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.

Hodgepodge of Dreams

Sometimes dreams appear in seemingly unrelated segments and yet they flow from one place to the next and from one occurrence to the next. Here is an example of a hodgepodge dream.

I am at my daughter's and her boyfriend's apartment, but it doesn't look like their apartment. Somebody unexpected comes for a visit and then somehow lots of kids show up. The kids run out into the hallway to play. In waking life, my daughter doesn't have a hallway outside her apartment. The hallway in the dream is quite large.

The apartment suddenly turns into a classroom. Students enter and take their seats. I watch them from the back of the classroom. After a while all of the students get angry with me because I'm supposed to be teaching them. I try to explain to them that I'm not supposed to be teaching them, because I wasn't hired to teach them – I haven't taught in years – but they don't believe me. 

I leave the building and enter an enclosed walkway between the inside of the building and the parking lot. As I'm still in the walkway, I see a dog try to push the door open from the inside. He is becoming more and more successful. About 30 other dogs follow him, enter the walkway, and start chasing me. I run and I panic because not only am I allergic to dogs, but with so many following me, I'm afraid they might attack me.

Somehow I make it safely outside but then realize on my way back to the building, possibly from my car, but I don't remember walking to the car or being in a car, that the weather has changed significantly. I am slipping and sliding everywhere. A small sheet of ice covers the ground and a light misty snow is blowing everywhere. My mother is upstairs and I have to tell her to be careful when she comes outside.

When I get upstairs I walk to a room to get my coffee. A woman tells me that the kids were extremely noisy and disruptive, especially one of my grandchildren, and that everyone is quite upset with me. I return to the classroom that was once my daughter's apartment and sit with my mother. It occurs to me that even though I'm not supposed to be teaching, I could still teach the class, but now it's too late.

I am now carrying a baby (I don't know how I got the baby) that I have to return to his or her family. I expect the mother or father to rush up to greet the baby, but nobody does. I feel sad that nobody is greeting this baby as I place the baby in a cradle. The dream ends.

A dream like the one above is so difficult to interpret, because it has so many elements. That the daughter's apartment morphed into an educational facility could mean that I (the dreamer) learn a lot through my daughter. We often think that parents are supposed to teach our children, when the truth is, they teach us.

Dreams where classrooms appear generally indicate that the dreamer is supposed to be learning something. We often come across challenges that we see as obstacles that make us angry, but we know on a spiritual level that we are supposed to learn from them. Yesterday I spent the better part of the morning trying to get a printer to work. It never did. I now have three printers, none of which work. In my anger, I ask, what am I supposed to learn from this? In my sarcasm, I answer, that I am never for the rest of my life allowed to print!

I have to become more resourceful. Since I can no longer print, I will handle everything through email. If I need a scan or a print of something, I will take a photo of it. So though I threw a fit over the fact that ONE MORE THING broke on me, I can pat myself on the back for coming up with a way to fix the problem, if not the printer.

Significant weather changes could mean that something significant in my life is changing. My daughter is getting married. That could be one change. Three of my screenplays are entered into contests, the results of which won't be determined until October. Winning even one of them would significantly change my own personal atmosphere. So many opportunities abound. So many possibilities exist. Though change may seem unsettling at first, we ultimately have to accept it and move on.

The potential danger of slipping on ice during an unexpected change of weather after being chased by dogs means being aware of my surroundings and treading carefully through unfamiliar territory. Any number of changes can take place and I have to prepare myself for those changes.

The baby, too, could represent any number of things. Maybe my daughter and her boyfriend will eventually have a baby. Since the dream started at her apartment, it could mean her baby, but I can't imagine her not greeting the baby with hugs and a desire to hold the baby upon his or her return. 

So maybe the baby represents something else. Maybe one of my screenplays is my baby. Nobody ever greets my screenplays with the enthusiasm I would like to see. Let me rephrase that last statement. Nobody who can get movies made from one of my screenplays seems to notice its worth – YET – I love that word – it holds within those three little letters, lots of hope.

Do you have a weird dream? Send it to weirddreams@mail.com.

Ayla's Silly But Heart-warming Dream

Every morning my great granddaughter, 4-year-old Ayla, comes into my bedroom to give me my morning hug. Every morning I ask her about her dreams. Most of the time she can't remember them, but when she does she always starts by telling me her dreams as if they are stories.

This morning she told me she had a really silly dream and she began, as she always does with, "Once upon a time":

"Once upon a time I dreamed of a giant heart coming out of a bottle (she held her thumb and finger in such a way as to indicate the bottle was really small). It (the heart) was really colorful."

I asked her what the bottle looked like.

"The bottle had black and white stripes."

When I asked her if the bottle was the size of the little plastic bottle filled with candy that her grandmother (my daughter) had given her yesterday, she said yes. 

"Butterflies were flapping their wings around it."

The butterfly may have come about because at one point yesterday, my daughter showed Ayla a beautiful butterfly that was just outside our patio door. 

Like every other day, Ayla also drew on my iPad, and I told her that her drawing was very colorful. 

Ayla had incorporated several elements from the day before in this dream, all of which involved her grandma. I wanted to know if she thought the dream represented the love her grandmother had for her, because hearts represent love. 

She shrugged her shoulders before she closed the door behind her and said, "Maybe." 

   I was in the military, more specifically my father was in World War 1 and I was currently in World War 2.  I died somehow in the ocean. I don't recall witnessing my death but I actually figured it out when I was rescued by a submarine.  It was kind of like the movie Beetlejuice where the ghosts communicated with each other. The submarine was a ferry for the deseased.

