Dream Interpretation | Dream Meaning | Dream Dictionary
My most popular requests for dream interpretation are by far, dreams about teeth falling out. Apparently this is quite disturbing to people who have this dream...they simply MUST know what it means! In my experience, a dream about one’s teeth falling out usually symbolizes that the dreamer is having a challenge getting their voice heard, or feelings acknowledged. This may be referring to their conversations with a particular person such as their significant other, boss or friend; or can be generalized for people who are shy; to include almost everyone they come in contact with. The dreamer needs to brush up on conversational skills, believe in the value of their own opinion, learn how to be less intimidated by aggressive people, and become more assertive in making their voice heard. Once they do that, this dream (which is a common recurring dream) should evolve, show improvement or disappear altogether.
Every person that appears in a dream is supposed to represent an aspect of One’s Self, and not actually be about that other person at all. Rather, it is a quality or characteristic about that person that your dream is focusing on, and how it applies to YOU.
Try to think about what aspect(s) this could be. It can be something you admire and wish to follow or incorporate into your own personality. It could be a more negative characteristic that you may dislike intensely in your waking life, but which is telling you something about yourself and your beliefs, judgments or attitude. It could be a call to alter your thinking in some manner, in order to be more open-minded and accepting of this aspect in others and your own personality, because it is hampering your spiritual growth & making life harder for yourself. The other person in your dream is always mirroring something back to you about YOURSELF.
Try to discover what that something is, and go from there. Once you get it through your head that the other person’s appearance in your dream is NOT about them, but really about YOU, then you will be much more successful interpreting your own dreams. This takes constant reinforcing - I still find myself wanting to think it’s about that other person instead of me.
usually represents freedom from the physical body, as we experience in sleep & while dreaming where we don’t use our physical bodies but instead use our mental & spiritual bodies to experience our dreams. Everybody seems to have a natural inclination to want to fly, unless that is changed by a fear of flying due to a frightening incident in his or her waking lives. Flying = freedom. This could mean a desire for freedom, an “escape” from restraints in your physical life (like a mini-vacation for the mind) or any number of possibilities. Tie it in with the context of your dream...what were you doing in your dream besides flying? How did it make you feel? Also, the type of flying I’m referring to here is the person flying on their own without an airplane or any aircraft at all. Airplanes & other aircraft are different symbols dealing with spiritual awareness, among other things.
This type of dream relates to your current “lesson in life,” and if you learn how to interpret it, you’ll find out how you are progressing...yes, folks, you’re still taking tests and getting graded! Our “true selves” are our souls, and not our physical bodies. You are a spirit / soul having a physical dream, not the other way around. Ever feel like your life is like a play, and you are acting out some role that you don’t even understand, even surprising yourself with your actions sometimes? Bingo! When we sleep, that proverbial “Veil of Forgetfulness” that prevents us from “cheating on the test” is lifted, and we are shown what type of progress we are making (or, GULP, not making) and given guidance on what to do next. We always have free will in our waking physical lives, though. If we stubbornly refuse to finish our tests, then we have that right - but we are doomed to repeat it until we pass it. And each time we turn away from the test, the next time it will be more unpleasant until finally we are forced to acknowledge it’s importance for our growth. The things we consider vitally important in our waking physical lives are not nearly as important as the TRUE reason we are here, which is to overcome our shortcomings so that we may get closer to our Source / God / Higher Power. To avoid learning the lesson is like forcing your soul to a fate similar to the mythical Greek god named Sisyphus who was doomed to keep rolling a boulder uphill for eternity, only to watch it roll back down & have to repeat the same tedious hard chore again & again. That sounds like school to me! So pay attention to the messages in dreams about schools, and you may advance faster. Do you really want to repeat kindergarten again?
This is supposed to symbolize you in your waking life, in your physical body. Your physical body is used by the soul pretty much like we use a car...it’s driven for awhile and we give it gas / nourishment & repairs as needed until it stops running, and then we go back home. Pay attention to your car, which symbolizes your physical body. Are you behind the wheel, or is someone else in control? You want to be in charge of your life, naturally. What is the color & condition of this vehicle? Do you seem to be driving it the right way, on a safe road in good condition, or is the road rocky, winding, or suddenly ends at a cliff? That would signal that you need redirection. The bigger the vehicle, the more energy you may be successfully using for your daily lessons, depending on the context of your dream. Note all clues as to how you are faring, and make adjustments accordingly.
You drive a car, but typically you LIVE in a house/apartment. Dreams about a house symbolize a larger aspect of your Self, and the aspects of self, which make us whole. Each room is said to symbolize a different aspect of your Self, for example:
An Attic symbolizes your Higher Self, and your spiritual development & progress. Look at other symbols in the attic of your dream, and try to evaluate what they mean. Also pay attention to the feeling(s) you experience in your dream...is it serious, enlightening or what, exactly? All these things are clues for you.
A Bathroom would symbolize the need for cleansing / purging / elimination of something in your life that isn’t quite working, or that has served it’s purpose and now it’s time to move on.
A Dining Room is similar to the kitchen, but has more to do with immediate needs for supplying & utilizing nourishment, and less with the preparation or taking stock of those needs.
The Main Room or Living Room symbolizes your daily interactions with others, and often you will have other people appearing in your dreams in this room. Remember, they represent aspects of YOUR Self, and not themselves.
(See PEOPLE, above)
Bedrooms symbolize the unconscious mind aspect of your self, rest, dreams, sometimes and sexuality issues in your life.
The Upstairs symbolizes your spiritual awareness aspect of self, or the Higher Self that holds all the keys or knowledge to this life’s role you are acting out, and always has your higher good looked after, no matter how it might seem otherwise.
The Downstairs / Basement symbolizes your subconscious mind / aspect of self, which deals with habits, old coping skills, self-regulation, ego.
That’s usually the part of our Selves that makes us feel “torn” between knowing we should do one thing, and inexplicably ending up doing the opposite. (Don’t you HATE that?)
Old belief patterns & fears have to be corrected, if that is the case. Tackle & overcome it, and you will feel much more peaceful about your life.
The Ground Floor of a house represents your daily agenda; what’s currently going on in your life.
Revisiting Old Houses from Childhood or Earlier Times: this points to issues that probably are resurfacing in your current life, and need to be looked at, analyzed, and healed so you can move forward and not backward.
If you find yourself repeating the same old tired mistakes, or dealing with the same old tired fears, chances are you will have this dream.
A Hallway symbolizes that you have reached an area that is necessary to journey through in order to get to the other side, and it may be a narrow path that has to be traversed with care and awareness.
If you have that “closed in, claustrophobic feeling” then you need to expand your awareness/open your mind to more possibilities for completing this phase of your journey.
This symbol points to emotional turmoil, as in a “whirlwind of emotions”; and / or rapid or sudden changes in your life. It is a sign to “get a grip” on what is possibly spinning out of control & deal more effectively with your emotions. Meditation and finding some private “thinking time” for yourself might be a good idea.
I am not a numerologist, but I will put a few basic numbers here
Newness or creation in your life, a new aspect of self is being formed and coming into being!
To dream of acorns, and that you eat one, denotes you will rise gradually to riches and honour. If you do not eat, and throw one on the ground, you will quickly get rich, but another will enjoy your property.
To dream that you have committed it shows great contentions and debates; but to dream you have resisted the temptation, shows victories over your enemies.
To dream you meet with an adversary, denotes that you will overcome some obstacle to your happiness—if you are a lover, you will conqu er some powerful rival, and be happy.
To dream you ride an ass, that bears your blows, and the more you beat, the slower his pace, denotes that you will be married to a virtuous industrious wife, but your passion will ruin her. If the ass mends his pace under your blows, and throws you she will prove incontinent.
To dream you are at the altar, and receive the holy sacrament. is a very unfavourable omen, and denotes many heavy and severe afflictions.
To dream that you see it cloudy, and afterwards clear and serene, denotes one part of your lifetime will prove unhappy, the latter part the reverse.
To dream you are angling, betokens loose desires in the m ale; such as seeking opportunities of inveigling some innocent female.
To dream that you are in a passion and angry with any one, denotes you have many enemies ! if you are in love, be sure that some rival is slandering you to your sweetheart. If you dream you see another in a passion with you; it is more favourable, if you are in love, your sweetheart will fall sick, and you will experience some weighty loss.
To dream you see angels, is a sure sign that some one is near you—if a woman with child dreams of them, she will have a good time, perhaps twins.
To dream of seeing apples, and they eat sweet and ripe, is a sure sign of prosperity, especially to virgins; if they should eat sour, it signifies much sorrow and unhappiness.
To dream that your apparel is proper and suited to the season of the year, denotes prosperity and happiness. To dream you are dressed in new clothes, is a favourable sign, and portends honour and succsss in your undertakings.
So dream you see a ghost, is very unfortunate: If it is of a comely aspect, and dressed in white, it shews deceit and temptation to sin; if you are in love, it is a sign of your not being beloved in turn, and that you are in the habits of friendship with one who is your most inveterate enemy.
To dream that your arms are withered and decayed, shows that the person will decline in health or fortune; if they appear to be more plump and grow strong, you will meet with unexpected prosperity; if your arms are broken, you will lose some dear friend by removing to a great distance, if your right arm is cut off, you will loose a near male relation, if the left, a female.
It is good always for a rich man to think or dream he is in authority.
To dream of bacon, denotes the death of some friend or relation, and that enemies will endeavour to do you a mischief; in love, it denotes disappointment and discontent.
To dream of eating barley-bread, betokens health and great comfort to the dreamer.
To dream you are in a boat on clear water, is very good, and indicates joy and prosperity.
To dream a bullock pursues you, beware of some powerful enemy, particular if the dreamer is a female: It a cow, a female is an enemy.
To dream you bathe, and the water seems clear, you are sure to prosper, everything will be well with you; but if the sorw. water appears muddy, you will be apt to meet with shame and sorrow.
To dream that you are in bed, implies that he or she will be married at the end of the month.
To dream you see a great quantity of loaves, denotes success in life. To dream that you are eating good bread, denotes many friends.
To dream they sting you, denotes loss of good character, and if you are in love, of your sweetheart.
To dream of dancing at a ball denotes that you will be addressed by a lover; the prospect will be a momentary pleasure he will become your husband to a certainty
To dream yourself or friend is buried, fortells a serious fit of illness.
To dream that you are in church, and that the parson and pulpit are in white, and that he preaches a sermon to your taste, you will soon be married. If the parson is in black, and the congregation sing a hymn, it denotes grief.
If a man dreams of a cat, and he caress her, and she scratches him, his sweetheart is a spiteful termagant. If a female dreams of a cat that acts similarly, she may rest assured that she has a rival.
If you dream the clock falls or breaks, it denotes danger, especially to the sick. It is always better to dream of counting the hours of the forenoon than the afternoon.
To dream you eat cheese denotes profit.
To dream that you make a cake signifies joy and prosperity.
To dream of clear burning coals, denotes prosperity, especially in love; coals in their natural state indicate trouble and discontent; extinguished coals, announce the fall of fortune, or the death of some near friend.
To dream you are climbing a tree, and gain the top, you will rise to preferment, or your love will succeed; or if you dream you climb a very steep hill, foretells many difficulties in life.
To dream a candle burns bright and clear denotes a pleasing letter from your sweetheart; but if the candle’s blaze gets cull, you will be disappointed.
To dream of crowns denotes riches and honour.
To dream you are playing at cards, it denotes that you will soon be in love. If you hold a great many court cards, if you are single, you will soon be married and happy.
To dream you are gathering ripe corn, promises you success in your enterprise, but if it is blighted or mildewed, you will be a great loser.
To dream of them denotes prosperity in life; if you have children they will all thrive, if you are in love your suit will be successful.
To dream you are in a dairy, skimming the cream off the milk, and that your sweetheart partakes of the cream, denotes him inclined to luxury. But if he drinks the milk, it is a sign of frugality.
To think yourself in the dark, is a token of affliction, and loss in trade; to get out of darkness, into sudden light, is a sign of rising to eminence, or of escaping out of prison.
To dream of death, denotes happiness and long life. To see him sink into the ground, is a certain death. The married to dream of death, implies a loss or second union.
If they fawn and fondle upon you, it is a lucky omen: if they are barking and snarling at you, then depend that enemies are secretly endeavouring to destroy your reputation; if you are in love be careful of your present sweetheart.
To dream of the devil denotes many troubles. If he appears in fire immediate misfortunes will befall yau. A widow to dream of the devil, after she has buried a bad husband, is sure to have another—so widows, beware.
To dream you are dancing at a ball, or entertainment, fortells you will shortly receive some joyful news from a long absent friend : to the sailor, a pleasant and successful voyage, increase of children to married persons; and to those in trade, much business, and happy in marriage.
To dream you are drowning, or see another so situated, is good to the dreamer, and denotes that he will be preserved through many strange difficulties.
To dream you are in debt, and pursued by bailiffs, indicates that you will fall into some unexpected difficulties, or great danger.
To dream of an elephant, is a very fortunate dream it denotes an acquirement of riches, and happy wedlock.
To dream you see an eagle or a hawk perched, and they suffer you to caress them, you will be married to a military man, either a officer, serjeant, or private.
To dream you see others eating, is a bad omen. But if you dream you are asked to eat, and partake of those things you like best, some relief, perhaps will follow.
To dream of eggs, is honourable. whatever you are then about will succeed. To dream of broken eggs, if married, you will have no children. But to dream of eating them, you will have many.
If you see evil spirits in your dream, it is a sign of sickness, if you seem to exercise them, and they vanish, you will get over your difficulties.
To dream of an earthquake, warns y ou to be cautious and careful. If you see houses tumble, your friend s will feel a shock, public confidence is lost, or some dire calamity will defall them.
To dream of flies or other vermin, denotes enemies of all sorts. To dream of killing them is a very good omen.
To dream of a fox is the forerunner of much difficulties, beware of some designing adversaries.
To dream you fall into the mire, and you are covered with filth, if a servant, you will lose your character through pilfering; if the dirt gets into your eyes, you will experience confinement, most likely be imprisoned; if you see clouds rapidly moving beware of transportation. To run and fall, then rise, and run again, is a sign that you have a litigious temper that will ruin you. But to dream you run without interruption, is a sign of indifference, and that you will accomplish your design.
To dream of fire, denotes happiness, health and marriage, and many children. To dream you see burning lights descending, as it were from heaven, is a very bad sign; it portends Some dreadful accident to the dreamer, such as being hanged, loosing your head, having your brains dashed out, breaking a leg, or other strange accidents—to the lover, it also denotes the loss of the affections of your sweetheart.—to the tradesman, bad success in business. To dream that you are burnt by fire, denotes great danger, and that enemies will injure you, to the sailor, storm and ship wreck.
To dream you make a sudden fort une, is a very bad omen.
If in your dream you are crossing newly ploughed fields, promises some unexpected misfortune from a person who has no children, if the fields are covered with corn, it denotes having children.
If you cut your finger and the blood runs, you will get money where you least expect it; if you do not see any blood you will have a quarrel or law suit for money which you paid before.
To dream you have any thing given to you is a sign that some good is about to happen to you; it also denotes that speedy marriage will take place between you and your sweetheart.
To dream of geese is the forerunner of good, they denote success and riches, also faithful sweethearts.
If you are walking in a beautiful garden, you will soon be advanced in fortune, if you are gathering the fruits of it, you will be happy in marriage, and have many children.
To dream of the gallows, is a most fortunate omen, it shows that the dreamer will become rich, and arrive at great honours.
To dream you see a grave, fortells sickness and disappointment, if you are in love, depend you will marry your present sweetheart.
To dream of seeing giants is ominous of good if you are in trade, you will have a great increase of business.
Dreaming o f hail, denotes grief and much sorrow.
To dream o f being hated, by friends or enemies, is an ill omen.
T o dream of travelling over steep hills, shows that you will encounter many difficulties. and enter upon some arduous undertakings; if you descend the hill easily, you will get the better of all your difficulties.
To dream of building a house is a very favourable omen; if you are in trade it denotes success, in love, that your sweetheart is good tempered and faithful, and will make you very happy.
To dream that you are hunting a fox, and that he is killed, shows much trouble through the pretensions of false friends, but that you will discover them, and overcome all their machinations.
