Dream interpretation is a valuable tool for understanding messages from the unconscious mind. The average person dreams for 100 minutes every night (whether they remember it or not) and so there are plenty of opportunities to benefit from remembering and interpreting dreams.
This guide to dream interpretation is aimed at both types of dreams: regular unconcious dreaming, and conscious lucid dreaming. The following is a step-by-step guide for analyzing the meaning of dreams.
Five Steps to Successful Dream Interpretation
1. Improve Dream Recall
Remember at least one dream every night for effective dream interpretation. The best way to do this is keep a dream journal and record the dream in detail. Pay attention to recurring themes, such as running away, or dreaming of dying, or flying dreams. These are key messages from the unconscious mind, and can reveal the real meaning behind dreams that needs to be dealt with on a conscious level.
2. Understand Neural Patterns
Contrary to popular belief, the next step to dream interpretation is not reaching for the nearest dream dictionary. The subconscious mind speaks in a different language to the conscious brain. So the essence of dream interpretation is to not take things too literally. Dreaming of death may represent the end of an era – rather than a premonition about someone actually dying.
The human brain learns through neural patterns. A real life experience (such as falling off a bike) becomes associated with pain, so the brain makes a note to avoid falling off a bike in future. These neural patterns become more complex over the years. They apply to all kinds of logic and emotions, including fear, jealousy, love, and laughter. They are critical in understanding the meaning of dreams.
3. How to Analyze Dreams
Neural patterns are important in dream interpretation. When the unconscious mind is troubled by fear, it may create dream symbols such as a monster, or a threatening stranger. This figure represents fear in general. So even though the real life problem may be the fear of failing an exam, the monster figure may emerge in a dream. The subconscious is simply trying to communicate this through the dream – so that the conscious brain can deal with it. Dream interpretation can therefore be an effective way of dealing with life issues.
Some people choose a dream dictionary but be warned: the definitions are of a broad nature. Different cultures associate a different meaning behind dreams and the overall message can become completely muddled. It is better to dissect the meaning of dreams on an individual basis, by building up a personal collection of dream symbols and themes.
4. Identify the Manifest and Latent Content
The psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, effectively kick-started the science of dream analysis. He believed that regular dreams are made of two parts:
Manifest content – is often meaningless. It is easily described with logical properties, and likely to arise from literal memories from the day before.
Latent content – holds the true meaning of dreams. It is often disguised and represents secret wishes and desires.
Freud used a dream interpretation technique called free association to separate the latent content in a dream. He would ask his patient to describe their dream, thereby throwing out the obvious manifest content. Then he would ask them to focus on one element and think of as many associations as they could. This random linking of words and ideas allows the unconscious mind to have some input – ultimately revealing the true meaning of dreams.
5. Learn How to Lucid Dream
A more direct approach to dream interpretation and communicating with the unconscious mind is known as lucid dreaming. There are now easy techniques that allow anyone to become conscious inside the dream world; a completely safe and life-changing endeavor.
Lucid dreaming is often as vivid as real life, using all five senses. Besides the obvious freedom and escapism, lucid dreams can be used to create a dream character that represents the unconscious mind, so the dreamer can speak to the subconscious directly. This is the ultimate in dream interpretation, since the subconscious is personnifed and can give away direct anwers.
If you found Dream Interpretation interesting, you may also like:
The Meaning of Dreams – An Introduction to Dream Interpretation
Lucid Dreaming Techniques – How to Have Lucid Dreams
Rebecca Turner - Rebecca Turner is an online entrepreneur, making content-rich websites on her hobbies and passions. To date she runs four websites from ...
