Dream Interpretation and Your Own Experiences
There are some people who claim to be able to tell you what your dreams mean. I've found these interpretations to be rather woolly, on the whole, and not particularly helpful.
So I've worked out for myself what's going on when I dream. For me the most important part of the dream is the feeling or the emotional response to what I am dreaming about. The subject matter can be anywhere on the scale from the utterly absurd to a complete recreation of an event that has actually occurred in my life. It can include people, places and things that are totally made up, or real day-to-day experiences that often occur in reality. The point is, it doesn't matter what I dream, it's how I react in my dream that is important.
The emotional responses in my dream are direct replications of what I have felt during the previous days, or from my more distant past. What I have done is make the connection between the feelings in my dreams and what I've actually felt at certain times before.
Let's say that I had a feeling of uncertainty and apprehension about submitting my book to a Publisher last Tuesday. In a dream tonight that could unfold as a re-enactment of the submission of the manuscript. Or the exact same emotional mix could be recreated by me dreaming I'm on the ocean in a little tin boat with large crocodiles in the water around me. Or the dream could be that I'm watching a badger with the face of David Dickinson juggling doughnuts... any of these dream scenarios could lead to the recreation of my emotion being experienced again. The connection of the emotion to the real event is more certain because of both the mix of emotions and the level of them. In the crocodile example above, it could be that I thought I should've been more scared of the crocodiles in my dream, but actually I wasn't too bothered in the end. That specific level of my reaction enables me to make the connection to the actual event.
I know that since I first came up with this theory it has proven to be 100% spot on for me and I'm able to make the connection to the meaning of my dream. At least, that is, in the dreams I recall. I think I can only remember a small fraction of them at best.
If indeed you want to try this out for yourself to see if it works for you, but you tend not to remember your dreams, then I have a couple of tips that work for me. Tell yourself before you go to sleep that you really want to try and remember your dreams. When you very first wake up, immediately set your mind to recalling what you've been dreaming about. A notepad and pencil to hand helps heaps if you can note down key trigger words as quickly as possible, because dream memories tend to fade the more awake you become.
Straight from the department of stating the bleedin' obvious, that. In fact, I feel like this whole piece is really. But even if it is, then I'm still interested to know if any of this rings true for you. Indeed, if you think this a great big pile of pants, then I am equally interested to hear.
What I don't know is if this emotional response thing is true for anyone else?
Comments
Subscribe
Visitor counter
Blog Roll Centre
Blog Hints
17 Comments
Never worked for me, but I didn't really try - and anyway we all have different talents and this doesn't seem to be one of mine. (Thus far.)
If you happen to gain cruise control over your dreams, do let us know. If able, I'd like to (a) dream myself onto some unexamined portion of our roof then check it in the morning to find out whether I'd seen something real (b) go touring (c) visit planets.
Mm, let's cancel that last one - wouldn't want to be stuck beyond the asteroid belt and foget how to get home.
I'm really quite phobic about water and ships and drowning, and the only time I've been aware of lucid dreaming was when I was dreaming a rather classy thriller, involving a chase through a ship, during WW2. I came to a load of scuba gear, and an escape hatch, and quite clearly thought, 'But hang on! Had Jacques Cousteau invented the demand valve in 1942? Can I use this scuba kit?' And then I thought, 'Yes, he invented it in the 30s, so I can escape.' And did.
Historical novelist? Moi?
Like Jill, I have used dream therapy in counselling for myself and with clients and it has given some of the greatest breakthroughs?
As you said Steve I think it is the feeling of the dream that is important, not so much the symbolism as described by Freud.
When I was practising meditation and learning about counselling and recording dreams I used to have lucid dreams ,but not any more. I have had three out of body experiences. (very interesting, tho people didn't used to talk about those so I kept quiet)
I also believe that other people in our dreams can be different aspects of oneself.
Jill, I am glad that you had someone to keep you safe in a group - good facilitators are so important - I had a fearful experience that put me off for a long time.
Life is full of coincidences, I was reading Laurence Le Shan's Clairvoyant Reality this morning - the dream section. I haven't picked it up for 20 years.
Flasbacks are nature's way of diluting the stress. I feel that dreams are the mind's way of shuffling things into order. It is complex to talk about on here.
I had traumatic experiences when I was young and have been revisiting them recently to try and see how they may have affected my life. I was very surprised when years ago, I talked about one of them in therapy, to discover it was as if I was right there. I am not sure I would want to relive the others. However I do wish there had been counsellors around for me to talk to at the time, someone to hear my pain. My parents were of tjhe school of thought where you 'put it to the back of your mind and think of something else'.
There is some evidence to show that things are best left for the mind to deal with.
As a counsellor I suppose I must disagree.
Talking is best.
Healing hugs to you.
Dreams and the effect on a writer is something I covered when I wrote a biography of my grandfather in which the 'dream self - the 'id' triumphed. You might say he 'lived the impossible dream but who much of this was a by-product of the romantic movement, I do not know,
Because I feel to tell someone 'don't worry, it was only a dream' I think is bad idea. I think bad dreams need to be talked through or they can add to an already worried mind.
I feel dreams play a very important part in our lives and we shouldn't just dismiss them as an over-active imagination that mean nothing and are pointless.
I used to suffer dreadful nightmares but as I've sorted out the major problems that errupted in my life, and learned so much from the therapy training over the past 10+ years, my dreams are much less aggressive. (yes still have dreams to highlight my worries and issues, they plague me on times to deal with them, but no where near as violent)
Nowadays, my dreams are usualy scenes and story lines - I wake up, grab my pen and pad and frantically scribble.
may you be comforted by the
healing angel at your side
Click here to sign up now.