To dream of infants shows trouble, and in health, except you see them playing, you may then expect to receive great satisfaction from a distant part.
Dreaming of ice is a very favourable omen; to the lover it shows your sweetheart is of an amiable temper, and faithful; to the tradesman, it denotes success and riches, to the farmer a plentiful harvest.
For one to dream he hurt with iron, shows he will receive damage.
To dream of keys is favourable, to a person in trade and to a sailor—they denote some gift, and that the dreamer will become rich.
To dream you give a knife, indicates you will have much contention; to give one to your intended, shows he will loose her; she will cut your acquaintance.
If you receive a letter in your dream, it betokens a legacy or presents; if you send a letter, you will shortly relieve a person who is in distress.
To dream you climb a ladder, denotes a happy marriage with the object of your affections, and that you will become by industry, rich, and settle your children happily.
To dream you are dressed in clean linen, denotes that you will shortly receive some glad tidings— if it is dirty, then poverty, a prison and disappointment in love, with the loss of something valuable
To dream of seeing a lion, denotes that you will appear before your betters, accumulate riches, and marry a woman of great spirit.
To dream you are buying meat, signifies that friends will step forward, and be of great assistance to you, and that you will overcome difficulties, and acquire great riches
To dream of paying money denotes success in you afairs, the birth of a child, or the gain of a law suit; if received, you will thrive.
To dream of seeing your mother, is a certain paognostic of some agreeable adventure being about to happen to you, and that you will hear from a friend at a distance.
To dream you hear delicious music, is a very favourable omen; it denotes joyful news from a long absent friend.
To dream of the moon is a very favourable omen, it denotes sudden and unexpected joy, great success in love, and that the dreamer is tenderly beloved. To dream of seeing the new moon is good for tradsmen, farmers, and lovers; it is the forerunner of success snd happiness. To handsome women it is a good sign to see a full moon, but not to ugly ones.
To dream of monkies is ominous ef evil, they announce deceit in love, unfaithfulness in the married state, undutiful children, malibious enemies, and an attack by thieves.
To dream of nakedness, denotes scandal of character, to dream you see a naked woman is lucky; it fortels that some unexpected honours await you.
To dream of being ridden by the nightmare, is a sign of sudden marriage, or to be domineered over by a fool.
To dream of eating oysters, indicates a coming of much w an t; to open oysters shews we stand in need of assiduity in our business.
To dream you are eating oranges, implies grief and wounds.
To dream of seeing fair and white cattle, shows virtuous inclination; to see fat or lean oxen, signifies present gain or misfortune.
To dream you are in an orchard, denotes that you will become rich by the inheritance of a good legacy— that you will marry much to your advantage.
To dream of seeing the stately oak, is a sign of long life riches, and great gain.
To dream you write on paper, signifies an accusation will be made against you.
To dream you are looking at any beautiful pictures, denotes that you will be allured by false appearances into some very disagreeable situation; if you are mrrried, be sure your partn e r deceives you, and prefers another; and that the person who estranged her affections is your most intimate friend.
To dream of falling into a deep pit, shows that some very heavy misfortune is about to attend you—that your sweetheart is false and prefers another—to a sailor, it forbodes some sad disaster at the next port you touch a t.
Dreaming of seeing a comedy, or farce, indicates sucmuch god, cess in business; to dream of acting in a play, seldom indicates much good.
To dream of loosing a purse, signifies good, if it be full; but bad. if it be emty. To dream of finding a purse, is a very favourable omen.
To dream you are quarrelling denotes that some unexpected news will reach you. and that your sweetheart is about to marry another.
To dream of being in a shower of rain, denotes great success in your undertakings, it is particularly favourable to lovers it denotes costancy, affection and a sweet temper.
To dream of seeing river water clear, indicates good but to dream of swimning in the sea signifies great peril and danger.
To dream of rats, is a sign of many enemies and that you are exposed to many dangers from pretended friends.
To dream you are reading scientific books shows approaching wisdom.
To dream you see a flock of sheep feeding, denotes success in life.
To dream you see the ground all covered with snow, is a favourable dream; to a young man; shows he will marry a virgin and have children.x
To dream you have a new pair denotes triumph over enemies
To dream you are swimming with your head under water shows that you will experience some great trouble, and hear some very unpleasant news from a person you thought dear. To dream you are swimming with your head above the water denotes great success in your undertakings, whether they be love, sea farming.
To dream you loose your teeth denotes the loss of some friend by death; and that troubles and misfortunes are about to attend you.
To dream you are in a tavern, feasting with friends, signifies joy and comfort
To dream you find a treasure, shows you will be betrayed by your bosom friends.
To dream you fall into the hands of thieves, shows loss and trouble.
Dreamimg of thunder signifies affliction to the rich; but to the poor repose.
To dream you are cutting down trees, forbodes heavy losses in business; to climb them, denotes advancement in dignity.
To dream o f being in hollow vaults, deep cellars, or at the bottom of coal-pits, signifies that you will match with a widow.
To dream you drink vinegar, indicates sickness.
To dream of eating victuals, signifies loss of money V ERMIM. To dream of being covered with vermin, such as lice, betokens long sickness, if the lice remain; bnt if you cast them off yon will be delivered of troubles.
To dream you are walking in a dirty muddy place, fortels sickness and vexation; to a lover, it denotes his sweetheart to be bad tempered and unfaithful; to the tradesman, it fortels dishonest servants and loss of goods by fire.
To dream you see or are walking in a field of wheat, denotes great prosperity and riches—in love, a completion of your most sanguine, wishes, and fortels much happiness, with fine children when you marry.
To dream of a wolf, signifies an avaricious, cruel, and despotic person; if you dream you conquer a wolf, you will conquer a designing enemy, who has long endeavoured to prey on you—to dream you are bitten by one, shows you will receive some injury from a pretended friend.
To dream you are cutting or chopping of wood, shows that you will be happy in your family, and become rich and respectable in life.
For a man while sick, to dream of wedding a maid, denotes death; if to a deformed woman, it signifies discontent; to a handsome person much joy.
To dream of drinking wine with absent friend, signifies a speedy meeting; but to be drinking it by yourself, indicates you will became a great drunkard; and if you do, you may depend on it, it will speedily prove your ruin.
To dream of war, denotes trouble and danger to all.
To dream you are drinking water, denotes great trouble and adversity in trade, loss of business and arrest.
To dream you are stung by wasps, signifies vexation and trouble by envious persons.
To dream of being at one is a favorable omen.
To dream you are buying or selling of wool, denoted prosperity and great affluence, by means of industry and trade; to the lover it is a favorable omen; your sweetheart is thereby shown to be of an amiable disposition, very constant, and deeply in love with you.
A man to dream that h e sees his wife married to another, it betokeus some change of affairs.
To dream of high winds, storms and showers of rain, shows you will be crossed in love.
To dream of yellow colour, denotes to the married women, great trouble from a female friend, and the loss of her husband’s affections. To the lover it signifies he will marry a virgin, who will give herself up to the first man she likes.
To dream you are young, fortels peace, delight, and fruition of your desire.
To dream of having to bear the yoke, denotes danger, if it be a woman, she will be ready and willing to obey her husband, and careful to govern her family.
An indication of the funeral of a very aged person, by whose death the dreamer will derive some benefit, or a protecting hand among the relations of the deceased person.
When you dream of zones, fortels much trouble and vexation; to the tradesman, imprisonment, and loss of goods; to the lover, unfaithfulness in his sweetheart, and disappointments in his undertakings.
The following is not a comprehensive list and they are not listed in any particular order, but they are 20 of the most common dreams that people experience.
This one would easily rank in the top five most common dreams. The house normally represents your life, and the circumstances taking place in the house reflect the specific activities in your life. These dreams may also reflect the church as well.
Individual rooms of the house may represent specific things. For instance, if the bedroom appears, the dream may have something to do with issues of intimacy.
The bathroom may represent a need for cleansing. The family room may be a clue that God wants to work on family relationships and so on.
These dreams often center on taking of tests. The tests may be for the purpose of promotion. Or you might find yourself searching for your next class-an indication that guidance is needed or a graduation has just occurred. You might be repeating a class you took before, possibly meaning that you have an opportunity to learn from past failures. High School dreams may be a sign that you are enrolled in the School of the Holy Spirit (H.S. = High School = Holy Spirit). There are limitless possibilities.
These are just a few examples. Interesting enough, the Teacher is always silent when giving a test!
These may indicate the calling you have on your life, the vehicle of purpose that will carry you from one point to another. Cars, planes, buses, etc., may be symbols of the type or even the size of the ministry you are or will be engaged in. That’s why there are different kinds of vehicles. Note the color of the vehicle. If it is a car, what is the make and model? Observe who is driving it. Are you driving or is someone else driving? If someone else is driving, who is it? Do you know the person? Is it a person from your past? If the driver is faceless, this may refer to a person who will appear sometime in your future or that the Holy Spirit Himself is your driving guide.
Storm dreams tend to be intercessory, spiritual warfare-type dreams. They are particularly common for people who have a calling or gift in the area of discerning of spirits. These dreams often hint of things that are on the horizon –both dark, negative storms of demonic attack for the purpose of prayer, intercession, and spiritual warfare, as well as showers of blessing that are imminent. What kind of storm is it? Are there tornadoes involved? What color are they. Tornadoes can indicate change that is coming good or bad. Also tornadoes can indicate great destruction.
Flying dreams deal with your spiritual capacity to rise above problems and difficulties and to soar into the heavenlies. These are some of the most inspirational and encouraging in tone of all dreams. When awakening from a dram where you fly or soar, you often wake up feeling exhilarated –even inebriated- in the Spirit.
Ascending-type dreams are more unusual yet edifying. Remember, we are seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places far above all principalities and powers.
These dreams indicate that you will be or are becoming transparent and vulnerable.
Depending on your particular situation, this may be exhilarating or fearful and could reveal feelings of shame. Note: these dreams are not meant to produce embarrassment but rather draw you into greater intimacy with the Lord and indicate places where greater transparency is required. These types of dreams often appear during times of transition where you are being dismantled in order to be re-mantled.
Often, these dreams reveal the need for wisdom. Are your teeth loose, rotten, falling out, or are they bright and shiny? Do you have a good bite? Are you able to chew your cud? Teeth represent wisdom, and often teeth appear to loose in a dream.
What does that mean? It may mean that you need a wisdom application for something you are about to bit off. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
This kind of dream may indicate that you are being tempted to fall back into old patterns and ways of thinking. Depending upon who the person is in the dream, and what this person represents to you, these dreams might also be an indication of your need to renew your former desires and godly passions for good things in life.
Seeing a person from your past does not usually mean that you will literally renew your old relationship with that individual. Look more for what that person represents in your life – for good or bad. A person who was bad in your life may represent God’s warning to you not to relapse into old habits and mind-sets that were not profitable. On the other hand, a person who was good in your life may represent God’s desire or intention to restore good times that you thought were gone.
These dreams are not normally about the person seen in the dream in a literal sense, but are symbolic about something that is passing away or departing from your life. The type of death may be important to note. Watch, though, to see if resurrection is on the other side.
Normally these dreams are not about an actual childbirth but rather about new seasons of purpose and destiny coming forth into your life. If a name is given to the child, pay close attention because that usually indicates that a new season in the purposes of God is being birthed. There are, of course, exceptions to this where an actual pregnancy and birth is going to take place.
These are cleansing-type dreams (toilets, showers, bathtubs, etc) revealing things that are in the process of being flushed out of your life, cleansed and flushed away. These are good dreams by the way. Enjoy the showers of God’s love and mercy and get cleansed from the dirt of the world and its ways. Apply the blood of Jesus and get ready for a new day!
These dreams may reveal a fear you have of losing control of some area of your life or, on the positive side, that you are actually becoming free of directing your own life.
What a substance you fall into in the dream is a major key to proper understanding. The outstanding primary emotions in these dreams will indicate which way to interpret them. Falling can be fearful, but it can also represent falling into the ocean of God’s love.
Chasing dreams often reveal enemies that are at work, coming against your life and purpose. On the opposite side, they may indicate the passionate pursuit of God in your life, and you towards Him. Are you being chased? By whom? What emotions do you feel? Are you afraid of being caught? Or maybe you are the one doing the chasing. Who are you chasing? Why? Again, what emotions do you feel during the chase? The answers to these questions and, particularly, the dominant emotions in the dream, will often help determine the direction of its interpretation. Often the Lord appears in various forms, motioning to us, saying, “Catch Me if you can!”
Most likely, these dreams indicate generational issues at work in your life –both blessings and curses. You will need discernment as to whether to accept the blessing or cut off the darkness. This is particularly true if grandparents appear in your dreams, as they will typically indicate generational issues.
Nightmares tend to be more frequent with children and new believers in Christ, just as calling dreams do. They may reveal generational enemies at work that need to be cut off. Stand against the enemies of fear. Call forth the opposite presence of the amazing love of God, which casts out fear, the fear has torment!
The snake dream is probably one of the most common of all the categories of animal dreams. These dreams reveal the serpent – the devil with his demonic hosts- at work through accusation, lying, attacks, etc. Other common dreams of this nature include dreams of spiders, bears, and even alligators. Spiders and bears are two other major animals that appear in dreams that show fear. The spider in particular, releasing its deadly poison, is often a symbol of witchcraft and the occult.
After snakes, the most common animal to appear in dreams is the dog. A dog in your dream usually indicates friendship, loyalty, protection, and good feelings. On the other hand, dog dreams may also reveal the dark side, including growling, attacking, biting, ect. Sometimes these dreams reveal a friend who is about to betray you.
These dreams generally reveal change that is coming. New ways, new opportunities, and new advancements are on the way. Similar to dreams of doors are dreams including elevators or escalators, which indicate that you are rising higher into your purpose and your calling.
Clocks or watches in a dream reveal what time it is in your life, or the need for a wake-up call in the Body of Christ or in a nation. It is time to be alert and watchful.
Sometimes you may have a dream in which Bible passages appear, indicating a message from God. This phenomenon may occur in a number of ways: verbal quotes where you are actually hear a voice quoting a passage, digital clock-type readouts, and dramatizations of a scene from a Bible, just to name a few. Quite often these are watchmen-type dreams, dreams of instructions filled with ways of wisdom.
For example, clothing that is tattered or torn may signify that you feel emotionally shredded by an experience. You may also be expressing a “poor me” attitude.
Falling in your dream may come as a response to some failure. It may comment on feelings of loss of control. It may also be a response to falling from grace or falling from your stature in life. Falling dreams may recur when you have lost a significant relationship, or have faced a personal disaster in your career, or have been diagnosed with a particular illness.
Being chased by shadows shows the need to escape from something previously repressed, such as past childhood trauma or difficulty. To be chased by an animal generally indicates we have not come to terms with our own passion.
A horse may offer its power to the dreamer as a vehicle for moving forward in life. Horse brings the attnbute of strength to deliver you to your destination.
For the hero, the horse cames him to his mission, perhaps over long distances, and thus it may signify the need to travel. A wild horse can represent unleashed and untamed power. Horses may also trot into your dream to indicate the need to stand your ground in a power struggle.
Jumping
Affection. In this dream you may be expressing feelings that are difficult to express during the day. Kissing is usually an indication of warmth, affection, and happiness. If you don’t receive enough love and affection in your daily life, then this could be a compensatory dream, where the dreamer is comforting himself. If you are kissing the object of your affection, the dream could be a form of wish fulfillment. Superstition based interpretations say that if you are kissing strangers, you may have a need to conquer. If the kissing is insincere, you are pretentious while if you see your partner kissing someone else, you may be afraid of infidelity.
Money
Money in dreams does not necessarily represent hard currency, but more the way in which we value ourselves. This symbol appearing in dreams would suggest that we need to assess that value more carefully, and equally to be aware of what we ‘pay’ for our actions and desires. If there is a feeling of self-denial in our making savings, particularly to the point of miserliness, we may not have managed our resources properly in the past and are having to suffer for it now. We may also fear the future. If someone else gives us their savings, we are able to use their knowledge and expertise.
