Interpretation of dream

Aristotle said: “sleep is nothing but the continuation of thought in a state of rest.” It is a common and massive process for all of us that occurs in a resting state, in which thoughts are transformed into images.

For thousands of years, people have been fascinated by dreams, often considering them as a way to predict the future. Many psychologists have tried to find a way to interpret dreams and explain their meaning. Freud was the first to conclude that dreams reflect everything that the human unconscious carries and hides deep inside.

Today, scientists are making great strides and the possibilities for interpreting dreams are growing. This allows them to take us where the obvious does not reach. Psychologists agree that dream interpretation is a fundamental key to getting to know ourselves better and clarifying many of our doubts or problems.

From a psychological point of view, it is a homeostatic process that allows us to establish a balance of both body and cognitive processes, with the activity of sleep being essential for the full efficiency of our body. But what does what we dream about mean?

Dream meaning

Dreams refer to “another mental scene” that is, to the plane of the unconscious, where the scene is arranged from seemingly illogical images and scripts that indicate the deformed realization of censored desires, because in them human most suppressed impulses are manifested.

Freud claimed that sleep enables and guarantees continuity of rest in the face of external stimuli. Many times a person experiences that many of the dreams are presented in the form of ridiculous images, sometimes disturbing and at other times pleasant. But why is this the case?

See also:

• Do dreams mean something?

Working with dreams

Dreams have a manifested content, which is latent. Behind this is the obvious “nonsense” of the dream. Thus, latent thoughts (fantasies, desires, remnants of the day) are transformed into content that consciousness can hardly recognize as logical.

This is a phenomenon known as “dream-making work.” In it, there are certain mechanisms that make up its content. They are caused by resistance censorship, the function of which is to mask desires so that they are unrecognizable to your consciousness.

How to interpret a dream?

The content of the dream should be analyzed very carefully and thoroughly in the sense to every image and detail that appears in it. The interpretation of a dream will not be to add a preconceived meaning to the image. This means that no single “scale” or “dictionary” or “equivalence system” can be used. Interpretation is possible through one’s own associations.

The goal of interpretation is not so much to make sense, but to reduce meaningful elements to their nonsense, to find the determinants of all behavior. A dream can be interpreted using several steps, such as:

• Step one
  The meaning of dreams is something personal and incommunicable. What a person dreams about reflects part of his inner self, his feelings, fears or doubts. It can’t be taken universally or applied to some group of people. It cannot be generalized. Dreams are always a reflection of thoughts and exhibit characteristics of the person who dreams them.
• Step two
  Don’t be deluded by the dream vision. Although we see certain images in our dreams, in general, the meaning of our dreams cannot be interpreted literally.
• Step three
  After waking up, it is a good idea to write down what you dreamed about. This should be done in detail, pay attention to everything that caught our attention, even if they are simple or meaningless details at first glance. All the details of our dreams are extremely important in reading their meaning.
• Step four
  It is necessary to analyze each dream object separately and consider it as a symbol. The meaning of each symbol will depend on what they mean to you in your life, whether they are simple objects, what you relate them to, what they remind you of, what they represent to you. The same thing happens with people.
• Step five
  In this step, look at every action that occurs in the dream, every action. They similarly will have meaning, you should write them down, taking into account what meaning each activity has for you, whether you like it or it bores you, which ones make you feel a certain way. This will allow you to better interpret your dream.

Create your personal interpretation by how your dream unfolds, but instead of what you dream, introduce the personal meaning each symbol and action has for you. In this way, you will create a story that reveals something about your personality, perhaps something that bothers you.