Interpreting your Dreams
Have you ever woken up from a dream wondering what on earth that was about and seeing no connection to that nonsense and your life? If you have, read on!
Waking up from a dream that leaves you baffled can be aggravating. Here are three easy steps to get you closer to knowing what it was all about!
Step 1-
As soon as you wake up, write everything down, and I mean everything. Don't wait too long or you might forget what it was you were dreaming about. Write even the seemingly insignificant details. As a matter of fact, those will be the most important. Keep writing freely until there is nothing else you remember. This usually will end up being 1-2 pages long.
Step 2-
Start reading what you wrote as you would a book of fiction, to get a basic overview.
Step 3-
Now go back and re-read it a second time. This time start looking for clues to see what your mind has been grappling with through the night. Usually it has to do with some important value or belief that you are struggling with intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. The mind is a fascinating thing and I believe it tries to integrate your mind, body, and soul.
Start looking for metaphors and other meaning in your writing. A lot of times when you just think about a dream, parts of it just don’t make sense…until you write it down. Then all of a sudden, it will start making sense. That seemingly insignificant thing could be a metaphor or an important piece of the puzzle. For instance, in one dream I was interpreting, as part of the story the character was carrying around a few dirty shirts, not knowing where to hide them to be out of people’s view. When it was written down, it became trying to hide “my dirty laundry”. Wow, how funny our minds are! Before I wrote it down, my mind just dismissed the thought as a strange part of the dream. Nothing really. But oh how it was the most important part!
The characters in “your story” are important too. They stand for types of people you face in your life. They are there to tell you something about yourself and the world. Make sure you have written down all the details of your characters – their personalities, what they did, how they behaved, etc. For instance, in one dream I wrote that after a tragedy no one saw, I tried to tell people to get help, that people were in trouble. One guy laughed and started making crass jokes, not respecting what I was saying and he didn’t believe me. Neither did the others and they told me to go about my business, that everything would be ok if I did. People were going about their business as if nothing was wrong, but I had just escaped “death” and there were others who were maybe dead or dying. We were all taking a “short cut” on the highway and there was a big hole in the ground that was gobbling everyone up slowly. I didn’t want to believe it was happening myself, but I was there and I saw it. – There were so many meanings in this story. The people who were in denial of what I was saying were like so many people who hear of bad things happening but do nothing. They have a hard time doing the right thing and take the easy route. Some people today even deny tragedies because they feel too weak to deal with the truth. I on the other hand did not want to go along with the crowd, I had to do something, and so I phoned for help. Sometimes when we ask for help, we are the ones who have to come to action. “Evil will flourish where good men sit and do nothing” and short cuts in life can lead to bad things – a spiritual and emotional death. Wow, how potent!
As you get good at it, you can start to analyze as you write. You can write down your interpretation as you go. This is exciting and so deep to do! We have a lot to learn from ourselves. Getting to know who we are and what we are about is so very enlightening. We can also see where we fall short and what we need to work on for our spiritual growth.