How can I best interpret my dreams?

March 20, 2006 10:08 PM

How might I best begin in interpreting my dreams?

I've been having awesome dreams lately. In fact they're probably the best dreams I can remember having for a long time. Of course some elements of these dreams I can explain to myself. I mean it's probably stuff from my subconscious thought processes filtering on through. But what I'd really like to do is try and decipher what the more cryptic, sometimes messed up stuff is all about. Some dreams of late, for example, have been an extension of previous dreams, with some of those older dreams being years old. And yes I know there's a few websites out there for this kind of thing. Frankly, though, they look and feel like they were made for the Internet of yesterday, with information that's mostly generalised garbage anyway. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places though? Links?

With books, however, I guess I could say I'm fairly hopeless with them on this subject too. I assume there's some awesome ones out there though, such as a giant encyclopaedia of items to reference for example (hopefully covering additional aspects of dreaming too).

Anyway, it's probably obvious by now that I'm not even sure where to start with this and thus I'm hoping some dreamers here will be able to set me on the right track.

I guess it's sweet dreams for now though. Thanks.

posted by sjvilla79 to grab bag (24 comments total)

Every time I go into Borders, there's a "Dream Encyclopedia" in the bargain books section. From what I remember, it's not very expensive, so that may be a place to start.
posted by MeetMegan at 10:12 PM on March 20, 2006

I think the book you might be looking for is Cirlot's A Dictionary of Symbols. It's fascinating, but take it with a huge grain of salt.

You might also want to read some Jung.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:40 PM on March 20, 2006

I think if you read a lot of dream-analysis books your dreams will start to conform to their predictions.
posted by delmoi at 10:44 PM on March 20, 2006

Ignore the books. The thing about subconscious symbolism, especially pertaining to dreams, is that it's intensely personal. What I may interpret from, say, a snake, is going to be vastly different than what you would.

So, start analytically, then work intuitively: write down your dreams as soon as you wake up, or record them on a handheld recorder dealie. Go through them and pick out anything that jumps out at you. Then play simple word association-type-games with them. You dreamt of your house, with no one in it? How does that make you feel? What associations does that bring up for you? Is an empty house symbolic of loss and loneliness, or are you dreaming of the day you first walk(ed) into a house that you own?

Books on dream symbolism are entirely useless, except for painting very broad brushstrokes of what many general symbols mean within a given cultural context. Talking about it right now with my bf, for example, butterflies came up. Generally speaking in Western symbolism, a butterfly will represent change. Or it could represent a memory of your childhood, and have nothing to do with change at all.

Basically, it's your subconscious, therefore it's your symbolism. Record as many as possible, look for patterns--both static and evolving--and spend time thinking about, without overanalyzing too much, what those things represent to you.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:47 PM on March 20, 2006

Personally, I would stay away from all books about interpreting dreams and begin your own dream journal. I have been keeping one now for over 20 years. It's well worth the time and effort. You'll discover patterns and themes that won't be found in any other book because it is all from your own beautiful, exquisite neural wiring. Be discreet with who you share them with and be wary of those who offer fast interpretation. You'll get good at spotting other dreamers to talk with.

E-mail me if you'd like.

In the meantime, welcome to thunderdome ; )
posted by goalyeehah at 10:48 PM on March 20, 2006

A significant portion of science believes that so-called "dream symbolism" books are total bunk.

Not to insult anyone's beliefs, but there's no hard science behind this sort of stuff at all. Of course it's much harder to disprove something than to prove it - so it hasn't been disproved either, but there's certainly no compelling evidence that any "symbols" in dreams mean anything at all.
posted by twiggy at 10:51 PM on March 20, 2006

Your dreams are what your brain does when it doesn't think that you're looking. So the problem with the analytical course is that a conflict of interest arises for your brain. I have anecdotal support for this claim in the form of many brilliant friends and acquaintances who chew up and spit out Chaucer and James Joyce and wierd kinds of math that I didn't know had names but apparently do, yet are completely helpless to interperet mind-blowingly obvious dreams. I mean train going into a tunnel obvious. So if you have a significant other or a best friend who knows you well enough to interpret you personal symbology, and who knows what's going on in your life, get them on board. A little distance goes a long way.
posted by Eothele at 10:59 PM on March 20, 2006

