Dream Analysis: The Secret Truths Your Dreams Reveal
When you think of dream analysis, what comes to mind?
Are you in a candle-lit room, barefoot, chanting and dancing around burning incense? Is there a turban-wearing old lady peering into a smokey crystal ball?
Or are you lying on a brown leather couch in a book-filled office while an older man in a gray cardigan, smoking a pipe, asks, “And how does that make you feel”?
Let’s put a lid on your wild imagination for a hot minute and get real.
Dream analysis is simply you taking control of your dreams, uncovering their meanings, and applying those meanings to improve your life.
Simple and crazy powerful.
We’re talking DIY dream interpretation.
Because who better to interpret your dreams than YOU? You know yourself better than anyone else, so it’s obvi you’re the highest qualified person by far and wide.
No incense and chanting required.
Unless that’s your thing.
Let’s dig into dream analysis and how to harness the power of your dreams.
We’ll cover:
What Is Dream Analysis?
What Do Your Dreams Really Mean?
Dream Analysis Brings The Ultimate Benefit
How Is Dream Analysis Used In Therapy?
WHAT IS DREAM ANALYSIS?
Dream analysis, or dream interpretation, is the process of unpacking dream content (people, places, symbols, & your feelings). When you understand what your dreams mean and uncover the messages hidden within them, you can apply these insights to better direct your waking life.
Dreams can seem mysterious and downright befuddling to figure out. That’s where dream interpretation comes into play.
Analyzing dreams has been around for ages.
The 1st recorded examples of dream analysis date way back to Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian dream interpreters were certain the gods communicated with them through dreams.
They even created a book with a collection of more than 200 of the gods' messages that came from dreams.
Your dreams are the window to your subconscious mind, and dream analysis gives you a crystal clear view straight through that window.
WHAT DO YOUR DREAMS REALLY MEAN?
Your dreams mean what they mean to YOU. And only YOU. Regardless of what you’ll find all over the internet, there are no universal dream meanings.
Period.
And if you try to stick a blah, generic dream meaning on your dreams, you’ll miss the real substance of what your dreams are telling you — what your own mind is longing to communicate.
Carl Jung, aka the father of analytical psychology, believed that dreams are intensely personal and that interpreting these dreams involves knowing a great deal about the individual dreamer.
Preach, Carl Jung.
Lemme hear you shout it from the cheap seats — YOUR DREAMS ARE PERSONAL AND SO ARE THEIR MEANINGS.
Let’s say you & a friend both had a dream about a loud, unrelenting, barking dog.
Now, if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty dream meaning, hold off Googling, “What does it mean to dream about a barking dog?”
You’ll each need to do some on-your-own thinking about how you feel about dogs.
Your friend can’t stand to be around dogs. All dogs, even a tiny chihuahua, cause her knees to knock in fear. She had a traumatic childhood experience of a slobbery, ferocious dog who bit her, and she ended up in the ER with 9 stitches in her arm.
She still has the scar. Ever since then, she’s been deathly afraid of dogs.
On the other hand, you’ve always loved dogs. Your Chocolate Lab, O’Malley, was your BFF growing up. He was always at your side. He played fetch with you, comforted you by sleeping at the foot of your bed, and protected you with a warning growl when strangers came too near.
Dogs represent a no-way-no-nope! to your friend. But they represent kindness, companionship, loyalty, and safety to you.
Do you see how while you both might have had the same type of dream involving a barking dog, their meanings might be polar opposites?
Maybe your friend’s dream has to do with someone being oppressive or intrusive in her life.
Maybe your dream represents a lovable new friend’s prominent presence or some sense of freedom and safety.
That’s a big difference when analyzing those two seemingly “same” dreams.
Whatever you associate with the element, symbol, or someone in your dream, is what your dream means. You truly are the one holding the key to unlocking your dream meanings.
Your dream is like a movie. Your own mind wrote the script and produced and directed the movie of your dream. You’re the star, the hero, and the audience, all wrapped up in the beautiful theater of your mind.
DREAM ANALYSIS BRINGS ON THE ULTIMATE BENEFIT
While there are plenty of benefits of dream analysis, they all boil down to the star of the show — self-awareness. When you know yourself more fully, you’re able to intentionally design and actively participate in your life rather than assume the role of a passive spectator or a victim to your circumstances.
“Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection.” Courtney E. Ackerman, M.A. positivepsychology.com
In a Harvard Business Review study, they investigated self-awareness with almost 5000 people. They found that even though most people believed themselves to be self-aware, true self-awareness is actually a pretty rare quality.
Only 10-15% of the people actually fit the self-awareness criteria.
Dream analysis will help you develop self-awareness. When you begin to do the dream work of recalling and actively reflecting on your dreams and how they relate to your waking life, you’ll uncover hidden feelings and emotions you had no idea had set up camp in your subconscious.
