You will know when you have a meaningful dream – it will hit you right between the eyes. It will wake you up in the middle of the night and the details will be clear. You will remember this dream, even if you forget all the others.
So let's get to the bottom of it. Our dreams don’t use many words, the dreams use symbolic language. We all have a deep understanding of nature, people, animals, and the seasons, even us city dwellers. But often we are not aware of that, so we have to tease out the meanings with time and effort.
It becomes easier with practice.
Here are Ten Easy Steps to understanding the message of your dream.
1) Approach your dream with an attitude of thankfulness and appreciation. Be sincere about understanding it.
2) Write it down in narrative form, like a story. Do this as soon as you can, if possible without standing up or even rolling over.
3) Then pull out the keywords, symbols, things that don’t make sense. Leave a line or two between each word. Write down any words that you speak, a voice speaks, another person in the dream.
Note: This is the ‘Voice which must be heard’. It may be your soul or God speaking. It is the truth.
4) Record all the dream sequences even if they don’t seem related. They probably are related even if the settings change. Work through each one separately, and then consider how they relate to each other.
5) Relax and tell yourself, ‘I want to understand and I will.” Let your mind rest a little before starting.
6) Start working thru the symbols, one by one, write down associations, getting ideas from dream dictionaries, and regular dictionaries. Consider what the people in it might mean. They are often examples of characteristics you need to integrate into your life, or take as an example. Or perhaps they serve a useful purpose in the storyline of the dream.
7) Let your ideas sit. Walk away and come back later. Ideas may come to you in the meantime.
8) Sometimes you are really mystified. If a symbol doesn’t make any sense after a day or two, really dig in to it. How? Get out your colored pencils, pens, or markers and draw the dream, connecting related items. Often more details will come back to you. Did a character look like someone you know? Maybe the leaves were an intense green?
9) Look at the dreams you had a day, two days, or a week ago. Often your Unconscious will be stubbornly working on the problem for weeks or months, and will give you clues or important messages over a long period of time.
10) You should have a pretty good idea of the problem or issue that the dream is dealing with. You may not want to think about it, but if a dream has reached out and smacked you, then you can't ignore it any longer. Revisit your dreams searching for answers and advice on how to move forward. Where is the energy directed? What should you do with the new information?
Dreams are meant to help us to find ways through difficulties, uncover hidden truths, and reveal our strengths to ourselves. They are often comforting and supportive, and well worth understanding. As we learn to work with our dreams, if something is not making sense, it's OK to ask for more information from your dreams another night. The more we sleep, the more we find out. It's a really interesting process.
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