Even when we don’t remember our night dreams, we are likely to wake with a dream hangover. This can be a good thing. For example, we rise with renewed energy and a sense of clarity and direction about a life issue, maybe ready to face the day world with vigor and laughter. Or we may lie slumped in bed, reluctant to stir, feeling like we were run over by a truck, more than once.

I think it is always important, as daily practice, to note what physical sensations are with us when we wake. Whether on not we are clueless about what our dream self was doing, our body may be carrying the impress of what went on during the night. I notice that when I’ve been traveling far and wide, flying across oceans to my native Australia, or to England, where I used to live, I sometimes surface feeling jet-lagged.

Sometimes a dream hangover extends to astral repercussion – for example, marks or bruises that cannot be rationally explained. This can lead us to become more conscious of the reality of the subtle body, the energy form we often project during sleep. I just heard from a friend who gave an amusing and writerly example of astral repercussion. In her dream, she was journaling dreams furiously. When she woke, she had writer’s cramp.

I heard this week from a dreamer who reported that he has been waking with tension in a specific part of the body. “I have been waking from dreams with a lot of tension in my belly button region on down. This is a new experience and is not associated with any particular dream type.” He wanted to know what the meaning here might be.

My response: The area where you say you are experiencing tension is the one I associate with the solar plexus, the “powerhouse” among the major chakras of the energy body. If I am tense in this area, I would ask: what is challenging my personal power, and what response to that will I choose? Am I tense because something within me is straining at the leash, wanting some freedom of movement and expression? Or because my energy body senses a threat?  

This brought a strong aha of recognition from the dreamer. All of us can benefit from scanning our body and our feelings, on waking, for clues of this kind.

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