Dream incubation is a way of asking your subconscious for guidance in the form of a dream. It is one of the simplest ways to connect with the deeper parts of yourself, and it can bring clarity, solutions, and direction.
In this article, I will share what dream incubation is, how to incubate a dream step by step, and examples from my own life where dreams have offered guidance. You will also learn how to interpret the symbols that appear and how to strengthen your practice through respect, sincerity, and keeping a dream journal.
Let’s begin with a closer look at what dream incubation is and how it works.
Table of Contents
What Is Dream Incubation?
Dream incubation describes a method that evokes dreams from our subconscious, usually in response to a question or concern we have in our daily lives.
For example, perhaps you are thinking of changing your career and are unsure of what field you should choose. Maybe you’re thinking of investing some money or moving overseas. Either way, you can use your dreams for guidance.
When I have questions or a major decision to make, I always rely on my dreams for help.
Just before going to sleep, while lying in bed, I will repeat to my subconscious what I need. I might say something like: “Tonight, I will dream and I will remember my dream and the dream will be about … (whatever I am looking for).”
I will repeat this affirmation ten or twenty times and relax, knowing my subconscious will respond to my request – and it usually does.
Our subconscious hears our every word and thought. It communicates with the web or reality and has access to information the mind cannot obtain on its own.
Our subconscious is a part of us, and dreams are one it its ways of communicating with us. So, of course, I listen to them.
How to Practice Dream Incubation (Step-by-Step)
Step 1: Focus
Immerse yourself in the area where you want answers.
Go over all the information you have available, look at all the possibilities. Do not worry about finding a solution at this point. Supply your mind with as much information as you can.
Your subconscious will sort through it all in its own mysterious way.
You will soon see there are many different options you have, and many choices you can make. Notice which ones appeal to you and why. Do you have a good feeling about some and a bad feeling about others?
Just take note of how you feel.
Step 2: Assess
Ask yourself two very important questions.
First: “Do I really want to know the answer to the question I’m facing?”
Since dream incubation can be a powerful process, don’t waste your subconscious time with frivolous pursuits.
Second: “Am I willing to act upon what my subconscious shows me?”
Ultimately, all of our life depends upon our choices and actions. While you should not blindly follow what your dreams tell you, you are requesting information that hopefully will result in a decision and action.
Step 3: Affirm
Ten minutes before going to sleep, as you lie in bed, repeat to yourself the questions you want answered.
Silently repeat what you need. Speak to your subconscious, as if it can hear you. Be sincere. Be positive. Be relaxed. Passion and sincerity are important. There must be a concentration of energy and feeling in your request.
Repeat 20 to 30 times as you are going off to sleep: “Tonight I will dream about ………… and I will remember my dream.”
Step 4: Release
Go to sleep with the full confidence that your subconscious will supply you with a dream that will offer you guidance.
Step 5: Write
Immediately upon awakening, gather all the fragments and memories of your dreams and write them down in your dream journal.
Examples of Dream Incubation in Action
Getting a Parking Ticket
One dream I had was in response to an important decision I needed to make the following day. I needed an answer that night. I was fluctuating back and forth, not sure what to do, so I asked my subconscious to give me a dream.
That night, a dream revealed to me what I should do. At one point in the dream, I saw myself getting a parking ticket because I had parked in an unauthorized place. I was running to my car, saying, “What’s it going to cost me?”, over and over. I was disappointed that I had parked there.
Upon awakening, I immediately wrote down my dream, and I gave it the title “What’s it going to cost me?”
Then I applied to the decision I had to make. I asked myself, “what’s it going to cost me?” if I proceed with my plan.
In the dream, I’m doing something I should not and being penalized for it. I surmised the dream was suggesting that there would be a price to pay if I went ahead. So I decided against it, which later proved to be the correct decision.
My dream had helped me make the right decision.
Skunk on a Leash
Another dream occurred a few nights before I was about to invest a sizeable amount of money in an investment that looked like a sure thing.
In my dream, the partners I was going to invest with were walking a skunk on a leash, as if it were a dog. Everyone was acting as if this were normal.
I woke from the dream and titled the dream “Something stinks.” And again declined. Several years later, the project went bankrupt. I would have lost all my money.
Boat Leaving
In still another circumstance, I was hesitating about involving myself in a project. I had a dream of a ferry leaving the dock, and I wasn’t on the boat. I felt great regret that I had missed the boat, wondering if I should swim quickly to catch up to it.
