a thought about dreams

[poetic]

I have pretty much decided that the only person who can really understand dreams is the dreamer themselves. Other people (especially here at MW) can be very helpful in giving you food for thought, but in the end it has to be you. Only you know what you are thinking in the deeper, darker corners of your mind.

Here is a really, really lame example:
I had a dream about four days ago that my Gram bought two cars, one for me and one for my sister (in my head: wow. does Gram realize I am a terrible driver?). One was a four-wheel drive going-up-Mount-Everst-to-save-a-Sherpa-in-a-blizzard-type car. The other was some zippy convertable thingy gummy. Gram was going to assign (bad word, but can't think of a better term) one car to me and one car to my sister.

My mom's thought: Um. You are so not getting a new car. You are a terrible driver.

My thought: I think it means I'm torn between being all redneck-ish with cows and horses and mud and junk and going to operas and coffee shops in some yuppie town. I go for the two extremes and have been thinking about life, what I want, yada yada. I either want to live in the boondocks with Betsey the cow or NYC with some yappy little rat dog.

Sorry I'm just kind of rambling on and on and on. :ggrief:

[mucgwyrt]

You;re totally right.
However some people (like me) have incredibley bizarre dreams (incredibley incredibley), and it can take up to 6 months for me to work out what it was relevant to. Help from MWers speeds up the process immensly, its like "wow, you're right, that totally applies to my life and I never realised".

Also, some imagery can be traced back to the collective-unconscious (the source for all the dream dictionaries) and so other people can infact help here.

[Akira Khalada]

I have found that the people who are close to me can say hey have you thought about this or that and because they know who I am and what I am like they usualy hit the meanings right on the head and I am like oh ya that totaly makes sence now.

[Raihn]

You are right, Poetic! Some dreams are very personal and can only really be truly understood by the dreamer...though, as Macha stated, (and by the way, Macha really does have some incredibly peculiar dreams ;)) some visions are difficult to uncover the meaning alone.

Dreams are incredibly unpredictable. In fact, the only truly predictable aspect about them is that they are unpredictable! But many symbols have many meanings...and not everyone has the gift of completely understanding them. Though, you must know yourself in at least some way to be able to perceive what specific symbols in dreams may be relevant to you on a personal level. But often, people need a little guidance when things are very bizarre. It’s a little like how a novelist may proofread and proofread their written book and then, once satisfied, hand it over to an editor…only to have the editor discover several seemingly obvious grammatical errors. Some aspects of personal experiences are blind to us and we need the help of others to step us through to see the whole picture.

It is as thought we require other people in order to truly understand ourselves personally.

[poetic]

I get that about sometimes close friends/family or MWers really know what they are talking about. I guess it kind of depends on the dream, whether you are in "denial" or just can't figure it out that someone can point you in the right direction (or hit the nail on the head).

[Mnemosyne]

I completely agree with you, Poetic. I think that dreams are a great way to understand our own subconscious, a way to get to know ourselves better. If someone keeps on suggesting to you what your thoughts may mean, will you be able to get to know yourself as well as possible? Sometimes if you are stuck, it's nice to get an opinon on what the dream may mean. Also, someone else may give you a new way to look at symbols.

[Shanti]

I agree 100%

[RelicRavenEye]

I agree that the dreamer is really the only one who can truly know their dream. For instance...if two people dream of a snake, it can be two totally diffrent things. I love snakes, and have had a couple of pet snakes. But if someone was once bitten by a snake and nearly died the snake will have two totally diffrent meaning for us.

On the flipside, I think some people are natrually good at dream interpretation. I don't on the otherhand think dream books are very good. There is actually very few universal archetypes, which is what most dream dictionaries are based on.