Chat file opened 07/26/89 17:20:42
———————————-
DREAM INTERPRETATION AND SYMBOLOGY
Raymond Buckland
Typed in for PAN
by Lewis
(508)/795-7628
You have probably spent countless hours of trying unsuccessfully to
decipher the seemingly senseless riddles of your dreams. You are puzzled when
a dream of attending Aunt Minnie’s funeral proves not in the least prophetic
as, ten years later, Aunt Minnie is still going strong. You’re totally
baffled at intimate exchanges with people you wouldn’t normally go near. You
are amazed at dreamaing of doing things that are physically impossible in your
everyday life. You end up with total frustration in youur attempts to make
any sense of the strange goings-on in your elusive dreams. Yet you still feel
that somewhere there must be an answer… but where? What is the key?
As an element of the Universal Consciousness your super-conscious
awareness is totally versed in Universal Symbolism. Since the super-conscious
mind tends to speak in its own language, your dreams can be expected tocontain
some of this language of Universal Symbols. But even though it has its own
language the super-conscious mind is aware that you will respond best to those
symbolds with which your conscious mind is most familar. Therefore, it will
use terms and symbols from your everyday life. Oftimes it will use the
symbolism from recent events that are fresh in your memory. These impressions
from your personal physical life are called Personal Symbolism.
Universal Symbolism includes those things that remain true for all
humankind throughout the ages. Inclued are colors, numbers, form and sexual
ideniity (ie: male and female) They come from the super-consciousness and
therefore are timeless. A case in point is transportation–the universal
symbol of spiritual advancement. As material technology has advanced, the
application of symbology has kept pace. So transportation may take one of the
modern forms of conveyance, such as rockets, planes, steamships, trains or
automobiles, or one of the timeless modes of riding on the back of and animal
or walking.
It would be impossible to list all the universal symbols here but a
general sampling is given in the file titled “universal symbols”
INTERPRETING YOUR DREAMS
The eminent psychologist arl Jung once stated: “No dream symbol can be
separated froom the individual who dreams it.” Keep this thought in mind as
you study the following concepts. Notice that almost all of the universal
symbols have various shades of meanings. The interpretation of such symbols
can only be done by YOU, the dreamer, through consideradition of your own
feelings towards the dream, the symbol and your own intuition.
The dream is a comples and almost limitless combination of symbols. it
can be analytical, judgemental or therapeutic in nnature. The majority of
dreams are analytical. That is, they provide a means for the higher self to
comment on your everyday life and your spiritual development. It will analyze
how you aare relating to your enviorment and your fellow man and woman. A
small percentage of your dreams are of a prophetic nature, to warn and prepare
you for future eveents (the percentage of prophetic dreaams vary greatly from
one personn to another but it is estimated that perhaps one dream in twenty
concerns the future) Don’t imediately jump to the conclusion that what you
dream about brother Bob, or cousin Mary is an indication of something that is
about to happen to him or her. It may be but far more likely is not. Along
with this incidently it should be noted that invariably the pricciiple
characters in your dream are actually representing YOU–or some aspect of you.
So when you dream of your sister Suzy arguing with you about something, you
are actually seeing a representation of an inner conflict+– one part of you
at odds with another part (perhaps your male aspect agaiinst your female
aspect) with the image of sister Suzy being used simply aas a recognizable
form that you can accept.
Again depending on the individual, the number of therapeutic dreams
varies from person to person. It simply deepends on the need of the
individual. If a person has a strong feeling of inferority, their therapy may
be to dream of being a powerful, capable and attractiive person. In this way,
the Higher Self is compensating for the dreamers psychological lack. If a
person has a strong feeling of superiority they might be taken down a peg or
two by a dream that depicts him or her as a weak defenseless and inferior
person. Thus the dream often attempts to overcome character defects.
Prophetic dreams will only occur when the indivual needs to be prepared
for an event in the future. Even though you may not consciously remember it,
the dream prepares you, subconsciously for the shock that it to come. Not all
precognitive dreams are of signigcant events: some may even appear quite
trival. But they are important just the same. They program and prepare the
subconscious and conscious minds over a period of time, to deal with the
future events and situations in a proper manner.
REMEMBERING DREAMS
The obvious first step in dream interpretation is to remember them. If
you have trouble in remembering your dreams, the probable reason is that your
have ignored them for so long that the subconscious no longer tries to bring
them to your conscious memory. If this is the case, you must program yourself
to remember. This can be done through affirmation. During meditation annd
just befopore going to sleep tell yourself very firmly, “I WILL REMEMBER MY
DREAMS”, Do this three times. Release the command. Then again tell yourself
very firmly three times “I WILL REMEMBER MY DREAMS”. Release the thought.
Then for the third timerepeat the three commands “I WILL REMEMBER MY DREAMS”.
