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How did you learn to interpret dreams?

I'm impressed by everyone's dream interpretation and reading skills here. I am new to this forum, so I'm just curious for the more experienced folks:
1. What was your motivation to start studying dreams?
2. What resources did you use to learn about dream interpretation?
 
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Helia

Active member
Welcome Cosmodreamer...my guess is: you are a male...am I right?

Good questions: i wanted to understand dreams because of the way I dreamt...very intense and vivid dreams, wich I remember quite good. My dream diary goes by now over 40 years...

That brought me to carl gustav jung and i studied analytical Ps. In switzerland...
But now I am retired ...having even more time to dream and read.
CGJung wrote many books about DREAMS...i especially liked
CHILDREN DREAMS and the vision seminars...big books, need a lot of reading time...
Again...welcome and good dreams🎏
 
Hi @Helia , thank you for the warm welcome!
you are a male...am I right?
You are right!
wanted to understand dreams because of the way I dreamt...very intense and vivid dreams, wich I remember quite good.
Do you remember if it was a specific dream that brought you to studying? Or is it just a curiousity from many dreams?

My dream diary goes by now over 40 years...
My dream recall is very poor, which makes me think a dream journal would have so many fragments and unfinished entries. Do you find that you remember more details about your previous dreams as you continue to write new ones?
 

Helia

Active member
The more your are intetested in dreams the better is the recall...
No it was not a specific dream...just the intensity, the colours and especially hearing a voice...😂
Later on I called THAT the voice of The Self...
In Jungian view is the SELF (THE God image) that were the ego is contained...you might google a bit...
On his house in Kuesnacht above the big entrance door is written in latin and translated here...if you look for god or not...he will be there...
More later🎏
 

Greetings,CosmoDreamer and welcome to the forum.with regard to your question,in my case it was a long process(i have always had vivid dreams and several of my dreams posted on this site predate my finding this forum) i had these intense dreams and what in psychiatry might be termed cognitive dissonance but i never quite grasped the reason for them,until i began to see a psychiatrist who also was proficient in dream analysis. he said that it sounded very much as though some of my dreams were communications from external sources,not just within me. he confirmed for me what i had long suspected. he happened to know a prominent healer. what happened next proved to me beyond all doubt the truth of this. from that point on, i kept a record of many of my dreams and visions. such as conversations in the dream, how did i feel when i awakened from it,colors and symbols sounds and sometimes smells (there have been a few dreams where my sense of smell has been active) feelings, responses to certain situations etc. such as where was that glowing green diamond placed in relation to the entrance to the doorway? and what were the symbols written on those pieces of paper in the room? i learned to take down little details like that,no matter how innocuous they may seem. or why did i feel anxiety in one place in the dream and contentment in another? they say your subconscious comes to forefront in dreams and my experience confirms this. i cannot even begin to tell you the valuable insights i have gained from dream analysis.

 

PaulKH

Active member
I'm impressed by everyone's dream interpretation and reading skills here. I am new to this forum, so I'm just curious for the more experienced folks:
1. What was your motivation to start studying dreams?
2. What resources did you use to learn about dream interpretation?

Hi there, Cosmo, and welcome.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of a dream-study group in the late-80s headed by a counselor who was working on his doctorate in psychology with a strong interest in dreaming, so he taught and we practiced much of the insights he had learned (with heavy emphasis on Jung, if I remember correctly). These times showed me great tools for opening and closing off the dream recall (so balance could be maintained) that I practiced more or less throughout my professional life. I've always been open-analytical to dreams and have seen the improvements in my own abilities (and dream results) with partially educated (pointed) practice.

I did quite a bit of classic dream study early on yet found I needed to explore on my own rather than be led by the studious speculations of others. This attitude helped me form an "outside perspective" approach to many things; even when I see a truth from someone else, I need to feel able to independently verify that to the best of my ability. So when truth resonates with me when I approach something from a different angle of those I am analyzing, it better helps me see the "core" of the truth (the fundamental nature from which other assumptions are built upon).

This kind of intellectual independence translated into a comfortable spiritual-mixed independence that keeps me from feeling any sort of "peer" pressure. I look for truths and interconnections with no apologies for not taking "sides" on issues (indeed I feel that "sides" are for people who don't realize that they have already lost; a counter-productive remnant of their herd instinct that is a bane to critical thinking).

