Dreaming can be seen as an actual place that your spirit and soul leaves every night to go and visit. The Chinese believed that the soul leaves the body to go into this world. However, if they should be suddenly awakened, their soul may fail to return to the body. For this reason, some Chinese today, are wary of alarm clocks.
Some Native American tribes and Mexican civilizations share this same notion of a distinct dream dimension. They believed that their ancestors lived in their dreams and take on non-human forms like plants. They see those dreams as a way of visiting and having contact with their ancestors. Dreams also helped to point to their mission or role in life.
During the Middle Ages, dreams were seen as evil, and their images were temptations from the devil. In the vulnerable sleep state, the devil was believed to fill the mind of humans with poisonous thoughts. He did his dirty work through dreams attempting to mislead humans down a wrong path.
The potential for an immense array of experiences in consciousness is always there. What we receive depends upon our attitudes, motivations, the measure of our attunement, and the extent to which we have made applicable what was received in earlier dreams and in waking experiences.
The dream world is a strange yet fascinating place! There are several different kinds of dreams. This book explains them all. Happy reading.