Dreams are a communication of body, mind and spirit in a symbolic communicative environmental state of being. Different states of consciousness (like awake, asleep, alert, drowsy, excited, bored, concentrating or daydreaming) cause different brain wave activity. Our conscience mind only takes up a very small portion of our brain activity. Other areas control things like breathing, heartbeat, converting light to vision, sound to hearing, balance when we walk, etc.Another area controls imagination. Your brain mind and spirit, while at rest "review" and analysis in it's own way long term, short term and spirit memory. It kicks around emotions, thoughts, ideas, actions and interactions of the short term memory.
It has in it's background the trends of your life and philosophy to influence it. Your mind is also processing spiritual data, your beliefs, whether or not you violated them, your information gained through psychic intuition and of course, any communication from God. All this data, as well as your subconscious "reading between the lines" of what people do and tell you, is then processed unsupervised by you. Dreams are easily influenced by factors in your life and spirit, and these influences create "categories" that are almost infinite. We do broadly categorize them in terms like "prophetic, standard, physical and nightmare" (to name just a few) And these we study each their own, in order to gain benefit from them.
Okay...
But How Can I Analyse My Dream?
1. Write down as much as you can recall about the dream experience. Don't leave out anything. If you remember it, record it. The more you do this, the more adept you will become.
2. Identify components. Begin with those aspects that are most vivid; falling, flying, climbing, fights, circumstance/action or a bright flower or pretty face. Dreams are primarily visual, but don't neglect other sensory material. They, too, provide much information; noises, smells, feelings, reactions, conditions.
3. List, after recording the dream(s) experience, review the various components and analyze them according to the elements; colors, objects, actions, locations, outcomes.
4. Weigh the Significance, in sequence, of the components relative to their impact on your memory of them. All things are not equal in a dream. The things that stand out are most important and other aspects are supporting players of lesser significance.
5. Arrange the Components according to their level of importance. The vividness or clarity indicates the degree of significance. Although even a small item may change the meaning of a dream, i.e., a negative situation can be mitigated by the appearance of positive symbols such as clothing, or objects that are white, pink or blue, and vice-versa by the appearance of negative symbols; black in any form, except at a funeral.
NOTE: The proximity of the dreamer to the action or object is very important. Remember, the dreamer is often only an observer -- the closer to the actions the more important are the images. More so, when the dreamer is part of the play rather than just an observer.
6. Think "Symbolic," until you are able to discriminate between the different realm of dream emanations (categories), consider all dreams as being composed of symbols. The vast majority of dream components are either completely or partially symbolic in content, so you are safe in approach. Symbols are "coin of the realm" in dreams. Every element in a dream can be a symbol, and often is.
NOTE: After gaining expertise in symbolism, you will be able to discriminate between when a pickle is only a pickle and when it is psychologically/cognitively more important. Until then, think "Symbolic".
7. Investigate and Retrieve symbolic descriptions. At this point the dream puzzle parts have been identified. The dream components are represented in allegorical form and as such each and every symbol, from most to least significant, needs to be researched for meaning. To do so the interpreter must look up each symbolic dream element in the "dictionary of dream symbols". For example: If the dream involved eating at a restaurant you would look up the following symbolic elements; food (types/kinds, meat, fish, vegetables, etc.), restaurant (type/kind, posh, ordinary, greasy spoon, diner), candles (if any), music (if any), servers, clothing (yours, others, etc.), colors (clothing, table cloth, lighting, uniforms, etc.) receiving the bill (reaction, amount) and so on... for example, if, in this dream, the restaurant was ornate and expensive, the music was classical, there were fresh flowers on the table, the waiter was rude to you, your companion wore a blue suit, and you were aghast at the high cost of the bill. Also, the red wax candles burned brightly. The food was good and plentiful. The dreamer is a thirty-eight year old, high school English teacher of moderate means.
The age, sex, and socio-economic status of the dreamer are very important factors and have great impact on the symbolic meaning.
The teacher's dream would be outlined in this way; high class restaurant; very rude waiter (argument), good food (steak, potatoes, salad), classical music (pleasant), companion (blue suit), flowers (fresh, nice), candles (red wax, high flame), table cloth (green), bill (huge, reaction: unhappy). When researching symbol meanings, pay special attention to those symbols which are identified as "opposites" or "contrary". They are especially important since they can change the overall result of the interpretation.
8. Picture the various identified components as a whole. This provides the general impression such that there is a main theme to the dream with aspects which add to and/or change the significance from high to low depending on the symbols. In the teacher's dream, the restaurant's type and atmosphere are the main dream symbols. The atmosphere is affected by the very rude waiter, and therefore he is an important symbol. Secondary is the meal itself (what it was composed of) and whether it appealed to her or not. Behind these symbols are the minor supporting characters, the companion in the blue suit, and the mitigating symbols of music, candles, and table cloth. In this dream there are two contradictory symbols -- the bill, which when she receives it, is huge, and the restaurant, which on face value would seem pleasing, but with her age and socioeconomic status in life it represents financial problems.
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