What's In A Dream, Anyway?

By Mary Brill

Mary Brill, LCSW, is an experienced psychotherapist who leads national and international seminars and tours focused on personal growth, dreams, feminine wisdom and spirituality.
© 2003 by Mary Brill.

I stop at my upstairs bathroom and push open the door that stands ajar. I notice that the room is completely white and that the sink is covered with crimson blood. The blood is spilled on the counter top as well and dripping down the cabinet. I have a sick feeling in my stomach as I growl, in a voice that only I can hear, "Now who did this... just another mess for me to clean up!" I startle awake, same sick feeling in my gut on awakening as I had in the dream. Sleepily I pick up my dream journal and begin to record the dream as I have done so many other mornings.

The study of dream interpretation has fascinated me from a young age. I've learned from personal experience that dreams hold the inherent riches of our Deep Psyche. The practice of dream work can reveal a wonderful intuitive map to use in healing our past, opening to greater creativity, or as a guide to living life. Dreams can hold our greatest potential for knowing ourselves.

As my opening dream reveals, dreams frequently are difficult or confusing to understand. We may describe a dream like this as a nightmare. It is quite common to look for simple explanations to minimize our experiences. Most dreams are presented to us in "Dream Language," a combination of metaphor or symbology. Studying books on dream symbols and interpretation can be a helpful way to begin to understand a dream but the real understanding of a dream comes from learning what the dream images represent for you personally. This can only come with practice and learning your personal style of dream language from your own inner wisdom.

When working with your own dreams, it's a good idea to have a simple bound notebook at your bedside to record your dreams upon waking. Recording the dreams as soon as possible will help you to retain the most information.

Begin by recording answers to the following:

1. When did I have the dream and what was going on in my life at the time.
2. What stands out to me in the dream, what characters, images, feelings, etc.
3. What associations do I personally make to those things that stand out to me. (Note that how you feel about an image is often completely different than how someone else feels. Thus, dream dictionaries are only minimally helpful.)
4. What feelings did you experience during the dream and upon waking.

Now, let's go back to the opening dream. Using the above steps my answers would be as follows:

1.  I had the dream at a time in my life when things seemed to be going smoothly, nothing really felt out of place. A follow-up question might be, "Why would my psyche present this dream to me now?"

2.  The bathroom that I dreamed about is not actually white so, an all white bathroom with fresh blood spilled all over definitely stood out to me! From an intellectual standpoint, fresh blood simply meant "life" to me. But the visceral feeling that came both in the dream and after it was alarming and the words kept echoing in my head "spilled blood."

2a. The fact that I startled awake was another aspect of the dream that stood out to me. Dreams that "shake" us awake are the Psyche's way of getting our attention. They're telling us, "don't miss this".

3.  My association to spilled blood felt like a warning, danger afoot. Was my health at risk? Was there another mess in my life that needed cleaning up? These answers were not readily available to me but they were a great beginning for paying closer attention to my life.

It's important to note that dreams often need to be worked with for a period of time to uncover all the layers of meaning that they can reveal to us. Revise your journal over time for deeper exploration.

Here are more ways to gain more insight into a dream:

1. Share it with others and get their feedback.
2. Draw some of the images that stand out to you. It often reveals more of the dream's meaning to you.
3. Write a story about the dream or at least write the ending.
4. Meditate on the images or the characters for deeper understanding.
5. Track your dreams over time to notice the synchronicities or repetitive aspects of the events and images. This can be used to "map" the information for use as a guide for life direction or problem resolution.

To use the above steps to increase my understanding of the dream, I would begin to play with some of the images in the following way. Since crimson is such a vibrant invitation to exploration, perhaps I would choose to use a crimson crayon, oil pastel, or marker to further my study on a stark sheet of white drawing paper. You don't need to be an artist to do this, simply putting the color on the paper would stir more thoughts or ideas in you.

In addition, I'd share the dream with at least one other person who had a similar interest or understanding of dreams. Since the unconscious can bring us vulnerable or provocative information, you want to discuss it with someone who can give you genuine feedback and not make light of your investigation. If you don't currently have someone like that in your life, attend a lecture on dreams or join a dream group to meet new people with your similar interest in the material.

Next, I may take myself back into the dream in a meditative way simply by closing my eyes, taking a few deep "letting go" breaths and recalling the images that stood out. What are my feelings and reactions now? Does my imagination add anything else? If so, this is fruit for more exploration!

Each effort that you make at working with your dream will bring you fresh insights and may even produce another dream in the same way that a TV. show has another episode that furthers the story. Studying your dreams in this way can increase your life's pleasure making it fuller and richer, it can be used as a helpful tool to problem solving, and it may even increase your ability to create those things you desire in life!