How to Decipher Dreams

For a very long time humans have tried to find meaning in dreams. Why did we dream? Did they have any meanings? Were they prophetic? Are they truly just random?

Although there is still no scientific known reason for why we dream, there are still others out there through out history that have their own opinions on the matter. In some places in ancient times they believed that dreaming was how you connected to the unliving realm. And that it was possible to receive messages from Gods or dead ones. Also in those times some humans believed that you could predict the future in your sleep, and this is even mentioned in the Christian bible. There were even those who believed that dreams brought you to an alternate plane of existence.

Out of all the people who have researched more into the theory of dreams, Sigmund Freud is the most well known. He is an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud even published a book with his findings. He argued that our dreams were nothing more than more than wishes we wanted to have in our waking lives. Also that there are dreams that are unacceptable, that we can't admit to ourselves, these that are suppressed by our awake minds.

When we fall asleep we eventually come to the REM state, known as rapid eye movement or deep sleep, in this state not all of our brain is awake. There are certain parts that take this time to rest. Because of this many believe that this is how the subconscious part is able to come out.

The best first step to figuring out what your dream could mean, is to have a journal next to your bed to document. When we wake up from sleep we soon tend to forget what we had just dreamed. So as soon as you wake up it would be good to jot down all you can remember, in detail. After you finish writing it all down, read it. Read it a few times and see if you can see any big themes or important details.

What did you hear? What other senses did you notice? A smell? A taste maybe? Some of these things might have importance to deciphering a dream. Have you had reoccurring dreams? Did you see an animal? What was your emotion? Its best to write these down as well. Ask yourself questions that you think will help.

Now almost all of us had the dream were all of our teeth fall out, which is supposed to symbolize stress. Or giving a speech in only your underwear. Because some dreams are related to current emotions and things you may be going through , its also good to think about what's been going on through out your day to day life. These things can also merge their way into your sleep.

To show one easier example of deciphering a dream, I'll use one of mine. I used to have a reoccurring dream that I was back in High school. Sometimes it was a place that didn't even look like where I actually went to in real life. Each time I would not remember my class schedule or I wouldn't have done any of the homework. I would be so frantic. It didn't matter if I searched my bag for these things or not. Either I wouldn't have it or my bookbag would be in a locker that I couldn't remember where it was or what the commination was. I would wake up and be relieved that I realize that I had already graduated and didn't have to deal with it anymore. But it annoyed me that they kept happening. Why was I dreaming of such things? Can you take a guess?

At first I thought it was because I had been considering going to college and my brain was trying to tell me I needed to start trying. However I started looking more into it and realized it was something else. At the time, I had been stressed out over lots of things day to day. My way of dealing with stress was to avoid it or to not thing about it. So in my sleep my brain was putting me through stressful situations to try to make me realize this and probably because my brain was using this opportunity to try to properly process and work through the stress.

If we avoid things and don't confront them our brain has a way to figure out how to file it (so to speak). For instance, another set of dreams I had a lot was being in car accidents or dying in other ways relating to a car. This happened after I was in a bad car wreck. After talking to my therapist, I realized that the incident was so traumatic and my mind didn't know how to deal with it. So it tried to repeat it in dreams to do that.

Now not all dreams are related to emotions or certain incidents like that, but those were just some examples of possible things. It is true that not all dreams can have meanings, sometimes you have dreams related to something you were thinking about before bed or a movie you had watched in the evening.

If you have animals or numbers appear, they can have different meanings. A particular animal may have an important significance to you or even a number can be related to something that has meaning to only you. However if you believe in the more spiritual side of it, they can have deep meanings. For instance, there are those who think seeing a rabbit in your dream can mean good luck. For the numbers, some spiritual people will look up the angel number meaning.

A good website to find more meanings from symbols you may have come across in your dreams is (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/b.htm). And if you want meanings to numbers, the best thing to do is to type it into google and put 'angel number meaning' beside it!

Aside from symbols there are situations within dreams that can have different meanings. For example, if you dream of a disaster this can indicate fears, anxieties, or feeling as if something is out of your control. Or how dreaming about being trapped can show that your voice isn't being heard or you're not being understood.

There is a oracle card deck, called Dream decoder (by Theresa Cheung and Harriet Lee-Merrion) that each card has a type of dream like shopping or seeing parent, and ect. And with those cards the meaning as to why is listed as well. Its a very nice formative deck, that is helpful even if you don't use them as oracle cards.

Some examples of the cards are;

1) Seeing an actor/ Celebrity means that this person may represent some aspect of yourself you need to acknowledge or can indicate a want for greater attention and success.

2) Death/ Dying is a sign of change, like sheading the past and moving forward.

3) Being chased can mean that you are hiding your painful feelings or away from a responsibility. You may be avoiding an issue.

Or if you would rather have something more accessible there are a couple of websites online with meanings. Like (https://journeyintodreams.com/dream-dictionary/) and (https://luciddreamsociety.com/top-dream-interpretations/).

If you are more spiritual or a witch like me, there are dreams that pertain to your craft or help you with things relating to it. Spirit guides, Deities, or ancestors can come to you in dreams or even just give you messages. If yours are anything like mine, they love presenting it in an odd way. For an example, I'll use a dream that I had many nights ago. I was a woman living in the middle of an apocalypse. However in this end of the world life, there weren't zombies, but demons. These demons would take possession of a body, feeding on it's negative energy, and turn a human into this hideous monster. But the face of the human person remained somewhere in the mix. In this dream I was a protector, I had a staff and I used it to cleanse areas, and to destroy the demons. I protected a group of fellow humans and one day I heard a man yelling outside. I was cautious, but went to help him. He was carrying a large chain in his hand and following behind him was a child that had been possessed. I was horrified. He begged for my help. I almost refused because I had no idea if I could help her, but I wanted to try. I managed to purify her and they stayed with our group. What does all of this mean? Well simply it meant I needed to cleanse my space and keep doing protection work to keep negative energy out of my space. But I thought that was a funny way for them to let me know. I figured they would have just popped in and been like , "Hey cleanse your space" , not give me some weird dream. But that's how some communicate.

Once you find all these meanings write them all down and try to find the message of the whole dream! If things still seem to complex even after finding all the meanings and relating it to your current life, I would suggest telling a friend or someone you trust to guess what they think it means. They can bring something to attention that maybe you didn't think of!