You wake up. You're a bit startled. You've been dreaming. Was it a nightmare? A good dream? You wonder for a few moments what it all means and then put it out of your head as your day begins. Yet tidbits of the dream linger on. You're dying to know if there was a message somewhere in there for you. Now you can figure it out.
With this book, you have a new scenario. You wake up in the morning from the same dream. This time, you remember it in its entirety. You jot it down, interpret it, and then realize it addresses some of the major concerns in your life. With practice, you can do this kind of analysis. And it's more powerful than any therapy in the world.
Let's give an example. Janet has a dream about a big, spooky Gothic house. As you'll discover, in most cases, when you dream about any house, you're actually dreaming about yourself, or your “self,” as Swiss psychologist Carl Jung called it. Jung believed that dreams like this can indicate how you feel about your life. In fact, since the rooms can be what make up your self, it's important to remember what the rooms in the house were like. In other words, the rooms are your various facets, your parts.
The ground floor is the self you present to the world, the way other people see you. For Janet, the ground floor was expansive, quiet, gracious, and warm. In her dream, the house had a wide staircase, which represented the accessible way she offers her advice and care to other people.
In Janet's dream, she was also confronted with a heavy, rusted metal door. This was most likely a reference to her heavy emotional stuff—the old thoughts and feelings she should have cleared out years ago. Yet, in her dream, the door didn't appear to be locked. This was a good sign that to deal with everything, all she had to do was open the door and walk right through.
Janet woke up the moment she should have gone through the door, proving that sometimes it's easier to wake up than to deal with our issues. It also puzzled her that there were no other people in the dream. This indicated that the journey into the house was essentially a journey into herself, and one she needed to take alone.
A Freudian psychologist would translate this dream as a sign that Janet has some terrible childhood secret, probably related to her sexuality. To a Jungian psychologist, the metal door might symbolize beginnings and endings. The only interpretation that really matters is Janet's—what makes sense to her. This is her dream from her unconscious. It doesn't get more personal than that.
That's what this book is for. Read through it. Understand how to analyze your dreams, and then use the information that works with your dreams—with you. Most dream researchers agree that we can use our dreams as tools for better understanding ourselves—for dealing with and solving the problems in our waking lives. We can use dreams to enhance relationships, gain insight into a health issue, and even obtain career guidance.
By following the instructions for recalling, recording, and interpreting dreams, you can avoid letting important dreams slip away and gain new perspective on your life. Even if you already recall and record dreams, you'll discover new ways to decipher and understand them. You'll also pick up new ideas about lucid and out-of-body dreams. With practice, you'll learn how to program dreams and adventure into new worlds. You can meet up with friends, departed loved ones, and intriguing strangers. You'll find out how to search through past lives and peek at future events. Your destiny is waiting for you to shape it. Bend and change fate!