Dreams open us up to hopeful possibilities. Do you remember your dreams of youth, what you wanted to become and what life would be like when you became an adult? These are our conscious dreams, ones we can set out to achieve. We can also day dream and let various thoughts and images fill our heads.
Our night dreams are a bit different. They too open us up to hopeful possibilities, but in a much different way. More often than not, night dreams seem impossible to the dreamer to understand or the content can be frightening or embarrassing and the person shies away from telling the dream. Regardless, the dream is bringing forth content and opportunity to grow and understand ourselves in a new way, but the path is not linear.
"To fight the unbeatable foe To bear with unbearable sorrow To run where the brave dare not go...."
Dreams and dream interpretation have been around since the dawn of time. Native peoples and religious have used dreams as guidance for centuries.
An excellent example of dream content is Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat cows and seven lean cows. Joseph discerned that there was going to be seven bountiful years followed by seven lean years. This correct interpretation of the dream symbols allowed the Pharaoh to prepare so that his people did not starve during the seven lean years.
Dream interpretation has expanded over the years from Jung and Freud to Stanely Keleman, Robert Moss and many others.
Freud felt the dream’s “strangeness” was the way the subconscious masked the dreamer's latent (repressed) material. The subconscious obscured the dream so that the dreamer was protected from difficult thoughts and feelings. Freud believed that dreams were the royal road to the unconscious.
Jung viewed dreams through archetypes that were drawn from myth and fairy tales, such as the Anima (mother aspect), Animus (father aspect), Trickster and Shadow to name a few.
Stanely Keleman’s approach to dreams was to ask the dreamer to enact the dream and follow the various forms the dreamer’s body took and then explore the felt sense of these poses.
Robert Moss created Active Dreaming, a synthesis of dream work and shamanism. An approach of recovering our soul through shamanic dreaming.
From the various approaches above, one realizes that dreams can have more than one meaning. What is important is how the dreamer feels toward the possible meanings that come forth through the interpretation method used.
Montague Ullman, Stanley Krippner, and Jeremy Taylor developed a method by which the dream is approached with the phrase,
“If this were my dream, I would be aware of …”
In this context, a dream can be shared by many, allowing each person to work on their own material. This is similar to how each person has their own unique reflection to a poem or myth.
You can also work with dreams by:
- writing your dreams down
- telling the dream to others
- use paint and movement
- tell or write your dreams backwards
- practice Lucid dreaming where you can re-enter a dream and affect change on its outcome.
- saying to yourself that you are open to new insights the dream provides and see what awareness comes forth.
To get an insight of how I work with dreams, I have a link to a podcast where I interpret two dreams. It is interesting to note what information the interviewer provides prior to our discussion and other material that comes forth as we talk about the dreams.
https://therapybud.podbean.com/ (The podcast is quite long. You can skip ahead to time mark 21:55 and 31:32 where we speak of the 2 dreams specifically.)
Ultimately, dreams call us to be
Courageous to look at what we do not understand or that may initially frighten us.
Inspire us to grow and
Work to bring harmony to the discord in our lives.