So What Does It All Mean?

Readers often ask me how I go about interpreting my dreams. An interesting technique I’ve come across recently has been developed by Scott Sparrow. While many techniques emphasize dream images, Sparrow’s focuses on the action of the dream, and he suggests we’ll learn a lot by looking at the choices we make as we create our dreams. As part of his method he teaches a technique for paring the dream down to its essential action, which can lead to a quick insight. The paring process is as much about what you leave out as it is about what you put in. Things to leave out: descriptions, images, specific actors. What to put in: what happens in the dream.

For example, here’s the pared down dream action of the dream Criticism Resolved: Someone is working on a project. She is angry when someone criticizes her, yet later realizes accommodating the criticism is trivial. For more information about Scott’s technique, which he calls the Five Star Method, click here.

For information about other ways to interpret your dreams, see these earlier posts:

1. For a way to get started using the techniques in Robert A. Johnson’s Inner Work and some helpful websites for beginners, click here. 
2. A simple way to get at the dream’s meaning is to write about the dream right after you’ve recorded it. For more about this technique, which I call a write-around, click here.

Working on Your Dreams: Step 3 – Interpret

So, you’ve started to remember your dreams and you’re keeping a journal. You’d like to be able to ferret some meaning out of this mysterious material. Where to start? A book that I found very helpful when I was beginning the decoding process is a slim volume by Robert A. Johnson called Inner Work. He suggests that you make a list of the important words in your dream and then write down what you associate with each word. This is different from free association, which goes something like this: cat, hair, allergies, sneeze, got a cold, stayed home from school. The direct association chain goes like this: cat, hair; cat, catty; cat, green eyed; cat, Halloween. So, for each important word in the dream you make a list of words that are directly conjured by the dream word. As you write this list, you’ll notice that you feel a little surge of excitement around some of the associations, and that tells you that you are getting close to what the word means in your dream.
 
We live in a world that worships speed, but deciphering a dream is often a slow process. Be patient. You’ll be surprised at what you can learn, and the things you learn will gradually transform your life. In working with your dreams you are working with your essential self, and sometimes that’s an essential self that has yet to be discovered.

For some excellent and sensible information for beginning dream workers start with  Jeremy Taylor's Dream Work

Dream dictionaries are fun and tempting, but most are downright silly. Tony Crisp, however, has worked with dreams for many years and compiled suggested “definitions” based on the dream experiences of many people. His dictionary suggests alternate possibilities for most dream images and can jump start the deciphering process. Tony Crisp's Dream Dictionary

For some good material on the importance of the dreamer as the ultimate interpreter of his dream and an interesting take on Carl Jung—not entirely sympathetic—see Gayle Delaney’s Carl Jung, Dreams, and the Sexes

If you would like an introduction to people working professionally with dreams, Anne Hill interviews many on Dream Talk Radio