Paralysis
To dream you are pregnant signifies growth and development in your personal life. You may find that you are unprepared to act on it or to even discuss the matter with other people. It may also symbolize the birth of new ideas, projects, directions, or goals. To dream of being pregnant with a dying baby suggests an undertaking you worked hard for is suddenly doomed to fail. It denotes anxiety over things that are unfolding in ways you never expected. A pregnant woman having dreams of her pregnancy usually conveys her worries in various stages of her pregnancy. First trimester dreams are usually consists of small creatures, furry animals, flowers, fruits, and water. Second trimester dreams usually cover birth complications and self-doubt about motherhood. You may also dream of giving birth to a non-human baby. Finally, in the third trimester, you tend to dream of your own mother. When a man dreams of getting a girl pregnant, it is a warning that serious consequences may result from his sexual activities.
Prison
Being in a prison may comment on feelings of being persecuted or punished for doing something wrong. A prison may also mention that you are imprisoned by your own thoughts or beliefs. Since a prison represents lack of personal freedom, it may point to a relationship that restricts your freedom, such as a bad marnage.
Dreams of a sexual nature are very common and act both as an emotional release and a reassurance that everything is in order with your sexuality. Being intimate with a stranger is a fantasy that many people enjoy and this type of dream may indicate a wish for new experiences or experimentation. Intimacy with your partner in a dream acts as a reassurance of your love, and serves to strengthen your bond in your own mind.
Snakes
The snake is a powerful dream symbol, associated with the feminine, healing and spirituality. Being bitten by a snake in a dream is actually positive, meaning you are accepting all parts of your nature as you grow into a stronger person. If you dream about you or an animal attacking, wrestling with or trying to kill a snake, you will have to defend your reputation against nasty gossip. If the attempt to kill the snake was successful in your dream, you will succeed against all hostilities.
Spiders
In a dream, a spider represents a malicious woman, or a weak, perfidious and a distant man. A spider in a dream also represents a weaver, an ascetic or a monk. Ifone sees a spider in his dream, it may mean that he will meet a pious and a religious man. Weaving a web in a dream means becoming weak. A spider in a dream also could represent a pleasing wife. If one sees a spider hanging down from the ceiling in a dream, it indicates a severe winter in that area.
Teeth
Hostility or an attack, such as when dream figures deliver “biting words” or “bare their teeth.” Losing teeth in a dream may reflect words said in haste, or losing the ability to speak candidly. Because this bony part of the body endures long after death, it has some associations with the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. In this context, losing teeth might equate to losing the will to live or having your personal power taken away. Rotten teeth equate either to the fear of old age, or someone whose words are filled with so much insincere sweetness that decay in that relationship is inevitable. Having teeth pulled out represents an end to suffering that is aided by an external force.
Vehicle - Vehicles
If you dream of riding in a vehicle and someone else is driving, you will soon take a business trip at your bosses convenience. If you are riding in a vehicle where you or a member of your family are driving, then your trip will be for pleasure or personal business.
Walking or Running
A running dream is basically a dream of escaping a certain situation, person, or thing. If you succeed in running away from, or elude a pursuer, then you will be able to change those things in your life that has you ‘on the run’. If you dream of the desire to run but cannot get your feet to obey it shows a lack of self confidence and perseverance on your part. Try sticking to your guns and see how much your life will change.
Water
It is a mirror of your subconscious mind.
The quality of water often describes the situation of your emotions. Crystal clear, clean, adulterated, calm mostly provides strong insights about the state of your feelings.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
To enter this world while asleep leaves us largely unaware of its possibilities.
To take waking awareness into our entrance, as happens when we explore a dream through dream processing, unfolds the magic impact of what we meet.
When we open the door of dreams in this way we begin a journey. It has stages, problems to surmount and things to learn, just like any journey. Many people have already travelled before us, and there are books such as Alice in Wonderland, The Odyssey, Exploring Inner Space, and Altered States oj Consciousness which describe journeys and the terrain.
Although we might meet the heights of religious experience as well as the depths of human despair on the journey, in simple terms it is primarily a journey into a confrontation with our own potential, our own fear, our own prison bars of thought and habit, our own ability to lift perception beyond what we have known before and look at the world, and our life in it, from new perspectives. It is a journey towards greater maturity in which we face the humbling vision of our own littleness, the moving encounter with the vulnerable child we once were, the cleaning out of the store cupboards of resentment, hurt and anger, the D1Y of conscious renewal of our identity, and the meeting with Love as we experience ourself as a living participator in the wonder of life. We look at birth, we meet death, we gaze into the vast depths of space out of which our being has arisen. Then we find ourselves seeing the faces of the other human beings we live with, and recognising we are all on the journey, and we only have each other. Realising we are all waves on a shoreless sea—from no port we move to no destination—we understand our self responsibility, and consider what we will to do with the momentum of our life.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If we cannot meet our feelings of fear or emotional pain we are controlled or trapped by them. Sometimes we need the help of a professional therapist to meet what we fear, but many fears can be met by using simple techniques. See woljunder animal, dream processing, premenstrual tension.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
Upper World dreams deliver us into the certainty that spirit is all around us. assembled in the moment. And at any given moment our lives may take new. more positive direction if we choose to become lucid in our waking life and accept the grace around us. Enlightenment is the realization that heaven's dream is here on earth and we need not seek to leave our bodies to ascend Dreaming itself is a process of ascension.
Dreams in general are of transcendent value to the spintual- ly centered mind.
The related psychological work may even be viewed as spirit-driven. Each growth step we take through conscious dream work affects die collective unconscious, which includes every soul and every living thing The reverberation of our progress transforms the organism of the universe We may ourselves become like shamans and mediate the Upper World with the Middle World through recognizing dreams of a transcendent quality and bnnging the visions and information they communicate to those around us. By doing so, we bring inspiration and wisdom to our community of friends.
Spirituality and psychology have come together within the field of transpersonal psychology, which investigates transcendent states as an integral pan of rhe whole of an individual For the conscious dreamer, the exploration of dreams is a quest lor personal truth and spintual ccrtainty. By honoring the dreams from the Upper World as containing sacred information, one may be guided and supported toward life's fulfillment.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If one is in business, there is information in one’s own memory, along with considered projects, questions about problem areas, which have never been put on an electronic computer. And there is no computer program outside our own mind which can handle and manipulate all the variables, the integrating of different information sources—written words, feeling hunches, spoken information, personal observation and experience—and then sift, explore different combinations, and reach into pure creativity by leaping into the new.
Dreams should not be seen as oracles, but if we take their information into account along with our other sources, we find them a real addition to our business equipment. See creativity and problem solving in dreams.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
For the lay dreamer it is more useful to put dreams into much broader categories such as psychological. ESP, body, sexual, spiritual and problem solving. In researching the data for this book, some special cluster of dream themes were noticed.
For instance a cluster was noted in women past middle age, they dreamt of walking in a town and losing their husband. Description of these clusters can be seen in son and husband under family; losing teeth under body; flying; secret room under house; dead people; individuation. See also dream as meeting place; dream as spiritual guide; dream as therapist and healer; sex in dreams; ESP in dreams.
This dictionary of Christian Dreams contains over 13500 indexed entries and this dictionary.
Interpretation for Christian Dreams Symbols.
Dream Analysis and Interpretation.
Understand the meaning of your dreams. Great dictionary of dream interpretations.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
We can enter many dreams, then with a program such as Seeker or Masterfile, easily scan through them to see the frequency of dream themes. This approach to dreams—self insight through a series of dreams—is explained by Hall in The Meaning of Dreams. Important issues in our life and development occur as frequent dream themes, and are easily seen using a computer.
The program Brainstonn (Brainstorm Software Ltd) makes cross referencing dream symbols and associated comments easy. Using this program, if one dreamt of a tree and wrote one s associations, then six months later dreamt of a tree and entered this, the program instantly reminds you of the past reference to tree and can display it. Gradually a reference base of your own dreams and comments can be built up and quickly scanned. Such comparisons help to form a personality profile of yourself or others.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The few exceptions are usually very clear. Example: ‘My mother-in-law died of cancer. I had watched the whole progression of her illness, and was very upset by her death. Shortly after she died the relatives gathered and began to sort through her belongings to share them out. That was the climax of my upset and distress, and I didn’t want any part of this sorting and taking her things. That night I dreamt I was in a room with all the relatives. They were sorting her things, and I felt my waking distress. Then my mother-in-law came into the room. She was very real and seemed happy. She said for me not to be upset as she didn’t at all mind her relatives taking her things. When I woke from the dream all the anxiety and upset had disappeared. It never returned (told to author dunng a talk given to the Housewives Register in Ilfracombe).
Although in any collection of dreams such clearcut problem solving is fairly rare, nevertheless the basic function in dreams appears to be problem solving.
The proof of this lies in research done in dream withdrawal. As explained in the entry science, sleep and dreams, subjects are woken up as they begin to dream, therefore denying them dreams. This quickly leads to disorientation and breakdown of normal functioning, showing that a lot of problem solving occurs in dreams, even though it may not be as obvious as in the example. This feature of dreaming can be enhanced to a marked degree by processing dreams and arriving at insights into the information they contain. This enables old problems to be cleared up and new information and attitudes to be brought into use more quickly. Through such active work one becomes aware of the self, which Carl Jung describes as a centre, but which we might think of as a synthesis of all our experience and being. Gaining insight and allowing the self entrance into our waking affairs, as M L. Von Franz says in Man and His Symbols, gradually produces a wider and more mature personality’ which emerges, and by degrees becomes effective and even visible to others’.
The function of dreams may well be described as an effort on the part of our life process to support, augment and help mature waking consciousness.
A study of dreams suggests that the creative forces which are behind the growth of our body are also inextricably connected with psychological development. In fact, when the process of physical growth stops, the psychological growth continues.
If this is thwarted in any way, it leads to frustration, physical tension and psychosomatic and eventually physical illness.
The integration of experience.
which dreams are always attempting, if successful cannot help but lead to personal growth. But it is often frozen by the individual avoiding the growing pains’, or the discomfon of breaking through old concepts and beliefs.
Where there is any attempt on the pan of our conscious personality to co-operate with this, the creative aspect of dreaming emerges. In fact anything we are deeply involved in, challenged by or attempting, we will dream about in a creative way. Not only have communities like the American Indians used dreams in this manner—to find better hunting, solve community problems, find a sense of personal life direction— but scientists, writers, designers and thousands of lay people have found very real information in dreams After all, through dreams we have personal use of the greatest computer ever produced in the history of the world—the human brain.
1- In Genesis 41, the story of Pharaoh’s dream is told—the seven fat cows and the seven thin cows. This dream was creative in that, with Joseph’s interpretation, it resolved a national problem where famine followed years of plenty. It may very well be an example of gathered information on the history of Egypt being in the mind of Pharaoh, and the dream putting it together in a problem solving way. See dream process as computer.
2- William Blake dreamt his dead brother showed him a new way of engraving copper. Blake used the method successfully.
3- Otto Leowi dreamt of how to prove that nervous impulses were chemical rather than electncal. This led to his Nobel prize.
4- Friedrich Kekule tned for years to define the structure of benzene. He dreamt of a snake with its tail in its mouth, and woke to realise this explained the molecular formation of the benzene ring. He was so impressed he urged colleagues, ‘Gentlemen, leam to dream.’
5- Hilprecht had an amazing dream of the connection between two pieces of agate which enabled him to translate an ancient Babylonian inscription.
6- Elias Howe faced the problem of how to produce an effective sewing machine.
The major difficulty was the needle. He dreamt of natives shaking spears with holes in their points. This led to the invention of the Singer sewing machine.
7- Robert Louis Stevenson claims to have dreamt the plot of many of his stories.
8- Albert Einstein said that during adolescence he dreamt he was riding a sledge. It went faster and faster until it reached the speed of light.
The stars began to change into amazing patterns and colours, dazzling and beautiful. His meditation on that dream throughout the years led to the theory of relativity.
To approach our dreams in order to discover their creativity, first decide what problematic or creative aspect of your life needs ‘dream power’. Define what you have already leamt or know about the problem. Write it down, and from this clarify what it is you want more insight into.
If this breaks down into several issues, choose one at a time. Think about the issue and pursue it as much as you can while awake. Read about it, ask people’s opinions, gather information. This is all data for the dream process.
If the question still needs further insight, before going to sleep imagine you are putting the question to your internal store of wisdom, computer, power centre, or whatever image feels right.
For some people an old being who is neither exclusively man nor woman is a working image.
In the morning note down whatever dream you remember. It does not matter if the dream does not appear to deal with the question; Elias Howe’s native spears were an outlandish image, but nevertheless contained the information he needed. Investigate the dream using the techniques given in the entry dream processing. Some problems take time to define, so use the process until there is a resolution.
If it is a major problem, it may take a year or so; after all, some resolutions need restructuring of the personality, because the problem cannot disappear while we still have the same attitudes and fears. See secret of the universe dreams; dream processing.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
When someone close to us dies we go through a period of change from relating to them as an external reality, to meeting and accepting them as alive in our memories and inner life. In the next example the man has not only come to terms with his mother’s and his own death, but also found this inner reality. Example: A dark grey sugar loaf form materialised. This pillar lightened in shade as I watched. It didn’t move. I began to think it was Mrs Molten who died in 1956.
The feeling grew stronger but still the colour lightened. Then it bent over and kissed my head. In that instant I knew it was my mother.
An ecstatic joy and happiness such as I have never known on earth suffused me. That happiness remained constantly in mind for the next few days’ (Mr M).
To dream of seeing a deceased person is normally a dream of warning, and it tells you that the influences around you at this time does not bode well for your affairs, and you should not enter into any binding contracts or verbal agreements until this phase passes.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The same number of dreams were collected from people similar in age and social background, but not suffering depression.
The dreams were given code numbers, mixed and given to an independent judge. He was asked to look for any evident themes of self punishment, such as ‘I was waiting for my friends all night but they never turned up’, ‘my fiance married somebody else’. Such self punishing themes were found to occur with greater frequency in the depressives’ dreams.
The reader will find, in many stimulating observations, and plenty of interesting material relating to our subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of its enigmas.
The educated layman, of course, knows even less of the matter. The conception of the dream that was held in prehistoric ages by primitive peoples, and the influence which it may have exerted on the formation of their conceptions of the universe, and of the soul, is a theme of such great interest that it is only with reluctance that I refrain from dealing with it in these pages. I will refer the reader to the well-known works of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Herbert Spencer, E. B. Tylor and other writers; I will only add that we shall not realise the importance of these problems and speculations until we have completed the task of dream interpretation that lies before us. A reminiscence of the concept of the dream that was held in primitive times seems to underlie the evaluation of the dream which was current among the peoples of classical antiquity.[1] They took it for granted that dreams were related to the world of the supernatural beings in whom they believed, and that they brought inspirations from the gods and demons. Moreover, it appeared to them that dreams must serve a special purpose in respect of the dreamer; that, as a rule, they predicted the future.
The extraordinary variations in the content of dreams, and in the impressions which they produced on the dreamer, made it, of course, very difficult to formulate a coherent conception of them, and necessitated manifold differentiations and group-formations, according to their value and reliability.
The valuation of dreams by the individual philosophers of antiquity naturally depended on the importance which they were prepared to attribute to manticism in general. In the two works of Aristotle in which there is mention of dreams, they are already regarded as constituting a problem of psychology. We are told that the dream is not god-sent, that it is not of divine but of daimonic origin.
For nature is really daimonic, not divine; that is to say, the dream is not a supernatural revelation, but is subject to the laws of the human spirit, which has, of course, a kinship with the divine.
The dream is defined as the psychic activity of the sleeper, inasmuch as he is asleep. Aristotle was acquainted with some of the characteristics of the dream-life; for example, he knew that a dream converts the slight sensations perceived in sleep into intense sensations (‘one imagines that one is walking through fire, and feels hot, if this or that part of the body becomes only quite slightly warm’), which led him to conclude that dreams might easily betray to the physician the first indications of an incipient physical change which escaped observation during the day.[2] As has been said, those writers of antiquity who preceded Aristotle did not regard the dream as a product of the dreaming psyche, but as an inspiration of divine origin, and in ancient times, the two opposing tendencies which we shall find throughout the ages in respect of the evaluation of the dream-life, were already perceptible.
