Where do our talents get hidden?

The different kinds of dreams, we have each night, give us clues about where our hidden talents might be found. Our dreams show us different possibilities than we've been thinking about people in our lives and the situations were facing. We don't actually know where our dreams come from or how we come up with that stuff. Dreams arise from facets of our unconscious minds that are in us but beyond our conscious awareness.

Most of our dreams deal with small, unresolved issues in our personal lives. They often appear to compensate for our one-sided experiences. They may inflate our low estimation of ourselves or deflate our exaggerated self-confidence. If we're wallowing in self-pity, we might have a rescue-fantasy or wish-fulfillment dream. If we're defending one right answer, we may have a nightmare to dismantle our arrogance and reveal our underlying fears. Our small dreams deal with our unmet need to depend on others, our unresolved power-identity with parental authority figures and changing identity though our personal history. Hidden talents remain out-of-sight in these nightly dramas that arise from our "personal unconscious".

Occasionally we will have a "big dream" with captivating symbolism and unforgettable significance. These dreams speak to what we're capable of and called to do. They reveal what will give us a deep sense of purpose, destiny and value congruence. They show us we have hidden talents to develop. These dreams give us symbolism of having a soul that knows us to be one-of-a-kind. We're attracted to this soul-mate, dream character who appears as our perfect "hottie". We learn from him/her how we've got a part to play and a contribution to make with this uniqueness found within our unconscious minds. Our motivation to pursue this is intoxicating love, not fear, guilt or social obligations. We're seen as serving a whole situation with what we have in us. Our talents appear in the context of a "collective unconscious" with archetypal imagery and patterns.

Both kinds of dreams play a part in getting talents to come out of hiding. The dramas in our small dreams show us how we've internalized opposition to be becoming more talented. Our needs to fit in, play along and avoid getting ostracized -- regard our hidden talents as threats. We're motivated by fear to keep our talents hidden. Any development toward greater uniqueness could amount to been seen as a misfit, loser or outsider. While we're still desperately seeking people to depend upon and ways to hold our own around powerful rivals, hidden talents are a hot button issue.

When a big dream has revealed the hidden talent to develop, the small dreams define the challenge accurately. The process involves several changes in how we see ourselves and our lives. We realize:

• we are the ones to establish our self-respect and others will really respect us only after we respect ourselves
• we are the one person we can really depend upon and we're better off not trying to depend on others like we did as kids
• we give ourselves authentic power by choosing to feel powerful, rather than thinking we have more power by upstaging, embarrassing or defeating others
• we get to say "who we really are" and "what our intentions are", rather than being tossed around by others' opinions and conjectures
• we are better off being unique and called to a purpose found within, rather than appeasing others who are rarely satisfied with our conduct
• we have different values to enact which are deeply fulfilling, unlike the ways we agree, collude or appease other's positional stances
• we have the right stuff in us to create gifts for this world that become very satisfying experiences for ourselves, as we bring our hidden talents to fruition

Once we come to these realizations, our inner hottie is thrilled with us. The situations in our dreams have happy endings. We're shown how we've "got it together" at last and we're free to be true to ourselves.