Dreams are an adventure, a door to open, and a flight into the soul. They are the looking glass in which we travel through, experiencing pure subconscious thoughts and feelings. Dreams hold a very special place in the analysis of who we are, how we relate to our life, and what is on our horizon.
The Symbolism of Dreams
Dreams are a bridge between the subconscious and the conscious, which is an essential aspect to understanding ourselves and creating change in our lives.
Your Environment
As a way of beginning to think in a symbolic way, let’s look at a common setting. For example, when you dream about a house or building, it is a metaphoric representation of yourself and the internal information that you are holding.
Are you looking at the front of a house in the dream? The information you’re receiving is about the future. If you’re looking at it from the back, that’s the past. If the dream is about something that is happening in your life currently, you may very well see the house from the side.When you then go inside the house, each of the rooms are associated with different parts of your anatomy. If you go up a center stairway, your dream is pointing to your back or spine. This could have literal meaning (you’re having a medical problem with your back) or a metaphoric one (you feel the need to center and focus your life in some way.)
A dream that takes place in the kitchen in your house is about your stomach, nutrition, and digestion, and how you process things. Again, this can be about a physical condition or a symbolic stand-in for your life in general. Perhaps you are having a hard time “stomaching” a certain situation. A dream that occurs in your bedroom may be about relationships and their dynamics in your life. Other parts of the house point to additional aspects of yourself. Look at details and take away as much as you can.
You may be experiencing a problem or concern with a part of your body – even if you are not completely conscious of it – that will manifest in the “house” that appears in your dream. The roof or the attic of the house represents your mind or brain, the windows your eyes, the bedroom is the reproductive system, and the back door is, well, your backdoor! Bathrooms and sinks are the liver and kidneys. The stove, refrigerator, and washing machine are all symbols of your stomach. Think about a vacuum cleaner and how it takes in air – it’s the lungs. Wiring in the house is your nervous system, the stairs are your spine, and the heating system and fireplace are your circulation.
Pay Attention to Emotions
Along with the symbolism of places, objects and people in our dreams, the emotions you experience in the dream are important to add to the mix. If you can link these feelings to things in your dream, you may be able to see the cause and effect of something going on in your life from the past, the present, or a situation coming up in your future. When you reflect on a dream you had the night before, look for keywords, especially those associated with negative emotions. They come up in both the symbolic dynamics in a dream and the feeling you have in the midst of it.
Deciphering Bizarre Messages
Many of our dreams seem odd and hard to decipher. Sometimes they are strangely hilarious! No matter how peculiar, each dream holds some information tied to your subconscious. How many times have you asked “why did I have that bizarre dream?” If you give it some deep thought and do some research, you may be surprised how obvious the connection to your life reveals itself to be. A man who was the CEO of a company was experiencing a lot of anxiety. He told me he dreamt that he was in a field with two tents. In the dream, he just kept staring at these two tents. I realized that this man’s stress level was far more serious than he was aware of. His psyche was delivering the message that he was “two tents” (too tense) and needed to do something to alleviate that stress.
Universal Dream Analysis
Here are just some of the thousands of universal meanings of things, people, actions, and dynamics that appear in dreams:
- Animals are about your instincts, which include sex, aggression and love. Take note of what type of animal it is and the nature of each – for instance a cuddly bear vs. a grizzly bear!
- If you are dreaming about trains, boat journeys or airports, something is new or about to happen in your life. A departure lounge could represent the project you’re about to embark on, and an arrivals area could be a birth or a new idea you have.
- A narrow road – A narrow state of mind.
- A hairdresser – Changing the way you think.
- A foreign country – Expanding yourself.
- A prison – Repression.
- A football or other sports field – The game of life.
- A war, war scene, or conflict – You’re at war with yourself.
- A courtroom – Self-judgment.
- Dentist – You need to heal your “bite” by letting go of some of your aggression.
- Look for the representation of keywords in your dreams like “avoid” or “blind.” If you take a detour that keeps you from going down some road or into a building in your dream, you are avoiding something in your life. If you’re blind in your dream, you are most likely “blind” to a part of your waking existence.
Dreams are a gateway to who you really are. Your conscious and subconscious come together to create profound, clear, beneficial dreaming. Dreams answer the questions in your life, even the ones that were unknown to you! Continue to explore and experience this great gift of self-awareness and insight, in my book ‘Dreams: Best Messengers‘.
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Get A Grip Series
DREAMS – BEST MESSENGERS
A reflection of the soul and a window to the truth that lies within, dreams no only tell us about ourselves, they can shed light on present situations and conditions you may not be aware of, offer guidance and direction and even foretell future events. DREAMS – BEST MESSENGERS will give you full access to the incredible inner world that dreams offer to us.