One day a client reported she’d had a powerful dream. Powerful in the sense that the imagery was very vivid and that it had stimulated strong feelings of sadness and yearning.
Her dream:
I was walking in the desert. I came to an odd area of paved concrete. In the concrete was a hole. I looked down inside it and saw a beautiful treasure of gold and silver, almost like pirate booty, stolen treasure waiting to be found. I wanted to go down but could not because the opening was too narrow for me.
What did it mean she wondered. Did it mean anything?
There are books, perhaps even places online, where you can find ready made cookbook interpretations of dreams. For example, if you dream of a train it might suggest you are preparing for a journey or a vacation. Or if you dream of a former lover, it means you still have feelings for that person or that that person may reappear in your life in some way.
Most of these made for mass consumption interpretations are occasionally relevant. Not everyone who dreams of a train is going on a journey. Not every dream of a former lover means that person will resurface. What if they’ve already passed away?
So what exactly is going on with dreams?
There is research which suggests that dreams serve a healthy purpose of maintaining psychic equilibrium. Deprive people of dream phases during the night and they become easily agitated, cranky or feel less energetic during the day. Allow people a good night's rest and plenty of dream time and people will feel rested.
But why do we dream the kinds of stories we do?
That is bit of a mystery. In the psychotherapy field the answer is evident. Dreams, as Freud once said, are the golden road to the unconscious. They tell us about those things about ourselves that we are currently struggling with.
Say the person who dreams of train has no intention of going on any vacation but has recurring dreams of a train. Moreover, say this person was on a train last year and a traumatic event occurred there which they have not come to terms with. Then the train becomes a symbol of the feelings and thoughts associated with that event that the mind is still trying to resolve. That is, according to this line of thinking, dreams reflect those psychological issues which could benefit from some deeper understanding. They mirror back to us what we don’t think too much about during the day.
I asked the client to think about her desert dream. Did it remind her of something that is going on her life at this time? Because she had already been in treatment with me and had some good understanding about her issues the meaning of dream became quickly clear to her.
The treasure symbolized the intimate relationship she was searching for but could not find. Something eluded her. Looking closer at the different images of the dream, she came to the conclusion that the concrete and the narrow passageway symbolized her own closed attitude about the thing she was desiring. Feelings of fear and anxiety, self doubt and unworthiness came to the surface and provided further fuel for self understanding and looking at how these things came to be and how to relinquish their grip on her mind.
Some people say they have had prophetic dreams where an event dreamed about actually came to pass sometime in the future. Others report lucid dreams and nightmares. Then there are healing dreams and daydreams. There are also inspiring dreams. Some artists and scientists sometimes report the answer to a question or the inspiration for something came to them in a dream. Even the bible has ample examples of dreams making something big happen.
Many report not dreaming at all. What that really means is that they don't recall a dream. Everyone dreams every night. But because they are such sensitive ephemeral experiences it is hard for them to stick unless they are quite powerful. Everyone will report at least once in a lifetime that they just had an amazing dream but don't know what it's about.
We can train ourselves to remember dreams by keeping a dream log on our night stand and going to sleep with the intention of remembering at least one dream. It will usually just be a few days before we wake up with a dream in mind. Writing it down and making it a daily habit will establish a deeper connection with one's dream mind.
But what do you do with a dream log then? Our dream mind communicates to us via symbol. It would be nice if it could just text us the message and be done with it, but the unconscious does not use the usual day to day ego tools we use. Look at the plot of the dream. Does it symbolize something in your life. Look at the symbols. Do they stand for something internal to you. I.e. if you dream of your long dead father, think of anything "fatherly" happening in your life right now. Is there a paternal figure at work or is it about your own internal father qualities?
Pay particular attention to cliffhanger plots. The cliffhanger is usually something in your life that remains unresolved. Equally important are emotions that surface. These are emotions we may have not be accustomed to or are ignoring.
There are books that aid in this kind of journey. Take some time at Borders or Amazon and look for those that assist with how to interpret rather than those that interpret for you. The later are best used for insulation of a house.