The ancients distinguished between the true and valuable dreams which were sent to the dreamer as warnings, or to foretell future events, and the vain, fraudulent and empty dreams, whose object was to misguide him or lead him to destruction. The pre-scientific conception of the dream which obtained among the ancients was, of course, in perfect keeping with their general conception of the universe, which was accustomed to project as an external reality that which possessed reality only in the life of the psyche. Further, it accounted for the main impression made upon the waking life by the morning memory of the dream; for in this memory the dream, as compared with the rest of the psychic content, seems to be something alien, coming, as it were, from another world. It would be an error to suppose that the theory of the supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers even in our own times; for quite apart from pietistic and mystical writers -- who cling, as they are perfectly justified in doing, to the remnants of the once predominant realm of the supernatural until these remnants have been swept away by scientific explanation -- we not infrequently find that quite intelligent persons, who in other respects are averse to anything of a romantic nature, go so far as to base their religious belief in the existence and co-operation of superhuman spiritual powers on the inexplicable nature of the phenomena of dreams (Haffner).
The validity ascribed to the dream life by certain schools of philosophy -- for example, by the school of Schelling -- is a distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity; and for some thinkers, the mantic or prophetic power of dreams is still a subject of debate. This is due to the fact that the explanations attempted by psychology are too inadequate to cope with the accumulated material, however strongly the scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be repudiated. To write a history of our scientific knowledge of the dream problem is extremely difficult, because, valuable though this knowledge may be in certain respects, no real progress in a definite direction is as yet discernible. No real foundation of verified results has hitherto been established on which future investigators might continue to build. Every new author approaches the same problems afresh, and from the very beginning.
If I were to enumerate such authors in chronological order, giving a survey of the opinions which each has held concerning the problems of the dream, I should be quite unable to draw a clear and complete picture of the present state of our knowledge on the subject. I have therefore preferred to base my method of treatment on themes rather than on authors, and in attempting the solution of each problem of the dream, I shall cite the material found in the literature of the subject. But as I have not succeeded in mastering the whole of this literature -- for it is widely dispersed and interwoven with the literature of other subjects -- I must ask my readers to rest content with my survey as it stands, provided that no fundamental fact or important point of view has been overlooked. In a supplement to a later German edition, the author adds: I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the literature of dream problems to cover the period between first appearance of this book and the publication of the second edition. This justification may not seem very satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it was decisive.
The motives which induced me to summarise the treatment of dreams in the literature of the subject have been exhausted by the foregoing introduction; to have continued this would have cost me a great deal of effort and would not have been particularly useful or instructive.
For the interval in question -- a period of nine years -- has yielded nothing new or valuable as regards the conception of dreams, either in actual material or in novel points of view. In most of the literature which has appeared since the publication of my own work, the latter has not been mentioned or discussed; it has, of course, received the least attention from the so-called ‘research workers on dreams’, who have thus afforded a brilliant example of the aversion to learning anything new so characteristic of the scientist. ‘Les savants ne sont pas curieux’, said the scoffer, Anatole France.
If there were such a thing in science as the right of revenge, I, in my turn, should be justified in ignoring the literature which has appeared since the publication of this book.
The few reviews which have appeared in the scientific journals are so full of misconceptions and lack of comprehension that my only possible answer to my critics would be a request that they should read this book over again -- or perhaps merely that they should read it! And in a supplement to the fourth German edition which appeared in 1914, a year after I published the first English translation of this work, he writes: Since then, the state of affairs has certainly undergone a change; my contribution to the ‘interpretation of dreams’ is no longer ignored in the literature of the subject. But the new situation makes it even more impossible to continue the foregoing summary.
The Interpretation of Dreams has evoked a whole series of new contentions and problems, which have been expounded by the authors in the most varied fashions. But I cannot discuss these works until I have developed the theories to which their authors have referred. Whatever has appeared to me as valuable in this recent literature, I have accordingly reviewed in the course of the following exposition.
I shall begin by giving a short account of the views of earlier writers on this subject and of the status of the dream-problem in contemporary science; since in the course of this treatise, I shall not often have occasion to refer to either. In spite of thousands of years of endeavour, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding of dreams. This fact has been so universally acknowledged by previous writers on the subject that it seems hardly necessary to quote individual opinions.
The reader will find, in many stimulating observations, and plenty of interesting material relating to our subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true nature of the dream, or that solves definitely any of its enigmas.
The educated layman, of course, knows even less of the matter. The conception of the dream that was held in prehistoric ages by primitive peoples, and the influence which it may have exerted on the formation of their conceptions of the universe, and of the soul, is a theme of such great interest that it is only with reluctance that I refrain from dealing with it in these pages. I will refer the reader to the well-known works of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury), Herbert Spencer, E. B. Tylor and other writers; I will only add that we shall not realise the importance of these problems and speculations until we have completed the task of dream interpretation that lies before us. A reminiscence of the concept of the dream that was held in primitive times seems to underlie the evaluation of the dream which was current among the peoples of classical antiquity.[1] They took it for granted that dreams were related to the world of the supernatural beings in whom they believed, and that they brought inspirations from the gods and demons. Moreover, it appeared to them that dreams must serve a special purpose in respect of the dreamer; that, as a rule, they predicted the future.
The extraordinary variations in the content of dreams, and in the impressions which they produced on the dreamer, made it, of course, very difficult to formulate a coherent conception of them, and necessitated manifold differentiations and group-formations, according to their value and reliability.
The valuation of dreams by the individual philosophers of antiquity naturally depended on the importance which they were prepared to attribute to manticism in general. In the two works of Aristotle in which there is mention of dreams, they are already regarded as constituting a problem of psychology. We are told that the dream is not god-sent, that it is not of divine but of daimonic origin.
For nature is really daimonic, not divine; that is to say, the dream is not a supernatural revelation, but is subject to the laws of the human spirit, which has, of course, a kinship with the divine.
The dream is defined as the psychic activity of the sleeper, inasmuch as he is asleep. Aristotle was acquainted with some of the characteristics of the dream-life; for example, he knew that a dream converts the slight sensations perceived in sleep into intense sensations (‰_÷one imagines that one is walking through fire, and feels hot, if this or that part of the body becomes only quite slightly warm‰_ª), which led him to conclude that dreams might easily betray to the physician the first indications of an incipient physical change which escaped observation during the day.[2] As has been said, those writers of antiquity who preceded Aristotle did not regard the dream as a product of the dreaming psyche, but as an inspiration of divine origin, and in ancient times, the two opposing tendencies which we shall find throughout the ages in respect of the evaluation of the dream-life, were already perceptible.
The ancients distinguished between the true and valuable dreams which were sent to the dreamer as warnings, or to foretell future events, and the vain, fraudulent and empty dreams, whose object was to misguide him or lead him to destruction. The pre-scientific conception of the dream which obtained among the ancients was, of course, in perfect keeping with their general conception of the universe, which was accustomed to project as an external reality that which possessed reality only in the life of the psyche. Further, it accounted for the main impression made upon the waking life by the morning memory of the dream; for in this memory the dream, as compared with the rest of the psychic content, seems to be something alien, coming, as it were, from another world. It would be an error to suppose that the theory of the supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers even in our own times; for quite apart from pietistic and mystical writers -- who cling, as they are perfectly justified in doing, to the remnants of the once predominant realm of the supernatural until these remnants have been swept away by scientific explanation -- we not infrequently find that quite intelligent persons, who in other respects are averse to anything of a romantic nature, go so far as to base their religious belief in the existence and co-operation of superhuman spiritual powers on the inexplicable nature of the phenomena of dreams (Haffner).
The validity ascribed to the dream life by certain schools of philosophy -- for example, by the school of Schelling -- is a distinct reminiscence of the undisputed belief in the divinity of dreams which prevailed in antiquity; and for some thinkers, the mantic or prophetic power of dreams is still a subject of debate. This is due to the fact that the explanations attempted by psychology are too inadequate to cope with the accumulated material, however strongly the scientific thinker may feel that such superstitious doctrines should be repudiated. To write a history of our scientific knowledge of the dream problem is extremely difficult, because, valuable though this knowledge may be in certain respects, no real progress in a definite direction is as yet discernible. No real foundation of verified results has hitherto been established on which future investigators might continue to build. Every new author approaches the same problems afresh, and from the very beginning.
If I were to enumerate such authors in chronological order, giving a survey of the opinions which each has held concerning the problems of the dream, I should be quite unable to draw a clear and complete picture of the present state of our knowledge on the subject. I have therefore preferred to base my method of treatment on themes rather than on authors, and in attempting the solution of each problem of the dream, I shall cite the material found in the literature of the subject. But as I have not succeeded in mastering the whole of this literature -- for it is widely dispersed and interwoven with the literature of other subjects -- I must ask my readers to rest content with my survey as it stands, provided that no fundamental fact or important point of view has been overlooked. In a supplement to a later German edition, the author adds: I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary of the literature of dream problems to cover the period between first appearance of this book and the publication of the second edition. This justification may not seem very satisfactory to the reader; none the less, to me it was decisive.
The motives which induced me to summarise the treatment of dreams in the literature of the subject have been exhausted by the foregoing introduction; to have continued this would have cost me a great deal of effort and would not have been particularly useful or instructive.
For the interval in question -- a period of nine years -- has yielded nothing new or valuable as regards the conception of dreams, either in actual material or in novel points of view. In most of the literature which has appeared since the publication of my own work, the latter has not been mentioned or discussed; it has, of course, received the least attention from the so-called ‰_÷research workers on dreams‰_ª, who have thus afforded a brilliant example of the aversion to learning anything new so characteristic of the scientist. ‰_÷Les savants ne sont pas curieux‰_ª, said the scoffer, Anatole France.
If there were such a thing in science as the right of revenge, I, in my turn, should be justified in ignoring the literature which has appeared since the publication of this book.
The few reviews which have appeared in the scientific journals are so full of misconceptions and lack of comprehension that my only possible answer to my critics would be a request that they should read this book over again -- or perhaps merely that they should read it! And in a supplement to the fourth German edition which appeared in 1914, a year after I published the first English translation of this work, he writes: Since then, the state of affairs has certainly undergone a change; my contribution to the ‰_÷interpretation of dreams‰_ª is no longer ignored in the literature of the subject. But the new situation makes it even more impossible to continue the foregoing summary.
The Interpretation of Dreams has evoked a whole series of new contentions and problems, which have been expounded by the authors in the most varied fashions. But I cannot discuss these works until I have developed the theories to which their authors have referred. Whatever has appeared to me as valuable in this recent literature, I have accordingly reviewed in the course of the following exposition.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If one succeeds in touching the feelings and memories usually connected with a dream image, this becomes apparent because of the depth of insight and experience which arises. Although ideally the Freudian analyst helps the client discover their own experience of their dream, it can occur that the analyst puts to the client readymade views of the dream. Out of this has occurred the idea of someone else ‘analysing or telling us about our dream.
Carl Jung used a different approach. He applied amplification (see entry), helped the client explore their associations, used active imagination (see entry) and stuck to the structure of the dream. Because amplification also put to the client the information and experience of the therapist, again the dreamwork can be largely verbal and intellectual, rather than experiential.
In the approach of Fritz Perls (gestalt therapy) and Moreno (psychodrama), dream analysis is almost entirely experiential.
The person exploring the dream acts out or verbalises each role or aspect of the dream.
If one dreamt of a house, in gestalt one might stan by saying I am a house’ and then go on to describe oneself just as one is as the particular house in the dream. It is important, even if the house were one existing externally, not to attempt a description of the external house, but to stay with the house as it was in the dream. This is like amplification, except the client gives all the information. This can be a very dramatic and emotional experience because we begin consciously to touch the immense realms of experience usually hidden behind the image. When successful this leads to personal insights into behaviour and creativity. See dream processing; amplification; gestalt dream work.
dream as a meeting place Any two people, or group of people who share their dreams, particularly if they explore the associated feelings and thoughts connected with the dream images, achieve social intimacy quickly. Whether it is a family sharing their dreams, or two fnends, an environment can be created in which the most profound feelings, painful and wonderful, can be allowed. Such exposure of the usually private areas of one s feelings and fears often presents new information to the dreamer, and also allows ventilation of what may never have been consciously expressed before. In doing so a healing release is reached, but also greater self understanding and the opportunity to think over or reconsider what is discovered.
Herbert Reed, editor of the dream magazine Sundance, and resident in Virginia Beach, Va., initiated group dreaming experiments. It started because Reed noticed that in the dream groups he was running, when one of the group aired a problem, other members would subsequently dream about that person’s problem. He went on to suggest the group should attempt this purposely and the resulting dreams shared to see if they helped the person with the problem.
The reported dreams often formed a more detailed view of the person’s situation. In one instance the group experienced many dream images of water. It aided the woman who was seeking help to admit she had a phobia of water and to begin thinking about learning to swim. In another experiment, a woman presented the problem of indecision about what college to transfer to and what to study. Her group subsequently said they were confused because they had not dreamt about school. Several had dreams about illicit sex. though, which led the woman to admit she was having an affair with a married man. She went on to realise that it was the affair which was underlying her indecision. She chose to end the affair and further her career.
Whatever may be underlying the results of Reed’s expen- ments, it is noticeably helpful to use the basic principles he is working with. They can be used by two people equally as well as a group—by a parent and child, wife and husband, businessman and employee. One sets out to dream about each other through mutual agreement. Like any undertaking, the involvement, and therefore the results, are much more pronounced if there is an issue of reasonable importance behind the experiment. It helps if one imagines that during sleep you are going to meet each other to consider what is happening between you. Then sleep, and on waking take time to recall any dream. Note it down, even if it seems far removed from what you expected. Then explore its content using the techniques in dream processing.
Example: My wife and I decided to attempt to meet in our dreams. I dreamt I was in a room similar to the back bedroom of my previous marnage. My present wife was with me. She asked me to help her move the wardrobe. It reminded me of, but did not look like, the one which had been in that bedroom. I stood with my back to it, and reached my hands up to press on the top, inside. In this way I carried it to another wall. As I put it down the wood broke. I felt it ought to be thrown away’ (Thomas B). Thomas explored the dream and found he connected feelings about his first marriage with the wardrobe and bedroom. In fact the shabby wardrobe was Tom’s feelings of shabbiness at having divorced his first wife. In his first marriage, represented by the bedroom, he always felt he was married for life. In divorcing, he had done something he didn’t like and was carrying it about with him. He says ‘1 am carrying this feeling of shabbiness and second best into my present relationship, and I need to get rid of it.’
dream as a spiritual guide Dreams have always been connected with the spiritual side of human experience, even though today many spiritual leaders disagree with consideration of dreams. Because dreams put the dreamer in touch with the source of their own internal wisdom and certainty, some conflict has existed between authoritative priesthood and public dreaming.
A lay person finding their own approach to God in a dream might question the authority of the priests. No doubt people frequently made up dreams about God in order to be listened to. Nevertheless, despite opposition, Matthew still dreamt of an angel appearing to him, Joseph was still warned by God to move Jesus; Peter still dreamt his dream of the unclean animals.
The modern scientific approach has placed large question marks against the concept of the human spirit. Study of the brain’s functions and biochemical activities have led to a sense of human personality being wholly a series of biological and biochemical events.
The results of this in the relationship between doctor and patient, psychiatrist and client, sometimes results in the communication of human personality being of little consequence. It may not be put into words, but the intimation is that if one is depressed it is a biochemical problem or a brain malfunction.
If one is withdrawn or autistic, it is not that there is a vital centre of personality which has for some reason chosen to avoid contact, but that a biochemical or physiological problem is the cause—it’s nothing personal, take this pill (to change the biochemistry, because you are not really a person). Of course we have to accept that human personality must sometimes face the tragedy of biochemical malfunction, but we also need to accept that biochemical and physiological process can be changed by human will and courage.
In attempting to find what the human spirit is by looking at dreams, creativity stands out.
The spiritual nature may not be what we have traditionally considered it to be.
An overview of dreams and how dreamers relate to them suggests one amazing fact. Let us call it the ‘seashell effect’. When we hear sounds in a shell that we hold to our ear, the noises heard seem exterior to oneself, yet they are most likely amplification of sounds created in our own ear, perhaps by the passage of blood. Imagine an electronic arcade machine which the player could sit in and, when running, the player could be engulfed in images, sounds, smell and sensation. At first there is shimmering darkness, then a sound, and lights move. Is it a face seen, or a creature. Like Rorschach’s ink blots, the person creates figures and scenes out of the shapeless light and sound.
