Dream Interpretation
Feb. 1st, 2011 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headIt's snowing wicked hard here so they ended classes at 12:30, so this post gets to happen sooner than expected :D ARE YOU EXCITED? I'M EXCITED
So what I'm going to talk about is interpreting dreams. I'm talking here about regular dreams, and I'm taking a psych approach; I'll talk a bit at the end about what I guess one would call 'supernatural' dreams, like premonitions, visions, etc.
So what, exactly, is the point of dreams? That's really where you have to start.
To be honest, nobody is really sure why we dream. The strongest current theory though (and the one I find most likely) is that dreams are our way of expressing things and sorting through emotions. This theory goes all the way back to Freud and Jung. A psychoanalyst might say that dreams are one way the subconscious communicates with the conscious mind; this is one way of putting it, but I think it's misleading. I prefer to say this:
When dreaming, we express thoughts, desires and emotions that we may or may not be aware we had.
So what does this mean? It means interpreting dreams can be very important! It can help us understand ourselves better, and it can be a way of finding the root of anxiety or distress in our lives that we aren't dealing with. Dreams can be about a current situation, or a situation that you fear will come to pass in the future. Look at both possibilities when interpreting.
Here's some basics in starting dream interpretation:
THE MEAT OF THE SUBJECT
Alright, so how does one actually go about interpreting a dream?
There are actually many schools of dream interpretation. The oldest is psychoanalysis; that was my introduction to dream interpretation. IT IS NOT THAT GREAT. In fact, no one school of dream interpretation is all that. I find the most effective is this:
I'm going to make another post after this one with one of my own dreams and talk about how I interpreted it. I'm splitting it into two posts because this is getting wicked long as it is.
A few facts about dreams
There are some biological/psychological facts about dreams that you should take into consideration, or are just good to know.
A few final words!
THAT MOVIE GAVE ME NIGHTMARES
It's a common phenomenon! A person sees a scary movie, and then has a nightmare about it. Why does it happen? These are things we know aren't real, they don't really affect our lives, why would we dream about it? Well, there are three primary manifestations of this, and they're all caused by different things:
"Mommy, I had a bad dream!"
In kids, it really could be just that the movie scared them and they had a bad dream because of it. Like I said, kids have different anxieties than adults. A scary movie can become a real fear for them, something that affects their life. However, it is also possible that the other two causes might be at the root of it for a kid.
"It was so scary, I had nightmares about it."
The movie terrified you, and later you had a nightmare. This is probably because one of the 'scare' themes in the movie connects with an anxiety you have. For example, if the movie The Strangers really scares you (and gives you nightmares), you probably worry about home invasion. Other themes to look for would be themes like: monsters that target one's family, monsters that hide in one's home (feeling unsafe in your own home), triggering themes like abuse or rape, or monsters that resemble natural disasters (like Cloverfield). Also, if the paranormal is very frightening for you, it could be that, in the case of a movie with those themes.
If you can't figure out why something scared you so much, try looking at the most frightening scenes in the movie, and what the monster was doing in your dream. You've possibly also had nightmares with the theme of this fear or anxiety before, that don't include the particular movie monster.
"It didn't scare me at the time, but I had nightmares about it later!"
In this case, it's likely that it's really not that particular monster you were having nightmares about. In fact, you probably would have had the nightmare regardless of watching the movie or not. What happened was your brain took a shape it had recently experienced and associated with fear, and applied it to a dream baddie that would have otherwise been formless and ambiguous.
When interpreting these dreams, it's best to disregard the movie monster entirely; just interpret it as a generic baddie. Look to other things in the dream (what was the monster doing? what other symbols were involved? what emotions did you feel?) to interpret it.
If you've been having reoccuring nightmares for a long time (several months or years) that feature a particular movie monster, it could be either of the above two; it might represent an anxiety or fear you're still dealing with, OR it might be that your brain chose that particular monster as the stand-in for baddies in all your dreams. To figure out which it is, try looking for common themes among the dreams. If they seem to have similar themes, it's probably the first; if not, probably the second.
OMG we're almost done
A few final words, on dreams that are what one might call supernatural in nature; these could include things like premonitions, religious visions, or attacks from outside entities. I do believe these sorts of dreams happen;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
srztanjur has had rather a lot of them. If you think you had one, I recommend this plan of action:
Alright, that's it :D I'm going to go get lunch, then come back and write up that dream I was talking about, and show how I interpreted it. BRAVING THE SNOW FOR FOOOOD
P.S. I stuck the 'paranormal' tag on this for the bit at the end.
So what I'm going to talk about is interpreting dreams. I'm talking here about regular dreams, and I'm taking a psych approach; I'll talk a bit at the end about what I guess one would call 'supernatural' dreams, like premonitions, visions, etc.
So what, exactly, is the point of dreams? That's really where you have to start.
To be honest, nobody is really sure why we dream. The strongest current theory though (and the one I find most likely) is that dreams are our way of expressing things and sorting through emotions. This theory goes all the way back to Freud and Jung. A psychoanalyst might say that dreams are one way the subconscious communicates with the conscious mind; this is one way of putting it, but I think it's misleading. I prefer to say this:
When dreaming, we express thoughts, desires and emotions that we may or may not be aware we had.
So what does this mean? It means interpreting dreams can be very important! It can help us understand ourselves better, and it can be a way of finding the root of anxiety or distress in our lives that we aren't dealing with. Dreams can be about a current situation, or a situation that you fear will come to pass in the future. Look at both possibilities when interpreting.
Here's some basics in starting dream interpretation:
- If a dream (or a theme of dreams) is reoccuring, badly upsets/scares you, or you keep thinking about a dream for quite awhile after you wake up - these are clues you should probably take a closer look at it. Whatever emotion or situation lays behind it is probably persistent or very troubling for you.
- If you're having trouble remembering your dreams, and you really want to try interpreting some of them (or asking somebody else to help you interpret them), consider keeping a dream journal. A dream journal is just a notebook you keep near your bed so that you can write down your dreams when you wake up. Don't worry if you can't remember a lot about the dreams at first - you'll get better with time!
- Most (likely ALL) dreams have some relevance to your life. Even if you don't have any particularly distressing dreams, you can practice interpreting any dream that you remember well; interpreting dreams that you really enjoyed might help you better understand what brings you joy or comfort in your life.
THE MEAT OF THE SUBJECT
Alright, so how does one actually go about interpreting a dream?
There are actually many schools of dream interpretation. The oldest is psychoanalysis; that was my introduction to dream interpretation. IT IS NOT THAT GREAT. In fact, no one school of dream interpretation is all that. I find the most effective is this:
- Start with personal symbols. Does anything in the dream (a particular person, a situation, an object) make you think of something?
- For example, seeing a friend of yours in a dream could symbolize that person in particular, or your friends in general, or any kind of person you regard with similar emotions (ex. trust, distrust, happiness, fun).
- Another example might be a particular animal that you 'identify' with (and no, you don't have to be furry or otherkin to identify with an animal, and it doesn't mean you think you ARE that animal). If you see that animal in a dream, it might be a symbol for yourself, or whatever traits in yourself you think it symbolizes; if you identify with hawks and see them as personifying your freedom and bravery, then seeing a hawk in danger in your dream might mean you feel like somebody or some situation is threatening those qualities in yourself, perhaps by trapping you in an unhealthily dependent relationship.
- Move on to universal symbols. There are some symbols that are pretty much universal across schools of dream interpretation.
- A car, if the dream takes place primarily in the car, is usually a symbol for your own life (and the person driving is the one who has control - if it's not you, you probably feel you aren't in control of your life right now).
- Phones, letters, speaking, and even the internet can all be symbols of communication. If you have a dream where a phone doesn't work, or you can't speak/people can't seem to hear you, you're probably feeling people aren't understanding you or you can't communicate to people who are important to you.
There are a lot of other examples, and it's kind of a base of knowledge you have to build up. This is what I find the psychoanalysis school to be most useful for, because generally dream guides for psychoanalytics include a lot or all of these. However, you also have to be familiar enough with psychoanalysis to know what stuff is bullshit that you want to filter out. - Ask for help. If you still don't have the gist of the dream, try going to a friend or somebody else who knows you well AND/OR has experience interpreting dreams. They'll probably be able to find things you didn't think of. However, if they disagree with you on something you already interpreted - consider their view, but if you still feel strongly, GO WITH YOUR INTERPRETATION. It's your dream; on some basic level, you DO know what it means. (My preferred helpline is to go to srztanjur, and we do a joint tarot reading to get another perspective on it.)
- Consult a specific dream guide only if you're still really stuck, and feel like you want to figure this dream out NOW rather than waiting for potentially more clarifying dreams. It's very possible to find a particular school of dream interpretation that works very well for you, because their symbol interpretation is similar to your own.
I'm going to make another post after this one with one of my own dreams and talk about how I interpreted it. I'm splitting it into two posts because this is getting wicked long as it is.
A few facts about dreams
There are some biological/psychological facts about dreams that you should take into consideration, or are just good to know.
