Dreams are tools of communication between our conscious mind and unconscious mind. With our dreams, our unconscious mind lets us experience various emotions that sometimes follow us to the next day. Dreams are open debates to everybody, but it is known that dreams sometimes might be telling us important information about ourselves. This is why dream therapy is so common now. Dreams allow us to know if we are ready to deal with certain traumas or what the roots of our anxiety are. Therefore, it is of importance to interpret our dreams correctly.
One of the biggest myths about dream interpretation is that it is bound to certain rules. Dreams are very personal and should be analyzed thoroughly, so, using dream dictionaries, as fun as they are, might lead you wrong. Of course, there are certain things you could apply to analyze dreams you see as correctly as possible. Here are some of them:
Record your dreams
The first step of analyzing a dream is to remember a dream. You need to have something to analyze, right? After you wake up, try to write at least a few sentences about your dream. The more detailed you write, of course, it will be easier to analyze it since you will have more concrete things to reflect on. The best way to record your dreams is to keep a dream journal and do it regularly. You could keep a pen and a paper beneath your pillow, or you could record your voice when you wake up at night.
Recognize All the Elements of Your Dream
In dreams, we see everything, including ourselves, in various forms. So, try to pay attention to who you are and how you behave in your dream. Try to pay attention to signs and symbols. These symbols could be common symbols like death or personal symbols from your life or experiences. Try to recognize the details in your dreams. Otherwise, it will not be possible to achieve a satisfying dream analysis.
Work Through Your Relationship with People or Objects in the Dream
In dreams, objects or people are symbols or part of our subconscious. Pay attention to who or what you see in your dream. What do they mean to you? How do their behaviors affect you? Do you recognize them from your daily life, or are they strangers? How would you describe them? Keep asking yourself questions to understand why your subconscious chooses those certain faces in your dreams and what they represent.
Focus on What the Dream Might Be Telling You
Dreams are very difficult to interpret because they are not crops of our conscious, rational mind but of our crazy, subconscious mind. Therefore, you should not interpret dreams as you see them but focus on the meanings. Keep asking yourself questions like “What does this dream try to tell me?”, “What kind of situation in my life might be triggering this kind of dream?”, and so on.
Of course, it is really hard to fully interpret a dream but during the process of trying to analyze our dreams, we might grow in the way of our self-discovery!