A devil appears which terrifies the player. People, demons, animals, God and angels appear and fade. Scenes are clearcut or a maelstrom of movement and ill-defined activity. Events arise showing every and any aspect of human experience. Nothing is impossible.
If, on stepping out, we told the player that what occurred was all their own creation due to unconscious feelings, fears, habits, thoughts and physiological processes occurring within them, like the seashell effect, they might say ‘Good God, is that all it was, and I thought it was real. What a waste of time.’
Whether we can accept it or not, as a species we have created out of our own longings, fears, pain and perhaps vision, God, with many different names—politics, money, devils, nationalism, angels, an, and so on and on. All of it has flowed out of us. Perhaps we even deny we are the authors of the Bible, wars, social environments. Responsibility is difficult. It is easier to believe the source is outside oneself. And if we do take responsibility for our amazing creativity, we may feel ‘is that all it is—me?’ Yet out of such things, such fears, such drives, such unconscious patterns as we shape our dreams with, we shape our life and fonune, we shape our children, we shape the world and our future.
The shadow of fear we create in our dream, the situation of aloneness and anger, becomes a pattern of feelings, real in its world of mind. We create a monster, a Djinn, a devil, which then haunts and influences us. Or with feelings of hope, of purposiveness and love, create other forces in us and the world. But we are the creator. We are in no way separate from the forces which create our existence. We are those creative forces. In the deepest sense, not just as an ego, we create ourselves, and we go on creating ourselves. We are the God humanity has looked so long for.
The second aspect of the human spirit demonstrated by dreams is consciousness.
The unconscious mind, if its function is not clogged with a backlog of undealt with painful childhood experience and nonfunctional premises, has a propensity to form gestalts. It takes pieces of experience and fits them together to form a whole. This is illustrated by how we form gestalts when viewing newsprint photographs, which are made up of many small dots. Our mind fits them together and sees them as a whole, giving meaning where there are only dots. When the human mind is working well, when the individual can face a wide range of emotions, from fear and pain to ecstasy, this process of forming gestalts can operate very creatively. This is because it needs conscious involvement, and if the personality is frightened of deep feeling, the uniting of deeply infantile and often disturbing cxpcrience is cut out. Yet these areas are very rich mines of information, containing our most fundamental learning.
If the process is working well, then one’s expenence is gradually transformed into insights which transcend and thereby transform one s personal life.
For instance, we have witnessed our own binh in some manner, we also see many others appeanng as babies. We see people ageing, dying. We see millions of events in our life and in others.
The unconscious, deeply versed in imagery, ritual and body language, out of which it creates its dreams, picks up information from music, architecture, traditional rituals, people walking in the street, the unspoken world of parental influence.
The sources are massive, unbelievable. And out of it all our mind creates meaning. Like a process of placing face over face over face until a composite face is formed, a synthesis of all the faces; so the unconscious scans all this information and creates a world view, a concept of life and death.
The archetypes Jung talks of are perhaps the resulting synthesis of our own expenence, reaching points others have met also.
If so, then Chnst might be our impression of humanity as a whole.
If we dare to touch such a synthesis of experience it may be seanng, breathtaking.
It breaks the boundaries of our present personality and concepts because it transcends. It shatters us to let the new vision emerge. It reaches, it soars, like an eagle flying above the single events of life. Perhaps because of this the great hawk of ancient Egypt represented the human spirit.
Lastly, humans have always been faced by the impossible.
To a baby, walking and not wetting its pants is impossible, but with many a fall and accident it does the impossible. It is a god in its achievement.
To talk, to fly heavier-than-air planes, to walk on the Moon, were all impossible. Humans challenge the impossible every day. Over and over they fall, back into defeat. Many lie there broken. Yet with the next moment along come youngsters with no more sense than grasshoppers, and because they don’t know what the difference is between right and left, do the impossible. Out of the infinite potential, the great unknown, they draw something new. With hope, with folly, with a wisdom they gain from who knows where, they demand more. And it’s a common everyday son of miracle. Mothers do it constantly for their children—transcending themselves. Lovers go through hell and heaven for each other and flower beyond who they were. You and I grow old on it as our daily bread, yet fail to see how holy it is. And if we turn away from it, it is because it offers no certainties, gives no authority, claims no reward. It is the spiritual life of people on the street. And our dreams remember, even if we fail.
For this is the body and blood of the human spirit.
dream as a therapist and healer There is a long tradition of using dreams as a base for both physical and psychological healing. One of the earliest recorded incidents of such healing is when Pharaoh’s ‘spirit was troubled, and he sent for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men; and Pharaoh told them his dream, but there was none who could interpret it’. Then Joseph revealed the meaning of the dream and so the healing of Pharaoh’s troubled mind took place (Genesis 41).
The Greek Temples of Asclepius were devoted to using dreams as a base for healing of body and mind (see dreams and ancient Greece).
The Iroquois Amerindians used a social form of dream therapy also (see Iroquoian dream cult).
The dream process was used much more widely throughout history in such practices as Pentecostal Christianity, shaktipat yoga in India, and Anton Mesmer’s groups (see sleep movements).
Sigmund Freud pioneered the modern approach to the use of dreams in therapy, but many different approaches have developed since his work. Examples of the therapeutic action of gaining insight into dreams are to be found in the entnes on abreaction, recurring dreams, reptiles.
The entry on dream processing gives information about using a dream to gain insight and healing. See also dream as meeting place.
A feature which people who use their dreams as a therapeutic tool mention again and again is how dreams empower them. Many of us have an unconscious feeling that any important healing work regarding our body and mind can only be undertaken and directed by an expert, the expert might be a doctor, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, or osteopath. Witnessing the result of their own dream process, even if helped by an expert, people feel in touch with a wonderful internal process which is working actively for their own good. One woman, who had worked on her dream with the help of a fnend (non expert), said It gave me great confidence in my own internal process. I realised there was something powerful in myself working for my own good. It was a feeling of cooperating with life.’ One is frequently amazed by one’s own resources of wisdom, penetrating insight and sense of connection with life, as met in dreamwork. This is how dreams play a pan in helping one towards wholeness and balance.
The growing awareness of one’s central view of things, which is so wide, piercing and often humorous, brings developing self respect as the saga of one’s dreams unfolds.
There may be no hint of this, however, if a person simply records their dreams without attempting to find a deeply felt contact with their contents. It is in the searching for associated feelings and ideas that the work of integrating the many strands of one’s life begins. Gradually one weaves, through a co-operative action with the dream process, a greater unification of the dark and the light, the painful and transcendent in one’s nature.
The result is an extraordinary process of education.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
What you should keep in mind if you start a dream diary:
1. Make a note about the date of the dream (use the date of the morning following the dream).
2. Start out by describing the events in the dream without any kind of interpretation and in the sequence you remember them.
3. Write whether the dream you remembered is complete or only a fragment.
4. Write how you felt before and after the dream.
5. Give each dream a title at the conclusion, one that best characterizes the content of the dream.
For interpretation, remember the following:
1. The attitude you adopted toward the dream. Were you a passive observer or actively involved in the event?
2. Which persons appeared in the dream and what your attitude is toward them, emotionally and behaviorally.
3. The mood of each individual scene and of the dream in general.
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Each word has been defined on three levels (physical, emotional, and mental-spiritual) so that you can be precise and holistic when interpreting your dreams. Sometimes symbols pertain to all the levels at once.
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Whichever you experience – that was what was happening in your mind!
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The best “specialist” to do this is you.
An expert dream analyst or a psychotherapist would at best be a “midwife” or guide, and then only if your dream presented clear indications that there was emotional illness and that psychological support was important.
A dream symbol often points to several possibilities.
For instance, the question of whether you are the victim or the perpetrator plays a major role that only honest self-examination can answer. Dream interpretation is not a game, some thing you do every now and then. It only makes sense if it becomes—like daily hygiene—a consistent part of your daily routine—a form of “emotional hygiene.” The rewards are well worth the effort. Nothing can replace self-analysis followed by self-awareness. Only in this way can you lead a happy and productive life and be at peace with yourself.
Your unconscious is often the best friend you can have, because it provides advice and suggestions about how to deal with the problems that arise.
The wisdom of your unconscious can even open a window into the future—allowing you to face the unknown with confidence.
The increase in the number of people who suffer from emotional problems can be laid at the door of today’s culture, with its emphasis on acquiring money, property, and success. But those who are in touch with their unconscious and its messages won’t easily violate the natural needs of their soul.
The best protection we have against depression, anxieties, and coundess other emotional problems is effective dream interpretation.
If one who desires to maintain secrecy around his life and goals sees a dream interpreter in his dream, it means that he will find an intimate friend or a confidant to complete his intention.
If one is expecting news from an associate or if someone in a different land sees a dream interpreter in his dream, it means that he will receive the desired news.Adream interpreter in a dream also represents knowledge of sings, deciphering messages, analyzing substances, a tracer, a religious scholar, a lawyer, a good advisor, a compassionate friend, ajudge or a physician.
A dream interpreter in a dream also represents someone who does not keep a secret or someone who brings people both happy or sad news. In a dream, he is also a preacher, an advisor, one who balances things, a money changer, a garment cleaner, an undertaker, a barber, a comedian, a news broadcaster or someone who searches for people’s faults. Seeing oneself as a dream interpreter in a dream, and if one qualifies to sit on the bench, it means that he will become ajudge.lfhe is seeking knowledge, he will acquire it.
If he is seeking to become a physician, he will become one. Otherwise, he might become a money changer, a banker or any of the earlier mentioned trades. Telling a dream interpreted a dream in one’s dream, and if the explanation agrees with the common wisdom and religious norms of the Holy Qur’an and the traditions of God’s Prophet, upon whom be peace, then whatever one is told in his dream is true. Ifone does not understand the explanation of the dream interpreter in his dream, then he might need to find a qualified interpreter in wakefulness to satisfy his needs. (Also see Astrologer; Divination; Fortuneteller; Founder; Interpretation; Seer)
The Ultimate Illustrated Encyclopedia of Signs, Symbols & Dream Interpretation
The point is that if we are being given these messages for our own well-being, it would behoove us to try to understand them, to listen to the spirits.
The uncon¬scious, or the spirits, employ symbols with which we are familiar. They present the message using objects that per¬tain to our everyday life, the better that we may under¬stand what is being communicated. Sigmund Freud believed that the unconscious mind contains repressed material—wishes, thoughts, experi-ences—that the individual will not accept into the con¬scious mind. These things are therefore repressed and often disguised. Carl Jung called this repressed material the “Personal Unconscious.” He believed that there was also the “Collective Unconscious,” which contained elements from racial memories and experiences. Discover how to:
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The word computare is Latin, and comes from putare, to think. Neither is a computer anything like a human brain. But there are parallels. Christopher Evans, a psychologist, computer scientist and world authority on microprocessors, says the brain and computers are both information handling devices, taking impulses which in themselves mean nothing, like sound waves, and processing them. It is also his theory that both computers and the waking-brain function are taken off-line to re-program. Our behaviour responses and information bases need bringing up to date with any new experience and information that is relevant. In the case of the computer, off-line means having modifications made to programs, in the human it means sleeping and dreaming, the dream being the powerful activity of review, sifting and reprogramming. Thirdly, the brain and computer use programs. In humans, a program means a learnt set of responses, values or activities, such as walking or talking, but including more subtle activities such as judging social or business situations.
If, as Christopher Evans believes, dreaming is partly a period of revising and updating responses, insights and skills, then by working with the process one can make it more efficient.
The background for this statement is that many people have recurring dreams which change very little. Looking at this from the programming’ view, the attempt to revise is thwarted. But individuals can free such ‘stuck’ dreams by using dream processing.
Also, as some dreams are obviously a synthesis of experience and information gathered over a lifetime, the dream process is much more than a computing function which sorts new information and updates. It is also capable of creative leaps through synthesis and conjecture. J.B. Priestley’s dream of the birds (see religion and dreams) appears to be a massive synthesis of things observed over a lifetime. It also depicts a brain function like computer simulation, which takes information and forms it into an expenmental view of possibilities arising from the thousands of millions of separate bits of gathered data. See ESP in dreams; creative and problem solving dreams.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
What is the background to the dream? The most imponant aspects of your everyday life may have influenced the dream or feature in it. Briefly consider any aspects of your life which connect with what appears in the dream. Example: ‘1 have a plane to catch. I get to the plane but the suitcase is never big enough for my clothing which I have left behind. I am always anxious about stuff left behind. I wake still with the feeling of anxiety’ (Jane). When asked, Jane said plane flights had been a big feature of her life. She had moved home often, travelling to different pans of the world, leaving friends and loved ones behind.
What is the main action in the dream? There is often an overall activity such as walking, looking, worrying, building something, or trying to escape. Define what it is and consider if it is expressive of something you are doing in waking life. Activities such as walking or building a house need to be seen as generalisations; walking can simply represent taking a direction in life. When you have defined the action, look for further information under the other headings in this book, such as swimming or sitting.
What is your role in the dream? Are you a friend, lover, soldier, dictator, watcher or participant in the dream? Consider this in relationship with your everyday life, especially in connection with how the dream presents it. Where possible, look for the entry on the role in this book. See dreamer.
Are you active or passive in the dream? By passive is meant not taking the leading role, being only an observer, being directed by other people and events, If you are passive, consider if you live in a similar attitude in your life. See active/passive.
What do you feel in the dream? Define what is felt emotionally and physically. In the physical sense are you tired, cold, relaxed or hungry? In the emotional sense do you feel sad, angry, lost, tender or frightened anywhere in the dream? This helps clarify what feeling area the dream is dealing with. It is important also to define whether the feelings in the dream were satisfyingly expressed or whether held back.
If held back they need fuller expression. See emotions and mood.
Is there a because’ factor in the dream? In many dreams something happens, fails to happen, or appears . . . because! For instance, trapped in a room you find a door to escape through. All is dark beyond and you do not go through the door ‘because’ you are frightened of the dark. In this case the ‘because’ factor is fear.
The dream also suggests you are trapped in an unsatisfying life through fear of opportunity or the unknown.
Am I meeting the things I fear in my dream? Because a dream is an entirely inward thing, we create it completely out of our own internal feelings, images, creativity, habits and insights. So even the monsters of our dream are a pan of ourself.
If we run from them it is only aspects of ourself we are avoiding. Through defining what feelings occur in the dream you may be able to clarify what it is you are avoiding. See nightmares; dream as spiritual guide.
What does the dream mean? We alone create the dream while asleep. Therefore, by looking at each symbol or aspect of the dream, we can discover from what feelings, thoughts or experience, what drive or what insight we have created the drama of the dream. In a playful relaxed way, express whatever you think, feel, remember or fantasise when you hold each symbol in mind. Say or write it all, even the seemingly trivial or dangerous’ bits. It helps to act the pan of each thing if you can; for instance as a house you might describe yourself as ‘a bit old, but with open doors for family and friends to come in and out. I feel solid and dependable, but I sense there is something hidden in my cellar’. Such statements portray oneself graphically. Consider whatever information you gather as descriptive of your waking life. Try to summarise it, as this will aid the gaining of insight.
Try amplifying your dream You will need the help of one or two friends to use this method.
The basis is to take the role of each part of the dream, as described above. This may seem strange at first, but persist. Supposing your name is Julia and you dreamt you were carrying an umbrella, but failed to use it even though it was raining, you would talk in the first person present—I am an umbrella. Julia is carrying me but for some reason doesn’t use me.’ Having finished saying what you could about yourself, your friend(s) then ask you questions about yourself as the dream figure or object. These questions need to be simple and directly about the dream symbol. So they could ask Are you an old umbrella?’ Does Julia know she is canying you?’ ‘What is your function as an umbrella? ‘Are you big enough to shelter Julia and someone else?’ And so on.
The aim of the questions is to draw out information about the symbol being explored.
If it is a known person or object you are in the role of—your father for instance—the replies to the questions need to be answered from the point of view of what happened in the dream, rather than as in real life. Listen to what you are saying about yourself as the dream symbol, and when your questioneKs) has finished, review your statements to see if you can see how they refer to your life and yourself.
