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Jan Brehm of Portland woke up from a dream confused and shaken to her core. Lisa Espich of Tucson woke so deeply disturbed by a dream featuring her husband that she knew her marriage would never be the same. Jennifer Lambert of Virginia Beach felt such agitation over her dream that she cried for 30 minutes straight when she woke up — and then called her sister, from whom she'd long been estranged.
波特蘭的簡布闌從夢中驚醒，內心惶惑。圖森的麗薩艾碧醒來后心煩意亂，她夢里的主角是丈夫，她知道自己的婚姻將要發生變化。弗吉尼亞海灘的詹妮芙蘭波為夢所感，醒來后足足哭了30分鐘——然后打電話給她疏遠已久的妹妹。
Dreams can rock us, scare us, and in some cases, inspire us. But is listening to our dreams right up there with calling a psychic hotline? Not at all, say leading experts. "People are now using their dreams as tools to make their lives better," comments Marcia Emery, PhD, a psychologist at Holos University.
夢境會使我們受到震撼、驚嚇，有時是鼓舞。但是傾聽我們的夢境僅止于象打一個靈媒熱線嗎？權威專家說并非如此。“現在人們把他們的夢作為工具，使生活變得更美好。”霍洛大學的心理學家瑪莎艾默里博士評論道。
This is relatively newfound respect. Many researchers used to believe that dreams simply reflected the random firing of nerve signals while we sleep. "The thinking was that the dreams were meaningless and didn't serve any function at all," says Harvard psychology professor Deirdre Barrett, PhD. But today, many scientists feel that dreams play the vital role of clarifying what truly matters to us. "Dreaming is thinking — just in a different biochemical state," explains Dr. Barrett, author of "The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use Dreams for Creative Problem-Solving — and How You Can Too." "It's a mode of contemplation that's much more visual, intuitive, and emotional, as opposed to the patterns of waking thought."
這是相對較新的發現。過去很多研究者相信夢僅僅反應了我們睡覺時神經信號的隨機發射。“他們認為夢毫無意義，不起任何作用。”哈佛心理學教授戴隹巴瑞博士說。但現如今許多科學家認為夢在澄清什么是我們真正的問題上，扮演了一個重要角色。“做夢就是思考——只是不同生化狀態而已。”《睡眠委員會——藝術家、科學家和運動員如何利用夢境創造性地解決問題——及你如何也能做到》一書的作者巴瑞博士解釋道。“夢是沉思的一種形式，相對于清醒的思想模式，它更形象化，更直覺，也更情緒化。”
It's that intuitiveness that makes so-called "epiphany" dreams such a valuable resource. "Dreams can provide inspiration or help you get unstuck from problems because your mind is working on things in this different way," Dr. Barrett says. Case in point: When she gave subjects instruction in a technique called "dream incubation," half of them dreamed about a problem they had focused on prior to going to sleep, and a full 25 percent had a dream that provided an actionable solution.
直覺使得那些所謂“頓悟”的夢成為寶貴的資源。“夢可激發靈感或幫你擺脫問題，因為你的心智在以這種不同的方式工作。”巴瑞博士說。案例分析：她給受試者一項稱為“孵化夢境”的技術指導，一半人夢到睡前苦思冥想的問題，而25%的夢提供了可行的解決方案。
Finding the meaning in your dreams is like growing a garden, the pros say: The more you do it, the greater the insights it yields. "If you're regularly tending your dreams, once in a while you'll have a breakthrough that grabs you by the throat," Dr. Barrett says. Here are two women whose dreams provided just such a revelation.
發現夢的含義就象培育花園。韻律學云：多思多得。“如果你經常留意夢境，有時會有關鍵性突破。”巴瑞博士說。以下兩位女士就從夢中得到了啟示。
