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Preparations Prior to Interpreting Your Dream
{Remembering & Recording Your Dream} |
Step 1: Remembering and Recording Your Dream
Remembering Your Dreams
The first thing to do when interpreting a dream is remembering it. It is still a mystery why 95 to 99% of people forget their dreams but one theory is you're not concentrating on them while you're sleeping. Another theory is due to the hormone associated with memory (norepinephrine) is turned off while asleep. People who think dreams are important are more likely to remember them.
Upon waking from a dream lay still in your bed, keeping your eyes closed and moving as little as possible. Wake up slowly and stay relax. Hold on to the feelings you have and let your mind wander to the images of what you have just dreamt.
The important thing to do to remember your dream is to learn to lay still when you awake and go over the dream in your mind. Repeat this until you have it set in your mind or you will forget important parts of the dream. At first this can be difficult because we are progarmmed to a routine that is counter to memory. Changing habits can be difficult at best. But being able to remember your dreams is the first important step in interpreting them.
Recording Your Dreams
Because dreams are lost within minutes if not seconds it is important to have a method of recording your dream as soon as you awake. Either record your dream using a pen/pencil and paper or record your dream on a voice recording device. A voice device is best since it is faster to voice your dream instead of writing it down. Either way be sure to record your dream just as you remember it and after that is done add any additional information to feel relevant to the dream. Each word has meaning and properly recording is essential. Write down or record as many details in your dream as you can, no matter how minute or seemingly unimportant it may be. Do not worry if it makes sense. Many dreams don't. The idea is to record the dream so you can evaluate it later.
More Reading Dream Moods: Tips To Recalling Your Dreams>
For more on Dream Structure see The Structure of Dreams
Note: The use of the word IMAGE will be interchangeable with the words actions and symbol. Every dream is a story with a plot, full of images and actions. And because dreams use a language of symbol and metaphor the images are symbolic, a symbol representing some aspect of the dreamer's life.
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Interpreting Your Dream
Amplification of Images/Actions/Symbols
Now that you have written your dream down or recorded it, it is time to interpret the dream image by image, action by action. Analyzing and amplifying each IMAGE to its best possible application that fits your life. Every image has meaning and finding which meaning/application fits best is how you find the message{s} of the dream {every dream has at least two}. The Dream Dictionaries I have put together will help in determining the image's application and consequencely help you discover its meaning. The best way to do this is to take an example dream I have provided and interpret/amplify the images. The dream I have chosen is a very short dream making it easier to analyze. It was posted at the Power of Dreams/Myths-Dreams-Symbols Dream Forum and the response to my analysis was confirmed.
Step 2: Think About the Dream
Are there any aspects of the dream that have meaning to you? Or seem to apply to or fit with an experience recent or in the distant past? Remember, the dream is attemping to communicate an emotional issue{s} that is in conflict {albeit it unconscious} that needs understanding and resolution. There may be parts that seem logical to your life and others that are just plain weird or even frightening. The worst dream is just that, a dream. But its meaning is most important and its symbolic language has a message{s} that can bring about wholeness and direction to an otherwise rudderless life.
Step 3: Give Thought to the Emotional Issues in Your Life
Emotional issues/conflicts and emotional energies are what your dreams are trying to communicate {and help you resolve}. The emotional issues that plague you. What have you experienced in life that could have caused emotional distress? Failed relationships, living conditions and issues with financial support, raising and the nurturing of children and all that goes with the family unit, anything and everything that was capable of producing emotional energies that would/could cause a conflict to the norms in living your life.
In the process of analyzing your life give particular attention to childhood. Childhood experiences and influences are the foundations for later life traits and attitudes and although most are unconscious the energies associated with the experiences go with you throughout life. In childhood there may have been experiences where parenting was not what it should/could have been. We are wired to receive affection, nourishment, love and attention from day one. It doesn't need to be outright neglect, merely where, as a child, your relationship with parents wasn't as 'normal' as should have been. The earliest years in life are where foundations to who and what you become in later life are formed. Personality is usually complete by age 9. The first 3 years are the most important because our neurological sensory organs and archetypal senses are at their maximum in perceiving the environment in which we exist. What you 'learn' from your environment in these years are implanted and influence who you become in later life.
Levels of Emotional Energies in Dreams
{All dreams, if not all symbols, have at least two or more meanings/applications}
Level 1: Underlying Structures
Look for these: Experiences in early life that could have created emotional issues/conflicts, especially within the family and social environments. Parents constantly arguing {especially if there was physical abuse}, living in a one parent home, a childhood where there were recurring experiences causing emotional pain, neglect, physical or/and psychological abuse by anyone, general negative experiences, experiences that take away from a normal life especially in childhood. Also physical/emotional injuries unrelated to family; loss of friends or due to death, physical injuries that left a psychological mark, any experience that would cause emotional pain. The list is endless but the emotional energies associated with them are all too real. Such experiences cause conflict in your conscious life, the unconscious and often unknown psyche energies possessing the ability to alter your conscious self {but never taking away from the true self which the dream is attempting to reconcile}. But more than that they are the building blocks for personality and attitudes. Your early life evironment greatly determines who you become later in life. An introverted or extroverted person1 is hardwired to be that personality type but environment can and does alter it. Conflict sets in, an out of balanced natural psyche altered not to be its original intended self evolves. Your dreams will sometimes feature conflicts of and to personality. Decoding the language of the symbolic images/actions will lead you to the source of conflicting energies and allow a resolution/healing to take place.