If you are asking the questions, even if you have ideas regarding the dream, do not attempt to interpret. Put your ideas into simple questions the dreamer can respond to. Maintain a sense of curiosity and attempt to understand, to make the dream plain in an everyday language sense. Lead the dreamer towards seeing what the dream means through the questions. When you have exhausted your questions ask the dreamer to summarise what they have gathered from their replies. See postures, movements and body language for an example of how to work with body movement to explore a dream meaning.
Can / alter the dream to find greater satisfaction? Imagine yourself in the dream and continue it as a fantasy or daydream. Alter the dream in any way that satisfies. Experiment with it, play with it, until you find a fuller sense of self expression. It is very imponant to note whether any anger or hostility is in the dream but not fully expressed.
If so, let yourself imagine a full expression of the anger. It may be that as this is practised more anger is openly expressed in subsequent dreams. This is healthy, allowing such feelings to be vented and redirected into satisfying ways, individually and socially. In doing this do not ignore any feelings of resistance, pleasure or anxiety. Satisfaction occurs only as we leam to acknowledge and integrate resistances and anxieties into what we express. This is a very important step. It gradually changes those of our habits which trap us in lack of satisfaction, poor creativity or inability to resolve problems.
Summary To summarise effectively gather the essence of what you have said about each symbol and the dream as a whole and express it in everyday language. Imagine you are explaining to someone who knows nothing about yourself or the dream. Bnng the dream out of its symbols into everyday comments about yourself.
A man dreamt about a grey, dull office. When he looked at what he said about the office he realised he was talking about the grey, unimaginative world he grew up in after the Second World War, and how it shaped him.
Further information on using these techniques can be found in Tony Crisp s work The Instant Dream Book, published by C.W. Daniel. See amplification; plot of dream; adventure of the dream world; dreamer; postures, movement and body language; settings; symbols and dreaming; word analysis of dreams; wordplay and puns.
This dictionary of Christian Dreams, China interpretation of dreams, India interpretation of dreams contains over 44.500 indexed entries and this dictionary of islamic Dreams contains over 5.500 indexed entries.
Also, Psychological / emotional perspective, Material aspects and Gives gender - specific, interpreted of Dream Analysis and Interpretation.
Understand the meaning of your dreams. Great dictionary of dream interpretations.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If we are the active and central character in our dreams, then we have a positive, confident image of ourself.
The role we place ourself in is also the one we feel at home with, or one which is habitual to us.
If we are constantly a victim in our dreams, we need to consider whether we are living such a role in everyday life. Dreams may help us look at our self image from a more detached viewpoint. We can look back on what we do in a dream more easily than we can on our everyday waking behaviour. This helps us understand our attitudes or stance, a very growth-promoting experience. It is important to understand the viewpoint of the other dream characters also; although they depict secondary views, they enlarge us through acquaintance. See identity and dreams.
What we ourself are doing in our dreams is an expression of how we see ourselves at the time of the dream, our stance or attitude to life, or what could be generalised as our self image. It typifies what aspects of our nature we identify with most strongly.
Example: My husband and I are at some sort of social club.
The people there are ex-workmates of mine and I am having a wonderful time and am very popular. My husband is enjoying my enjoyment’ (quoted from article by the author in She magazine).
The dreamer describes herself as ‘a mature 41- year old’.
The dream, and her description of it, sum up her image of herself in just a few words. She sees herself as attractive, sociable, liked, happily married. She is probably good looking and healthy. But the dream carries on. She and her husband ‘are travelling down a country lane in an open horse drawn carriage. It is very dark and is in the areas we used to live. We come to a hump-backed bridge, and as we amve at the brow of the bridge a voice says, “Fair lady, come to me.” My body is suddenly lying flat and starts to rise. I float and everything is black, warm and peaceful. Then great fear comes over me and I cry out my husband’s name over and over. I get colder and slip in and out of the blackness. I wake. Even with the light on I feel the presence of great evil. From a very positive sense of self, she has moved to a feeling which horrifies her. How can such a confident, socially capable woman, one who has succeeded professionally as well as in her marriage, have such feelings? The answer probably lies in the statement of her age. At 41 she is facing the menopause and great physical change.
The image of herself she has lived with depended, or developed out of, having a firm sexually attractive body, and being capable of having children. Losing whatever it is that makes one sexually desirable must change the image others have of one, and that one has of oneself.
The hump of the bridge represents this peak of her life, from whence she will start to go downhill towards death, certainly towards retirement. So she is facing midlife crisis in which a new image of herself will need to be forged.
To define what self image is portrayed in your dreams, consider just what situation you have created for yourself in the dream, and what environment and people you are with. Example: I am a shy 16 year old and am worried about my dream. In it I am walking along the school’s main corridor. I try to cover myself with my hands as a few pei pie go by, not noticing me. Then a group of boys pass, pointing and laughing at me—one boy I used to fancy.
A teacher then gives me clothes. They are too big but I wear them because I have nothing else’ (HM). Adolescence is a time of great change anyway, when a lot is developing as far as self image is concerned. Her nakedness shows how vulnerable she feels, and how she has a fear that other people must be able to see her developing sexuality and womanhood. It is new to her and still embarrassing, particularly with boys she feels something for. She tries to cover up her feelings, and uses attitudes she has learnt from parents and teachers, but these are not suitable. So we might summarise by saying that the situation she places herself in within the dream shows her present uncertainty and sense of needing clothes—attitudes or confidence —of her own. See identity in dreams; individuation.
2. Urge to control the unconscious mind (as in “setting the stage” where the dreamer creates the dream).
3. Express a desire to obtain seemingly impossible things.
4. Worries and sorrow.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The healing of the paralysed man by Christ represents this removal of guilt, shame or fear by contact with the self.
A memory. Dreaming that you’re dreaming can be an alternative way of recalling images from past dreams. Watch, and let this vision play itself out like a good movie, then recall the details like any ordinary dream.
(Qidr : Cauldron, Cooking Pot; Qifah : large basket; Maa’idah : table-cloth; Musrrajah : lamp; Qas’ah trough)
Whatever is made from copper or lead such as cups, saucers, plates, trays kettles etc. they all symbolise a person’s servants and lads.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If they did I’d be a millionaire.* In the eighth round Doyle went down from a left hook to the jaw. He never got up, and died the next day.
The problem is that many such dreams felt to be predictive never come true. Often dreamers want to believe they have precognitive dreams, perhaps to feel they will not be surprised by, and thereby anxious about, the future. When the baby son of Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, and before it was known he was murdered, 1,300 people sent ‘precognitive’ dreams concerning his fate in response to newspaper headlines. Only seven of these dreams included the three vital factors—that he was dead, naked and in a ditch.
Out of 8,000 dreams in his Registry for Prophetic Dreams,
Robert Nelson, who was sent dreams pnor to what was predicted, has found only 48 which bear detailed and recognisable connection with later events.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The Poseidia Institute of Virginia Beach, Va., have run a number of group ‘mutual dreaming’ experiments. Although the Institute suggests very positive results, a critical survey of the dreams and reports reveals a lack of hard evidence. Like other areas of ESP dreaming, it can seldom ever be willed. But the dreams did show themes related to problems regarding intimate meeting. Also, some of the dreams were directly about the goal of dream meeting, as in the following example.
Example: ‘I find the group of people I am looking for. There were maybe six or more people. They were asleep on mattresses except for two or three. These were awake and waiting for me, and wearing small pointed hats such as Tibetan Lamas wear. In the dream I realised this meant they had achieved sufficient inner growth to remain awake in sleep. We started to communicate and were going to wake the others’ (Tom C). See dream as a meeting place.
the dream as extended perception Even everyday mental functions such as thought and memory occur largely unconsciously. During sleep, perhaps because we surrender our volition, what is left of self awareness enters the realm where the nine-tenths of the iceberg of our mind is active. In this realm faculties can function which on waking seem unobtainable.
For example:
1- Extending awareness to a point distant from the body, to witness events confirmed by other people. This is often called out of body experience (OBE), but some of these experiences suggest the nature of consciousness and time may not be dualistic (having to be either here or there). See out of body experience.
2-Being aware of the death or danger of a member of family. Kinship and love seem to be major factors in the way the unconscious functions. See dead people dreams.
3-Seeing into the workings of the body and diagnosing an illness before it becomes apparent to waking observation. Dr Vasali Kasatkin and Professor Medard Boss have specialised in the study of such dreams. In a recent dream told to me, a man looked back into a bedroom and saw a piece of the wall fall away. Waves of water gushed from a main pipe.
The dreamer struggled to hold back the piece of broken pipe. Within two weeks his colon burst and he had to have a major operation. See meditation.
4-Access to a computer-like ability to son through a massive store of information and experience to solve problems. These dreams are often confused with precognitive ability. Prediction does occur from these dreams, but it arises, as with weather prediction, from a massive gathering of information, most of which we have forgotten consciously. Monon Schatzman, in a New Scientist anicle, showed how subjects can produce answers to complex mathematical problems in their dreams. See dream process as computer; creativity and problem solving in dreams.
5-Tapping a collective mind which stores all experience, and is sensed as godlike or holy. See dream as spiritual guide.
It seems likely that before the development of speech the human animal communicated largely through body language. Some dreams suggest we still have this ability to read a person’s health, sexual situation, intentions and even their past, through body shape, posture and tiny movements. See postures, movement and body language.
See Cayce, Edgar; collective unconscious; wife under family. See also hallucinations.
Tryskelion Dream Interpretation
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
For the somnium dreams Anemidorus gave a dream dictionary.
For example, he said abyss meant an impending danger, a dream of warning, and to see a candle being lighted forecasts a binh, to exhibit a lighted candle augers contentment and prosperity, a dimly burning candle shows sickness, sadness and delay. This last interpretation is taken from folklore of the times and, because dreams tend to use commonly used verbal images, was probably true. He maintained that a person’s name—that is their identity, and the family, national and social background from which they arose—has a bearing on what their dream means.
Plato (429-347 bc) said that even good men dream of uncontrolled and violent actions, including sexual aggression. These actions are not committed by good men while awake, but criminals act them out without guilt. Democritus said that dreams are not products of an ethereal soul, but of visual impressions which influence our imagination. Aristotle (383— 322 bc) stated that dreams can predict future events. Earlier Hippocrates, the ‘father of medicine’, discovered that dreams can reveal the onset of organic illness. Such dreams, he said, can be seen as illogically representing external reality.
Hippocrates was born on the island of Kos. On the island was the famous temple dedicated to Aesculapius, the god of medicine. There were about 300 such temples in Greece alone, dedicated to healing through the use of dreams. Hippocrates was an Aesculapian, and learnt his form of dream interpretation from them. In such temples the patient would ritually have to cleanse themselves by washing, and abstain from sex, alcohol and even food. They would then be led into what was sometimes a subterranean room with harmless snakes in—these were the symbol of the god. In the morning the patients were asked their dream, and it was expected they would dream an answer to their illness or problem. There are many attestations to the efficacy of this technique from patients.
If the numerous facts emerging from a dream are such that they correspond with each other logically then such a dream will be deemed as a genuine and authentic dream. But if the facts emerging from such a dream are such that they do not correspond with each other then the interpreter should reflect on the apparent meaning of the words. Whichever meaning is nearest to the rules of interpretation, such a meaning should be adopted
If a dream is of a complicated nature so that if cannot be weighed on the scale of the rules of interpretation then such a dream will be deemed as meaningless.
If a certain dream causes the interpreter to become dubious then he should appeal to the conscience of the observer of such a dream: If the dream concerns Salaah, he should question him about Sallah; if it concerns a journey he should question him about the journey; if it concerns marriage, he should question him about marriage. Thereafter, the mu’abbir will interpret to the best of his knowledge
The interpreter should be extremely cautious when interpreting a dream: If the dream evidences obscenity and indecency he should either use pleasant words when interpreting it or simply avoid interpreting it.
It is necessary for a mu’abbir to establish the biological and logical classification of thins and give its interpretation accordingly.
The biological and logical classification of things can be made as follows : (a) geneses (b) species (c) nature and characteristics.
If the numerous facts emerging from a dream are such that they correspond with each other logically then such a dream will be deemed as a genuine and authentic dream. But if the facts emerging from such a dream are such that they do not correspond with each other then the interpreter should reflect on the apparent meaning of the words. Whichever meaning is nearest to the rules of interpretation, such a meaning should be adopted
If a dream is of a complicated nature so that if cannot be weighed on the scale of the rules of interpretation then such a dream will be deemed as meaningless.
If a certain dream causes the interpreter to become dubious then he should appeal to the conscience of the observer of such a dream: If the dream concerns Salaah, he should question him about Sallah; if it concerns a journey he should question him about the journey; if it concerns marriage, he should question him about marriage. Thereafter, the mu’abbir will interpret to the best of his knowledge
The interpreter should be extremely cautious when interpreting a dream: If the dream evidences obscenity and indecency he should either use pleasant words when interpreting it or simply avoid interpreting it.
It is necessary for a mu’abbir to establish the biological and logical classification of thins and give its interpretation accordingly.
The biological and logical classification of things can be made as follows : (a) geneses (b) species (c) nature and characteristics.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If we do not argue any particular theory, however, then perhaps we see dreams as having a much wider function.
The most primal drives observable are survival, growth and reproduction. Other urges, such as eating, social position, curiosity, are secondary.
The human animal appears to have survived and reproduced more capably after the development of self awareness, language and reasoning. With or without these, we remain an animal with a psychobiological nature. All animals are known to dream. All animals share a certain situation. They have an internal world out of which arises impulses (to eat, to mate, to avoid danger) and feeling reactions (anger, fear, anticipation). And they have an external world which confronts them with real survival dangers, sources of food, a mate, changes in environmental conditions.
A dream lies somewhere between these two worlds.
We can think of the human personality as being like a special son of cavity into which all these influences are dropped or are thrown. Physical sensations, internal drives and emotions, language, social rules, religious ideas; prompts to make decisions; news of war, massive media and advertising information, are all dropped in.
The cavity has to deal with it, but as it is a mixture of things, many of which are in opposition, some sort of balance has to be kept. But how? And it cannot be simply a matter of throwing out all of one sort or aspect of things. Eradicating the memory of criticism might make us more calm, but it would limit the process of psychological growth, which has survival value.
Dreams can be seen to be connected with our survival and self regulating process. Because this involves all aspects of oneself and one’s experience, one cannot give dreams a single definition. They probably have many secondary functions, such as an interface to balance the internal and external influences, to compensate between the inner needs and outer reality—a baby may miss its feed so, to cope with this primal need, it may dream of being fed. Traumatic or exterior dangerous events, which cannot be processed immediately, can be stored and dealt with (experimented with or abreacted) while asleep. In higher mammals, infant traumas can be stored and dealt with in sleep when, or if, a stronger ego develops.
To meet the loneliness and isolation of consciousness’ or fears of death, the dream can link the waking self with its unconscious sense of unity or God.
To meet survival needs of primitive human beings prior to rational thought, the dream probably acted as a computer, synthesising experience and information, giving rise to creative solutions to hunting or social situations, presented as sleeping or waking imagery. This may explain why many pnmitive people say skills such as farming, weaving, writing, were told them by a vision of a god or goddess.
If we realise that the dream is an end product of a process which produces it, it enables us to see that the process’ (the survival function which regulates, compensates, links, problem solves) can be accessed without meeting the dream. See sleep movements; dream process as computer; Adler; Freud; Jung.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The dream she subsequently reported was ‘1 sit in a small dirty cafe holding a tremendous French newspaper ...
A woman with a strong Yiddish accent—L is Jewish—asks me twice, “Don’t you need anything?” I don’t answer . . . she comes a third time . . . I recognise her as my acquaintance. She holds a threadbare suitcase with a sticker on it that reads “For ladies only!” I leave the cafe with her . . . she hangs onto me which I find unpleasant but suffer it . . . Before her house she pulls out an enormous bunch of keys and gives one to me. “1 trust only you with it; it is the key to this case. You might like to use it. Just watch that my husband doesn’t get hold of it.” ‘ The dream contains several of the classical Freudian symbols of sex, such as the suitcase, the key and the phrase For ladies only’. Miss E had not, according to Schroetter, heard or read of Freud’s ideas.