We then wandered the seas finding those who needed our help until it was time to return people to their families.  We hit mainland and instantly I was magnetically pulled to my mother and father's house.  I sat on the dryer in their garage holding a chalkboard and wrote down what happened.

They couldn't see me but they could see the floating chalkboard and the words I was writing.  I actually don't even remember what was said on the chalkboard because then my phone rang and I was awoken.

###

The preceding dream sounds eerily like a dream of awareness after death, because the body is cognitive of the fact that it is dead. 

This could also be a dream of reincarnation. Hypnotherapists, when taking patients back in time to their earliest memories, in an attempt to understand current behavior, have sometimes taken patients back so far, their patients have memories of being in the womb and even further back to memories of a previous life.

Though it sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, perhaps the magnetic draw the dreamer felt was the moment of conception or the moment of birth.

Though our bodies die, our spirits live on. We use so little of our brain and we live (in terms of eternity) for such a short time, who's to say that we don't try to contact our loved ones after we die? The chalkboard probably represents the dreamer's attempt to communicate to her parents that she had died.

Of course, other scenarios are possible. The dryer could be significant because it was in the garage. Not knowing the dreamer, I would ask if the dryer was ready for the junkyard or if it was usable. Was it in the garage so the house would be kept cooler during the summer months? Was it a place the dreamer frequently sat upon to write?

If the dryer does not represent warmth (as in being in a mother's womb), it serves a different purpose in the dream, and I would need more information. To me, though, this dream represents a buried memory of the end of a past life and the beginning of a new life.


More from this author:

All Craft Connection
Your Weird Dreams
Your Blog Connection
Help For Single Parents
My Heart Blogs To You
Writing Creatively
Paranormal Minds 
Spiritual Tarot Readings Online
Product Favorites
Theresa Wiza's Blog
My Associated Content Articles
My Xomba Articles 

Thank you for visiting!

Back to School Dreams

I received the following dream in an email:

In September I am going into Third Year so I will be doing my Junior Certificate. I had a dream last night that I was in a classroom. It was the same classroom I had in First Class in Primary School.

Anyway, it was the start of the year and the teacher was walking around the room. Usually you get the same teachers for Third Year but I never saw this woman before. She had short blonde curly hair. Actually she looked a lot like my hairdresser. The girl I was sitting next to (she looked like my best friend) was working and I asked her what book we were meant to have. It was the same book I had in Primary School.

I didn't have any books with me so I started to panic. I don't remember what happens after that.

The thing is, most summers I have weird dreams like this before school starts. Especially if they are important years like my first year of Secondary School. Should I be worried about this or is it perfectly normal?

~~~

Any new beginning, whether negative or positive, is stressful. Many people don't handle change well and dreams often take on the stresses of the day.

"It was the same classroom I had in First Class in Primary School," indicates a new beginning. Your surprise about the new teacher probably only indicates that you anticipate experiencing new things.

Because your new teacher looks like your hairdresser, ask yourself how you would describe your hairdresser. Qualities she (or he?) possesses could represent qualities that might cause anxiety for you.

Your best friend is probably somebody you trust. While your friend was prepared, you weren't.

Should you be worried? No. Having dreams of being unprepared is typical. Many (maybe most) of us have stress dreams when we are about to embark upon a new venture.

Sometimes dreams are warning us to be prepared. A day planner should help. Write down everything you need to remember and get in the habit of referring to your planner often. That way you'll be prepared.

Do you have a weird dream you would like to share? Write weirddreams@mail.com.

If you would like to read more from this author, click any of the following links:

All Craft Connection
Your Weird Dreams
Your Blog Connection
Help For Single Parents
My Heart Blogs To You
Writing Creatively
Paranormal Minds
Product Favorites
Theresa Wiza's Blog
My Associated Content Articles
My Xomba Articles 

Thank you for visiting!

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).

Your Dreams Interpreted During Dream Awareness Weekend, April 29-May 1, 2011

Have you ever wanted your dreams interpreted by a Dreamologist? Well now is your chance to find out what your dream symbols are trying to tell you – for FREE.

According to Dreamschool, whether you fly, lose your teeth, or appear late to take a test in your dream, your dream is trying to reach you with its messages.

"As you know, interpreting your dreams will help you understand yourself, improve your health, solve problems, create a better life, learn life lessons, and make wiser choices. Dreams will show things that are out of reach of the five senses, and of (the) waking mind."

The National Dream Hotline® celebrates its 23rd anniversary this year, and they invite you to call in to their hotline at 417-345-8411 starting Friday, April 29, at 6 p.m. central time. The dream interpretation will continue until midnight Sunday, May 1, 2011.

So if you're dreaming about situations that require some insight and you want to give a Dreamologist a try, give the National Dream Hotline® a call.

Register HERE for the Dream Awareness Weekend. HURRY! Dreamschool is accepting only 50 people from each area around the country:

Dream Awareness Weekend
417-345-8411
Starts: Friday, April 29, at 6 p.m.
Ends: Sunday, May 1 at 12:00 a.m.

If you would like to read more from this author, click any of the following links:

Your Weird Dreams

Your Blog Connection

Help For Single Parents 

My Heart Blogs To You 

Writing Creatively

Paranormal Minds

Product Favorites

Theresa Wiza's Blog 

My Associated Content Articles

My Xomba Articles 

Thank you for visiting!