MENU : Dream Dictionary : Articles : Remembering Dreams : On-Line Book : Tips
------------------------------------
Understanding Dreams

Understanding dreams is difficult. But with practise you can learn some good techniques. The best strategy is to first cut out all the complicated characters and symbolism. Just look at what the basic emotions are in a dream. Take the following dream

The dream started with my uncle , a swarm of frantically flying dragons and all the members of my family standing at the alter of a church and they are all saying "Its time".

Well, this dream has lots of complicated symbols and potentially deep meaning. But the best way to understand dreams is to read through the dream and where you see a name - cross it out and put "someone/something". Then when you see a symbol cross that out and replace it with "someone /something". Just ignore the names and symbols and just see what is going on. You would then get the following dream

The dream started with some people and somethings flying frantically. They are all saying "Its time".

So looking at the dream again it seems to make a little more sense. It could be time for something in the persons life. It could just be that the persons alarm clock is going off at that exact moment and that is being incorporated into the dream.

The reason is that dreams are about core emotions. They go straight to the heart of the matter. When Wall Street's stock market crashed in 1929 the newspapers reported financial disasters, falling stock prices and the general details. Peoples dreams would have just concentrated on general symbols for disasters. Such as bombs going off, tornados, and people just falling downhill.

Then once have have figured out what could be the core emotion of a dream - then try to work in some of the other symbols and people in the dream. See what they could mean to the dream. A persons family could symbolise matters close to home. Symbols such as office equipment, could indicate the dream is about a work situation. Water is connected with emotion. What you need to understand is that dreams are about core emotions and ideas. Its very hard to symbolise an idea. How would you symbolically represent a dream about ideas? ideas related to how someone views the world, how they solve problems and other abstract concepts. Dreams are very complicated and yet often very simple. There is usually a core thread running though a dream - such as you looking through a house in various rooms. In that case you are looking at the various aspects of someones personality.

The main thing you have to remember about dreams is that they have various functions. They can look into your emotional problems both long and short term, they can help problem solve, they can indulge you in your worries, they can be about spiritual and intellectual matters. Then finally dreams can be premonitions of the future. But don't obsess about any one cause of dreams. Don't look for premonitions everywhere - because they will start to worry you - then you will get a worry dream - which you will interpret as a premonition.

Finally you will probably, with great effort come to understand most of your own dreams. But don't worry - not all dreams are that important. Just try to focus on the more important ones( often the longer ones).

But realise one thing - don't religiously stick to dream dictionaries. They are quite useful but much symbolism is particular to the people involved. Take for instance an Native American. For many people they will see a native american in a stereo typical way - someone associated with spiritualism and natural ways of living. Others may live next door to one and there judegment may be heavily influenced by their view of that person. That Native American may be a computer expert or a math technician.