By my observation, the dream self is forever traveling ahead of the waking self, checking out challenges and opportunities that lie in the future. When we recall our dreams, it is always worth checking to see whether they contain previews of coming events. When we study our dreams this way, we may find that some of them are actually memories of the future – memories of a self who has already been there, and has left us a few postcards and souvenirs.

Once we wake up to the fact that the dream self is a time traveler, we are ready to learn something more interesting. The dream self not only visits future situations that will be manifested (or the past as recorded in personal or world history). The dream self travels along alternate time tracks, in parallel worlds. That wedding next summer, that trip to Tahiti, that horrible car accident, as viewed by the dream self are possible future events. They may or may not happen. The probability of any specific event being manifested will vary. The odds will be changed by whether we (a) catch sufficiently specific information from our second self who is the time traveler; (b)  read it correctly, and (c) take effective action to help manifest a desirable event or avert an unwanted one.

I provide many practical tools for working with dreams and premonitions of the future in several of my books, including Conscious Dreaming, Dreaming True, and The Three “Only” Things. For now, let’s simply agree to the following plan:

On New Year’s Eve, try not to over-indulge to the point where your dream self is woozy and your waking self will be too hung over or over-stuffed to hear his report. Then make it your game to approach sleep and dreams with the following intention:

Make sure you are ready to record something whenever you wake up, and as many times as you wake up. 

If you have no dream recall when you first awaken, stay in bed. Adjust your body gently, with the loose intention of getting back into your sleep postures; this can help to lure back memories from what was going on when you were in those positions. Whatever your state of memory, linger in bed for a good time after you stir from sleep. Let yourself float in that drifty in-between zone, on the cusp of sleep and waking, and see whether you can reconnect with your dream self.

If you still have no dreams, write down the thoughts and feelings that are with you. 

Scan all your “take” from the night with an eye to the future, and to linking whatever you have back to your intention. Your dream content may seem wild or surreal, most unlikely to manifest in any way in the coming year. Be patient in pursuing the possible connections. Dreams often employ a symbolic vocabulary because symbols bring together what we know and what we do not (yet) know.

If you don’t like the dreams you remember on New Year’s Day, compare the situation of your dream self with that of your waking self and ask where a situation of that kind could play out in your regular life – and come up with an action plan to change things.

If we can see the future, we may be able to change it for the better. If we can’t see the future, we are likely to end up where we are headed. Ask your dream self, who has already been there.