Whether you are a person with no awareness of your dream life or one who remembers your dreams clearly, you've got an amazing phenomenon happening each night right inside your mind. While awake and alert, about fifteen percent of the neurons in the cortex of your brain is firing at any given time. Neurons are the tissue structures that pass on the electrical impulses that collectively constitute thought. The entire surface of your brain is engaged while you dream. First we need to understand the function of dreaming, and then we can try to become an active participant in our own dream life.
Dreams usually follow typical patterns and contain images common to most people.
In my own dreams, I am almost always flying, a classic phenomenon. When my son was young, his dreams were always in color cartoons, and he was even a cartoon boy. Older generations, who watched primarily black and white movies and TV in their waking hours, frequently dreamed in black and white. Our waking fantasy world of television and movies may be dictating the format of our dreaming fantasies. Dream analysts use a whole dictionary of generally accepted dream symbolism for such things as flying, volcanoes, earthquakes, losing teeth, babies, monsters, and the like.