The basic idea behind dream analysis is well known: everything and anything that appears in our night dreams ‘represents’ a part of our whole Self; the part which is somewhat split and separate from our ‘main self’ and which longs to be seen, recognised, embraced, hugged and welcomed back home. There are several versions of dream analysis; some starting with ‘descriptive words’ – that is if we go with the verbal version of dream analysis and not visual.
This step of dream analysis sounds simple (and it is) but there are several little traps to be aware of:
- not seeing the symbol the way it appeared in the dream but rather how it ‘should’ appear in generic terms if this is a common symbol
- doubting the adjectives as non-matching (if we revert back to common connotations of the symbol and not the unique way it appeared in this particular dream)
- rejecting some objects/symbols as something so foreign to you that it can not possibly be part of you/your life/your internal or external landscape.
I can go in great lengths giving multiple examples when people would outright reject the symbol….”this has absolutely nothing to do with me!!!!!” and then after a dream analysis being so surprised and so grateful for the analysis as the initially rejected object/symbol just gave a key to the entire dream and with that, to an important part of their personality.
We often discuss on our dreamwork groups how important it is to see/represent/act from/draw a symbol exactly the way it appeared in this particular dream and this is something which just takes some practice – and that’s why we do our dreamwork groups: we learn and practice simple dream analysis on a variety of different dreams; we work on our own dreams and share and facilitate the dreamwork of others.
But the ‘adjective doesn’t match the noun’ situation may or may not come up in every dreamwork group and so this important insight can easily get lost when we do dreamwork for our self-care.
This video is a part of our Dream Yourself Together Q&A session where we discuss common challenges we face in our dreamwork: intentional dreaming and dream analysis – and our learnings and fascination with the process.
Our dreamwork groups are kept small for a reason: we focus on individual attention with dream analysis and on creating a friendly and trusted space with dreams being very personal matters; if you are interested please register on a waiting list using the form below:
Related Reading:
