Attitudes About Dream Meanings

Research has shown that people often report their dreams as meaningless but with further inquiry, they report that their own dreams do in fact have meaning. Interestingly, people often report that their dreams are meaningful in terms of their own health, the health of loved ones, relationships, and career. A study by Hsiu-Lan, Chia-Huei and Chen (2006) explored attitudes toward dreams and dream interpretation. One main finding was that initial attitudes toward dreams did not influence perceived gains from dream sessions via interpretation. How might this information aid clinicians when working with people and their dreams?

5 Reasons To Practice Dream Interpretation: Reason 4

From Donatella's last comments (in Reason 3) comes the next big reason to practice dream interpretation. She states in her comments:

Our intuitive, more secret and intimate parts, know before the other parts, those that are more “worldly”, and they ask us to intervene.

Donatella's comment brings us to the notion that dreams contain information that are greater than our own conscious mind can know. While we sleep, it is known that we continue to process information and to "learn" new information from what we have acquired. For example, if we learn A, B, and C, then while we sleep, the mind can make connections between them and all and come up with new information such as, A, B and C can be =Z! This new information (e.g. Z) lies within us and in the conscious mind, we may not know it.

The information that is "intuitive, more secret, and intimate" includes all the information that has ever been experienced by a dreamer; every person ever met, every book ever read, every stranger ever encountered, every emotion ever felt. During sleep time, the mind can assimilate, reorganize and more importantly, access this information at a level that the conscious mind simply cannot do.

The fourth reason to practice dream interpretation is to access this information that is at a level that cannot be accessed otherwise. To not do so, is to miss out on the intuitive and intimate parts of the self that are speaking out and asking for action to be taken.

5 Reasons To Practice (and Teach) Dream Interpretation: Reason 1

Research and practice have given us many concrete reasons to implement personal dream interpretation programs, and, to teach these in our practices. The first important reason is that dream interpretation can aid in the process of exploring emotions. The inner world of emotions can often be confusing and bewildering. Emotional lives can be embedded with layers and layers of complex emotional elements. For example, one can be very angry at someone and yet very drawn to that person as well. One can suddenly feel sad and anxious without knowing how or why this is occurring. Similarly, layers of guilt, sadness, relief and excitement can all exist at the same time. Disentangling emotions is often a difficult process and this is where dream interpretation can be of great benefit. Once the underlying emotions are teased-out and recognized then appropriate action can be taken in waking day. This action will then be based on a more conscious experience than mere reaction. Dream interpretation programs, especially those that involve more than one technique, can help reveal the layers of emotions playing into a waking day issue.

A woman recently began dream interpretation as part of her therapy program since she was experiencing disturbing, negative imagery. She was recently diagnosed with kidney problems and entered therapy because she wanted to have a more balanced mind-body approach to her heath. With her first interpretation technique she discovered that her recent health issues were triggering pain and guilt for having given her infant daughter up for adoption 30 years previous. These feelings were buried deep in her unconscious mind and were only recently coming to the surface while sleeping. With further exploration she was able to tap into the feelings of unworthiness, which was paired with feeling she had no right to recover from her health problems. She began to explore these complex, entwined emotions consciously with dream interpretation. Still further, she was able to come to terms with her remorse, sadness, and acceptance of her life decisions, and where they had taken her.

Dream interpretation is a courageous practice of self-discovery and especially, of the complex emotions that contribute to the human experience. Though it can be difficult, dream work can enrich one's life and contribute to a more conscious, emotional experience of life.