Then, I had a massive, life-direction-changing pair of dreams a couple of years ago that set me upon the path that culminated in a fictionalize novel with real insights and dreams packed into the fun action. The first dream I experienced that night set the tone of the novel (and is its opener), and oddly enough, the next dream I had laid out the near-fictional setting and plot direction of the novel. In which college students (in an echo of the group I was once in) group together and boldly explore their dreams in a way that leads to the magical; if curious, you can find samples of Dream Knights at various major sources.

In any case, I'm glad to recognize that same kind of bold (yet not reckless) curiosity in you. If you have a high aptitude and combine it with the right amount of training and analysis, you will indeed grow deeply into the subject. And it is an amazing, fascinating journey, no matter where it takes you. :)
 

Harvey

Active member
Oh Cosmodreamer I had absolutely no motivation at first because I was not busy with things like this at the time. It wasn't cool at all, and I didn't even know there were books dealing with the subject. So when a woman I had never seen before in my life until then#, gave me a New Testament with the message: "you should write down your dreams because wise people want to send you messages" I couldn't do anything with it but I did take it as an announcement. A few months later it seemed to me a good idea to start writing down my dreams (So in retrospect that announcement was my motivation) .... And how I got to that woman, although it is important for the complete story, I leave that for another time.

But, Cosmodreamer, what a coincidence! A few days ago I already lifted a corner of the veil in my answer to the dream "In my dream I saw my body, and a mysterious person reading a book" published by Euriks under The General Dream Discussion. Read that before you continue!

But there is still a small story that took place before the event I described in my answer, my commentary on Eurik's dream.

As I already announced, it will be 40 years ago since the event I described there took place on the night of Saturday on Sunday December 22, 1985. But 3 days earlier, on the night from Wednesday to Thursday, I had also experienced two separate 'dreams', which in hindsight was a preparation for what was to come:

1. A very scary out of the body experience;

at a certain moment during my sleep I became aware that I layed with full (day) consciousness in a chest, a coffin!!!¿. That is to say with the same consciousness with which I now write this down and whitin I am experiencing it again somehow, and where I, lets say, I look just 10 cm above my eyes upon the wood of the lid of that chest !!! The panic thought occurred to me: "they have buried me alive !!!!!" and at the same time I was wide awake in bed with a racing heart! I was 23 years old and had no idea what this meant, but of course I rejected the idea that it heralded my coming death. I think it was around 3 a.m., but because I was very tired from the work I had done in preparation for a move that would take place next Saturday, I fell asleep pretty quickly and about two hours later, so around five o'clock, I had a dream.

2. I had adream where my youngest brother stood in front of me and asked me the meaning of something. It is a bit difficult to describe, but in that dream I made a certain movement with my head that you can best imagine by keeping in mind a mother pigeon with her cub in front of her which she is feeding ,... just that movement while that baby pigeon is being fed! And with that reciprocating movement my head going somewhat up and down I ended up, looking into my belly and saw a stone there, like a book and I 'read what was on it, and then came out with the same movement and answered my brother what the meaning was. I have never forgotten that short dream, that image. And over the years I always had to think about it. But only about ten years ago when I was already an experienced dream interpreter, God brought me, in flashback thought, back to that short dream for the umpteenth time and made me intuitively connect with other events around the time of seeing that monster, that devil, described in the commentary on Eurik's dream: and eureka, I "saw" that it expresses what I'm doing now:

You my brothers, the dreamers present me with a dream and I process the data in my inner self (I look in, via 'The Book', The Stone They Rejected in my belly) and then come back to you my brothers with an answer! My younger brother, who unfortunately died 3 years ago, functioned in the dream merely as a symbol for all my brothers!

