When we have had a strange dream, more and less people have opened a book of dream interpretation to help them unravel its meaning. Although some people believe that dreams have no significance, Sigmund Freud defends that during sleep our unconscious is freed, which can help us make decisions in moments of existential crisis or emotional problems.
So that you can know what what you have dreamed about means, in this Psychology-Online article, we present the meaning of dreams with guidelines for their interpretation.
The meaning of dreams
Dreams are the activity of the mind while we sleep. But do dreams have meaning in real life? Do they have anything to do with reality? Many of the dreams we have have a reflection and connection with reality of our life, that is, they are a response to the path taken. For this reason, in many of your dreams there is a reflection of your own history, sometimes marked by the surrealism of the dream itself whose logic is not always governed by the coherence of the criteria of reality.
The mind is very complex. This is one of the reasons why we should not only try to live our lives but also our dreams, without trying to make a millimeter analysis of every detail. Among other things, because just as with the passage of time, our memory distorts what we experienced, We don’t remember dreams exactly either. as they were. In fact, at many times we ignore them completely.
Just as when we are awake and a certain evocation arises that reminds us of a part of the past, for example, when we visit a place where we find pieces of our own history, in the same way, when you dream about your ex you can experience a certain nostalgia for the past. a totally natural way because mental images produce emotions. Even more so when they surprise us in an act as everyday as sleeping, where the will does not intervene in the development of that dream. Here you will find more information about .
The interpretation of dreams
We do not always remember what we have dreamed during the night, however, the reality is that these unconscious experiences also have a more important emotional effect than it seems at first glance at certain times. Should we listen to dreams? Dreams can have a meaning for you depending on the interpretation that you grant them.
- For example, it can be special to dream about a family member who has died. It’s like a way to enjoy their living presence in a different way. On the other hand, it also happens in the opposite case that when having a nightmare, a trace of bitter sensation always remains on the mind. And the fact is that dreams are so unique that they do not leave you indifferent.
Dreams can even be an escape from a bitter reality, just like a good book. A space to experience certain things in a different dimension. Without a doubt, there are many differences between a dream and a good book, and what you dream about does not depend on your will. Perhaps for this reason, a beautiful dream is even more magical as it surprises you without you realizing it.
Guidelines for interpreting dreams
The meaning of dreams is not an exact science, so knowledge is required to learn to interpret them. The difficulty we have when working with dreams is that its content is symbolic and rarely explicit, which means that they must be interpreted to fully understand their meaning.
According to dream interpretation manuals, to interpret dreams in psychology a series of guidelines are followed:
- Most detailed description possible of the dream that has been had.
- Generation of associations: through it, the person analyzing the dream associates it with all the ideas that come to mind, without censorship, until one has the feeling that the content of the dream has been revealed.
In psychological practice, dream interpretation is used when the patient attaches great importance to them or when a recurring nightmare occurs that generates a great impact on the patient’s life. In order to interpret them, the first thing you must do is remember them, since one of the big problems with dreams is that their details are forgotten when you wake up.
To do this we must, before going to sleep, mentally repeat to ourselves that we are going to remember our dreams. When we wake up, we will stay in bed concentrating on the details of the dream, and then write them immediatelywhatever memory remains of them.
There are also therapies that allow you to change the course of dreams. For example, RISC therapy It allows the patient to recognize that they are in the middle of a nightmare, identify why they feel bad and be able to change the plot of the nightmare within the dream.
The meaning of recurring dreams
Dreams are an interpretation that our brain makes of both our conscious world, that is, the reality that we live and face every day, and our unconscious world, which includes our desires, expressed or not, fears, hopes. , etc. There are a series of dreams that are common to all of us. Below we will see one by one the meaning of the most frequent dreams and how they can be interpreted based on their variables.
Dream about death
Although we usually interpret this dream as something negative, what our brain is expressing is a desire for change, especially when we dream of our own death. In this case, we want to change some area of our life because we are not satisfied with it. A dream that is common to 48% of us.
