Dreams and how you interpret them

tridean

tridean

Jedi Master
Hi All,
I noticed in the suggested reading list there was no book on Dream interpretations.

How do others here deal with dreams?

Do you simply keep a journal of them and hope that eventually you can figure them out?

I have a dream interpretation book but I am not convinced about it. Sometimes things come true, but most times not within the time period specified, but I am not sure that the number of times something comes true is not due to probability. And it also seems the book is very new age and there is a lot of 'you are headed for a brilliant future' type stuff (although a recent dream it suggested I was in danger of my life if I was to enter in someones house i did not know well, so it was a warning). Several times in the past 18 months I have dreamt of feces and this suggests good luck!!! very odd!!!!, Internet interpretations suggest it means you have garbage to get rid of in life, but that seems very obvious doesn't it. Point being, there are different interpretations so what is one to follow?

I would seriously like to study my dreams as they are quite vivid and in recent times have had more violence in them, more confusion, me doing things that I wouldn't do in real life and so on and I am concerned.

Thanks
 
You might try out CG Jung. I found reading his 'Dreams' book quite useful to me for viewing dreams in a different way than the many 'dream meaning' books out there. I'm pretty sure there are others on the board who could give many more suggestions on how one might go about dream analysis.

http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-C-G-Jung/dp/0691017921
 
Hi Dingo,

Good question. Usually if I get stumped with some odd symbol, I'll check out dreammoods.com. I hear they've compiled a book now too. It is decent for a starting point, but I wouldn't treat it as gospel.

Otherwise, just keeping a dream journal over a period of years can sometimes help you get more familiar with the symbolism your subconscious uses. You can start to connect your dreams to events of emotional significance, and decode the language of your subconscious. I've always found it helps to read other peoples' dream interpretations as well.

Keep in mind, some of it is just noise too. The more important dreams to pay attention to are those that are reoccurring. Usually these are trying to tell you something, I think. Vivid dreams and emotional dreams may have to do with an emotional cleansing of sorts.

Regarding the feces dream, yes, the interpretation about not getting rid of garbage in your life may seem obvious, but what might not be obvious is what particular garbage you need to get rid of. I saw you recently posted a thread in the swamp that may be related to this. If this was on your mind, maybe this dream is just another clue. Have you started doing EE regularly?
 
Hi dingo,
I just wanted to add that dreams are rarely of a predictive nature. Rather, they tend to point out your current state in symbolic terms, affording you insight into areas to focus your attention for contemplation.

I just wanted to make sure you weren't expecting your dreams to somehow predict your future, although they sometimes do.

You might want to Google for dream dictionary or dream interpretations. I have found several websites over the years that have offered some interesting interpretations. Sorry I don't have any addresses handy.
Gonzo
 
Dingo said:
Hi All,
I noticed in the suggested reading list there was no book on Dream interpretations.

How do others here deal with dreams?

Do you simply keep a journal of them and hope that eventually you can figure them out?

I have a dream interpretation book but I am not convinced about it. Sometimes things come true, but most times not within the time period specified, but I am not sure that the number of times something comes true is not due to probability. And it also seems the book is very new age and there is a lot of 'you are headed for a brilliant future' type stuff (although a recent dream it suggested I was in danger of my life if I was to enter in someones house i did not know well, so it was a warning). Several times in the past 18 months I have dreamt of feces and this suggests good luck!!! very odd!!!!, Internet interpretations suggest it means you have garbage to get rid of in life, but that seems very obvious doesn't it. Point being, there are different interpretations so what is one to follow?

I would seriously like to study my dreams as they are quite vivid and in recent times have had more violence in them, more confusion, me doing things that I wouldn't do in real life and so on and I am concerned.

Thanks
Click to expand...

