Interpretation of Dreams

Each night when I go to sleep, I look forward to my dreams. Thoughts in dreams are often far more creative

than our conscious mind can ever conjure up. Dreams are entertaining, sometimes disquieting, rarely one hopes, frightening. Of more import, they can help a person connect with him or her's deepest self.

Dreams are notorious for being bizarre and seemingly senseless, yet when approached in the right way they point toward important aspects of our psychological being, aspects that though important, may be neglected in our conscious thoughts. Let me offer an example.

Years ago an astute patient came in reporting a dream with an interpretation that he had come up with between counseling sessions. The heart of the dream consisted of the patient being seriously physically beaten. When the patient woke up he was curious about this dream as his life was for the most part harmonious, and he had little to do with violence in his waking life. He let his mind wander around the concept of being beaten and quickly recalled a report from the previous day's financial news that the stock market had taken a beating. This led to him reviewing his own finances during which he uncovered that his credit card balance was markedly out of control. He credited the dream for waking him up to the realities of his debt and quickly arranged to pay off the loan.

Freud's, 'Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis' is a wonderful place to get an orientation to the classical method of dream interpretation. The approach begins with the idea of mental determinism. The concept holds that apparently random thoughts are hardly random. A significant amount of research leading to this theory was done by Carl Jung with his association experiments. Typical studies of this kind ask subjects to rapidly report a string of words. It happens that such strings of words, though seemingly random, tend to center around a central idea that often is outside the subject's immediate awareness. The psychologists at the time called these more central thoughts complexes.

A dream is composed of what are called, 'elements,' that is, discrete parts, often images, that together create the collage that is the dream. In interpreting a dream patients are encouraged to center their thoughts on a particular element and let their thoughts wander around this element. Permit me to give an example.

Years ago a patient reported a dream in which one of the salient elements was a fire hydrant. I invited the patient to center his thoughts on this image and see what came to mind. The emerging thoughts were as follows: first, he remembered that as a child on hot summer days firemen would sometimes come through the neighborhood and open up a hydrant to let the local children play in the water's spray. This led the patient to think of his childhood, friend, Roy, a neighbor who would often join the patient in their play.

The patient then expressed surprise at this memory and his thoughts suddenly took a different turn. He mentioned that the firm where he worked had recently hired a new manager whose first name was also Roy. He gave a little chuckle as he noticed the dream directing his attention to this. The remainder of the session consisted of the patient talking about problematic aspects of his job.

As in the example above, dreams often represent concerns of a patients in a disguised manner. The import of the patient's dream above was hardly about fire hydrants. The dream, once properly interpreted, drew the patient's attention to a serious present day challenge at work.

In effectively working with a dream it is important to not treat the dream as a coherent narrative such as one would expect out of a book or movie. Rather, isolating the remembered elements of a dream allows one's mind to wander around thoughts related to the element. Such wanderings are like collecting pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. Once enough pieces are laid out on the table, it becomes possible to rationally step back and see how they fit together.

It can also be helpful to scan for thoughts for what Freud called, the 'day residue;' around the time of the dream are there any significant life events that might might precipitate the dream. Dreams tend to be instigated by themes in life that we are not paying much attention to. A patient once reported that on the eve of a dream she noticed a Facebook ad from a friend regarding a kayak. That evening she dreamt as follows: she was invited into the house of this friend who she had actually not seen in years. The house was exquisitely appointed with museum-like beauty and style. The dreamer reported a day residue of having seen on social media the posting of a set of golf clubs that this old friend wanted to sell. As the session unfolded and the patient's thoughts evolved, she became aware of feelings of inadequacy around disappointments she had experienced in her career relative to the overt success of her friend.

Freud's 'New Introductory Lectures,' have a number of helpful chapters for those interested in exploring dreams. The essence of Freud's observations on dreams is that we own the symbols of our dreams, only infrequently is a universal symbol of much utility in unravelling the meaning of a dream. We arrive at an understanding of the dreamer's symbols, essentially the dream's elements, by encouraging the patient to let his thoughts wander around the them.

We should conclude with a few words of caution. Namely, that alongside the patient's desire to progress and acquire self-knowledge there can be resistance in doing so; some aspects of oneself can be stressful to encounter. It can happen that a dream will suggest to the therapist qualities of the patient's psyche that the patient is not ready to hear. These observations are best filed away and dealt with at a time when doing so is constructive.

Dream interpretation is somewhat like panning for gold. One dips into the stream of the patient's psyche, sifts the sand, and hopes to encounter the glimmer of somethings useful.