Roffenstein, suspecting Miss E may have known something of Freudian ideas, chose ‘a 28-year-old, totally uneducated nursemaid of lower than average intelligence, who grew up and still lives in an uneducated milieu’. He suggested she dream of intercourse with her father. She reported: ‘I dreamt about my father, as if he had presented me with a great bag and with it he gave me a large key. It was a very large key. It looked like the key to a house. I had a sad feeling. I opened the bag. I snake jumped out against my mouth; I shrieked aloud.
More recent expenments are reponed by Woods and Greenhouse in New Wbrld of Dreams.
The suggestion was made to one subject that as a child she had wet the bed and her mother scolded her. That night she dreamt she fell into a pond in winter and her mother was angry.
An interesting aspect of these experiments is that another subject under hypnosis was told the dream and asked what it meant. Without hesitation she said. Oh, that girl must have wet the bed.’ This and other experiments suggest humans have an inherent, although perhaps unconscious, ability to understand the language of dreams.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
In dreams, our sense of self—our ego, personality or identity—is depicted by our own body, or sometimes simply by the sense of our own existence as an observer. In most dreams our T goes through a series of experiences, just as we do in waking life, seeing things through our physical eyes, touching with our hands, and so on. But occasionally we watch our own body and other people as if from a detached point of bodiless awareness.
If we accept that dreams portray in images our conception of self, then dreams suggest that our identity largely depends upon having a body, its gender, health, quality, the social position we are bom into, and our relationship with others. In fact we know that if a person loses their legs, becomes paralysed, loses childbearing ability or is made redundant, they face an identity crisis. But the bodiless experience of self shows the human possibility of sensing self as having separate existence from the biological processes, one’s state of health and social standing. In its most naked form, the T may be simply a sense of its own existence, without body awareness.
Dreams also show our sense of self, either in the body or naked of it, as surrounded by a community of beings and objects separate from the dreamer, and frequently with a will of their own.
If we place the dreamer in the centre of a circle and put all their dream characters, animals and objects around them; and if we transformed these objects and beings into the things they depicted, such as sexuality, thinking, will emotions, intuition, social pressure, etc., we would see what a diverse mass of influences the ego stands in the middle of. It also becomes obvious that our T sees these things as outside itself in nearly all dreams. Even its own internal urges to love or make love may be shown as external creatures with which it has a multitude of ways to relate.
If we take the word psyche to mean our sense of self, then in our dreams we often see our psyche at war with the sources of its own existence, and trying to find its way through a most extraordinary adventure—the adventure of consciousness. One of the functions of dreams can therefore be thought to be that of aiding the survival of the psyche in facing the multitude of influences in life—and even in death.
See Individuation; dreamer.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The action of the hean on the other systems is obvious, and the influence of emotions on the organs is also becoming obvious. What is not so well established is the importance of the feedback occurring when we gain insight into our own functioning through understanding a dream. Although our being is already a self regulating system, the ability to turn consciousness inwards to make clear aspects of unconscious function appears to increase the efficiency of self regulation. This is shown in the first example of reptiles, lizards, snakes, where David finds a long-standing neck pain and goes through insight into its cause. In this way wc might be seen as a conscious organism which not only reprogrammes mental patterns or habits, but to some extent can renovate or change body efficiency as well. See dream analysis; dream processing; the Introduction.
The dream of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son, his obedience to the Divine will and his willingness to submit in absolute faith to God made him the first true Muslim and the father of prophets.
The true interpretation of the dreams of the king of Egypt by the prophet Joseph saved both the Egyptians and the children of Israel from famine and death.
The dreams of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him and all the prophets of God be peace and blessings, marked the beginning of his revelation, the noble Qur’fm which changed the face of human history and civilization. Although dreams belong to the domain of personal experience, they are a universal phenomenon, and thus have played a crucial role in the formation of human culture. Throughout recorded human history, dreams and the interpretation of dreams have inspired sages and prophets, poets and kings, as well as the most creative psychologist/philosophers of our day.
The science of psychoanalysis of Carl Jung and his school rests on the fact that dreams form the inner diary of every human individual, and hence the need to read and interpret them correctly. This fact has for long been recognized by the sages and prophets of traditional cultures and religions. Not all dreams, however are either true or authentic. Those of the prophets and friends (awliya’s) of God are Divine revelations, true and sacred.
The dreams of pious men and women are almost always true and meaningful. Some dreams come from Satan, and are thus misleading. Others may be caused by physical or psychological problems such as stomach discomfort or emotional disturbance. It is therefore important to distinguish true dreams from empty fantasies, and inspired dreams from satanic insinuations. This is a Divine gift to inspired prophets, holy persons and insightful sages.
The beginner in this field must know that there are two types of dreams: one type that comes from God Almighty, and the second type comes from satan. What is good comes from God Almighty, which is a type of revelation that comes to a righteous person and carries either glad tidings, or warnings. Such dreams also cause one’s heart to reflect upon his actions and to beware of heedlessness.
On the other hand, they could be a reprimand for an ignoble act one is pondering, or an act one may mistakenly thinks that it is the correct thing to do, or a new friendship that could lead him to hell-fire, or a clarification concerning his treatment of his family and friends and about his business dealings, or they may bring spiritual guidance, etcetera. This is the type of dream which is referred to in God’s Prophet’s sayings: “Atrue dream representsone offorty-six branches of a prophecy.” Both religious and irreligious people may see a true dream that could come true.
The second type of dream connotes deception, cunningness, contriving, jealousy, or a scare, causes pain, depicts any type of eavesdropping, engaging in mundane conversation, the call of one’s mind and desires, or imagination, or occur after eating a heavy late meal or even going to bed hungry, etcetera. This type of dream comes from satan. God’s Prophet (uwbp) has said: ‘As time draws nearer to the conclusion of this world,dreams will become confused.
The most true of dreams are those ofa truthful person. Thus, if one sees a dream that he dislikes, he should tell no one about it, and he should immediately leave his bed and perform his prayers.” He also said: “The best of ropes is steadfastness to one’s religious life." Interpreting dreams is a process of analyzing the nature of things and their opposing possibilities, connecting their roots, and assembling the fragments of one’s thoughts to better understand his or her real condition. In a dream, one may see things that may connote equilibrium or the opposite, while his passive and inert participation urges him to examine the elements and to awaken his consciousness. Sometimes, the elements themselves may be opaque or unclear. In this case, if one recognizes a person in the dream, perhaps the name of that person, or his trade, or his look, or the meaningofthe individual letters of his name, or their combined numerological value, etcetera, mayprovide a clue to the meaning of one’s dream.
B Self-isolation, things hidden and not yet known.
C Matter that surrounds spirit, language, throat.
D Symbol for food and growth/development.
E Bridge between body and spirit, call for unity.
F Symbol for the outside and inner world, insight, hope, understanding.
G Weapon, staff, scepter—conquest and/or domination.
H Balanced, self-improvement.
I The human need for safety and severity.
J Adviser, admonishing or threatening index finger.
K Creative vitality, straightforward action, abundant energy.
L Reaching arm, striving for material and/or intellectual fortune.
M Mother, woman, fertility, creative energy.
N Masculine spirit stimulated by the feminine.
O The circle, insurmountable limits of fate.
P Mishaps, bad luck, accidents, disappointments, negative experiences.
Q The result of our action, our language.
R Male energy’, used to pursue our goals.
S Weapons, tools, techniques, and support.
T The cross, origin of your power/energy.
U The cup, the chalice, the passing of life/rime. Success, victory, the search for completeness.
W No specific symbols could be found, but possibly refers the ups and downs of life.
X The ten, checkmarks, crossing out.
Y The unknown, sometimes also sexual needs.
Z Risk decisions, lightning, electricity.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
If obscene dreams assail and worry us again and again, however, then there is a problem in the way we are relating to ourself and the exterior world. Psychotherapeutic counselling might help.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
Our identity is given to us by the humans who raise us. This sense of self arises because we are treated as if we were a self. This, with language, is the creative matrix of our self awareness.
The giving of a name is therefore a miracle which acts as a nucleus around which the many mental connections can be made which form our self image. Perhaps this is why giving the name in baptism is seen as a holy rite in Christianity.
Our conscious personality can live without ever becoming aware of its connections with other lives except as it meets them in everyday affairs. That its existence has depended upon what was given by countless other lives—that humans constantly create each other, consciously and unconsciously, through the dynamic flux of communication—might never be realised. That one’s own life is also a part of this creative process, this sea of living consciousness, might never be known. Nevertheless, each individual life constantly takes pan in the collective, negatively or positively. This is not a mystical thing, but is plainly observable. From the point of view of dreams, if our life has given nothing in deed, in love, in rearing of children, in ideas or art, or in common humanity, we are dead—during life and afterwards. Giving and receiving, kinship and symbiosis, growth and decay are the fundamentals of the living process according to dreams.
At death, we face a very real end, a real death. There is no magical escape from this. All that we have been, all we have become, all we gathered and won is lost—finished. But the paradox occurs again. Dreams suggest that out of all we gave of ourself, out of all we received from the being of others, we are recreated in a realm of consciousness. This may mean that we continue as living influences in the lives of those who still live. But the suggestion is that something more than this occurs.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
Example: I was walking up a steep hill on a sunny day when my husband came running down the hill with blood pouring from his right arm. He couldn’t stop running. As he passed me he called to me for help. I was happy and peaceful and ignored him. I calmly watched him running fast down the hill, then continued on my way’ (Joyce C). Out of the infinite number of situations Joyce could have dreamt about, this was the one produced. Why? There are many factors which appear to determine what we dream. How events of the day influenced us; what stage of personal growth we are meeting—we might be in the stage of struggling for independence; problems being met; relationships, past business such as childhood traumas still to be integrated. And so on.
If Joyce had dreamt she and her husband were walking up the hill the whole message of the dream would have been different.
If we can accept that dream images are, as Freud stated, a form of thinking, then the change in imagery would be a changed concept.
If the language of dreams is expressed in its images, then the meaning stated is specific to the imagery used.
In processing our dreams, it is therefore profitable to look at the plot to see what it suggests. It can be helpful to change the situation, as we have done with Joyce s. Imagining Joyce walking up the hill on a sunny day, arm in arm with her husband, suggests a happy relationship. This emphasises the situation of independence and lack of support for her husband which appears in the real dream. Seeing our dreams as if they were snatches from a film or play, and asking ourself what feelings and human situations they depict, can aid us to clarify them. As a piece of drama, Joyce’s dream says she sees, but does not respond to, her husband’s plight.
Our internal ‘dream producer’ has an amazing sense of the subtle meanings of movement, positioning, and relationship between the elements used. And some of these are subtle.
A way of becoming more aware of what information our dream contains is to use visualisation. Sit comfonably and imagine yourself back in the dream. Replay it just as it was. Remember the whole thing slowly, going through it again while awake. As you do so, be aware of what it feels like in each scene or event. What do the interactions suggest? What does it feel like in the other roles? We can even practise this with other people’s dreams.
If we imagine ourself in Joyce’s dream, and replay it just as she describes it, we may arrive at a feeling of detachment from the husband.
If we stand in the husband’s role we may feel a great need which is not responded to as we go down hill fast*. In this way we gather a great deal of unspoken’ information from dreams.
Looking at our own dreams in this way can be more difficult, simply because we do not always want to see what is being said about ourself. See amplification; dream processing; postures, movement, body language; word analysis of dreams; settings.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The dreamer unravels the meaning of the dream by acting it out with the help of others.
The dreamer acts the main role of him or herself, and directs the helpers in the other roles. In dramatising and exploring the dream in this way, the obvious as well as the hidden meaning, associations and emotions are made clear.
To finish, the dreamer is encouraged to take the dream forward, altering it to what feels more adequate and satisfying. This gives the person opportunity to express and enact what was absent in the dream, and provides release from recurring dreams, and catharsis where necessary.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
A cenain theme may have begun in childhood and continued throughout our life—either without change, or as a gradually changing series of dreams. It might be that the feature which recurs is a setting, perhaps a house we visit again and again, but the details differ. Sometimes a senes of such dreams begin after or dunng a particular event or phase of our life, such as puberty or marriage.
Example: ‘This dream has recurred over 30 years. There is a railway station, remote in a rural area, a central waiting room with platform going round all sides. On the platform mill hundreds of people, all men I think. They are all ragged, thin, dirty and unshaven. I know I am among them. I looked up at the mountainside and there is a guard watching us. He is cruel looking, oriental, in green fatigues. On his peaked cap is a red star. He carries a machine gun. Then I looked at the men around me and I realise they are all me. Each one has my face. I am looking at myself. Then I feel fear and terror (Anon.).
The theme of the dream can incorporate anxious emotions, such as the above example, or any aspect of experience. One woman, an epileptic, reports a dream which is the same in every detail and occurs every night. In general such dreams recur because there are ways the dreamer habitually responds to their internal or external world. Because their attitude or response is unchanging, the dream which reflects it remains the same. It is noticeable in those who explore their dreams using such techniques as described under dream processing that recurring themes disappear or change because the attitudes or habitual anxieties which gave rise to them have been met or transformed.
A recurring environment in a dream where the other factors change is not the same. We use the same words over and over in speech, yet each sentence may be different.
The environment or character represents a particular aspect of oneself, but the different events which surround it show it in the changing process of our psychological growth. Where there is no such change, as in the examples above, it suggests an area of our mental emotional self is stuck in a habitual feeling state or response.
Some recurring dreams can be ‘stopped’ by simply receiving information about them. One woman dreamt the same dream from childhood. She was walking past railings in the town she lived in as a child. She always woke in dread and perspiration from this dream. At 40 she told her sister about it.
The response was ‘Oh, that’s simple. Don’t you remember that when you were about four we were walking past those railings and we were set on by a bunch of boys. Then I said to them, ‘Don’t hurt us, our mother’s dead!” They left us alone, but you should have seen the look on your face.’ After realising the dread was connected with the loss of her mother, the dream never recurred. Another woman who repeatedly dreamt of being in a tight and frightening place, found the dream never returned after she had connected it to being in the womb.
Recurring dreams, such as that of the railings, suggest that pan of the process underlying dreams is a self regulatory (homocostatic) one.
The dream process tries to present troublesome emotions or situations to the conscious mind of the dreamer to resolve the trauma or difficulty underlying the dream.
An obvious example of this is seen in the recurring nightmare of a young woman who felt a piece of cloth touch her face, and repeatedly woke her family with her screams. Her brother, tiring of this, one night woke her from her screams and made her talk about her feelings. His persistence gradually revealed that she associated the cloth with the burial shroud of her grandmother. This brought to the surface grief and feelings about death she had never allowed herself to feel before.
The nightmare never returned. See nightmares; dream processing.
The Premier in Dream Dictionary
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
At its most fundamental, the human religious sense emerges out of several factors. One is the awareness of existing amidst external and internal forces of nature which cause us to feel vulnerable and perhaps powerless. Such natural processes as illness, death, growth and decay, earthquakes, the seasons, confront us with things which are often beyond our ability to control. Considenng the information and resources of the times, one of religion’s main functions in the past was the attempted control of the ‘uncertain’ factors in human life, and help towards psychological adjustment to valine rability. Religions were the first social programmes aiding the human need for help and support towards emotional, mental, physical and social health and maturity. Even if primitive, such programmes helped groups of people to gain a common identity and live in reasonable harmony together. Like a computer program which is specific to a particular business, such programmes were specific to a particular group, and so are outdated in today’s need for greater integration with other races. Religions also offered some sort of concept of and connection with the roots of being.
Example: ‘For two nights running I have dreamt the same nightmare. I am in a chapel walking down the first flight of several flights of steps when I hear loud noises behind me. I am told to run, being warned of the soldiers who ride the cavalry horses nght down the steps, and who run you over if you are in their way.
The horses are fierce and they absolutely race down the steps at the same time every day, and you literally have to lock yourself away in a nearby room which is a long way down the chapel. I ran into the room hearing the pounding of the horses’ hooves. It was a terrible pandemonium in that chapel. In the room were school children the same age as me and some perhaps younger’ (Maria H). Maria, who is 16, in describing her dream says she had recently been confronted with whether to have a sexual relationship with her boyfriend. Religion, represented by the chapel, is Maria’s way of locking out her powerful sexual urges. Many dreams show that religion, as a set of beliefs, is used as a way of avoiding anxiety in the face of life’s uncertainties.
