A Beginner’s Guide to Dream Interpretation

Ready to start interpreting your dreams? Here are a few steps that might be useful to get started.

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• One space remaining Jungian Somatics- MFT with Jane Clapp & Laura Wenger (starts 9/9)

• Better Breathing for Trauma w/ Jennifer Snowdon (& me!) 10/4.

• Jungian Somatics Dream Method- 2 day online immersion this fall

In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about why you might want to work with your dreams and a few basic guidelines to understand the “logic” of dreams. Now it’s time to get down to the good stuff: how do we actually decode a dream?

Salvador Dalí- Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening

Understanding our dreams is no simple task; their symbolic language contains layers of meaning that resist easy interpretation, not least of which because we may find ourselves resistant to hearing their message! Jung himself emphasized that this process is quite challenging:

“So difficult is it to understand the dream that for a long time I have made it a rule, when someone tells me a dream and asks for my opinion, to say first of all to myself: “I have no idea what this dream means.” After that I can begin to examine the dream.” —CG Jung, CW 8, par 533

With an attitude of humility, then, we can approach our dreams. While Jung did not systematize his methods (as each dream, and dreamer, is unique), I’ve suggested a few steps below that may be helpful as a doorway into a dream. This is by no means the only way to work with dreams, and, if all goes well, you’ll find your own best way— but my hope is to give you a place to start.

A quick note first: this process presumes that you’ve already been dreaming and are recording your dreams. If you struggle with this, hold tight, as I’ll be releasing a bonus post next week to give some guidance on that part.

Now, let’s take a sample dream to work with:

I am with a group of people in a tiny closet having to select a theme for a sewing/fashion competition. I can’t choose between My Little Pony and two others. They feel like terrible choices-- and we had to make them in the dark so we couldn’t see how the artist had rendered the image. Somehow I was allowed to choose another option-- I picked tofu. I wanted to wear a long white silky jumpsuit or dress with an enormous brown scarf that would resemble soy sauce. I didn’t know how I would sew it because I am not good at sewing, but I was hoping they’d make some kind of allowance for me. I am excited about how the finished look would be. 

Five simple steps to work with a dream:

1. First, read it out loud. This process works well if you can do it with another person, but if that’s not possible, simply reading your dream out loud can be quite helpful. Pause and notice: What stands out to you? Are there any unusual phrases or things you wouldn’t normally say? If there are images from your waking life, are they different in some way (is a pineapple wearing a strange hat, or is something very large that would normally be quite small)?  Are there any puns, or rhymes? Make a note of any of these. In our dream example, we might note that we are in a “tiny closet” that felt claustrophobic, and that the brown scarf is “enormous,” which felt quite dramatic. The dreamer also noted that she used the word “rendered,” which she associates with meat or fat being broken down (as in “rendering the fat from the meat”)— this felt like an unusual word she wouldn’t normally use.

2. How did the dream feel? Now we’re getting into the right hemisphere of our brain-- this is less about thinking and more about feeling. As you read through the dream again, notice any reactions in your body. Do you feel constricted, or relaxed? How do your shoulders, jaw, or gut react? Do you notice yourself yawning? What about emotions? Anger, fear, love, grief, joy? What was the setting of the dream-- nighttime, day, outside, inside? How old or young did you feel?  Make a note of these as well. In our example, the dreamer felt anxious and irritable about having to choose a design, and then excited at the end of the dream. Finally, we can ask ourselves, “does this feel, or remind me of, any situation in my current or past experience?”

3. Who are the cast of characters in your dream? The individuals in your dream, if you are able to recognize them, may represent the actual person (an objective view), or they may represent a part of yourself (a subjective view). They could also be both. Make a note of the individuals in your dream. For each, you can ask: how do I feel about this person? What sort of a person are they? Could this person represent something in myself? What purpose do they serve in the dream— helpful or unhelpful? Don’t think too hard here, but jot down some thoughts that come easily to mind. In our sample dream, we don’t have any identifiable characters, so we can skip this bit.

