Analyzing Your Dreams

A few months back, I was having some really weird dreams which was no surprise considering the weird and tumultuous things going on in my life at the time. At the time, I was working with a fellow occupational therapist and friend of mind named Sindy who is by nature, a really spiritual kind of person. She always seems to be so in touch with herself and the spiritual aspects of the world and I'm always in awe to the advice she gives me.

Anyway, she advised me to analyze my dreams using a method she found helpful and she even helped me through the first dream. This is her method:

She said that first, you list out all the parts of the dream that pop out in your head. Then, you go back to the top of your list, and write the first impression you get when you see the parts you wrote about. For example, one of my dreams had a cougar in it, and I took it to mean “something I fear, and an attacker” since the cougar did attack me several times. Then when you’ve gone through the whole list and you’ve got all the impressions down, you find a common thread and try to put it together into a meaningful story – something that makes sense about what might be going on in your life at the time.

An example of this is:

I had a dream about my old boss calling at 7am to find out why I wasn't at work yet. She discussed her job and pregnancy, mentioned that Brittany Spears was being admitted to our facility (a nursing home), meanwhile my house suddenly filled up with people and I couldn’t hear her so I went outside. She asked me why I hadn’t left for work yet. Somewhere in this dream I was given a cute little antique desk. Weird.

I listed out the parts of the dream that I could remember: boss calling me on the phone, early hour, talking about her job, pregnancy, Britney Spears being admitted to the hospital, people in my house, leavning the house so I could hear on the phone, antique desk.

Then I start writing out associated thoughts such as

boss = authority figure
calling me on phone = unusual
why was I late = none of her business

Then when all that is done, you start going back and looking at all of the associated thoughts until a little story starts to come out and you can put it all together. This dream actually ended up meaning to me that all sorts of people & things were pulling me in too many directions leaving me offended & confused; not meeting certain people's expectations even if I felt like I was in the right place. It came to me that having a safe place to go when I'm feeling bombarded is a very important thing for me.

Anyway, a friend thought this stuff might be interesting so I thought I'd post it. I hope it's helpful for anyone out there trying to figure out what crazy dreams mean!