Trying To Understand More....., dream interpretetion Options

for years now, ever since I started learning shamanism from my grand father I've been trying to learn to interpret my dreams, my grandfather was teaching me, but he died too soon, I don' trust dream dictionaries because my grandfather told me every creatures dreams messages different from others, so how can I obtain this wisdom again,or to be exact,for the first time????? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_bookread.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wandwizard.gif)

A book I would recommend looking into is called Lucid Dreams in 30 Days: The Creative Sleep Program, by Keith Harary and Pamela Weintraub. Its short, 90 pages, very affordable. I bought two copies, for a friend and myself, for less than $20 US. Amazon sells used copies for less than 5 dollars. The reason I highly recomend this book is because its easy to follow, self paced and its not written by some new ager trying to make a buck. The authors have thoroughly researched the various topics related to dreaming and lucid dreaming and their techniques are based off research conducted in a University - which I don't remember read the book.

While the main subject is in teaching readers how to control their dreams that also includes interpreting them as well.

For a shamanistic, or more over aboriginal, perspective towards dreaming and understanding their meaning I would also recomend Dream Gates by Robert Moss

If possible I would also suggest taking a course in dream psychology. Thats where I really learned how to interpret dreams. But thats also because my learning style is more oriented towards a class room setting.

Self teaching books like dream dictionaries are some what useful and usually they are based off the theories and techniques of Freud and Jung but realize that Freud and Jung were really pioneers in their own right. They are really great to look into and study but I think to really understand you own dreams it takes personal experience. I hate dream dictionaries because they are culturally biased and mass produced in an effort to appeal to a target market audience that the writters think will make the most money on. Therefore there are large number of people who would not benefit from a dream dictionary.

One technique for interpreting dreams, I forget what it is called but its really easy: Recall your dream with the best detail as possible. You'll probably want to use notebook paper and skip a line every time you run out of room. Once you have totally written your dream down go back over and with a different color pen use the lines you didn't write in to re-write your dream using different nouns and adjectives. It sounds like you are only re-writting the dream but read over it and it can have a new meaning. Doing this repeated with your own dreams will produce some interesting results.

From my own experience the interpritation of dreams takes time and is a matter of understanding the function of the imagry in the dreams. Take into consideration how things within the dream make you feel. Who are you with, what are the colors, the details, whats going on within the setting.

Some common examples are like buildings can represent structure. The structure could represent family, relationships, work life, financial stability - that is determined by the type of building. A family house is more likely to represent family structure where as a school or public building could represent social structure. The condition of the building would then tell you its quality. An old house would represent an old structure, perhaps a tradition even. A delapitated house would represent a structure in ruins. Then there is the matter if you are in the building or outside it. Being inside a building can represent internal feelings about the structure and being outside of it can represent external interpritations The rest of the meaning of the structure in question comes from your own impression of it. Just because a house is falling apart or delapitated doesn't mean it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Another common dream theme includes a vehical of some type. Vehicals often represent transition or changes in one's life. How the vehical behaves, the type it is, the conditition it is in, and how it makes you feel, tells you what it represents. If a vehical is out of control it represents uncontrolable change.

Then, of course, there are the people we dream about. Most dream psychologists agree that people represent aspects within ourself. Your father would represent your higher masculine qualities while your mother would represent the feminine. Now say you have a little brother or sister who enters your dreams, that would represent your less mature masculine or feminine side. Dreaming about an exgirl friend can represent a detachment from your feminine side. Dreaming about a current girl friend could represent appropriate expression of your feminine side. Yet realize it all depends on the dream it self. For example if you dream about killing your girl friend and being with your ex that represents a negative expression or relationship, even repression of your feminine self.

Some think the people we see in dreams really do represent those people, I think its a little of both worlds. But its possible people we dream about represent how we feel about them or what we desire from them. Dreams really do reveal emotion and desire and it just takes time and logical analysis to understand what they mean.

I think learning to interpret dreams also requires one to understand dreams themselves. That said I would read the information in this link and follow up on the sources cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams

This post has been edited by Acid09: Jul 27 2007, 05:31 PM