7 Steps to Deciphering Your Dreams
With this short guide, anyone can learn to interpret dreams, the messages that always tell us something about ourselves.
For centuries, dreams have been codified as “messages.” In ancient times they were considered one of the ways that the gods came in direct contact with humankind. In “The Secret Miracle,” Borges reminded us that:
Maimonides wrote that the words of a dream are divine, when they are all separate and clear and are spoken by someone invisible.
Legend has it that Scipio the younger, the general who later razed Carthage and conquered Numancia, a few years prior to starting his brilliant martial career, had dreamt he was visited by Fortune and Constancy, two deities who took him beyond the circles of the world so that, in the end, he had to choose the favors of either one or the other.
Likewise, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, dreamt of an effigy made of different materials, the symbolism of which could only be interpreted by the prophet Daniel, and heralded a succession of empires to come.
Eventually belief in the gods waned, but curiously, dreams didn’t lose their quality as messages. The deities may have stopped visiting men and revealing their futures but dreams promised to reveal something about ourselves that we don’t know from our ordinary lives.
This is the point at which we find ourselves. In general, we believe that dreams have a message for us: our pasts, our unconscious, our desires and fears. We dream and upon awakening, if we remember anything, what survives is the vague feeling that the dream wanted to show us some problem that was causing distress, perhaps an option we hadn’t considered. Or we might be left feeling that we shouldn’t worry so much. After all, a solution is within reach.
To that end, below we share seven qualities that should be paid attention to if you want to know what your dreams are talking about.
.
Associations
Whenever you’re remembering a dream, heed the associations that come up as you’re remembering it. In general, dreams come across in an encrypted language that needs to be unraveled. Your dream of a friend may not by your friend in and of him or herself, but what that friend represents in your life. The same goes for places, objects, and so on.
.
Amplification
Following up on the preceding point, amplification follows association. Symbols in dreams function as a metonymy: one can follow one term to eventually reach the meaning there. A house could refer to a family, family security and safety and on to something new that has come into your life, and so on.
.
Context
Like any language, the language of dreams depends on the context in which they’re presented. The same symbol – a dog, a life partner, a car – can mean quite different things not only in the context of dreams themselves but, above all, in the context of the time of life of the dreamer.
.
Pay attention to setting…
The setting of any dream will have a special relevance. Your job, your house, the streets where you normally walk, a country you visited, etc. What does that place mean for you?
And also to structure.
What was your dream like? Could you return to a point of origin? Did it take place in linear sequence? Were there unexpected jumps? Did other intermediate dreams interrupt the sequence? How did the story unfold? Was it a recurring dream? What was the climax? How and why did it end?
Study the characters
Dreams are like theater plays: some characters are more important, some others are merely incidental, some return unexpectedly. They can also be like the movies: fantastic creatures, animals, or enemies can appear. Take note of the qualities of each.
Codify the emotional atmosphere
Finally, it’s important to recognize the emotions that came up during your sleep. Was it a pleasant or a nightmarish episode? Was it distressing or rather cheerful? This will also help you to understand all the other elements involved in the dream.
Walter Benjamin suggested a specific time of day to remember dreams. Accompanied with this short list, we just may have what it takes to understand the messages we receive during our sleep.
Related Articles
7 Recommendations for Organizing Your Library
For the true bibliophile, few things are more important than finding a book from within your library.
Red tea, the best antioxidant beverage on earth
Red tea is considered to be the most unusual of teas because it implies a consistently different preparation process. ––It is believed that its finding came upon surprisingly when traditional green
A brief and fascinating tour of the world's sands
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. - William Blake What are we standing on? The ground beneath our feet
Strengthen your memory with rosemary oil
For thousands of years rosemary oil has been traditionally admired and used due to its many properties. In the Roman culture, for example, it was used for several purposes, among them cleansing, as
Literature as a Tool to Build Realities
Alain de Botton argues that great writers are like lenses through which we can see an infinite array of possibilities.
Mandelbrot and Fractals: Different Ways of Perceiving Space
Mathematics has always placed a greater emphasis on algebra, a “purer” version of itself, one that is more rational at least. Perhaps like in philosophy, the use of a large number knotted concepts in
Luis Buñuel’s Perfect Dry Martini
The drums of Calanda accompanied Luis Buñuel throughout his life. In his invaluable memoirs, published under the Buñuel-esque title, My Last Sigh, an entire chapter is dedicated to describing a
A Brief Manual of Skepticism, Courtesy of Carl Sagan
Whether or not you’re dedicated to science, these tips to identify fallacies apply to any form of rigorous thinking.
How to Evolve from Sadness
Rainer Maria Rilke explored the possible transformations that sadness can trigger in human beings.
Alan Watts, A Discreet And Charming Philosopher Of The Spirit
British thinker Alan Watts was one of the most accessible and entertaining Western interpreters of Oriental philosophy there have been.