Techniques for Understanding Your Dreams
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Title Your Dream
1. Title Give your dream a meaningful title.
2.
Reflection How does this title reflect happenings
in your life?
3. Contemplate Mull over
the dream title for the rest of the day.
4.
Understanding of Dream What do you think the dream
might be telling you?
5. Action What
steps do you want to take based upon the understanding you reached
about the dream?
Example
Dream: I stand in my living room as
someone tries to open my front door. I am afraid. Someone looks in
and sees that someone is there and then closes the door without ever
showing his face. Then I see the door open from the garage to the
kitchen. I still cannot move. A man walks in and looks around,
ignoring me. I am afraid.
Title:
Invasion of Me
How Title Reflects My Life:
I m feeling invaded and ignored by my partner.
Insight from Contemplation:
After mulling it over, I am struck by my not doing anything when I
am being invaded and ignored. After all, someone has broken into my
house (me?), and I’m just standing there!
Understanding of Dream:
Maybe the dream is reflecting my relationship—but more importantly,
that I’m not taking good care of myself.
Action: Maybe the first step is just to recognize what I feel and how I
react in relation to my partner. I plan to write about the time
yesterday when he and I got into it. Maybe I should consider
getting some therapy; I don’t know.
Working with Key Words
1. Identify key words. Circle 3 to 5 key words in
your dream that seem to evoke a special response. Pay attention to
how you feel when reading the dream. You may feel sensations in
your body or have a feeling to select a particular word. Don’t just
select major symbols in the dream—look for words that evoke personal
associations. You can also circle short phrases.
2. Write sentences using the key words. For each circled word, write sentences about how the word
reflects your life. The sentences should be meaningful about you
and should be about yourself, not the word. Write as many
sentences as you can. When you have written the last sentence,
write one more. This sentence is often the inspiration that will
help you understand the dream.
3. Understanding the dream. Read over the sentences and ask yourself,“What seems to be going on here?” Write about this in your journal.
4. Act on the dream guidance. What action will you take based on your understanding of the
dream?
Example
Dream: John and I are driving to several places looking for food.
People stop and talk to us, but all I want to do is get something
to eat. Finally we come to a restaurant, and there is a big bowl
of vegetables and some fruit. It feels real healthy. I like this
and want to eat it. But John doesn’t. I decide to stay and eat
the vegetables and fruit. John goes to look for food
elsewhere.
Key Words: Food,
Healthy, John goes
Sentences:
Food
I need more
emotional food in my life.
I seem to be searching
endlessly to get nurtured (food) in my life.
I am not
getting enough emotional food in my relationship with John.
Let’s
face it, I am not getting my needs met, my emotional, physical,
and spiritual food; not in this relationship with John and not in my
life.
Gosh, there is a place where I can find
“food.”
Healthy
I have not been feeling physically
healthy lately.
I have been thinking
about modifying my diet towards eating more
vegetables.
My relationship with
John is not healthy.
I always eat
junk when I’m upset about my relationship with
John.
John goes
When I am honest with myself, John
is always leaving me on physical and emotional
levels.
John goes wherever he wants,
without regard to my needs.
John
goes and does things that hurt me.
I
need to see John goes from me, it won't stop, & I have to
get my needs met elsewhere.
Understanding the dream:
The dream appears to be telling me that my relationship
with John is not a healthy one and that I need to get my emotional,
physical, and spiritual nourishment elsewhere. The dream might also
suggest a health problem—a problem that might be exacerbated by the
problem relationship with John. If I keep looking for what is good
and healthy for me, I will find it—even if that means that John and
I won’t be together anymore.
Action:
I plan to talk about my relationship problem with my
support group and write about my feelings in my journal. And I need
to look at the possibility of ending my relationship with John. I
might also get an appointment with my physician to check out my
health—just in case.
Turning Your Dream Into Questions
Turn every happening, feeling and thought into a question. No
matter how unintelligible the dream seems, you can get insight just
by turning the dream symbols and actions into questions.
1.
Turn Dream Process into Questions Start at the
beginning of your dream and select a symbol, sentence, or section of
the dream. Ask a question about this in relation to your life.
Continue through the dream, turning the symbols, sentences, or
sections into questions about your life.
2.
Understanding of Dream What do you think the dream
might be telling you?
3. Action What
steps do you want to take based upon the understanding you reached
about the dream?
Example
Dream: I am in my car with two other
people. We are going to take a big exam. But when we get to the
parking lot, there is a security guard who won’t let us enter
because he says we don’t have enough people with us in the car to
get a parking space. We can see that there are plenty of spaces. I
decide to enter a different way.
Questions:
Are you currently involved with two other people?
Going somewhere with two people?
Are you currently
involved in a big life event, a big exam, a big test of yourself in
some way; something you have to pass to get what you want?
Is
somebody not letting you in to do something?
Is there
someone or a group who is controlling your access to something?
Do
you have people on your side but not enough to get what you want?
here
another way to get what you want?
Understanding of Dream:
As I answered the questions, I thought my dream
reflected action that I am taking against some powerful people. I
don’t have enough people on my side. I am not successfully getting
what I want from the powerful people.
Action
I am going to get more people (with power) on my side. I also need
to use different approaches/strategies than I am currently using.