T34 - Dreams - C 10

Here's where you can post your own dreams AND YOUR INTERPRETATIONS. Here are brief instructions on how to interpret your dreams: first list the symbols that appear in your dream. Then ask yourself, 'What does this symbol do in REAL life?' 'What does a mouse or a dog or a car do in real life?' Then take the answer and relate it to each of the other answers for the other symbols and what's going on in your life these days. Let's say off-handedly that you have a dream of a mouse and a house and it puzzles you. So you ask, 'What do mice do in real life?' Well, maybe to you mice are frightening creatures - they frighten people. Other people may think that mice are cute or dirty or whatever... Then you ask yourself, 'What do houses do in real life?' Well, houses protect people from the weather. Maybe, in your case, you answer the question by saying that a house is where people store their possessions. So, blending the two answers you might say that your dream is about your fears of your possessions. You ought to then ask yourself if this relates in any way to your current ACTUAL life. Do you have any fears of anything? If not, ask yourself the question, 'What are possessions (treat possessions as a symbol)?' Maybe you answer 'my most treasured possession is my mind.' So, blending symbols, you might then ask yourself, 'Am I in fear of my mind?' 'What's happening in my life that's so threatening to me and so overwhelming that my mind seems in danger?' And then you relate this answer back to the themes of the dream again, that is, fear and possessions. You're developing the themes of the dream and you're relating those themes to what's actually going on in your life today. You're giving your dream a meaningful interpretation (for you). If you have to do this cycle again it's okay. Sometimes it takes two or three repetitions of questions, answers and symbols to come up with a complete interpretation.

Trust your answers to your questions and stay with them for the duration of your interpretation. Your first answer is usually the most true and the deepest insight. Be aware of the 'lightbulb effect.' You experience the effect of a lightbulb going on above your head when you hit on something which feels instantaneously true to you. When this feeling occurs you know you've hit on something which is absolutely true.

Ways to add information to your interpretation process are: ask 'Are there any obvious emotions in the dream in addition to the images and symbols?' Incorporate these emotions into the process. Also ask, 'Are there any further details?' and 'Are there any other characters and who or what are they?' Then include this additional information in the process of your interpretation. The additional information sometimes offers up more refined viewpoints about the main symbols and if it's needed it can help answer the questions that you pose to yourself. Sometimes these additional symbols, feelings and details can be part of another branch of interpretation which may reflect on and compliment your main interpretation or take off in a supplementary direction. Some dreams can seem incredibly complicated and filled with many sections but usually each section can be analyzed and in the end all the interpretations, if we see them as separate sentences, can be put together to form a 'paragraph' which has a larger meaning. For complicated dreams like this it is helpful to use pencil and paper to write symbols and sectional interpretations down and even to diagram the sequences of the dream. Some dreams are short and to the point and others can be unbelievable long. These take patience and, of course, interest and an investment of time.

This is only a brief example. It gives you a method to interpret your dreams which is a more active, participatory one than the usual one that most people have of giving symbols in their dreams a fixed meaning that they read about in dream books. This method can give you individually important interpretations, important to yourself and even to the other people in your life who are part of the issues that the theme(s) of your dreams touch on.

So, please, post some of your dreams and your interpretations.