I recently finished up a leadership coaching training program of which a significant component was working with our dreams. Our instructor held that our dreams

I recently finished up a leadership coaching training program of which a significant component was working with our dreams. Our instructor held that our dreams are a reflection of waking life, and vice-versa. That by becoming aware of and interacting with the images in our dreams we can learn about ourselves. She showed us a process for "opening up" our night dreams. By writing them down, identifying patterns, and then looking for deeper meaning. Not through a fixed interpretation of symbols but something more fluid. We opened up a few of our night dreams as a group, including a couple of my own, and I was floored by how powerful and revealing the process was. We learned to use the same process for opening up situations in our waking lives too. I was incredibly skeptical at first but now I'm sure there is much more to our dreams than we give them credit for. I remember reading once that for many ancient cultures, dreams played a significant role. At some point, probably during the Age of Enlightenment, we discarded them as frivolous.