My current understanding of dream interpretation is that there is no book that accurately explains dream symbolism. Only the dreamer really can, though help from people who know you well is often really effective, since we tend to hide things from ourselves. Dreams are, usually, a symbolic language - we are sending ourselves messages, so who better to understand those messages than the dreamer? With that said, I do think there are some archetypal symbols, that we've discussed here on the forum. For instance, a house being representative of the mind, a vehicle being representative of the body or the life journey, that sort of thing. However, these things might not always be true! I would suggest paying a lot of attention to emotions in dreams, and to really think about what each character represents to you, and how it applies directly to the self. Just my take, of course.
 
Dingo said:
Hi All,
I noticed in the suggested reading list there was no book on Dream interpretations.

How do others here deal with dreams?

I have a dream interpretation book but I am not convinced about it. Sometimes things come true, but most times not within the time period specified, but I am not sure that the number of times something comes true is not due to probability. And it also seems the book is very new age and there is a lot of 'you are headed for a brilliant future' type stuff (although a recent dream it suggested I was in danger of my life if I was to enter in someones house i did not know well, so it was a warning). Several times in the past 18 months I have dreamt of feces and this suggests good luck!!! very odd!!!!, Internet interpretations suggest it means you have garbage to get rid of in life, but that seems very obvious doesn't it. Point being, there are different interpretations so what is one to follow?
Click to expand...

You might find some of the suggestions in this thread helpful:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=17503.45

Like many others here, I have always had a problem trying to interpret my dreams using the 'one size fits all' interpretations usually found in most dream literature. It was a breakthrough for me to apply the concepts in Gayle Delaney's Living Your Dreams, which is discussed in the thread above. Rather than being a template for interpreting various symbols and their meanings in a general way and applicable to all, it provides tools one can apply for oneself to develop an understanding of what is unique to you. Trevrizent does a pretty good job explaining the basics of this process in the above thread.
 
There are some interesting analyses of dreams in some Fourth Way books. For example, Jean Vaysse summarizes the work as it was taught to him by Jeanne de Salzmann (using ISOTM as a reference). He has a section devoted to dreams. (Follow the link to see the section in question on google books). Also C. Daly King in his summary of the Work as taught by Orage (a separate line of transmission not including Ouspensky) in The Oragean Version (not published but available on scribd), and there's a similar description of dreams from a Work perspective. Basically, in the deepest (i.e. normal) sleep, there are no dreams. Most dreams are left over energy from one or several of the centers, and the dream content reflects this. Vaysse lists three normal kinds of dreams: associative (reactive/mechanical), compensatory (emotional), and symbolic (higher emotional). (Also telepathic, prophetic, etc.)

So basically, if you follow dream interpretation books, or Jungian stuff, there's an inherent assumption that all dreams are symbolic. But some are just mechanical. Some are compensatory dreams relating to emotional reactions during waking sleep. Before getting into symbolism, it's important to know if the dream is actually symbolic and not either of the former options. And even then, your higher self will speak in symbols specific for you, so as anart said, dream interpretation guides are not always the way to go.
 
Oddly enough, one book that helped me with this (in general) was Women Who Run With the Wolves. I found it rich in symbolism that helped me greatly.
 
Hi.

Regarding dream symbolism i have been noticing something for the past months that could be of interest. In a lot of dreams when i wake up and go through them mentally there is always a detail that is so blatantly wrong that i start to think how could i have believed it, for example believing someone is my father when it was clearly it was not him (in physical aspects), or thinking i was home it didn't resemble the interior of my home. Yes i know they are dreams, but still i can't shake the fact that some basic things aren't recognized in dreams, it is like some discerning aspect of my brain is shut off. Can it be that this in itself is a symbol, or the things that i am not recognising correctly in dreams are serving as the symbols i should be paying attention?
 
Here is the excerpt from Jean Vaysse, Toward Awakening, pp 55-6, which AI referred to above.

In the intermediate states of sleep, dream “phenomena” are produced. Deep sleep brings about an inhibition of all the functions of the centers and at the same time interrupts the connections with the memory and imagination in each of them. But if they are not disconnected, or only partly disconnected, these functions may go on working in their respective centers. And thus the machine is not completely at rest, and some traces of its functioning may be available to us in the waking state. Study of these traces, that is, the study of dreams, can then tell us something both in regard to those disturbances which were strong enough to prevent the machine from resting (which of the connections are not properly broken) and also as to the nature of the disturbance in question (its causes and significance).