I titled this dream “Don’t miss the boat,” which helped me decide to participate. I did, and this, too, turned out to be the right decision.
Measuring Hair Length
The first dream workshop that I presented was preceded by a dream. I was unsure, at the time, whether I had sufficient knowledge and understanding to lead this workshop. I had only worked with my dreams for a few years, and I wasn’t sure if I should present.
I went to my dreams for guidance. In my dream, I saw myself in a room. My hair was being measured by a group of elders, all with long hair.
They were discussing whether my hair was long enough to be accepted. They had a ruler and measured my hair over and over again. Some of them thought it was long enough, and some didn’t. But eventually, they decided that by the barest of margins, my hair was long enough.
I woke from my dream, and, after writing it down, decided that this dream was telling me that I was ready to teach this workshop by “the barest of margins”. This gave me confidence to present the workshop, but also kept me humble as I still wasn’t a “long hair” yet.
Be patient and don’t expect to be an expert at this language in the first week or month. If we’ve never spoken Spanish or French, it takes time to get to a basic foundation where we can order food and get around. Give the same time and attention to dream language.
How to Interpret Your Dreams
The secret in interpreting dreams is to think of them as symbols and ask what the symbols represent to you. It is easier than you might think once you get the basics and have some practice.
The ways and means of dream interpretation are many, some of which I discuss in the chapter on dreams in Mind Power Into the 21st Century.
For example, in the book, I wrote about Nobel Prize winner Jones Watson being led to discover the enigmatic properties of the DNA molecule through a dream he had of two snakes coiling around one another.
He woke up and exclaimed, “I wonder if DNA is a double helix twining around itself.” Following this trail led him to decipher the mystery and won him a Nobel Prize.
The language of dreams is symbols. When interpreting our dreams, we never interpret literally but work out and intuit what the symbols might be saying to us. When we approach our dreams in this way, they become loaded with potential and possibilities.
For example:
- A death in a dream might mean a change is required.
- A scene in a bathroom might mean something is calling to be eliminated.
- A house might mean our psyche.
- A basement might mean our subconscious.
You get the idea.
Our interpretation of a dream can point us in many directions. But you must always approach dreams with humility and excitement. Excitement because we have been given an encrypted message. Humility because we have no idea what it means of whether we will interpret it correctly.
How to Strengthen the Practice (3 Tips)
1. Keep a dream journal
I have been keeping a dream journal for over 40 years. Whatever I dream, I write it down in my dream journal.
The dream journal becomes a book of mysterious wisdom cloaked in veils of symbolism.
At first, as we record our dreams, only tiny clues will reveal themselves. But the dream journal will build from one dream to another, and we will see patterns. A larger story will reveal itself.
Sometimes it will be individual dreams that “speak” to us, and sometimes groups of dreams whose patterns we interpret.
But one thing remains constant: each dream is recorded in our dream journal.
Sometimes, when I read my dream journal and look back at two or three months of dreams, I will see patterns I hadn’t noticed. Suddenly, I understand what they have been trying to tell me.
Jung discovered that dreams could often be understood in patterns rather than individual stories. Knowing this gives us another way of working with them.
2. Approach with respect and sincerity
For me personally, a much deeper respect and understanding happened when I began approaching dreams as sacred messages from other parts of me, and from beyond the veils of our normal reality.
Rather than curiosities, they became sacred, holy, of great value and interest, even though I didn’t understand them.
Respect entered into the experience. I began respecting the phenomena of having dreams, and so honoured them by having a dream journal and pen by my bedside each night. I would give thanks in the morning if a dream happened, and I would write it down in my dream journal upon waking.
By doing this, I honoured my dreams.
Do not underestimate the importance of honour and respect. Honour and respect are symbols of your heart. The subconscious understands symbols. You are speaking the language of dreams and the language of the subconscious by doing this.
Having a dream journal and pen by your bed is also a symbol. It is saying, “You are important to me. I honour your great dreams from beyond. I honour your wisdom. I honour your messages.”
Writing your dreams down in the morning is also a symbol. Doing this is very powerful. It shows that you believe that these messages and symbols are worthy of being recorded.
3. Patiently build a relationship with your subconscious
The more respect and attention you give to dreams, the greater respect and attention they will give to you.
