It should go without saying how important it is that each individual understand his dreams.  Dreams relate important information about ourselves and about others which escaped our normal awareness.  They also relate information that will lead us to realize our fullest potential.  Without dreams, these truths would simply remain unknown.

This section will teach any willing individual how to interpret dreams.  If you follow the steps and make an effort to apply them, you will be able to interpret your dreams and those of your friends accurately.  The best way to convince others that dream interpretation is real and possible, is to interpret a dream of theirs then smile at their looks of spook and amazement.  To that end, the prerequisite for dream interpretation is that you decide here and now that your imagination is valid, a factor that will prove crucial in your capacity to grasp the following concepts.

Imagination, emotion, and dreams are all part our original means of communicating, before we were taught our human languages.  Language comes from outer sources -- dreams, from what is beyond and what is within.  It is a little known fact that most of the concepts we see in dreams mean the same thing in the next person's dreams.  What is changing from dreamer to dreamer, is the arrangement of the concepts (what most would call the 'chaotic' and 'random' aspect of dreaming), and the impression/impact.  Because dream images are patternistic in this way, dream interpretation is possible.

The human brain is just as capable of decoding latent content (like a dream) as well as it does explicit content.  What makes latent content challenging, is our stubborn preference that latent content behave more like explicit content.  If I leave my purse on the desk at work and walk away, it ought to mean 'my purse was taken by someone' if I return and see it missing.  It cannot mean that neglect of my inner value has caused me to lose touch with my own identity, a latent interpretation of the data.  --Not because it doesn't, but because I am not used to valuing deductions arrived at introspectively.

I will say again, it is not hard to uncover the latent meaning in any object (like a dream).  It means its usage; it means its relation to the subject; it means what it means.  Purses belong one to an individual.  Purses contain value, value that the individual carries every where they go.  A purse, then, represent's perfectly an individual's identity: an identity is owned by one individual, valued and carried by them every where they go.  Socrates once said the key to dream interpretation, is noticing such similarities.

But how did it come about, that the individual and 'their purse' were separated?  What caused the separation?  Judging by the arrangement of sequences, it was caused by the act of walking away.  The individual literally 'turned their back on'/'abandoned'/'walked away from' 'the purse'.  So when such a sequence transpires in a friend's dream (and the friend is convinced it means her purse will get stolen at work), you can reply, no, it is more likely that your workplace makes you feel as if you are abandoning your true identity.  She'll hand you a shaky five dollars.

Now, let's give you a detailed course on dream interpretation.


I: Shift to Neutral

First you will have to step out of your normal way of thinking and look at the dream from a neutral perspective.  This step is not particularly pleasant because it will raise unflattering issues, but it must be done.  The way you think is what causes discarded and unperceived information to all rake together into a dream in the first place, so it is incapable of interpreting its own dreams.  Your ego both harms the ability to interpret dreams and to recall them (see Dream Recall).

You may then ask, how am I suppose to be anything but myself?  Another virtually unknown truth, is that each person is actually composed of several aspects.  You have simply developed a preference for some of your traits, villainized others, and left some suppressed or undiscovered.  The preferred ones are your ego.  It is wholly alterable.

Here are some techniques, to get you out of your ego for the purposes of proper dream interpretation:

1.) Ask yourself, if you were someone else, would you be friends with you?

2.) Think to yourself what qualities a celebrity or historical figure constitutes.  Imagine these qualities solidified as a breast plate, with a symbol of the celebrity engraved in it.  Put on the breast plate in your mind.  How is your current, unadorned mentality different from this mentality?

When you can shift comfortably out of your ego, begin step two.



II: See the Trees to See the Forest

The second step is to take each and every string of the written/recorded dream and interpret them in order.  Dreams cannot be interpreted at a glance.  An interpretation is a summary of the bigger picture.  The bigger picture cannot be arrived at until one knows *what forms* the bigger picture.

Take each object and action, and list the implications of each element. The more meticulous you are interpreting the small segments, the better your final, overall interpretation will be. 

For this step, list the objects (even if you don't honestly understand what they mean) below the dream with an equal sign.  Because of the latent content within an equal sign, you should feel a boost in your ability to interpret the object or action.  For example,

"I dreamt Michael Jackson was alive again!  He was telling jokes and acting goofy on stage.  I felt embarrassed for him, but happy to see him."

An interpretation at a glance would say:
    You must like funny personalities in secret.  Or maybe you could use some fun and goofiness in your life.

