Explaining our dreams
There are many dream books which promise to explain everything about dreams. In fact, I remember reading about one which was many years old, possibly ancient Egyptian in origin. There have been many books through the years that promise to explain 50 zillion dream images or whatnot. Attempting to explain the thousands of dream images that come to us is understandable but the problem is that it works very poorly. These are legitimate but misguided attempts to explain in concrete terms the symbolic language of dreams.
The books say that a cow, because it gives milk, stands for mother, a dog for a friend, a pole for some sexual angle. It would be lovely if this kind of interpretation worked, but normally it doesn’t. Having partially grown up on a farm I know about the wonderful experience of milking a cow. One puts ones forehead into their hip and away the milk flows. You talk to the cow encouraging it, and to your milking partner. It is a very social, warm, friendly environment. Unless you get hit by a flying tail or discover a foot in your milk bucket it is a rather unique experience. So when I dream of a cow, surely it is different from a city person who has never been up close and personal with a cow.
From where I sit, the same is true of other animals or experiences for that matter. One overall simple explanation usually does not universally fit everyone. We dream about a car. What are our associations to that car. Is it one we owned, or wanted to own, did we crash in it, fall in love in it, etc? Now it is not just a car but a specific car with which we have a history.
Now the next step is to figure what the car symbolizes about our life. Perhaps the car is in an accident. Is this then a warning dream, telling us to slow down, and pay attention?
As I said before, the area of dreams is very broad with many points of view. I am explaining my point of view but if yours is different I would appreciate what you have found that has been helpful. What have your experience been like? What kind of aids have you found helpful in trying to understand those confusing night visitors? What have you done to make sense of the stream of images that come to you in dreams?
There are some books that are helpful. The one I use the most is Cirlot’s Dictionary of Symbols. It isn’t the best book, but it is a reasonable price, around $20.
Don’t forget, the first step is to keep a good book by the bed and, before you get up stop and say. “Now what was I just looking at?” Then write it down. The one thing we can all universally agree upon about dreams is that they disappear very rapidly unless we take the trouble to write them down immediately.