Instead of merely trying to understand and interpret them, “have a relationship” with them. It means having respect for your dreams. It is in many ways a paradigm shift from investigating your dreams to entering into a dialogue with them.
Your relationship with your dreams will grow and deepen the more you spend time together. Like a good marriage, when love deepens and expands beyond what either partner could have envisioned when they were first married, so too your relationship with your dreams will expand infinitely as you honour them, write them down, think upon them, and respect them as important parts of who you are.
You need not interpret them to have a relationship; you need only to honour them in this way. Interpreting dreams is another process we’ve covered earlier.
Writing our dreams down in the morning is a good start to building a relationship with them, as it gives a very important symbol to our subconscious.
We are using its language and showing we are sincere in wanting to understand our dreams. Just as in a relationship with another person, when we honour our dreams, it shows we respect these messages and they are worthy of being recorded.
What Exactly Is a Dream?
Dreams have fascinated and intrigued mankind for thousands of years. The Bible contains numerous references to individuals being guided by dreams—the most famous being Joseph’s interpretation of the pharaoh’s dream predicting seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.
Edgar Cayce, often referred to as “America’s greatest seer,” said dreams accomplish two things:
- They solve the problems of the dreamer’s waking life.
- They quicken new potentials, which are his to claim.
Jung thought of dreams as “always a little bit ahead of the dreamer’s consciousness.” They know more than our mind knows.
Yet in the 21st century, dreams are often reduced to simple curiosities—if they are noticed at all. This is unfortunate, for when we ignore our dreams, we are ignoring valuable communication with other parts of ourselves.
Whenever the subject of dreams comes up, there seem to be two polarized opinions. One holds that dreams are meaningless fragments that the brain processes after each day. The other believes that every dream is a message from the subconscious with meaning and importance.
I actually belong to both camps. Some dreams are simply the brain’s way of processing the day’s activities. But others are treasured jewels of hidden information that are incredibly important to us, that we ignore at our own peril.
There are records of dreams on clay tablets dating back to 3000 B.C. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians practiced dream incubation, where dreams were artificially stimulated by suggestion.
The first thing we confront in working with dreams is how bizarre they are. In any given night, we might find murder, love-making, flying with giant wings, extraordinary courage, great fear, meetings with celebrities, and people from the past. Certainly, we experience far more in our dreams than in outer life.
Freud, at the turn of the last century, and Carl Jung, twenty years later, brought to modern psychology a system of dream interpretation that still stands today as the foundation of dream interpretation. Upon their shoulders, psychologists, philosophers, scientists, and shamans have built a large body of work trying to make sense of it all.
I used to record only dreams that felt significant and ignore the rest. But today, I record almost all my dreams. This new habit coincides exactly with my work on the subconscious.
FAQ
Do all dreams have meanings?
Not all dreams are messages or specific; often, we are unsure exactly what our dreams are telling us. So how do we know that the dream we had last night has anything to do with our request in our dream incubation? Depending on how explicit the dream is, we may not know absolutely.
But because the subconscious is always trying to reach us, we can at least surmise that there is a distinct possibility that this dream has a message for us.
Dreams do seem to respond directly to what we are dealing with in life and within ourselves. So by going through this process, we up the chances that this dream is a direct response to the request we have made.
Are dreams subconscious?
Yes. Dreams arise from the subconscious mind, the part of us that processes thoughts, emotions, and experiences beneath conscious awareness. When we sleep, the conscious mind quiets, and the subconscious expresses itself through symbols, stories, and images. That’s why dream incubation works. It gives the subconscious a clear intention to respond to while we sleep.
I can’t recall my dreams
If you do not receive or remember a dream, continue the incubation process for a week. You can also ask your subconscious for clarification on a dream with yet another dream. Notice any patterns or similarities between the two or more dreams. Since dreams speak in symbols, it is like a puzzle you have to decipher.
We all dream, but each person has a different and unique relationship with his or her dreams. But if you wish a sincere and authentic relationship, I suggest you approach your dreams with respect, dignity, and sincerity. If you do, that is the way they will approach you.
Does dream incubation work?
Yes, but it requires patience, sincerity, and practice.
Some nights, the dream may come clearly and directly. Other times, it may arrive in fragments or symbols that take time to understand. The subconscious always responds, though not always in the way we expect. The more we work with dream incubation, the stronger the connection becomes, and the clearer the guidance we receive.