6 Keys to Interpreting Your Dreams

Dream interpretation is one of the oldest arts on the planet. Ancient peoples believed that dreams were messages from the gods. The dreams of kings, court magicians, prophets and even ordinary people who were especially blessed could serve as warnings of disaster or evidence that the nation would be victorious in war against their neighbors. People traveled for days to reach seers and diviners who specialized in interpreting the dreams of others. The belief in the power of dreams survives today both in religion and in popular culture. Many religions have stories about holy men and women who were shown visions of upcoming disasters so that they could save their people. This idea that dreams can predict the future and give in-depth information about the present is still going strong in popular culture as well. Simply stick “dream interpretation” into any internet search engine and brace yourself for the veritable deluge of information that will bury your computer.

Some people take dream interpretation very seriously while others scoff at it. Dreams may not be able to give you much in the way of concrete specifics, but they are still valuable sources of information. Your dreams come straight from your subconscious. It is there that your brain stuffs clues, observations and questions that it was not able to examine in detail during the day. Those are then all thrown in a blender and chucked at you in your sleep with all the enthusiasm of a two year old left unattended with a bucket of paint. It may seem like a load of nonsense when you wake up, but your dreams really do have a lot to tell you if you are willing to sift through the layers of symbolism that your sleeping brain delights in creating. Here are six keys to interpreting your dreams and getting to the root of what your subconscious is trying to tell you.

Get Enough Sleep

Shutterstock.com

It is pretty self-explanatory, but if you want to interpret your dreams, you need to have dreams. To dream, you need to sleep. You also need to get a decent amount of solid rest. One of the first things to be affected by sleep deprivation is your memory. This can leave you struggling to remember the information discussed at the important meeting yesterday, much less trying to recall what craziness your subconscious threw at you last night.

If you want to have detailed dreams to interpret, you need to make sure you are getting enough sleep. Dream recall can be difficult enough with a well-rested mind. You do not need exhaustion making it any more difficult. Be sure that you are getting seven to nine hours of rest every night. Also, do your best to ensure that those hours of sleep are restful. Turn off your electronics 30 to 60 minutes before bedtime, avoid eating or drinking too late at night and keep your room dark. Then, lie back and dream.

Record Them All

Shutterstock.com

If you want to interpret your dreams, you need to make sure you are keeping track of exactly what insanity your sleeping mind dumps all over your brain. This means that you need to write down your dreams first thing in the morning, every morning. All of your dreams are packed full of meaning. Whether your subconscious has cooked up some unholy mishmash of every embarrassing moment you ever suffered or you spent another night dreaming about that old flame running back into your arms, you need to write it down.

All of your dreams means all of your dreams. Everyone is quick to record dreams that involved them fighting dragons or that were filled with clear mystical symbolism. Those boring dreams about being trapped at work, however, need to be recorded as well. There is meaning in even the most mundane of dreams, and they are often critical parts of patterns. If you skip dreams, you will be missing pieces of the puzzle.

On nights where you do not dream, simply write down that you do not remember any dreams. The simple act of keeping track can encourage your brain to better remember your dreams when you find yourself stuck in a dream drought.

Ditch Dream Dictionaries

Shutterstock.com

There are as many blog posts and websites dedicated to dream interpretation as there are to the end of the world. To those who have avoided trawling the depths of the internet, that is a mammoth number. It seems like everyone with a laptop thinks that they are a dream interpretation guru. As such, it is very easy to hop on the internet and find out dreaming about your teeth falling out means you are worried about your appearance. Great. Done!

Resist the urge to go for the quick and easy answers. Dream dictionaries are of marginal help when it comes to figuring out what your subconscious is really trying to say. Symbols often mean something different to everyone, and it is important to think about how you responded to an object, animal or event in your dream. Dream dictionaries will tell you that dreaming about falling means you are anxious and feeling out of control. You may not, however, have felt fear in your dream. You may have felt joyous in freefall. As such, it is unlikely that your dream was a sign of anxiety. It may instead have meant that you need to stop micromanaging things and go with the flow. You need less control, not more. Similar things may happen with symbols or events. If you dreamed you were being chased by a crocodile, but felt no fear, the crocodile may not have been a symbol of danger. Instead, there was another reason you were running. What was it?

Find Recurring Symbols or Patterns

Vassil/WikiCommons

The human brain absolutely hates anything that appears to be random. This is the reason that people panic about there being subliminal messages in music played backwards and sped up. There is no actual message there, but the brain is determined to find one. If it cannot, it will create one. This can be a pain when it comes to convincing a neighbor that your music is not actually demonic, but it can be very handy when it comes to dream interpretation. Your mind will automatically hunt down patterns, common symbols and recurring themes in your dreams. This is part of why recording all your dreams faithfully is so important. Those dreams of eating oatmeal may seem pointless, but when you look back, you may realize that all of them had something in common. There may have been a snake in every dream or a painting that changed in every dream to reflect your mood. Pay attention to that symbol. It is important enough that your mind is fixated on it. Now it is time to find out why.

Find the Ties to Waking Life

shutterstock.com

Your dreams and your waking life are inextricably intertwined. Most people are aware that what happens in your waking life will influence what you dream about at night. The reverse, however, is often true as well. Your subconscious may pick up on clues that you missed during the day and attempt to play them back to you at night. Those clues may come to circulate around a specific symbol or type of dream. It is in this way that people begin to feel that their dreams can predict their waking reality. They may always dream of a cherry tree before getting good news or dream of being trapped in a locked room before getting bad news at work. In those cases, your subconscious has picked up on people’s happiness or your boss’ anger and attempted to warn you of what was coming at night. Keep track of these patterns. They are proof that you notice more than you consciously realize.

Use What You Learn

Shutterstock.com

Interpreting dreams is fun, but there is little point to mining the depths of your subconscious if you never do anything useful with the information. Your dreams give you a window into the deepest workings of your mind as well as access to information you may not even realize you have stored in your head. Do not waste what you learn through your dreams. If your dreams are telling you that you are over-stressed, make it a point to take some time to calm yourself down and delegate a few tasks so that you can relax. If you always dream of an hourglass before getting bad news at work, be extra careful and put in some extra hours when that symbol starts turning up in your dreams. It may be the only warning you get that your boss is not thrilled with you at the moment. If your dreams are filled with loneliness, make it a point to reach out to an old friend. Your subconscious has a lot to say at night. Listen to it.