Interpretation of Dreams

We all experience the psychological phenomenon known as dreaming, and most of us who can remember our dreams share the same curiosity about what they might mean. Modern psychology suggests many different methods to explore the meaning behind the symbolism in your dreams. Use these classic techniques in combination with your own judgment to interpret the images and events of your sleeping mind.

Things You'll Need

• Notebook and pen

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Instructions

• 1

  Write down everything you can remember from your dream. Do this as soon as you possibly can after waking up to ensure the greatest memory retention. Write down every event, every feeling and every thought you had during the dream. Resist the temptation to change anything that may have seemed "weird" into something that might make more sense.

• 2

  Identify and separate the different components of your dream. Make several different, isolated lists of basic elements from the dream. You might make lists of physical objects, actions, people and words or phrases. Try to come up with a list or category for every element of the dream so that everything in the dream is included.

• 3

  Compare elements and images to a list of standard dream symbols, such as those found in Dream Moods' Dream Dictionary (see Resources). The psychologist Carl Jung believed in archetypal symbolic meanings in dreams, based upon the common symbolic and emotional meanings that people attach to certain symbols. You may or may not find that these standardized meanings seem to fit with your own symbolic interpretation of items in your dream, so be prepared to reject anything that doesn't seem to fit. Regardless, this kind of research helps to get you in the mindset of thinking about things symbolically.

• 4

  Determine your own personal meanings for the various elements and write them down. Do this for any item on your lists that you didn't find a satisfactory meaning for in the dream dictionary. Define each term according to the emotional meaning you feel it has and the symbolism you would ascribe to it if you were using the item in a poem or painting yourself. Bear in mind that some of the items in the dream may actually represent themselves, such as a close loved one; decide based upon what feels right to you.

• 5

  Rewrite the dream narrative to include your preferred symbolic meanings. In place of each item from your list (or in parentheses next to it), write in or substitute the symbolic meaning you have assigned to it.

• 6

  Read the revised narrative to get an interpretation of your dream, as the meaning should now be easy to infer. For example, if your original narrative read, "The company I work for is operating from the deck of the Titanic," and the new version reads, "The company I work for is facing impending disaster due to arrogance," the meaning of your dream should be clear.