What your dreams say about you
and how to decode them
Sometimes during my childhood and teen years, I used to have this frequent dream in which I was being chased by a strange man. At times, I was being chased in the forest, other times in the city, sometimes inside a house. The scenario changed, but the plot of trying to escape this man was the same.
Back then, when I woke up scared in the middle of the night, I went to my dad to tell him what I had dreamed about and how scared I was. The way he approached it was to show me that nothing of what I dreamed was real, and that I was at home, physically safe.
That's how I learned to relate to my dreams, like most people: they're just crazy images our brains put together when we go to sleep, nothing to pay attention to, nothing relevant to care about.
It wasn't until a few years ago when I started working with a Jungian therapist/psychoanalyst that I discovered that our dreams are not just disconnected crazy images; they are the unconscious part of us trying to send us messages about how we are unconsciously relating to ourselves and to life, including hints of what is being required of us to adjust or to do next in order to align with our true selves and a more fulfilled life for us.
Dreams and the unconscious
On average, we dream every night about 5 to 6 dreams. Some of us say that we never dream, but that's not true; what happens is that we don't remember our dreams, they were not made conscious.
In Jungian psychology, it is understood that we have the conscious part of us and the unconscious part of us, the part we're not aware of. Dreams are seen as a bridge to access the material of our unconscious.
Many of us like to believe that we're fully aware of ourselves and in control of our lives, but in truth, most of our minds operate from unconscious places. We're aware of probably 5-10% of our psyche material, but there's an 90% other going on driving our lives - and these are our blind spots.
Dreams generally points us to our blind spots.
A good example that helped me understand the concept of the unconscious is when we're talking to someone and then we suddenly forget the name of a place we go frequently, or the name of a close friend or family member, and we find ourselves with intense frustration because we know that we know it but it doesn't seem to be there. Suddenly, it's totally out of reach. Well, the name wasn't suddenly deleted from our memory, because we quickly remember it after a moment or two; it had just been lost in our unconscious for a while, until it became conscious again.
In many ancient religious cultures and traditions, as well as in tribal ones, dreams were used as channels of messages from the divine, guiding the path of the individual and for its people.
Whatever your background and your choice of belief about the origin of the unconscious, the role of dreams is to attempt to make the unconscious conscious, revealing meaningful insights to improve the way we live our lives and guiding us towards a more fulfilled and whole self.
Marie Von Franz, who learned from and worked directly with C. G. Jung describe dreams as “a guiding line on how to cope with life events, and how to find meaning in our life and how to fulfils our own destiny and follow our star to realize the greater potential of life in us.”
In my own experience, I have found my dreams to reveal so much about the ways I'm relating to myself and situations, and it surely has helped me to make some assertive decisions and adjustments to my life over the years.
So much so, that I started studying Jungian psychology and dreams so that I could develop my own frequent dialogue with my dreams and help friends who are curious about theirs to better understand themselves.
The language of dreams: symbols
What I find fascinating about dreams is that they're an entire language in themselves. Nothing in dreams is literal; they are a language made of symbols. That's why part of the study of the unconscious - individual and collective - is the study of symbols and archetypal narratives.
Symbols are to dreams, what words are to language.
That's also why dreams are unique to each individual, because its symbology might come from personal associations, culture, and time. A cow that appears in the dream of a man from Portugal might have a completely different meaning than a cow that appears in the dream of a man from India, where cows are seen as spiritual beings. On top of that, there's the individual experience and perception of the cow, which adds another layer to it.
When trying to decode the message of dreams, it's important to keep some things in mind:
Dreams never tell us what we know; they tell us what we don't know. Dots we haven't connected, a perspective we're not seeing.
Dreams are not literal; they are symbols, which frequently means that the people, places, and things that appear in your dreams are not about the people, places, and things that you know in your conscious life. They likely represent parts/aspects of yourself that are projected on them.
Every dream is unique and individual to the person who dreams. This means that there are no rules for dream interpretation, like, for example, “if you dream of a snake, it means you're in danger.” This is nonsense. Don't pay attention to any kind of dream dictionary.
It's really, really hard to interpret our own dreams by ourselves because we tend to project what we know into the dreams, so it's always advisable to ask for the help of others' perspectives in understanding our dreams. When you tell your dreams to someone, you tend to be more objective about it. You can't see your own back, but other people can. Dreams point to your back.
