How to "Know Yourself" by Correctly Interpreting Your Dreams

Are you curious about what your dreams mean to YOU? Numerous books discuss dream symbolism, but archetypal symbols may mean something completely different in YOUR dreams. Here is: 

As always, thank you for visiting! 

Interpreting Your Dreams - Dream Interpretation

(originally from the Magical Mysteries Collection – 
later republished on Yahoo! Contributor Network July 30, 2008)

Dream analysis, for thousands of years, has been a function performed by magicians, sages, and prophets. In Genesis 40, the Pharaoh summoned Joseph to interpret his dreams. And in Daniel I, King Nebuchadnezzar called upon Daniel to analyze his dreams. Because incorrect interpretations might result in death, it was imperative that they be accurate.

Today dream analysis books and websites offer readers a glimpse of the subconscious dream world through universally accepted images and their associated meanings. Archetypes (universal images), mythical figures, and dream symbolism figure prominently in our psyche and relate to us messages from our subconscious. To know ourselves, we must know our conscious mind as well as our subconscious mind.

But many of us find, upon awakening, that if we remember our dreams at all, they appear in fragments that make no sense to us. Websites and books explain some dreams, but certain dream symbols may be more personal than universal. A bird to one person might signify flight and freedom, but to another it may mean fright. If we want to understand ourselves, we may benefit by understanding our dreams.

Remembering them may be difficult, however. To remedy forgetting them, try concentrating not only on having a dream before you fall asleep, but on remembering it as well. Gayle Delaney, in her book, "Living Your Dreams (see above)," invites us to explore our dreams by keeping a dream journal.

Keep the journal and a low-wattage lamp by your bed. Get in the habit of recording your dream immediately upon awakening. Even if only fragments appear, write them down anyway. As you write, more pieces of the dream may surface.

When you finish recording the dream, make a list of all the people, places, and things you remember from the dream. Next to each image from the list, describe its appearance, its form, and the feelings it arouses in you. Do any of the images remind you of anything else going on in your life, or any person?

Now describe the actions that took place in your dream and write the feelings associated with each action. Record the overall emotional quality of the dream. I've included a form that might help you record your dreams. Just click on it and print it out.

Don't try to analyze your dream as you write it. Logic and analysis can wait. Sometimes enlightenment will come as you record your dream. Other times it will appear when you review your dreams. Still other times the message won't come until weeks or even months later. A dream you had in March may make more sense to you in October.

As you become adept with the process, ask yourself specific questions before falling asleep, and ask for the message to be clearly illustrated in a dream. How, what, and why questions will result in better dream answers than yes or no questions. For instance, "What can I do to improve my relationship?" works better than "Will my relationship improve?" As you record your dreams, in time, certain patterns may emerge.

Learning about yourself through dreams may open windows to your soul.

16th Century Vampires

This dream was sent to me through email (weirddreams@mail.com) and I must confess, trying to interpret this dream is quite a challenge, so I welcome other interpretations. Here is the dream as written, but with paragraph breaks added to make reading easier:

I was in the 16th century with two other people. One was a girl with snow white hair called Eliza and the other was a guy called Damien. I had this huge spell book and I was reading it. A vampire came up to me and slit my hands with a knife.

He joined hands with me. His hands were slit also. Somehow I turned into a vampire. The people I was with turned into vampires too. I think I turned them into one.

Then we joined hands and started flying. We didn't have enough power to fly high so we kept falling... Then we landed in this weird old building. There were humans there and they were burning witches and vampires. They were doing some sort of service. I flew up to a higher spot so I could see better but I fell....

The leader, a woman with black hair in her mid-fifties grabbed my ankle when I tried to get up. She said she knew what I was and that she was going to kill me. But my friends grabbed her and flung her across the room. We started flying but there was nowhere to go so we hid.

We hid for a hundred years. It felt like a few nights to us. We had no energy because we hadn't eaten. So at night when everyone was asleep we decided to try and escape. There was an open door so we decided to get out that way. When we got out of the building we kept flying. Eventually we were off the coast of South America.

The weirdest part of the dream was when one of my friends turned to me and asked "Do you want to go to Ireland? I've always wanted to go there." I said "No. My mom and brother live there. I don't want them to get hurt." The dream got a bit hazy from there.

~~~

The weirdest part of this dream for me was the same as was the weirdest part of the dream to the dreamer. She talks about vampires and witches, starvation and flying, then suddenly, interjected into the dream is a question about going to Ireland.

Whenever we dream about the past, we generally have to address something about our past. That she wanted to protect her mother and her brother might mean that something occurred in her past that made them vulnerable.

Reading a spells book could mean that the dreamer is looking for a magical way to handle life circumstances.

Dreams of vampires often indicate that somebody is sucking the life from us, and considering that the dreamer spoke of not having enough energy, she might look to people around her who are sucking the life from her, particularly the man with whom she joined hands, or somebody who represents that man.

People who appear in our dreams could represent people in our lives or they could represents aspects of ourselves. They could also represent our values, our morals, or the way we view life. Eliza and Damien, if they are people known to the dreamer, could represent aspects of the dreamer or aspects of people the dreamer knows.

The woman with white hair and the woman with black hair could indicate a problem with seeing things only in black and white, or they could represent various parts of the dreamer.

White hair sometimes represents wisdom. The woman with black hair might represent the dreamer who herself could be a leader or who was a leader or who will be a leader in her mid fifties. Not knowing the age of the dreamer, I can only speculate.

Because the woman with black hair was trying to kill her but also knew what she was, the woman might be somebody who is trying to kill the dreamer's spirit. She could even be the dreamer herself.

Open doors represent opportunities. The dreamer took advantage of the opportunity in the dream and she flew. The dreamer also wrote that a hundred years felt like only a few nights. She might wish to escape something in her waking life that feels as if it has been going on for a hundred years, but in reality has not been that long.

The dream could also be telling her that an opportunity awaits her (and the two people who represent Eliza and Damien).