I have always had very vivid and rich dreams that I usually remember perfectly. Some of them are continuations of "stories" going back to my early childhood and I dream almost every night. I am 99% sure my brain gets all it's ideas from books, movies and particularly conversations I've had recently and there is no specific meaning to them.
posted by fshgrl at 11:03 PM on March 20, 2006

Dreams don't mean anything. Interpret them as you wish. If you use books, you will be using some other person's interpretation of what's going on in your head, which will not be correct but could be interesting if the interpreter is interesting, but the set of interesting people has a tiny intersection with the set of people who write books on interpreting dreams. Better to find your dream images in art books and see what people say about them there.

If you are in the creative arts, try using the images to create art that means something to you. A series of trains zooming into tunnels, for example.
posted by pracowity at 12:39 AM on March 21, 2006

Granted, the vast majority of people will swear they dream in cohesive narrative ... but I gotta wonder how much of that narrative we add later when we're recalling it. Are we really recalling a cohesive vision, or is our mind filling in the gaps between the random firing of nocturnal synapses?
posted by RavinDave at 1:33 AM on March 21, 2006

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
posted by flabdablet at 3:03 AM on March 21, 2006

Dreams don't mean anything.

Really? Nothing at all? So there's no correlation between one's life and one's dreams? If I'm stressed out at work and start having stressful dreams, that's just a coincidence?
posted by malp at 5:37 AM on March 21, 2006

I read a really interesting approach to dream analysis in a book on cognitive science. The author likens a dream to a flight simulator. The places where you can fly through buildings, bridges, etc. are the places where the model isn't powerful enough to properly detect collision. Likewise, the supernatural/bizarre elements of your dreams are places where your mental model of the world is failing.
posted by Laugh_track at 5:48 AM on March 21, 2006

Really? Nothing at all? So there's no correlation between one's life and one's dreams?

He didn't say that your dreams have nothing to do with your life. They probably have some connection with images in your head.

But you're trying to extract some "meaning" out of them, as if they are supposed to tell you something. They don't. Sometimes dreams are interesting, sometimes they are boring, sometimes they are outright nonsensical. Don't look for a deeper, hidden meaning in them.

For instance, a couple of days, I had a dream about me and Kelly Clarkson brandishing swords and killing bad guys in a setting that looked almost exactly like Kill Bill. I saw Kill Bill a very long time ago, and haven't even thought of it recently, and I heard a Kelly Clarkson song a few days ago.

So what does this all mean? That my true destiny is to be a sword-waving warrior who moonlights as a pop singer? Probably not. It was just a concoction from random things in my head.
posted by madman at 6:04 AM on March 21, 2006

So there's no correlation between one's life and one's dreams?

If you're stressed out at work, and if that's making you tense, you might start having a sore back, but that doesn't mean you should study backs to understand your problems at work. Things may show up in dreams that you thought about or saw before. Dreams may also be influenced by what's going on while you're dreaming -- being wrapped up too tightly in a blanket might turn into a drowning or suffocating feeling in a dream, for example. But dreams aren't the key to anything. They don't predict the future, they don't reveal past lives, and they don't straighten out the present. They are amusing, and studying them could be constructive if such study leads you to greater introspection, but they aren't in and of themselves some magical key to your inner life.
posted by pracowity at 6:06 AM on March 21, 2006

But you're trying to extract some "meaning" out of them, as if they are supposed to tell you something.

Stressful dreams might tell me that my life is too stressful. Dreams of failure might mean that I'm worried about failing. Lustful dreams might mean that I want some nookie.
posted by malp at 7:05 AM on March 21, 2006

Dreams of needing to pee might tell me to wake up and go to the bathroom.
posted by malp at 7:06 AM on March 21, 2006

I've been trying to figure out what dreams are all about for as long as I can remember, here are my conclusions so far:

I don't believe it is possible to go about interpeting dreams as if deciphering a code, deconstructing a metaphor or translating a language. You would do as well trying to interpet a cloud or a mountain.

