What Do Your Dreams Really Mean?

What Do Your Dreams Really Mean?

You may read dream books that interpret your dreams and give you a key from which to understand the symbols of the events that show up during the night. I am going to ask you to think beyond. What do these images mean to YOU?

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If you dream about a snake, is it necessarily a phallic symbol, or could it mean something else? What do snakes mean to you? Probably they have several meanings that might change given a particular situation.

In some cultures snakes denote wisdom. To you it might mean ‘temptation’. Maybe, you have decided to go on a diet, for example, and that night someone offered you ice cream. You may have felt ‘tempted’, and dreamt about snakes.

Slithering snakes evoke distrust…if that is how you think about snakes.

Picture a snake in a basket, dancing to the music of a piper. You may find the image as sexy as a woman doing an exotic dance. From this you might dream about a beautiful woman because you saw a snake. Of course, you may also feel tempted (in a good way or bad) or mistrustful of a situation and dream about such an image.

On the other hand, if you are afraid of snakes and feel threatened by them, [as if it might bite you or choke you], your dreams might reflect those emotions of fear, but with different imagery. What else are you afraid of? Your dream could be about a dog bite, or being mugged by a stranger, because that image fits your life better or seems more realistic within your context. In fact, it has to do with the experience of feeling uncomfortable around a snake.

What if you really love snakes, but dream that you are surrounded in a snake pit? It might mean you are feeling overwhelmed by something, or perhaps a group of people are ganging up on you, or perhaps you are just ‘in the pits”, or down in the dumps.

The point is, ask yourself what a particular image means to you. Begin by keeping a journal of your dreams and compiling a list of symbols. Eventually you will notice a pattern of symbols/picture and images from which you can create symbol ‘key’ or your own explanations that express your belief systems.

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Only you know what happened yesterday, and how you really feel about it. Many dreams are known as ‘clearance’ dreams. They reflect our day or events of the week, and summarize them with apparently unusual and seemingly bizarre images.

Every person dreams several times per night. Some of us remember our dreams better than others. Keep either a pad of paper and a pen by your bed, a book light, or a small tape recorder. If you want to remember your dreams, tell yourself before you got to bed, that you will wake up and record your dreams. Maybe you will, or maybe you will require repeated attempts. Do not be discouraged. It is a process.