Dream Interpretation

When we dream, we are processing our day, our emotions, anything that is going on with us. All the filters of who we are, who we should be, the rules, the society, our limiting beliefs all of those are turned off. And therefore we cannot cheat on our dreams, we cannot lie to ourselves over there.

Even if for science, dreaming is still a mystery, and many questions remain open such as if we were dreaming in our mother's womb, we can learn reliable knowledge about the dreaming process through our own experience. By the way, I recommend the episode "Dreams" in the series "The Mind, Explained" available on Vox and Netflix.

In Judaism, we can read about many dreams from the Patriarchs and others. In the Talmud, we can read that "a dream not interpreted is like a letter not read" (Babylonian Talmud, B'rachot 55a), and that "Sleep is 1/60th of death, and dreams are 1/60th of prophecy" (Talmud Bavli 57b).

That is why interpreting our dreams is so precious, we can meet ourselves truly over there. And that is why understanding few things in interpretation are fundamental, so we don’t get wrong or scared!

Here is my daily dreaming routine:

> Before falling asleep I would drink a full glass of water to hydrate the body while sleeping. It helps the brain to better work as sometimes it is as active as when we are awake (Rapide Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep)!

> Immediately as I wake up, I write down my dream:

I have a dreaming journal in which I can then also follow back the symbols that repeat themselves to understand the symbolic language of my dreams and create a kind of dictionary of my own.

A nice tip is to write the night before on the page of the journal the date that it will be the next morning, the journal opened on the right page with a pen next to the bed, ready to write.

Sometimes remembering the dream is not obvious, therefore I sit in my bed in a meditative position, and I try to feel back any emotion, feeling or aspect from the dream, and slowly slowly details come back, often backwards chronologically, until I remember the dream in its entirety, just like drawing back a thread towards oneself.

If I do not remember my dream, I believe there is also a reason for it and I leave it this way. I believe my brain and body are processing well in their own way without necessarily my consciousness being aware of it.

> Afterwards, I would interpret it by myself:

Some insights that can be useful in your self dream interpretation:

1. We dream about ourselves. If you dream about someone, you are dreaming about what this person represents for you. A friend is often a guide, showing you the direction you should take. A man/woman could be the symbol of our inner masculine/feminine, a child our inner child. Making love could represent the reconciliation between our inner feminine and masculine for instance.

2. All is symbolic. It is a theatre in which we can create our own dictionary of symbol meanings: the people, the objects, the landscapes, if it’s day or night... Every detail means something about ourselves and ourselves only. If you dream about someone, this person can represent a certain aspect, like a a character trait, of yourself. It is therefore primordial to ask yourselves some questions before checking the meaning of those symbols on a dictionary of dreams or internet: What does it mean to me? How does it make me feel? And it is super important not intellectualize the answer, just see the first answer that comes up to you. If you still are looking for a book to read about symbols, I recommend « A Dictionary of Symbols » by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, which compares symbols across time and cultures - and it is on purpose that it is not a book about dreaming interpretation but about "symbols" meaning in general. And of course, you always need the context of your life to understand a symbol.

3. Interpret with kindness. Interpreting dreams is not an exact science. It will just give us an idea of how is our state of mind today. They can influence our mood sometimes long after we wake up. We must take the messages of our dreams in a good way, to improve ourselves. Not judging the dream as "good" or "bad". When we believe we did a nightmare, it is an interpretation, we have a bad feeling about the dream so we call it this way, but if you look at it with kindness a positivity, not judging it or yourself, you see that each dream is an opportunity to explore and improve ourselves.

Also, if you ask someone to interpret your dream, it must be someone who will do so with kindness and that knows the context of your life. Telling someone your dream can give him/her intimate knowledge about you and even a kind of "power" over you, so always be cautious who you chose to share it with, this is not trivial.

4. There are different kind of dreams: "Lucid dreams" where we are actively interacting in our dream as we are conscious that we are dreaming while we are dreaming, "Dreams of compensation" according to our daily unmet needs, "Telepathic dreams" where we travel and interact with other dreamers, "Premonitory dreams" where we are spectator of the dream and can transcend time (as time in physics does not exist), "Traumatic dreams" which are repeated in their structure and are not to be interpreted. This is not rocket science of course, but this is my understanding of it. As I always say for people to think and search by themselves "believe me, do not believe a word I say"!

5. Dreams don’t have the limits of the reality. While dreaming we are thinking out of the box, without the limits that narrow our way of thinking or acting during the day, all is possible and we can find creative solutions for our daily struggles. Practicing Lucid dreaming can be very useful in that way.

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💭 Here is a dreaming exercice - you can take an object from one of your dreams, and ask yourself those questions (write them down):

1. I am [the object]

2. As [the object] my purpose is…

3. As [the object] I like…

4. As [the object] I dislike…

5. As [the object] I feel…

6. As [the object] I fear…

7. The most important thing about me is…

8. What I want the most is…

Write this down, and only then read what follows (play the game!) … The object can be anything: a pair of scissors, a house, a clothe, even an animal - but not a person. - - -

Now, replace [the object] by [your name], and check how it makes you feel, how the symbols takes another importance, another dimension showing who you are.

You can also replace [the object] by something else about yourself. For instance I once replaced it by [my couple], revealing how I was really feeling right now about it.

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To experience dreaming, as we wake up from a good sleep, or during a Theta brainwave meditation, is more powerful that any theoretical knowledge about it, it comes from our own wisdom. With specific exercices and through practice, such as creating your own symbols library, practice lucid dreaming, or writing a dreaming journal, dreaming becomes a tool to know ourselves better and most importantly to overcome our limits of the awaken life.

Sweet dreams 🙏🏼