So you instruct yourself 9 times in all.
The second step in interpretation is recording the dreams. Place a pad
and a penciil by your bed for this purpose. This very act, in itself,
reinforces the command to remember. Whenyou first awaken–evenn before that
eye-opening cup of coffee–jot down notes on what you remember. Don’t worry
about trying to get everything in perfect order at this point. The important
thing is to capture what you can, even if you only have time to make a few
brief nots. You will find that later on you will be able to recall more of
the details of the dream. Then write down all the details that you can
remember. Describe the people, their identities, occupations,clothes, the
state of their emotions and their activities. Note your attitude towards them
and their attiudes towards you. Describe everything you see, feel and hear.
Pay special attention to the numbers of things and their colors. It is all
important. Then try to arrange your notes in the order in which they were
dreamed.
Once you have completed your notes and organized them you can begin the
task of interpretation. First of all, examine the dream to see if it fits any
of the events of the preceding day. This will explain a few of your dreams.
If this test fails then you must determine whether the dream is literal or
symbolic.
A LITERAL dream is one in which the main dream character or image is a
real person or thing in your life or on your mind at the time. If the literal
interpretation makes sense, you may have found the key. When the literal
interpretatioon fails to make sense the dream is obviously symbolic.
A SYMBOLIC dream is one in which the dream character and images cannot be
taken literally as a real person or thing. Then the image is that of an aspect
of you, the dreamer. Then the ancient wisdom of the Universal Symbols should
be applied.
As you first begin to work with symbology, you may still have diffculty
unraveling the tangled threads; you may only decipher part of the mystery.
Don’t worry about this for it is quite natural in the beginning. Continue to
affirm that you will remember. Continue to faithfully record all of the
details that you can. As you do you will find that the symbols will gradually
begin to clear as you and your higher self develop a dialogue that you can
consciously understand. The hidden symbol in one dream will suddenly be
revealed in another. When this begiins to happen yopou should start to
compile your own personal Dream Dictionary. Take a notebook that is not used
for any other purpose and divide it into alphabetical sections. As you
discover the meanings of new symbols, write them down. Soon you will find
that youu have an extensive set of personal symbols which will permit nearly
total interpretation of all your dreams.
PERSONAL SYMBOLS
Many published books on dream interpretation provide the reader with
hundreds of symbols and simplified interpretation. Other than listings of
Universal symbols, such books are totally misleading. Each of us has his or
her own unique personal symbology, hased on our experiences in this life. For
example, two eldery ladies dream of a cat. One of the ladies has lived a
spinster life shared with a successionof cats that she has loved and pampered.
The second lady has a very traumatic memory of a wild cat which scratched
her severly during her childhood. It is obvious that a single
interpretationof “cat” will not satisfy moth dreamers. To the first lady, the
cat is a warm, loving, companion. To the second, the cat is an evil,
dangerous creature that brings pain. Therefore, it is neccessary for the
dreamer to analyze the symbol from the standpoint of his or her own personal
feelings.
THE REPETITIVE DREAM
Many dreams are repeated in order to emphasize their meaning or to insure
that they are noticed. This may or may notbe obvious to thedreamer. Usually
dreams come in a series of three. Sometimes their symbology will be quite
similar. At other times you may record three dreams of entirely different
symbology but upon their interpretation find that the underlying theme for
eaach is almost identical. In either case the source of the dream is
attempting to insure that the message gets through and is understood. A dream
repeated over days, weeks or perhaps months, indicates something that you have
not taken action on. Oncce you understand and respond to, the dream, through
action or a change in attiude, the dream will cease to occur.
Generally the recurring dream is one of the following:
A) Precognitive or prophetic
B) Compensation for an improper attiude
C) The result of a traumatic incident which has left a negative
impression.
GROUP DREAMS
Among the more spiritually advanced is an occasional tendency to actively
share or participate in a dream with someone else. In these cases, the two
people ar very much in tune with one another on a psychic of emotional level.
It does not mean that they are “soul mates” destined for one another. Rather
they are in harmony at some levels in this particular time of their lives and
are undergoing similar adjustments on the spiritual plane. Interpretation of
the dream should be done the same as with an ordinary dream but with the other
oerson in the dream interpreted as an aspect of yourself.
DREAMS versus OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES
The memory of out of body experiences (OOBE’s)has the same elusive
quality as the dream. Consequently it is often difficult to separate the two.
One marked difference is the sensation of awareness. In a dream. the visual
awareness of theself is in one direction only. As with physical sight, you
“see” only what is in front of you. in the OOBE, however your awareness is
all-encompassing. You see not only what is in front but also what is behind,
above, below and on the sides–all at the same time. Do not attempt to
interpret an OOBE as you would a dream.