Dream that you fall
Free falling into the abyss is such a distressing dream that it usually startles us to the point of waking up, and we can even notice how our body jumps to avoid the fall. It is a dream that usually occurs when we are falling asleep and, according to experts, it is related to the relaxation that occurs in our muscles before entering the deep phase of sleep (). It seems to be about a resource that our brain developed when we lived in the wild to return to the conscious state if any danger threatened us.
Dream about snakes
According to theories of dream interpretation, dreaming about snakes or other elongated elements may be related to a sex drive repressed or satisfied. There are different types of snakes and the actions and emotions that appear in the dream must also be taken into account in order to make a more accurate interpretation. In the following article you will find more information about it.
Dream that you are pregnant
Another of the most dreamed of events is pregnancy. The interpretation of dreaming about pregnancy will depend on many factors addressed in an article dedicated to it: here you will find everything about it. But, broadly speaking, dreaming about your own pregnancy can be related to the desire to be a mother or the desire to make big changes in your life, achieve new goals or start new projects.
Dreaming that your teeth fall out
One of the most frequent dreams. Dreaming that your teeth fall out is related to insecurity, fragility, fears and concerns. However, the interpretation of it may vary depending on the circumstances of the dream. Depending on whether it is a top tooth, a fang or even all the teeth. To know the interpretation of each case, you can read here.
Dream about cats
In general, the meaning of dreams about cats is related to intuition and confidence. However, dreaming about black cats is not the same as dreaming about white cats, baby cats or cats that attack you. Here you can see the specified according to their attitude and characteristics.
Dreaming about your ex-boyfriend
The importance of the meaning of dreams is conditioned by one’s own subjectivity. That is to say, while when a person dreams of their ex they remain thoughtful about what this information may mean, on the contrary, many others do not give greater significance than the anecdotal nature of the situation. That is to say, it is a mistake to believe, as a cause and effect, that because a person has dreamed about their ex, they are still in love. In many cases, this may be due to specific circumstances that have caused the memory of that person to arise for some reason. For example, the coincidence of a chance encounter on the street.
Dreaming about your ex can mean, in a way, that you keep a good memory from that stage. Or even that you are healing the wound of heartbreak, especially if when you wake up you experience peace of mind. Dreaming about your ex can even be a symptom of a personal change, that is, you should not necessarily interpret that you are still linked to yesterday. In fact, sometimes it happens that when a person is about to take an important step in their life, for example, about to experience a new love, a certain memory of the past arises because it is the reference for that present.
On the other hand, we should not analyze the meaning of a dream in absolute terms. For example, dreaming about your ex and waking up with a feeling of nostalgia does not have to mean that you are still in love, but perhaps there is a part of you that miss that feeling of feeling wanted like at that moment or that experience of youth at that stage.
The truly determining factor is not so much this dreaming itself as the frequency with which this event occurs and even more importantly, the type of emotions you experience when you wake up. That is, do not only interpret the meaning of the dream in its isolated entity, but you can put it in connection with your own life. For example, a person who is still in love with her ex may suffer a lot if he experiences these types of dreams on a regular basis and when he wakes up, he becomes aware of the mirage of those daydreams and suffers because that is when longing arises.
Meaning of recurring dreams
Surely you have had a dream that repeats itself over and over again. Sometimes it is a dream in which all the details are familiar to you, the events and places in which they happen are identical and so is their sequence. On other occasions, although the scenarios are not the same, there is an event or an experience that is repeated in the dream, in a thousand ways, but that is familiar to us again and again.
Why do dreams repeat?
The frequency with which it is repeated may vary. Sometimes we dream them daily, other times a few times a week, a month, etc. Whatever their periodicity, the theme repeats itself over and over again. Sometimes these dreams are positive and make us feel good, but in most cases the dreams that repeat are nightmares. When they are very recurrent or unpleasant, they can even cause insomnia, because we are afraid of falling asleep and having the dream again, especially when the experiences we have in it are very vivid.
Usually these dreams They respond to a conflict that we have not…