Theoretically, dreams can be divided into three principal categories: associative (or reactive) dreams, compensatory dreams and symbolic (or archetypal) dreams. But there are many other kinds, such as premonitory dreams, or telepathic dreams, the significance of which it would be interesting to examine from the point of view of the breaking or non-breaking of the connections between centers.

Inevitably, one tends to relate the three principal categories of dreams to the three levels of ordinary human life: associative dreams correspond to mechanical life, compensatory dreams correspond to a personal aspect colored by emotion, while symbolic dreams may offer obscure glimpses into the life of the real self, when the higher emotional center (working on another level) is able to make itself felt, owing to a sufficient disconnection between the lower centers, which ordinarily hide it.

In any case, dreams in sleep are still a subjective phenomenon. Even when induced by certain external impressions, they are formed in the inner world of a man and are made up of elements contained within him. Seeing them in the waking state, if he can recall them, a man may not recognize the images which were used as his own and may feel them as foreign to him. Yet this is nothing but an optical illusion even though he does not know it, they are in him and pertain to him, whatever form they may assume and however alien they may appear. They are only various aspects of himself arising in himself, ultimately indicative of things contained in him which he did not know of.
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This division among different types of dreams makes sense to me and would explain my own experience. Oftentimes my dreams are just a stream of gibberish. The ones worth analyzing and which seem to contain meaningful information or insight are somehow more coherent (in a dreamlike way). Often I will awaken immediately following such a dream, like part of me wants my thinking mind to remember and think about it. Beginning to learn how to get the messages contained in those dreams has given me a great deal of respect for the cleverness, humor and sometimes shocking insight hidden away in my sleeping soul.
 
I've been having a lot of really bizare dreams as of late. The symbolic meaning of them is hard to decipher. For instance one dream consisted of a black object that for whatever reason to me resembled a dragonfly but it was coming directly to me from a distance. First the object/black dragonfly was extremely small and as it came closer and closer it became larger and larger until finally it hit me right in the forehead as if it were a gun shot and I immediately snapped out of my dream state, waking up, with an alarming sense of awareness. If anything this is unsettling. Any possible guidance here or comments? Thanks!
 
FrankM4326754 said:
I've been having a lot of really bizare dreams as of late. The symbolic meaning of them is hard to decipher. For instance one dream consisted of a black object that for whatever reason to me resembled a dragonfly but it was coming directly to me from a distance. First the object/black dragonfly was extremely small and as it came closer and closer it became larger and larger until finally it hit me right in the forehead as if it were a gun shot and I immediately snapped out of my dream state, waking up, with an alarming sense of awareness. If anything this is unsettling. Any possible guidance here or comments? Thanks!
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As anart mentioned, only you can interpret it. Living your dreams by gayle delaney is a good book. In that there are some guidelines about how you can interpret it. you can check this out and ask your self about the dream and you can post it here, if you still need the interpretation.

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Your-Dreams-Bestseller-Becoming/dp/0062514466/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290741888&sr=8-1#reader_0062514466

search on "place, mood, feelings.". Questions that u can ask are in pg 77. But remember this a great book, better to get a copy and read .
 
Thanks Guys,
I had never before thought to look at the emotional content of the dreams and try to interpret that. Oddly, since I started the EE breathing I've hardly had any dreams, and I also find that when I do the EE program I fall asleep, but no dreams either.

I'm anxiously awaiting my next dream just so I can look at the emotional side rather than the symbols and people

Cheers
 
Hi Dingo --

Dingo said:
I had never before thought to look at the emotional content of the dreams and try to interpret that. Oddly, since I started the EE breathing I've hardly had any dreams, and I also find that when I do the EE program I fall asleep, but no dreams either.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to make a note that you're not alone -- if you take a look at the last month or so of the E/E thread, a few people (myself included) have mentioned the same thing.
 
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