During our waking hours, our conscious mind runs the show.
Unfortunately, negative events have more impact on our brains than positive events. Psychologists call this negative bias and it has a huge effect on our conscious minds. Your conscious mind runs your thoughts and even your emotions through a filter affected by negative bias. And if that filter stumbles across a thought or feeling that it deems unacceptable, it might just get tossed down into the abyss of our subconscious.
Unless you’re willing to dig up the squashed stuff, you won’t be able to work through it and come out the other side. This “work” looks like intentionally transforming the negative bias into positive thinking, and it’s magical when you apply it to your life.
As you dig into dream analysis, you’ll reap the benefits of self-awareness, which brings its own benefits to the party.
You’ll have more empathy toward yourself & others, be more emotionally resilient (go through a divorce, a job loss, a loved one’s death without losing your entire grounding or emotional balance), and have a deeper connection with yourself and others.
All while revealing more of who you are and what you want. And that frees you from being a puppet on strings pulled by your subconscious.
Dream analysis helps you recognize unhealthy patterns and thoughts that don’t serve you and break the bondage they have on you.
Self-awareness through dream interpretation helps you better articulate what you need. When you know yourself better, you know better what you need, and you are empowered to find the way to self-supply these needs (something like, “now that’s freedom!” Or “Now that’s what we call independence!”)
According to a study by James Pennebaker, active self-reflection, especially through journaling your innermost thoughts, allows you to discover needs that you weren’t conscious of and address those needs yourself, rather than waiting for someone else to come along and tend to those needs for you.
5 STEPS TO DIY DREAM INTERPRETATION
Your dream work needs to be intentional. You have to train yourself to recall your dreams. Thinking them through and recording your dreams is crucial.
Use these steps to DIY your dream analysis to uncover what your dreams are telling you.
1. Set an intention to recall your dreams — If you’re new to dream interpretation, you’ll 1st have to train yourself to remember your dreams. Before you drift off to sleep, repeat, “I will remember my dreams.” Once you begin to do this regularly, you’ll be surprised how quickly and frequently you begin to recall your dreams.
2. Wake & remember — Spend a minute, just as you wake up, remembering your dream. Keep your eyes closed, breathe deeply, and think about any images, feelings, and sensations from your dream.
3. Record your dream — Use a dream journal or an app on your phone. Keep it by your bed to record your dream before you get out of bed. This is where the dream analysis bus gets going. As you record your dream ask yourself these questions:
Where am I in the dream?
What’s happening?
What is the central theme of the dream? (To help yourself distill this theme, try giving it a title like it was a movie)
How do I feel about the dream?
Which dream elements relate to my waking life?
**Wakefully is a dream analysis app that allows you to record your dreams by
Voice or text & provides AI personalized feedback to help you analyze your dream.**
4. Pay attention to recurring dreams — Notice recurring dream patterns and themes. What’s your subconscious mind telling you through the stories of your dreams? And what are you missing in life that results in continuing to experience the same type of dream?
5. Apply your analysis to your waking life — Dream analysis isn’t just about recording and thinking about your dreams. It’s about applying it to your life. What can you learn? What changes do you need to make? Which deep-rooted emotions or needs are you now aware of that you can work through?
HOW IS DREAM ANALYSIS USED IN THERAPY?
Dream analysis can be used in therapy in several ways. Let’s address therapy where insight and greater self-awareness is the primary goal. To help you gain more insight about yourself, your therapist may focus on unconscious unresolved conflicts or emotions that you need to deal with.
And dream analysis is a powerful tool in uncovering thoughts and emotions buried in your subconscious.
Your therapist might encourage you to keep a dream journal and bring the journal to your therapy sessions. Your therapist might ask you to read 1 or 2 dreams.
Once you share your dreams, your therapist will probably ask how you feel about those dreams and ask follow-up questions based on your answers.
Your therapist may then ask you how those dreams and feelings may relate to something going on in your life. As you do this work in therapy, you’ll gain insight into yourself. More insight leads to more self-awareness.
And self-awareness is your key to emotional freedom.
Read that again.
Utilizing dream analysis in therapy can enhance the process of gaining more insight into yourself.
LEAN IN — WHAT ARE YOUR DREAMS TELLING YOU?
Dream interpretation cleans the foggy window to your subconscious mind.
And once you clean that window, you’re able to clearly see and deal with thoughts and emotions that were tucked away but still affecting your daily life.
Remember, your dreams are stories that have meaning woven into them.
Dream analysis is an intentional step to infuse mindfulness into your daily life and increase self-awareness.
Finding out what your dreams are telling you can enrich your life, help you reach goals, and unlock your true potential.
Wakefully’s dream analysis app serves as your journal, your dream coach, and your personalized guide to uncovering the meanings of your dreams.