- Kids' brains are not fully developed, and their view of the world, anxieties, etc. are very different from an adult's. I don't recommend trying to interpret a kid's dream unless it's causing them a lot of emotional distress. There will probably be much more basic symbolism - it's much more likely in a child's dream that a monster is just a monster, because a lot of the pressures and anxieties present in an adult's life just aren't there for a kid, or are understood by them very differently.
- You cannot dream of a shape you have not seen. This is why a lot of the time, 'baddies' in dreams are formless, or you just 'know' they're there, or they're a normal-looking thing that 'feels' off. A lot of the substance of dreams is actually our interpretation, a sort of running mental commentary; the visuals and sounds that go with it are drawn directly from our memory. This goes for faces, too. Any distinct faces you dream of have to be ones you've already seen.
- Don't try to interpret sleep paralysis hallucinations! They are hallucinations, not dreams. Also be wary of interpreting dreams you have when you're very sick, high, or otherwise in an unusual state of mind.
A few final words!
THAT MOVIE GAVE ME NIGHTMARES
It's a common phenomenon! A person sees a scary movie, and then has a nightmare about it. Why does it happen? These are things we know aren't real, they don't really affect our lives, why would we dream about it? Well, there are three primary manifestations of this, and they're all caused by different things:
"Mommy, I had a bad dream!"
In kids, it really could be just that the movie scared them and they had a bad dream because of it. Like I said, kids have different anxieties than adults. A scary movie can become a real fear for them, something that affects their life. However, it is also possible that the other two causes might be at the root of it for a kid.
"It was so scary, I had nightmares about it."
The movie terrified you, and later you had a nightmare. This is probably because one of the 'scare' themes in the movie connects with an anxiety you have. For example, if the movie The Strangers really scares you (and gives you nightmares), you probably worry about home invasion. Other themes to look for would be themes like: monsters that target one's family, monsters that hide in one's home (feeling unsafe in your own home), triggering themes like abuse or rape, or monsters that resemble natural disasters (like Cloverfield). Also, if the paranormal is very frightening for you, it could be that, in the case of a movie with those themes.
If you can't figure out why something scared you so much, try looking at the most frightening scenes in the movie, and what the monster was doing in your dream. You've possibly also had nightmares with the theme of this fear or anxiety before, that don't include the particular movie monster.
"It didn't scare me at the time, but I had nightmares about it later!"
In this case, it's likely that it's really not that particular monster you were having nightmares about. In fact, you probably would have had the nightmare regardless of watching the movie or not. What happened was your brain took a shape it had recently experienced and associated with fear, and applied it to a dream baddie that would have otherwise been formless and ambiguous.
When interpreting these dreams, it's best to disregard the movie monster entirely; just interpret it as a generic baddie. Look to other things in the dream (what was the monster doing? what other symbols were involved? what emotions did you feel?) to interpret it.
If you've been having reoccuring nightmares for a long time (several months or years) that feature a particular movie monster, it could be either of the above two; it might represent an anxiety or fear you're still dealing with, OR it might be that your brain chose that particular monster as the stand-in for baddies in all your dreams. To figure out which it is, try looking for common themes among the dreams. If they seem to have similar themes, it's probably the first; if not, probably the second.
OMG we're almost done
A few final words, on dreams that are what one might call supernatural in nature; these could include things like premonitions, religious visions, or attacks from outside entities. I do believe these sorts of dreams happen;
srztanjur has had rather a lot of them. If you think you had one, I recommend this plan of action:- MAKE SURE it wasn't just a very unusually emotional, normal dream. Try waiting for awhile and going back to review it and see if your impression of it has changed; talk about it with somebody else and get their opinion, or consult another tool (ex. tarot cards).
- Look for signs of it being a BIOLOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE OR UNLIKELY DREAM. These include:
- dreaming things in shapes that you have never seen before, dreaming faces that you are sure you have never seen (be wary of this as you can 'forget' a face and still dream about it), dreaming sounds you have never heard (be wary for the same reason)
- dreaming of a specific supernatural thing - especially angels, demons, servants of particular gods, and so on (it is VERY RARE to dream of these things under normal circumstances, but still possible)
- feeling not just emotionally, but physically affected upon waking, or finding physical evidence upon waking (ex. bruises)
Alright, that's it :D I'm going to go get lunch, then come back and write up that dream I was talking about, and show how I interpreted it. BRAVING THE SNOW FOR FOOOOD
P.S. I stuck the 'paranormal' tag on this for the bit at the end.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 04:06 am (UTC)..but as far as actually figuring out what they mean, I'm so lost.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 04:17 am (UTC)If you need any help figuring your dreams out, I'm here! I wouldn't mind helping :3