I think of dreaming as a fundamentally different, complimentary state of mind to waking consciousness. Therefore dreams are inherently unknowable and unthinkable to the conscious mind, as their methods and structure are alien and opposed (i.e. lacking logic and linearity).

When trying to interpet dreams, you are only able to approach your waking memories of dreams, that is dream-thoughts filtered through waking-thought.

I think, therefore, that the easiest way to come closer to unraveling or understanding dreams is to bring the waking consciousness closer to the dreaming state. I used to do this by a combination of sleep-deprivation and power-naps. In retrospect I'm not sure how healthy that was, and these days I tend to prefer to use TV, films or music as a vehicle to enter these sort of states.

Once in a semi-dreaming (or trance state or altered state of consciousness), the mind may flirt between different states and modes of thought, which may allow conscious insights into dream-thoughts, or sub-conscious insights into wakeful thought.

Other possibilities for this kind of in-between state exploration are doodling, stream-of-consciousness writing (see my profile), making music and verbal free-association with a partner.

That is all just speculation however. The only conclusion I have much certainty about is that it is fundamentally impossible to explain, interpet or be an expert in the field of dreaming. All we may do is guess and wonder.
posted by MetaMonkey at 8:56 AM on March 21, 2006

I think of dreams as being our therapy. I'm not seeing a counselor, I don't exercise much, I have no time-margins, and I run from one thing to another. There is no place for issues to come out except in my dreams. If I chew on things during the day, I usually find some truth in the weirdness and it helps me deal with the stuff I don't take time for during the chaos of the day.

Last night I hung around someone who is critical and trapping in her comments. Then I dreamed that I was arrested for murder and every word I said convinced the police all the more that I was guilty. I woke up with an intensified version of the feeling I was lightly feeling last night, but couldn't put words on.
posted by orangemiles at 9:07 AM on March 21, 2006

Also, while we're idly speculating, I always like to think having awesome dreams means the subconscious mind is progressing or solving some kind of problem the conscious mind may not be fully aware of. Which is good.

also: interpret. geez.
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:11 AM on March 21, 2006

A therapist suggested that I imagine I'm explaining a dream incident or object to an alien -- eg, not "elephant," but "large grey mammal." The way you explain important bits and the language you use are specific to you, and can help you translate what exactly your dream means.
posted by sugarfish at 10:56 AM on March 21, 2006

One dream technique that has worked amazingly well for me is to program myself by intending to have a clarifying dream as I'm going to sleep. This seems to work best if used sparingly, and only on questions that I'm seriously consumed with at the time. And of course, it doesn't always seem to work.

But when it does, the "answers" "I've" produced have felt absolutely right and life altering. One example was when I was doing a lot of dream reading, in my mid-20's, trying a bunch of techniques and even taking workshops in dream recall and analysis. It was all very fascinating, but confusing and overwhelming, so I finally “asked” for a clarifying dream on dreaming itself as I was falling to sleep one night. I woke up the next morning from a dream whose message was obviously, "Stop all this dream research! You don't need training in how to dream; you do that fine. Your job is to MANIFEST yourself in the material world!" Boy, did I get the message! I simultaneously learned to respect my dreaming mind, and to basically leave it alone, assuming that if it wanted to tell me something, I could trust it to.

Many years later, I tried it again, after spending 2 weeks at death's door in the hospital. Recuperating at home, I asked for clarifying dreams on a number of questions several nights running, and had dreams each night which worked for me as unequivocal and obvious "answers," including one which completely revived for me a long-ago abandoned passion for painting. The energy from this dream still resonates thru my life, over 5 years later.

Books I remember as best from my dream-study days:
The Dream Game by Ann Faraday and Creative Dreaming by Pat Garfield.
posted by dpcoffin at 11:22 AM on March 21, 2006 [1 favorite]

Read Jeremy Taylor's _Dream Work_. A very practical and useful book by a brilliant and humane Jungian.
posted by ottereroticist at 12:59 PM on March 21, 2006

Sorry for my lateness back to this post. Thanks for all your answers. I will return to peruse their greatness soon. Yes, this is slack. Sorry.
posted by sjvilla79 at 7:35 PM on April 4, 2006