Can you really go about accurately interpreting your dreams, and do they honestly have a deeper meaning? Almost half of the world’s population answers with a resounding YES, so there might be more to our nightly brain movies than you think!
In this post, we’ll be taking a look at why we dream the kind of stuff we do, what the best dream interpretation approach looks like, and what the meanings of the most common dreams are! Ready to decipher your subconscious mind’s shenanigans? Here we go!
Your Emotions and Experiences Drive Your Dreams!
The script for the movies that play off in your head is a combination of early remote memories, recent memories, and pretty much everything in between. Images of our memories often show up in our dreams, but we never replay the events as they occurred in real life. Well, except in the case of PTSD.
You see, your brain determines your dream by calculating which of your most recent memories are most valuable or least understood. On top of that, the brain also throws in anything that it connects to these recent memories.
Let’s suppose you were in a car accident. The event might play off in your dream, but in another form, like bumper cars. Even though the event in the dream might not be that stressful, you could be having all the anxious feels in the dream because that’s how you felt during the real-life crash.
Our dreams are also often filled with emotions. And the emotions we dream about resemble real emotions we feel throughout our daily lives. You might even find that during times of high stress, you experience more anxiety-provoking dreams because daytime emotions play a role in the undertone of our dreams.
What’s the Benefit of Interpreting Your Dreams?
According to the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, our dreams are maps to our unconscious mind. He suggested that by studying dreams and the obvious content in them, our hidden unconscious desires that lead to neurosis can be brought to light.
Today, many people interpret dreams as a means of both self-reflection and entertainment. But is there really deeper meaning to the show the subconscious puts on during REM sleep? According to Mark Smaller, Ph.D., president of the American Psychoanalytic Association, our dreams can help us access emotions we might not be aware of!
Practical Tips for Interpreting Your Dreams
Keen to take a dip into your subconscious? Here’s how to make sense of your dreams!
#1 – Write Everything Down
As soon as you wake up, write down every detail about the dream you can recall. List as many locations, objects, and people as possible. It’s often in the tiniest details that the biggest issues are disguised.
#2 – Associate
Next, you want to write down associations that each detail of the dream carries for you. If, for example, the dream played off in your elementary school, consider its significance and how it could relate to the larger theme of the dream.
#3 – Tie in Emotions
Did the dream spark any specific emotions? Write them down! Did you feel upset, exhilarated, or afraid during the dream, and how did you feel when you woke up from the dream? Next, think about what other events inspire the same emotions. If your elementary school days remind you of being picked in, consider what’s happening in your life right now that might parallel that experience.
#4 – Create a Narrative
It’s time to revise your list of associations and try and combine them into a single narrative. The setting might remind you of being bullied. The food you ate in your dream reminds you of Italy. And your boss, who comes from Rome, was being kind of harsh on you in your last meeting. All these dream visions can help you face your life with greater insight and a better understanding of where you’re at.
Common Dream Meanings
Although everyone will analyze their dreams differently and come to different conclusions depending on what’s happening in their life, here’s a look at a handful of the most common dreams and their meanings!
Falling in Your Dream
Most of us have this dream often. And there’s a popular myth that if you hit the ground in this dream, you’ll die in real life. But that’s simply not true. In fact, it might be an indicator that something in your life isn’t going great. Perhaps you need to rethink a choice or consider a new direction in a certain area.
Dreaming of Being Naked
This is another theme that’s hardly unusual. Many dream interpreters suggest that dreaming of being naked in public could indicate that you feel scared to reveal your imperfections and shortcomings to others.
Dreams of Being Chased
It can be particularly terrifying to dream that you’re being pursued by an attacker, but it’s something most of us deal with from time to time. Dream interpreters suggest that these dreams mean we’re trying to avoid something in our daily lives. If it’s an animal chasing you, you might be hiding from anger, passion, and other emotions in your daily life. But if your pursuer is an unknown figure, it might represent past trauma. If someone from the opposite sex chases you, a past relationship still haunts you.
Losing Teeth in Your Dreams
There are many possible meanings to dreams about losing teeth. For one, you might be worried about your appearance. You might also be concerned about your communication skills or the fact that you might have said something embarrassing.
Death in Your Dreams
Another common dream subject is death. Perhaps you recently dreamt of a loved one passing or even saw yourself dying in your dream. These dreams can reflect anxiety about change or a fear of the unknown.
Dreaming About Flying
Dreaming about flying can be an exciting and liberating adventure. But it can also be frightening, especially if you’re scared of heights. Flying dreams can represent feelings of freedom and independence, but they can also indicate a desire to escape from the realities of life.
A Word from Day Interpreting
What do you think? Do some of these dream interpretations seem accurate? If not, it’s because our dreams are unique and very personal. Dream dictionaries and generalized interpretation books are purely for the sake of entertainment. But what is true is that your dreams reflect your waking life.
They can mirror our fears, anxieties, desires, hopes, and aspirations. Therefore, always consider the personal message your dreams might have when interpreting them.
Here at Day Interpreting, we might not be able to interpret your dreams, but we’re excellent with the interpretation of just about any spoken human language!
Seldean is a multi-skilled content wizard that dedicates herself to writing content that goes beyond merely sparking interest in the audience.
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