4. Identify & amplify symbols. Now, read through the dream again and notice what symbols you can find. In our dream example, we have the following: a tiny closet, sewing, a fashion competition, My Little Pony, tofu, a silky white jumpsuit and an enormous brown scarf. Symbols might also include other people in the dream, if we can identify them, as well as a setting or time of day. We can also add any puns or odd word choices, so we can add the word “rendered” here from our dream. 

   Next, we “amplify” the symbols. You can pick one or two (don’t get overwhelmed trying to do all of them). To amplify just means to ask ourselves, what are my associations to this symbol? What does it mean to me? Our dreamer associates ‘My Little Pony’ with a cartoony children’s toy, and tofu with healthy eating. Neither is a typical choice to inspire a fashion show. It’s important to start with our own associations, as these are the most important. If we’re sharing the dream with someone else, they may offer their own associations after we’ve shared ours, once we’ve exhausted personal associations, we might go to a symbols book (this is a good one) to see what broader, cultural, historical or mythological associations apply.

   Occasionally, dreams present us with a symbol that we have difficulty associating with anything at all. Here, it might be helpful to ask, “if I were explaining this to someone from another planet, what is ____?” Our dreamers says, “What is a closet? It’s a small place where things are stored for later use… it has shelves, it might be dusty.”

5. Read through the dream one last time. Holding your associations, feelings, and notes about the characters in your dream in mind, re-read the dream. What stands out now? If it’s helpful, when you get to a symbol that you’ve amplified, or a character you’ve identified, you can add that information in as you read it. What do you notice now? What does the dream tell you? Our dreamer says, “on re-reading the dream, I see that the closet is a dusty place where I’m hemmed in with other people— it’s too small— and I’m given a cartoonish, childish thing that I have to turn into an outfit. That it was 'rendered’ feels a bit violent or ugly, mechanical. The jumpsuit that I make for the tofu feels elegant, more adult, and the fabric is cool and silky. I feel relief and excitement, like this is the way out of the closet.” The dreamer also recognizes that the feeling in the dream of being in the closet reminds her of a situation in her work life where she is being asked to do tasks that feel childishly simple and irrelevant.

At this point, it’s important that we set the dream down and give it some room to breathe. As analyst John Betts says, “don’t thrash the dream!” If we over-analyze or take it apart too much, we may find that it loses its potency and power. This part is a bit like letting bread proof before baking— we want to let it work a little without thinking too consciously about it. As you move through the rest of your day and week, you may notice new associations popping up. Or, if there was a symbol in the dream that felt intriguing, you might continue to do some research. Our example dreamer might want to order a silky tofu dish for dinner, or talk to a friend or family member about how they remember My Little Pony. We might also use the dream as fodder for some embodied active imagination techniques. Or, we can just set it aside and wait for the next dream to give us more information..

Finally, I want to be extremely clear that this is by no means a specific, scientific method, but simply some guidelines I’ve used and found helpful with myself and others. Please bear in mind that this is just an introduction, and not by any means a thorough exposition of the topic! There is so much more to say about dreams— and as Jung says below, no true “method.”

I have no theory about dreams; I do not know how dreams arise.

And I am not at all sure that – my way of handling dreams even deserves the name of a “method.” I share all your prejudices against dream-interpretation as the quintessence of uncertainty and arbitrariness.

On the other hand, I know that if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly, if we carry it around with us and turn it over and over, something almost always comes of it.

—CG Jung, The Aims of Psychotherapy; CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy; Page 86.

If you’d really like to dive into dreams, I’ve listed a few of my favorite books here. And for those who want to really, really, dive in, you might consider joining Jane Clapp and me for our Jungian Somatics- Movement for Trauma course, or the Dream Immersion course coming up this fall.

Only the dreamer knows what particular significance a symbol holds. Even the silliest image can be a potent symbol.