Decoding dreams
If I were to analyze that frequent dream I had of being chased by a strange man as a kid, I would say that “the strange man” could represent parts of me, aspects of my personality that I was suppressing or running away from, which could also be feelings. There was something going on inside of me at that time that was asking to be seen, but I didn't allow it to become conscious. Probably as a defense mechanism.
There could have been many different reasons for that. Considering that I was a child, maybe I internalized that allowing whatever was there to come was bad for me, or that it wasn't safe, or that I would be punished. So, I continued repressing those feelings and trying to escape myself.
I became aware recently that I had/have difficulties over my life in accessing anger. I had noticed that it's an emotion I rarely experienced, but there's a difference between not feeling anger and not accessing it; mine was the latter.
Anger is an extremely helpful and instinctual emotion for survival; it signals to us when our boundaries are crossed, and our safe space invaded. As you can imagine, by not accessing anger in me, I easily neglected myself in situations that weren't healthy for me.
It wasn't until I started having a series of dreams in which figures appeared with angry aspects that I started to pay closer attention to what feelings inside of me I wasn't allowing to be channeled out.
Once I was able to identify this blocking, I slowly created ways to reassure myself that it was safe to feel whatever was there to be felt until I got in contact with the underlying anger that was hurting me. It was an enlightening experience and very helpful to integrate myself as a whole and make aligned decisions from there.
What's the message of your dream?
A helpful way to approach dreams is to read them as our internal universe. Everything that shows up in the dream is a part of ourselves and how it is dialoguing with each other.
It's true that dreams can also talk about the future sometimes, but these kinds of premonitory dreams are about 10% of all dreams. Also, because dreams communicate in symbols, it is not wise to approach them as a preview of what's going to happen - that sure would drive many of us crazy.
Just like any story, dreams have an introduction, a development, a problem, and an ending.
Introduction
The introduction of the dream will give you context about where you are, who you are with, and what's going on. Once you identify the introduction elements, you want to think about what they mean to you.
For example, sometimes I dream I'm in my childhood bedroom in my parents' house. This already tells me that the dream is talking about some infantile and immature aspect of myself. A good question to ask yourself is, what does this place mean to you? Or what kind of association can you make of it?
People in dreams
Women in dreams speak about the feminine aspect of the self, and men signal our masculine aspects. Whether you're a man or woman, we all carry feminine and masculine qualities in us. Observing how you're relating to the people that show up in the dream can give you hints on how you're relating to parts of yourself.
When you dream about people you know, a good question to ask is what kind of associations you make with this person. It will tell us about the part of ourselves that we project onto others.
For example, sometimes I dream about my brother. My brother chose a professional path very different from mine. From an early age, he chose to study engineering at a reputable university and then joined a renowned consulting firm, where he has been working for years now. When compared to my journey, his steps were predictable and safe.
So whenever I dream of him, I know that my dream is talking about the part of me that values stability, safety, and consistency. And then I observe what's going on with him in the dream or how I'm relating to him to understand the message behind that.
Problem
We want to identify also what's the main conflict or problem the dream is trying to communicate. For example, I have a friend who told me about a dream she had; she was invited to a wedding but she couldn't find the right clothing to attend the party. She tried multiple dresses but nothing fit, and she was getting increasingly stressed and worried in the dream. The dream was talking to her about a situation in her life where she was feeling inadequate and stressed out, calling her to change her mental attitude in that situation or remove herself entirely from it.
Ending
The end of the dream is very important to understand the message of it. Some dreams have a clear ending; the closing is clear about how the situation was resolved, and that's the signal for us to reflect and integrate into our lives. Other times, the dream doesn't have a clear ending or resolution, which means that there's not a solution yet resolved in the unconscious.
Taking notes of your dreams
Next time you remember a dream, write down as soon as you can in detail what your dream was. Leave it for some time, so your mind can quiet down. Then later, come back to it and start writing on the side associations you make with the elements that appear in the dream. Think also about what happened the day before - inwardly and outwardly - and notice if there are any correlations.
As I mentioned, it's always helpful to explore your dream out loud with a friend or therapist if you have one who understands dreams from the perspective of Jungian psychology, so we avoid projecting what we already know onto the dream.
Dreams show us what we're not yet fully aware of. The unconscious knows more than we know and has information that we cannot have.
Wish you insightful dreams ahead :)
With love,
Nat
P.S.: If you have any thoughts, questions, or just feel like sharing your experience, please do! The point of all this is to create conversations from which we can grow together.