It is unlikely the person will have a deep-felt revelation from such an interpretation.  If we use our meticulous approach on the other hand, dissecting everything we can think of:

    Michael Jackson = lively talent, exuberant living, legendary singer, sometimes weird
    alive again = not dead but alive, re-awakened
    doing goofy stuff = awkward, embarrassing moves
    on stage = on the spot, everyone's looking at you

And now we interpret:
    It sounds like you would feel a new awakening, if you allowed the side of yourself you find awkward and embarrassing to be exhibited in full view.  The dream suggests this side of you is what makes you truly extraordinary, perhaps even legendary.

Our detail-oriented interpretation is much more likely to be accurate and deeply felt by the individual.



III: Follow the Course

The third step is to see causes, relationships, consequences, qualifiers, etc.  It can be difficult to tell where the second step ends and the third one begins, because you will be braiding the two steps together throughout your analysis.  Dreams have a way of telling us which direction to look, for seeing certain sequences as consequential, and certain concepts as related. 

Firstly, let's begin to recognize sequence breaks.  Sequence breaks mean a thought has led to a consequence or a new development of some kind.  Again, get away from the idea that dreams are random and chaotic and instead see how symbolic concepts lead to the next set of symbolic concepts.

"I told my father the library is probably closed.  The next thing I know, I'm in a dark room."

The sequence break here is 'the next thing I know'.  Others include "then", "after that", and "all of a sudden".  Once you recognize your sequence break, interpret each object then ask yourself how they lead into the next sequence.  In this example, "I told my father the library was closed" would lead to being "in a dark room" as a cause or consequence.

Another thing present in this example is a relationship: father to child.  Take note of the dreamer's position in a relationship.  Relationships often hint at what the *appropriate* response of the dreamer should be, which helps us interpret what actually occurs.

And so,

"I told my father the library is probably closed.  The next thing I know, I'm in a dark room."

    telling someone something = making feelings known
    father = close loved one that provides for the dreamer
    library = a place you go to learn
    closed = not open, no learning taking place

    dark = unawareness, "in the dark"
    room = in some contained space rather than an open space

A good interpreter would respond:
    It sounds like you are refusing to learn from something or someone. The result is that you remain in the dark, or uninformed due to a closed mentality.

This is how you know your interpretation is right: your interpretation makes sense with the natural flow of the dream's syntax.



IV: Get a Dream Interpreter to Double-Check Your Interpretation

To become an accurate dream interpreter yourself, you must double-check your work against the findings of an individual who has seen thousands of dreams.  Some elements of the dreamscape can only be gleaned after looking at many instances where a symbol occurs.  Symbols, as was stated, mean the same thing in different people's dreams, but the meaning was arrived at by *averaging* the occurrence of the symbol. 

A good analogy would be about rocks.  By weighing 100 rocks we may come to discover that the average weight is 10 kilograms, but no one rock actually weighs 10 kilograms exactly.  Without the information from your fellow dreamers (which dream interpreters should keep some catalogue of), it's difficult to gauge how close your interpretation is to the bullseye. 

Here at Something Spoke, it is easy and cheap to get your dreams checked by an interpreter (see the Services page).  Another good option is Lifetreks.com.  If you cannot get ahold of a dream interpreter, the second best thing is to check your interpretation against a dream dictionary.  I endorse the online resource www.dreammoods.com, which contains good definitions overall.  But like any dictionary, it cannot help you uncover the dream's syntax, which can change the meaning of a symbol dramatically.

Dream interpreters can pinpoint more accurately what a symbol means because of their experience.  For example, in the last dream:

"I told my father the library is probably closed.  The next thing I know, I'm in a dark room."

You responded,
    It sounds like you are refusing to learn from something or someone. The result is that you remain in the dark, or uninformed due to a closed mentality.

The dreamer should definitely have an inkling what this refers to, but a dream interpreter would comment about the father:
    Fathers have a figurative sense in dreams, embodying the potential story ahead, the unknown, the future possibility.  One's mother constitutes the opposite: what one knows, accepts and feels grounded by.

Now the interpretation is more enhanced:
    It sounds like you are refusing to learn and accept information *related to unknown future possibilities*. The result is that you remain in the dark, or uninformed due to a closed mentality.

After consulting a good resource, the concepts are deciphered and complete, and the interpretation will nail the issue on the head.


Following these steps should set you on the noble course, of fully understanding this important aspect of life and of being.  Dreams are not truly difficult to interpret.  In truth you are only rediscovering your original language, not a new one.  It only takes practice to re-familiarize yourself, and in time you will become a very powerful dream interpreter in your own right.