning means, how it elevates you spiritually, where this is taking you to, and what your soul path is in all of this awareness.

When I say the word "soul", I do not restrict the "soul's" existence to this planet. Please understand, I would never restrict such a great part of who you are to this planet.

You begin to process and integrate this learning during your sixth level of dream state. "How does Planet Z fit with Planet A in this? And, individual B that I am so connected with out there, how does this help me to connect here?" or, "I'm still connected here, but I'm not connected there. We need to be connected there because we have great work to do over here, but somehow we got so scattered and so far away, how does this happen?" You see, they too will be learning, so how do you bring it together?

Seventh Level
Level seven you'll never understand because it's totally spiritual. It is what sustains your life or existence. It is what brings to you the substance, the essence and all that you are. <p>

Now, I'd like to address sleep even more than dream time. Dream time is sort of that inner action where you have an awareness that something is taking place. But, what's really going on with you during the rest of your sleep time? This is really where there is a great deal of the power of your existence that takes place because this is when you are making some very fundamental choices and decisions that you refuse to make when you're awake.

Have you ever woke up in the morning and suddenly said, "Oh, I know I want to do this," or "I have the answer to this." Well, how did you wake up knowing you want to do this?

It's where you allow yourself to make the decisions, where you allow yourself to do all that you do not allow yourself to do when you're in the daytime. Do you know why you allow yourself to do it? It's because you feel safe, and because in the daytime, when you're interacting with so many other life forms that you feel could be threatening to you, you're so busy defending or attacking that you don't feel safe enough to do the things that you do in your sleep time.

The state of consciousness you call sleep allows freedom. You often escape there for your direction in life. Dream time is allowed to be during sleep. Do not deprive your soul of the resource of sleep and dream time. It is of great benefit to your experience on Earth.

ANALYSIS OF DREAMS

When we dream of something or someone familiar to us in our real waking life, we need to focus on the question of whether the dream object should be analyzed on the objective or subjective level, or both.

As we analyze a dream on the objective level, we ask whether the dream's message relates to the person or object or situation that exists in our waking life. We do all the association work with the other key elements in the dream. Then we insert these associations in our dream story, leaving the familiar dream element as it is; i.e. do not substitute associations for the familiar element. Our thought process then should be, is my dream telling me something about my friend or spouse (or whoever the person in the dream actually is), or my job (or whatever the situation that is addressed), or my pet or jewelry or dress (or whatever familiar object appears in the dream).

It is unusual for the dream to have meaning on the objective level, although one should examine that level first. Some people find warnings or affirmations in their dreams often. This is rare.

It is much more common for all the elements in the dream, even the familiar, to speak symbolically. Therefore, every dream about the familiar should be looked at closely by the dreamer on the subjective level. This means that the dreamer should do associations with the familiar element, and substitute those associations along with the other associations for key elements in the dream to find the dream story that is being told symbolically. In other words, the dreamer should ask, "What do I associate with my husband?

What kind of masculine is he? What are his qualities?" or "What does this dog mean to me? What does he remind me of? Does he have any cultural or archetypal associations that are significant?" or "What does this job mean to me? In what sense is it my work? Are there clues in what is going on in the dream job that speak to me about the symbolic nature of this job?" This is the process that should be applied to any familiar element in a dream as well as the unfamiliar to find the symbolic, subjective level of the dream.

The message of a dream can vary dramatically, depending on whether the dreamer pays attention to the objective or subjective level of a dream. It is my experience that the real richness in a dream can be found by examining both levels. Even when my dreams are most meaningful on the subjective level, I often find that I have learned something I didn't know consciously about the familiar element that appeared in the dream.