For many people, the rigid belief system helps them to avoid uncertainty in making decisions.
Dreams also portray and define the aspect of human experience in which we sense a kinship with all life forms. This is the side of spiritual expenence through which we find a connection with the roots of our being. While awake we might see the birth of a colt and feel the wonder of emergence and newness; the struggle to stand up and survive, the miracle of physical and sexual power which can be accepted or feared. In looking in the faces of fellow men and women we see something of what they have done in this strange and painful wonder we call life. We see whether they have been crushed by the forces confronting them; whether they have become ngid; or whether, through some common miracle, they have been able to carry into their mature years the laughter, the crying, the joy, the ability to feel pain, that are the very signs of life within the human soul. These things are sensed by us all, but seldom organised into a comprehensive view of life, and an extraction of meaning. Often it is only in our dreams, through the ability the unconscious has to draw out the significance of such widely divergent expenences, that we glimpse the unity behind phenomena which is an essential of spiritual life, i.e. we all have a life, we breathe, we have come from a mother, so share a universal experience.
Example: To quote J.B. Priestley from his book Rain Upon Godshill: ‘Just before I went to Amenca, dunng the exhausting weeks when I was busy with my Time Plays, I had such a dream, and I think it left a greater impression on my mind than any experience I had ever known before, awake or in dreams, and said more to me about this life than any book I have ever read.
The setting of the dream was quite simple, and owed something to the fact that not long before my wife had visiied the lighthouse here at St Catherine’s to do some bird ringing. I dreamt I was standing at the top of a very high tower, alone, looking down upon myriads of birds all flying in one direction; every kind of bird was there, all the birds in the world. It was a noble sight, this vast aerial river of birds. But now in some mysterious fashion the gear was changed, and time speeded up, so that I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek, and then, in a flash bled and shrivelled; and death struck everywhere at every second. What was the use of all this blind struggle towards life, this eager trying of wings, this hurried mating, this flight and surge, all this gigantic meaningless effort? As I stared down, seeming to see every creature’s ignoble little history almost at a glance, I felt sick at heart. It would be better if not one of them, if not one of us, had been bom, if the struggle ceased for ever. I stood on my tower, still alone, desperately unhappy. But now the gear was changed again, and the time went faster still, and it was rushing by at such a rate, that the birds could not show any movement, but were like an enormous plain sown with feathers. But along this plain, flickering through the bodies themselves, there now passed a sort of white flame, trembling, dancing, then hurrying on; and as soon as I saw it I knew that this white flame was life itself, the very quintessence of being; and then it came to me, in a rocket burst of ecstasy, that nothing mattered, nothing could ever matter, because nothing else was real but this quivering and hurrying lambency of being. Birds, men and creatures not yet shaped and coloured, all were of no account except so far as this flame of life travelled through them. It left nothing to mourn over behind it, what I had thought was tragedy was mere emptiness or a shadow show; for now all real feeling was caught and purified and danced on ecstatically with the white flame of life. I had never before felt such deep happiness as I knew at the end of my dream of the tower and the birds.’
Some Nonh American Indians developed the totem out of similar processes. In one generation a person might learn to plant a seed and eat the results. Later someone might see that through fertilisation more food was produced. Still later someone found that by irrigating, still more improvement was made. No one individual was responsible for such vital cultural information, and the collective information is bigger than any one person, yet individuals can partake of it and add to it.
The totem represented such subtle realities, as it might in a modem dream; as Christ might in today’s unconscious. That older cultures venerated their collective information, and that modem humans seem largely apathetic to it, shows how our ‘religion’ has degenerated. Yet utilising the power of the unconscious to portray the subtle influences which impinge upon us, and building the information gained into our response to life, is deeply important.
With the growth of authoritarian structures in western religion, and the dominance of the rational mind over feeling values, dreams have been pushed into the background. With this change has developed the sense that visionary dreams were something which ‘superstitious* cultural groups had in the past. Yet thoroughly modem men and women still meet Christ powerfully in dreams and visions. Christ still appears to them as a living being.
The transcendental, the collective or universal enters their life just as frequently as ever before. Sometimes it enters with insistence and power, because a too rational mind has led to an unbalance in the psyche—a balance in which the waking and rational individuality is one pole, and the feeling, connective awareness of the unconscious is the other.
Although it is tempting to think of the transcendent as ethereal or unreal, the religious in dreams is nearly always a symbol for the major processes of maturing in human life. We are the hero/ine who meets the dangers of life outside the womb, who faces growth, ageing and death.
The awe and deep emotions we unconsciously feel about such heroic deeds are depicted by religious emotion.
See angel; Christ, rebirth and Devil under archetypes; church; evil; fish, sea creatures; example in whale under fish, sea creatures; heaven, hell; sweets under food; dream as spiritual guide. See also hero/ine; mass; masturbation; old; paralysis; colours; sheep under animals.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
There are many different reasons why dreams may be forgotten.
The most obvious is that we do not give enough attention to our dreaming process. When people become intrigued by what they might be dreaming, and develop a motivation to remember, they frequently start recalling several dreams a week. From this standpoint, the reason why some people have always remembered might be that they have always been either intrigued or anxious about their nightly dramas.
The way we rise in the morning has an effect upon this type of memory.
If our attention is immediately turned outwards on waking, there is little hope of recalling a dream unless it has great power, as might a nightmare. Spending a few moments leaving our mind open to memory aids recall. Any visual, or even muscular activity, will fill consciousness with new and powerful impressions which might obliterate the subtler impressions of dreaming. Rorschach suggested not opening the eyes, and remaining physically still. Tests also showed that passage of time, even a few minutes, between dreaming and attempting to remember causes many dreams to fragment and be lost. So any attempts to remember need one to record the dream quickly, by speaking it to one’s bedmate, using a tape recorder by one’s bed, or writing it down.
Some dreams have rather misty or fragmentary imagery and theme, while others are clear, concise and dynamic. These latter are more easily remembered. There may be times when we sleep with longer periods of wakefulness, perhaps due to feeling cold, or uncomfonable in a strange bed, which cause us to remember as we are nearer consciousness. Because dreams occur in cycles during the night, if something wakes us during a dream cycle the memory is easier, if only because less time has elapsed since occurrence. So another method of captunng a dream is to have one’s alarm gently sound prior to the time one usually wakes.
The last hour or so of sleep includes a long period of dreaming, so waking in this period with intent to remember can often capture the quarry.
Thereare also psychological reasons for forgetfulness. Dreams often deal with past areas of experience which we do not wish to remember, or would rather not be aware of.
If we find it difficult to feel emotions, or feel uncomfonable with them, it is highly likely we repress dream memory, as dreams have a base of high feelings. Experiments have shown that during dreaming our heartbeat, body movements and breathing frequently reflect intensified emotions. Also, research into what areas of the brain produce dreaming suggest that dreams may be from the ‘visceral brain’, which is largely non verbal.
If temperamentally we find feeling qualities a foreign language, connecting with a dream would need to be a learnt skill.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
The next leap forward in understanding came when Aserinsky and Kleitman found rapid eye movements (REM) in 1953. In 1957 the REM were linked with dreaming. This defined sleep into two different observable states, REM sleep, and NREM (non-rapid eye movement or non-rem) sleep. Within NREM three different stages have been identified. These are defined by the different EEG patterns of electrical activity in the brain. They are measured by the height (amplitude) of the brain waves and frequency of up and down movement. There are also electrical changes occurring in the muscles (measured using an electro- myograph or EMG), and in movement of the eyeballs (measured using an electro-oculograph or EOG).
While awake the height is low and frequency fast. As we relax prior to sleep the EEG shifts to what are called alpha waves, at 8 to 12 cps (cycles per second). Stage one of sleep is the transition between this drowsy state of alpha waves to sleeping, in which theta waves occur, at 3 to 7 cps. In this first stage we experience random images and thoughts. This lasts about 10 minutes, followed by stage two, in which ‘sleep spindles’ occur which have 12 to 14 cps on the EEG. These last from 1/2 to 2 seconds, with K complexes following, which are slow large EEG waves. About half our sleep period is spent in this second stage of sleep. Deep sleep is reached when our brain exhibits delta waves, with 1/2 to 2 cps.
After approximately an hour and a half from falling into deep sleep, an exciting change occurs. We return to level two and REM occur. Suddenly the brain is alert and active, though the person is asleep and difficult to wake. This level has been called paradoxical sleep because of this fact. Voluntary muscular activity is suppressed and the body is essentially paralysed. Morrison has pointed out that, although the brain is transmitting full muscular activity messages, these are usually suppressed by an area of the brain in the pons. But bursts of short actions occur, such as rapid eyeball jerks, twitches of the muscles, changes in the size of the pupil, contractions in the middle ear, and erection of the penis. It may be that similar excitation occurs in the vagina. Also, autonomic storms’ occur dunng which large erratic changes occur in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and in other autonomic nervous system functions. These are the changes accompanying our dreams.
If we slept for eight hours, a typical pattern would be to pass into delta sleep, stay there for about 70 to 90 minutes, then return to stage two and dream for about five minutes. We then move back into delta sleep, stay for a short period and shift back to level two, but without dreaming, then back into level three.
The next return to stage two is longer, almost an hour, with a period of dreaming lasting about 19 minutes, and also a short period of return to waking. There is only one short period of return to stage three sleep which occurs nearly four hours after falling asleep. From there on we remain in level two sleep, with three or four lengthening periods of dreaming, and returns to brief wakefulness.
The average amount of body shifting is once every 15 minutes.
1- In undergoing 205 hours of sleep deprivation, four healthy males showed various physiological and psychological changes. Some of these were headache, lack of concentration, hallucination, memory loss, tremor and, in some, paranoia. In all cases one night’s sleep restored normal functioning.
2- One in ten people who complain of excessive daytime drowsiness suffer from sleep apnoea, which is a stoppage of breathing while asleep.
3- A condition called narcolepsy causes sufferers to fall asleep at inappropriate times—while making love, walking, playing tennis, working.
4- As we age we usually sleep less. Our REM sleep in particular decreases sharply.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
A name on the label of goods may depict quality to us.
A face can represent love or brutality. In the struggle towards human awareness, and its increasingly subtle use of symbols such as language to think and express with, there must have been stages of development. This is a side of ‘history’ seldom given attention, yet very important. Perhaps our dream thinking’ is using an earlier form of using symbols, one which might have been more an everyday event prior to language.
Even though we exist as an individual integrated with today’s world, our earlier levels of thinking still exist. Unconsciously we still see the thermometer as temperature; the car as status, independence or ease in getting to work; inside our house as an expression of ourself—if we didn’t we would not take pains to make it nice for guests. Through these unconscious feeling connections or symbolic views we have of things, dreams create their store of images and scenes. Processing a dream is an attempt to discover what values we ourself unconsciously place upon the people, animals, objects and situations around us. See unconscious.
The most inopportune time wherein dreams hardly have any significant meaning is during the winter season and when rain is imminent.
The most inopportune time wherein dreams hardly have any significant meaning is during the winter season and when rain is imminent.
For example, if you are chased in your dream, this will show a sense of insecurity. Dreams Interpreted, each page reveals the fantastic meanings of quotidian objects and occurrences that surface in your reveries. Make a note of it when you wake up so you do not forget your dream.
The theme of missing an exam, to take one example, commonly begins during college years, when the stress of performing well may be more intense than ever before. However, this theme may then carry forward as a recurring dream for many years, even as one moves on to a career.
The “missing the exam” dream may reappear the night before an important job interview or an evaluation at work.
The circumstances may change, but the same feelings of stress, and the desire to perform well, can trigger the relevant recurrent dream. Theorists suggest that these themes may be considered “scripts” (Spoormaker, 2008) or perhaps “complexes” (Freud 1950); as soon as your dream touches any aspect of the theme, the full script unfolds in completion. Dream theorists generally agree that recurring dreams are connected to unresolved problems in the life of the dreamer. In a previous post I discussed the idea that dreams often portray a Central Image, a powerful dream image that contextualizes a certain emotion or conflict for the dreamer.
The Tidal Wave dream is an example of a Central Image that represents overwhelming emotions such as helplessness and fear.
The Tidal Wave dream is a common dream to experience following trauma or abuse, and often becomes a recurrent theme that reflects a person’s struggling with integrating and accepting the trauma. Resolution of this theme over time is a good sign that the trauma has been confronted and adaptively integrated in the psyche. Empirical research has also supported findings that resolution of a recurrent dream is associated with improved well-being (Zadra, 1996). This is one way that keeping track of your dreams can be extremely informative and helpful in a therapeutic, or even self-help, process.
The dream repeats because you have not corrected the problem. Another theory is that people who experience recurring dreams have some sort of trauma in their past they are trying to deal with. In this case, the dreams tend to lessen with time. Nightmares are dreams that are so distressing they usually wake us up, at least partially. Nightmares can occur at any age but are seen in children with the most frequency. Nightmares usually cause strong feelings of fear, sadness or anxiety. Their causes are varied. Some medications cause nightmares (or cause them if you discontinue the medication abruptly). Traumatic events also cause nightmares. Treatment for recurring nightmares usually starts with interpreting what is going on in the dream and comparing that with what is happening in the person’s life. Then, the person undergoes counseling to address the problems that are presumably causing the nightmare. Some sleep centers offer nightmare therapy and counseling. Another method of treating nightmares is through lucid dreaming. Through lucid dreaming, the dreamer can confront his or her attacker and, in some cases, end the nightmares.
The dreams of the first day of the month are the right dreams.
Dreams on day 2 of the month are accurate and more effective.
Dreams on day 3 also have a quick effect.
Dreams seen on days 4 and 5 show the effect after one year.
The dreams of the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th days will be effective again after a year.
The dream, seen on the 10th day of the month, is a false dream, and it is not true.
The dreams of the 11th and 12th day also take place a year later.
The 14th day dream is central; that is, neither good nor bad.
The effect of the dream of the 15th day is seen quickly.
The dream of day 16 and 17 shows itself after a while.
The dream of day 18 and 19 is very effective.
The dream of the 20th and 21st day is a false dream and is not called.
The dream of the 22nd day will quickly take effect.
The day of the 23rd and the 24th day is very bad and has no beneficial effect.
The dream of 25th and 26th day is also a liar dream and is not called.
The dream of day 27 and 28 is a useless dream.
The dream of the 29th and 30th day is true, beautiful and effective.
A Guide to Dreams and Sleep Experiences
Example: ‘We walk around, go upstairs, and I notice a staircase leading to a room or rooms. It goes up square, about eight steps in a flight, but round and round—spiral. I am scared by them, don’t want to go up, but am curious. We move in and nobody but myself has really taken any notice of the stairs. Nobody has been up . In one dream I try to go up but the children are scared for me. They plead, ‘Don’t go up Mum, just forget them”. Then I wake. In the next dream I wait till they are asleep. Half way up_ I am terrified but have to go on. Then I wake. Next dream I got up there. Then I woke’ (Ann H). Ann’s dream theme recurs, so is important to her. In marking just some of the words we see that the ‘up’ or go up’ is important. Childhood fears hold Ann back for a while, but she dares to climb.
If we look at the entries for climb and stairs, we see they depict taking steps towards exploring the unknown, daring to explore one’s potential or opportunities.
By marking the words in this way we might also highlight certain statements otherwise hidden in the dream. Particularly watch out for the connections with the word T, such as I want, I do, I will, I have, I know, I cannot, etc. Example: ‘1 want to withdraw.’ I was full of sadness but was trying not to show it.’ ‘1 felt keyed up and ready to fight.’ Taking such statements out of context and looking for connections with everyday feelings oi situations often throws considerable light on the dream.
If what you realise is then considered in connection with the plot of the dream, the viewpoint your unconscious has on the situation might become evident.
For instance, the statement ‘I felt keyed up’ occurred within a classroom, and helped the dreamer understand the anger generated at school. See amplification; plot of the dream; the comments on dream processing in the Introduction; dream processing; postures, movement, body language; settings; symbols and dreams.
Islamic Dream Interpretation