over the years i’ve developed an intuitive way of relating to my dreams and interpreting them that works for me. i don’t know that it’s true objectively, and i think dream analyst types would probably say i’m oversimplifying things, but it feels right for me.
the basic idea is that dreams are either noise, just random odds and ends from my day or memories or feelings; or, a dream is Significant and it has Meaning i need to sit with or learn from.
a dream distinguishes itself to me as Significant if I feel something strong on waking. it feels important, meaningful in itself, as an intrinsic quality. my mind and heart return to the dream over the next hours and days after waking.
often, when a dream is Significant, its meaning is readily apparent. its meaning comes along with the dream, in a way that is self-evident to its recipient viewer, me. like a letter in an envelope, the dream contains within it everything i need to know to receive its significance.
other times, the meaning is a little more subtle and takes some hours or days to become clear. i try to keep the dream in the back of my mind and heart, returning to its contents and feelings again and again, until its meaning becomes clear. usually it pops out in a moment of clarity: “oh! that’s what it means!”
the meaning is either clear or it is not. if it’s unclear, it’s usually the case that it’s because i’m hiding something from myself; the meaning of the dream is something uncomfortable that i am resisting; it is in my shadow, right on the edge of the light, verging on being made visible.
similarly, when people are in my dreams, i relate to their presence in one of two ways: either they are an imagistic representation or symbol of my memory of them—noise—or they are, in a meaningful way, actually there, that some dimension of their Soul is visiting me in my dreams.
i experience a number of people visiting my dreams in this way. my spiritual teacher often visits me. my mother, who passed last year, often visits me. lovers and partners and friends will come to be with me as well.
each of these people can be in my dreams as noise, or as signal, as genuine presence. there is a felt difference, as if i actually spent time with them, as if there was some significant interaction that we actually had, albeit in the dreamworld, confined to its laws and regulations, its physics of significance.
perhaps i am too literally interpreting dreams as Significant, or the Presence of Souls. or perhaps it would be useful to explore more of my dreams, to see them all as Significant.
one practice that’s been useful to me in blurring the line between Significant and “Insignificant” dreams is dream return, or Jungian Active Imagination, which my friend River introduced me to.
the basic idea is to sit with a memory, an image, or feeling from a dream, “returning” to it or bringing it up, keeping it at the forefront of consciousness, until it, of its own accord, changes or shifts in some way.
in practice, I’ve found it useful to be a little more “active,” to nudge the image towards possibilities until it goes in a direction of its own.
my most powerful experience of this so far was about a year ago. (i need to practice it more often.)
i had a dream where i was angry at a friend, who i was in fact angry at in real life at the time. in the dream, i didn’t express my anger.
in the morning, on waking, i was angry. i brought up the memory of the dream, feeling my anger. i saw my friend in my mind. and i began expressing my anger to her in my imagination.
she listened lovingly, and then transformed from her worldly self into her deeper self, an incarnation of Quan Yin. her body became transparent, glowing. she reached with her arm into my chest, right into my heart, holding my anger with her hand. her presence was a balm, an elixir of kindness and healing for me.
my anger transformed, immediately, in a way i’ve never felt quite before, into pure energy, vibrant life energy. i was no longer angry; i was simply alive, filled with abundant, vibrant energy, happiness, and joy. that happiness persisted for several days, buzzing loudly in my heart through the hours and all my deeds.
If U want to learn more about Dream Return, River often recommends people read Jung’s short letter to Mr. O from May 2, 1947—the second in this document. River also has a course on it!
The art in this post was created by Sílvia Bastos, and is licensed under a CC BY 2.0 license. You can support her work on Patreon.
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