The dream, is a psychic act in its own right; its driving force is, in all cases, an unfulfilled wish. The fact that it is unrecognizable as desire is due to the psychic censorship it had to endure in its formation.
The dream replaces a number of thoughts that come from our daytime life and have a perfect logical assembly. Most likely, these thoughts originate during the day, go unnoticed by our consciousness, continue to be elaborated and are ready when it is time to fall asleep.
From the cognitive-behavioral point of view, dreams are mental products that occur during rest or sleep, this being a necessary psychobiological function to recover from physical and mental activity.
It would be interesting to keep a dream diary to relate it to everything that happened during the day, with our current and past thoughts, desires and experiences.
Both in psychoanalysis and in cognitive behavioral therapies, dreams have been of crucial importance. It is also known that there are people who remember their dreams in great detail and others who do not remember having dreamed or know that they dreamed but do not know what.
What do you need to know the meaning of dreams?
- Remember your dream
- Remember your experiences and desires
Instructions to know the meaning of dreams
- During sleep our mind is still active, reproducing the world and our behavior in it using the same resources as in the waking state such as images, sensations, words and emotions, although in the midst of a destructuring and lack of meaning. Many authors have agreed that dreams have meaning and meaning, that this meaning is something that must be brought to light because it is hidden in the person, giving meaning to both the language and the images of the dream. This would imply a manifest sense that is what is dreamed and a latent sense that is its meaning. Other authors, like Hobson, consider that they have no value or meaning that they are disposable products of our mind.
- Seligman considers that dreams are chaotic but since chaos is not admissible by the brain, he himself begins to give it an order and reorganize it to give it meaning, that is to say that for him the interpretation of dreams is an attempt to make sense of a set of visual and emotional sensations in order to bring them to a coherent story.
- Whatever the perspective of the author who tries to write about dreams and their meaning, we are all intrigued and would like to know what relationship the dream has, especially when it is very clear, with reality, with the future or even with the past itself. It is very common to hear people say “I do not dream”, perhaps they do not remember having dreamed, it is also common to have long and orderly dreams as part of a movie, small and clear dreams, faces that change from one person to another, places that are determined at first and then become different ones. There are people who have recurring dreams like “flying” or finding money, etc. The remembered dreams can be pleasant or they can be ugly, commonly called nightmares,
- Some try to find the answer to their questions through sleep, which requires mental preparation to try it and the help of an expert. They try to answer questions about their future, life as a couple, money, etc.
- The meaning of dreams and their symbolic representation. The symbols are found in the collective unconscious of humanity, for this reason this interpretation of dreams is based on the history and symbology of the images of the fragments that we remember after dreaming.
- There is also great diversity in the interpretation of recurring or very notorious dreams due to the threading and congruence they have:
- Dreaming of horses: If we dream that we are galloping fast and the sensation is pleasant, it means that we are doing things well in our lives, if we see a horse go by and it scares us, perhaps because it runs very close or it is a wild horse, it means that something we worry too much, there is a problem that we cannot solve or that we are not clear about.
- Dreaming of money: obviously means prosperity, progress, success and well-being, not only material but everything that can give us a better quality of life. If money is around us it can be a good omen but if we dream that we find money when we were desperately looking for it, it means that we are going through a difficult economic situation, we are anguished because money is simply not enough. It does not imply a good omen but a state.
- Dreaming of a wedding: means that we are ready to get married at some point, that we are not against weddings, neither for ourselves nor for others.
- Dreaming of flying: If we dream that we are flying and we are not afraid, it means good omens for your life, that you want to have a different and successful life. It means that you are above problems, that you can overcome everything.
- Dreaming of stairs: Stairs symbolize the achievements of our life, whether on a professional, social or sentimental level. If we go up the stairs means success in the projects due to our effort, going down them indicates to be careful of losing the effort to achieve it, it is like a warning and falling down the stairs means great disappointment, it could be someone’s infidelity or betrayal. This dream can be repeated when the event has already occurred and disappear when it is overcome.
Tips to know the meaning of dreams
- If you want to remember your dream you must propose it before you sleep.
- You can also stay for a moment with your eyes closed and relaxed when you wake up to be able to remember. It is more difficult to remember a dream if you wake up quickly thinking about the activities that await you during the day.
- Write down each awakening how little you remember, so you will be able to remember more and more.