Dream Catchers

Have you ever woken up from a super vivid dream that you never wanted to end, your heart pounding with excitement because while you were sleeping, you were also having one of the best times of your life. Maybe you say out loud or in your head, “This was the most amazing dream ever; I’ll totally remember it later.” Then after you shower, brush your teeth and have breakfast and are getting ready to relate the details of the dream, you find them eluding you. What was so crystal clear in your mind is now blurry. Were you really about to save the world, or kiss the person of your dreams, or open a locked door and find out what lay behind it? You’re frustrated because this exciting moment is now lost to you and no matter how much you try to recreate it when you hit the pillow the next night, you can’t.

We all know that getting our z’s is important for our physical health, but dreams are also important; they’re the time when our subconscious tries to make sense of what’s going in our lives. Often, symbols appear in dreams that are open to interpretation, and they can help give us a new perspective on things. Here’s where a dream catcher can be a helpful tool. While they’re not guaranteed to give you total recall when it comes to remembering your dreams, many believe that dreamcatchers do have a special way of helping us take stock of them, as well as protecting us from nightmares.

Originating in Native American culture, early dream catchers were designed to mimic a spider’s web, with the idea being that the webbing would “capture” bad dreams while allowing good dreams to drift through so the sleeper could benefit from them.

While there’ve been various interpretations and versions of its origins, today people use dreamcatchers as a simple way of filtering out the bad while retaining the good, as well as being a pretty yet functional decoration. These ethereal, delicate hangings are often the last thing you see before you go to bed and the first thing you notice when you wake up. They are a reminder to you to focus on your dreams and that your dreams matter as much as your waking thoughts.