And, ... concerning (the movement of) the Dove? What does that refer to? That has only been revealed to me in the past 10 years. That is, I only saw that connection in the past 10 years:

In my account, my comment to Euriks, I promised to come back later to an event that I had also experienced shortly after what I experienced (afterwards) as my rebirth:

Shortly after that confrontation with That Devil that I went after after screaming Jesus, I had a very short dream, more like a night vision:

I saw, I experienced a white pigeon landing on my head, only that! ... and a moment later I was wide awake in bed. Impressive but back then I didn't know what it meant. As I said, in my unconscious quest for The Truth (one of the names, titles of The Creator, Our Father), after reading Mathew, Mark, Luke, I ended up with John

, and to my great surprise I read for the first time that, when John had baptized Jesus, a white dove landed on his head! Just like I had experienced though I read it there in John for the first time. But still the true meaning had not yet dawned on me. I only realized that the 10 years ago when My Soul / The Lord brought me back to all those events from around December 1985. And I at last 'saw" it, eureka: God made me realize that I was born again when I called Him by His Name in my death! At that moment The Real Human Soul, The Real Man in me, The Child of God, as described in Genesis, made in His image and likeness, has returned to me. He made it cleat that the holy spirit, Symbolized by a wihite dove, landed on my head. Yes at that time, the moment I called His name and Not when I had that vision of the dove (symbol of the holy spirit / The Spirit of God) that landed on my head. The result was that I was launched from the victim of the Devil by the Lord as a fighter chasing him!

Long story eh, but it had to be so because everthing discribed is interconnected to each other. This is my answer to your question in a nutshell. There are still a few things to add; but that may be for the next time.
 
they say your subconscious comes to forefront in dreams and my experience confirms this
This is the aspect of dreaming I’m very curious about. I’m not 100% on board with the meaning of the symbolism and interpretation of dreams. I’m very curious why the brain chooses to portray these subconscious thoughts the way that it does.

I have a theory that a lot of the dream symbols that are common, snakes, teeth clenching, vultures, etc. is the triggering of a strong emotional response in your brain and therefore, is the most efficient way to “stain” parts of the brain to recall certain memories.

As of right now, I don’t believe that the meaning of certain symbols in dreams can be tied to personal meaning unless the person dreaming also associates that thing with the emotion being described. Maybe as I learn more, I will change that opinion.

I have absolutely nothing scientific to back this theory up though.
 
I did quite a bit of classic dream study early on yet found I needed to explore on my own rather than be led by the studious speculations of others.
I feel the need to do independent verification as well. Do you feel like you ended with a lot of the same conclusions as those who you were studying?


if curious, you can find samples of Dream Knights at various major sources
I am curious, I will check it out at some point.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of a dream-study group in the late-80s headed by a counselor who was working on his doctorate in psychology with a strong interest in dreaming
Were you studying psychology? I wasn’t exposed to anything like this in college, but I studied software lol.


a counter-productive remnant of their herd instinct that is a bane to critical thinking
Nice commentary, I think I agree 😂.

If you have a high aptitude and combine it with the right amount of training and analysis
We’ll see!

Thank you for sharing your journey Paul!
 
Long story eh, but it had to be so because everthing discribed is interconnected to each other. This is my answer to your question in a nutshell. There are still a few things to add; but that may be for the next time.
Harvey, thank you for your story. It was very interesting and it’s awesome that you’ve found dreams to be so important for you! I never have had a dream like the ones you have described, but who knows, maybe I will after reading your story.
 
When they pop up, make sure to share them!

in fact, i have quite a few posts on this site that you can check out if you like. i especially recommend A TRIP THROUGH TIME AND SPACE IN 3 PARTS some pages back ANOTHER SHORT BUT PERPLEXING DREAM AMD THE STATION OF INFINITY not very many pages back and AN UNCERTAIN QUEST ENDS ON AN ENLIGHTENING NOTE also in 3 parts on pages 28 to 27. and possibly A DREAM OF EXPLORATION AND INTROSPECTION on page 25. any questions you may have i will answer. it will be interesting to hear what you have to say about them. be assured the next time one pops up i will share it.

 
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Lex

Active member
I use to have dreams of someone always present in my dreams, I use to be able to lucid dream, I've lost the ability over time though I can still change then channels some times with certain feelings are invoked.
It was either a dream or something I saw about dreaming when I was very young that lead my interest in it... eventually I found a forum on the dreammoods website, and the people there from all over the world at all times, sharing and discussing there interpretations helped me greatly, from various religious backgrounds, education levels, jobs,ages, (before google translate lol) The cultural exchange and depth was something absolutely unmatched. I learned so much from the people there and the well of information and tools offered.
I still miss it.
Also welcome btw!
 
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