Beyond the personality aspects is the development of attitudes2. Family interaction, peer pressures, environmental conditioning, etc. are precursors for developed personal attitudes and when there is something out of synch conflicts form that are played out in the conscious life {making life less rewarding, harmoneous, positive}. You basically become what you learn {factored in with the inherent predisposed archetypal factors} from your environment, the conditions in which you grow up in. If those years are not stable/normal or have experiences with strong emotional energies that unconsciously/consciously causes conflict to your set parameters they can become factors to behavioral attitudes and actions in later life {who among us does not have something?}. And because there is a conflict that affects wholeness they become the focus of our dreams.
1}Extroversion, Introversion, and the Brain
2} 8 Factors Responsible for Development of Attitudes
Level 2: Recent Experiences
Look for these: Conflicts in your life from recent experiences that possess strong emtional energies. These emotional experiences most likely will have associations to developed attitudes and personality from early life. But the recent experience alone will possess emotional energies beyond the normal life experiences, and because they caused an emotional conflict they will be stored in the unconscious as an unresolved emotional energy. As examples. You are reprimanded by your boss that left you numb, or you have a conflict with a fellow employee you think of as over bearing {which could be a result as projecting a trait in your father onto that 'male' person}. Or you have a minor auto accident that disrupts your normal routine but left you thinking. The images/symbols that are addressing the dream tryant representing your father and his tyrannical attitude would at the same time represent your boss and his demanding temperament. The dream is addressing both aspects of emotional conflicts using the same images/symbols.
And then there are issues of temperament that are a result of early life 'training'. If you are prone to easily anger the anger you feel needs resolution but more important the reasons/foundations for the anger need work as well {because they are a result related to developed traits}. All personality traits and personal attitudes have foundations and most come from early life indoctrination. The anger you feel is ofetn an inner anger brought about from childhood. You are as much angry at yourself as you are angry at the world arond you because of the unknown/unresolved emotional energies.
Level 3: Dormant Emotional Energies Related to Later Life Experiences
Look for these: You are in a relationship but for no legitimate reason have doubts to the fidelity of your partner. This could be a result of a past relationship where your partner was unfaithful. Experiences where there was infidelity or issues of trust often leave a deep emotional mark on the psyche. Your suspicions, whether right or wrong1, could very well be related to the stored emotional energies from your past failed relationship. The dream is attempting to help resolve the issue.
1} Intutiveness: The Intuitive Mind
But there is likely more to these emotions of reasoning. The baseless doubts as well as the choice of partners are likely related to feelings of insecurity, which in turn will go back to foundational experiences from early life. There may have been 'same' or similiar experiences in the relationship of your father and mother which would have caused issues with insecurity. Often the choice of partners is based on foundational experiences and if there are issues of insecurity there could be an inclination to choice someone to supplement those emotional issues who is not an ideal choice. Issues of insecurity, self doubt, constant indecision are ingredients usually related to foundations. From this example you can see why the different levels of emotional energies are being addressed by the same images/symbols. They are often related.
Level 4: Trauma Experiences
Look for these: Carl Jung delivered a seminar in 1938 that explored the dreams of individuals suffering from "Shell Shock" the diagnosis of psychologically affected returning soldiers that preceded the modern diagnosis of PTSD. Jung explained how recurring dreams from trauma {shell shock} indicate an absolute shift in the psychic system, and are a singular exception to the way dreams typically process and digest material from life.
The dream is never a mere repetition of previous experiences, with only one specific exception: shock or shell shock dreams, which sometimes are completely identical repetitions of reality. That, in fact, is proof of the traumatic effect. The shock can no longer be psychified. This can be seen especially clearly in healing processes in which the psyche tries to translate the shock into a psychical anxiety situation. {Carl Jung, Children's Dreams, pp. 21-22}
Trauma, PTSD, and Dreaming: Understanding recurring dreams and nightmares
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Typical dreams are never just repetitions of daily events, but total repetition can occur if the dreams are the result of a traumatic event. These dreams seem to overpower or overwhelm the symbol making function of psyche and likely also come with a physical residue of trauma that must also gradually be worked through by professional counseling. The language of symbol and metaphor that dreams normally use is not in use in some cases of trauma experiences
Again, keep this in mind when analyzing your dreams. Your dreams are about you and your emotions. Experiences in your life that possessed strong emotional energies that, although not thought of consciously, remain within your unconscious psyche. Your personality and personal attitudes are essentially linked to these emotional experiences. They are often motivators for who you become later in life. Discovering and understanding these energies will lead you to your true self. Resolving the issues associated to the emotional experiences will allow you to be all you can be, find wholeness and harmony in life.
Note: Two aspects of Jungian psychology related to discovery of your true self is the spiritual Self and the creative self. Two aspects within the psyche that are natural and life changing.
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