Exploring Dream Meanings
There are many ways to explore the meaning of our dreams... here are a few I have found to be helpful...
- Present tense...Initially as you are looking at your dream notes, rewrite the dream as if you are living it now. Only write what you actually see or feel in the dream not what you are imagining afterwards. "I'm crossing the road" instead of "I was crossing a road." This helps you re-enter the dream energy. This can help you experience the dream more fully and you may see dream scenes more clearly.
... - Notice and record all the details and feelings as clearly as you can recall them. Tell the story, whether writing or sharing with others, with as many details as come to mind. Report feelings, thoughts, attitudes, moods, looks, interactions, setting, weather, light conditions, etc. Sometimes our dreams reflect our waking life. If you usually notice and pay attention to a lot of details while awake, you may also notice lots of details in the dreamtime. If you tend to notice the energy and overall sense of a scene without spending a lot of energy taking in details, then your dreamtime may reflect this tendency as well.
... - Notice any recurring themes and patterns in your dreams. Over time are there continuing themes or patterns... remodeling, travel, school settings, working but have no clue what to do, etc...
... - Free associate with each dream symbol or image to mine the meaning. Take the words, people, and things in your dream and let whatever words, ideas, and feelings come to you as you focus on each one... stay away from censoring yourself and write down whatever comes to mind. This brainstorming exercise is useful in many areas of problem solving in daily life. [See worksheet]
... - Use visualization as a tool to clarify meanings. Imagine a blank giant TV screen in front of you and as you focus on a specific dream symbol, turn on the TV and see what is playing. Try to and see what happens. If you tend to be less visual than others, you may simply hear the sound or sense what is on the screen without the images... anything that works for you is fine... there is no right or wrong way to do dreamwork.
... - Punny...Notice words or symbols that are can be puns and have more than one meaning. You may be playing tennis and are having trouble serving... what else could "serving" refer to? Other example are "sea" and "write" ...just notice these and as you get used to tending your dreams these will pop out at you more easily.
... - What qualities do the characters in your dream possess? Perhaps specific people are in your dream for a reason. Consider the characters qualities, his or relationship to you...present or past... what characteristics of the person seem positive or which ones are negative in your opinion? If the people are in your life and there seems to be something that concerns you, if may be good to check with them to see how they are doing, Although in my experience most premonitions and pops about real life situations happen in waking time or in the "drowsy" state between waking and sleep.
... - Discover new aspects of waking and dreaming involvement. How much are you an action figure in your dream? ...in your waking life? Are you experiencing your feeling and expressing them in the dreamtime? ...in the waking hours? Are you a passive observer in the dreams? ... in the daytime? ... Do you wish to make changes? By being more active in your dreamtime life, you may also see that transferring to your daytime activities.
... - Switch and condense to find possible meaning. [see worksheet] ...
- Circle or underline each word or phrase in your dream that seems significant to you...
- Make a separate list of those words and phrases... leaving some space to write between each one...
- Brainstorm with each word or phrase and list your associations...
- Now circle the association that seems to best fit the meaning for you...
- Finally, re-write the dream in a condensed form substituting the new associations for the original dream words.
Often the dream makes more sense after doing this exercise... In time we do this automatically as we process our dreams. It really only takes doing this once or twice for it to become more automatic.
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- Creatively express your dream. You can let your dream images flow into a painting, dance, a poem, a short story, a sketch, a song, etc... There is even a dream theater or psychodrama technique that can be used in group dreamwork to project meaning into a dream.
... - Expand the dream parts as part of your psyche. We are working in dreamwork with the dream, our psyche at all levels, and our daily life situations. One approach to dream work is to see each part or person or thing in a dream as a part of ourselves. For example, if a "hazy day" shows up as part of the dream scene, you could replace it with "a hazy part of me"...
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Worksheet: List various dream words or phrases:
Dream Symbol or Phrase
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Associations - Brainstorming
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You are always invited to share your dreamtime images and daytime 'intuitive 'pops'... I do appreciate the comments, questions, dreams, 'pops' and guidance you are sharing...
May our Dreamtime messages enliven our waking moments... John
... and welcome to this Present Moment!
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John Hutchinson - Denver, Colorado, USA
Dreamus Aliveus & Fusion13 Blog: http://f13dna.blogspot.com
Sundance Center for Conscious Living Blog: www.sunhutch.com
If you want to know more about Dreamus Aliveus and/or Fusion13, here are a few links. Other articles are linked through the archive list in the right sidebar:
