The Egyptians believed that God created dreams to show the way to the sleeper, whose eyes are in darkness. And indeed, it would be useful to find meaning in dreams – they occupy too much of our life.
But we often dream the same dreams, anxious, nightmares, dreams with childbirth or death … Probably, a rare woman would not want to understand what all this is?
The correspondent of SE found out how to understand your dreams independently, with benefit for yourself and your life.
Where does the night go and sleep?
“The morning is wiser than the evening,” our mothers and grandmothers tell us when we can not decide on an important issue for the night. Agree with them and scientists from Amsterdam, arguing that it is in a dream that the human brain has the widest set of tools to solve problems at all levels. Indeed, waking up in the morning, we often find ease and determination instead of tormenting doubts. Why does this happen?
Freud, who first engaged in a thorough study of dreams, called them the royal road to the unconscious.
“Dreams are a way to digest information, restore or maintain inner integrity in a person, direct it in personal development,” says psychologist, director of the women’s psychological center “The Incomparable” Elena Moskovchenko. In other words, what the sleeper has in mind, or more precisely, in his inaccessible unconscious part, he sees in a dream.
Dreams about something more …
Carl Gustav Jung, who also devoted a lot of time to exploring dreams, says: “Dreams will show you where you are and where you are going. They will open your destiny before you. ” So how can you consider this fate in these incredible stories that our unconscious builds?
First of all, it is worthwhile to interpret only that dream that “hooked”, caused a bright emotional state – anxiety, fear or, on the contrary, a surge of energy. To facilitate understanding of sleep it is recommended to record. Do not worry that you remember it sketchy and that it is difficult to put such bright events into words. Especially it is worth paying attention to recurring dreams, anxious or nightmares.
According to Elena Moskovchenko, the repetitive plot is either the need to complete, digest some experience, or the psyche insistently signals something important for a person.
In dreams, we often experience our fears, we live our mistakes again, we lose any past life situations or those that can be. Nightmares are especially important, they should be paid attention, because it’s an SOS signal, the subconscious mind tells you: “Look here! It can not wait. ”
After the dream is recorded, you can choose one of the work approaches that psychology offers.
1. Interpretative approach
This approach assumes that certain symbols mean certain events in life. The most primitive form of this approach is the dream books. Here is the interpretation of only a few dreams: the fish – to pregnancy, flying in a dream – to an unhappy marriage, and wandering along the corridor – confusion in sexual relations. It is unlikely that this way of understanding dreams will lead to insight about the meaning of your sleep, because for your psyche the above symbols can be associated with completely different phenomena and events. Nevertheless, for dozens of years of research on dreams, psychologists have identified symbols that can be interpreted more or less unequivocally. Head of the Institute of Counseling, Ph. D. Natalia Gulina calls some of them:
Water, deep seas, oceans, a person sails, the risk of drowning. Most likely, a person is afraid of feelings. He is afraid to drown in emotions, feelings, uncontrollable emotions. Such dreams are often dreamed, when in life some relations have arisen.
Childbirth. The birth of some new period in life, new activities, new relationships, projects.
Death, funeral. End of a certain period in life. If you see the death of a person, then probably it means the death of that within you, what this person personifies for you.
With an effort to climb the walls, mountains. Solving problems that seem insurmountable.
To be naked in public, to hide behind, to feel shame. Man can not cope with his life, can not build it the desired way. Often this applies to the professional sphere, when there are tasks in which he does not feel competent.
The pursuit. There can be many different interpretations. The most probable is a discrepancy between inner aspirations and what a person actually does in life. When he engages in activities that he does not have a soul, and this is accompanied by fears and strains. And he tries to escape without coping with the situation.
Floods, earthquakes, catastrophes. Symbolically reflect the beginning of the transformation of the psyche.
Travel, roads, forks, ford across the river. Symbols of development.
A wise old man, a wise old woman. The appearance of these archetypes suggests that you are almost ready to trust the voice of wisdom of your inner guru and stop adding wisdom to external authorities
2. The associative approach
As part of this approach, Natalia Gulina suggests asking herself: what associations cause the dream to be seen? It is necessary to focus on the sensations, the aftertaste of sleep, the state in which you are after awakening. If after you wake up, remember some picture of the dream, then name the associations that it called for you, and think about what aspect of your life this may be related. As a rule, this becomes clear after a certain time.
3. “Living” a dream
Choose a “snagged” frame from the dream and try to immerse yourself in it. Next, fantasize how the situation would develop if it had a continuation. These fantasies will sooner or later lead you to an understanding of which aspect of life sleep relates to, although it is much easier to do this with a specialist who can direct and help understand the meaning of sleep. If you do this alone, you will need to be able to relax, focus and imagine a dream in real life.
4. Integrative approach
In this approach, it is assumed that all elements of sleep are parts of the dreamer’s personality that tend to be accepted. Choose the most amazing, mysterious, maybe frightening figure (person or thing) in your dream and sound it from the first person. Speak the first thing that comes to mind: how this object lives, what it wants, how it feels and so on. This procedure is also better done with a specialist or with a close person, because, as practice shows, at the end of the monologue, a person remembers not all the text. When you are finished, think about how this relates to your life, to the recent events in it.
Interpretation of dreams, especially independent, is not an easy task. It is not enough just curiosity, but a desire to understand and hear yourself. But if you start to analyze your dreams on a regular basis, it will be an indispensable help and support on your way to yourself.
