Thread: poor dream control might possibly be useful (symbolism and dream interpretation)

Although some of you may have flawless dream control, I'm sure most of you struggle with trying to get everything to go the way you want in your dreams. It can be quite frustrating, but it can also be useful, in a way.

I like to use my sad, pathetic failures in lucid dreaming for some valuable dream interpretation. Everything in a dream symbolizes something, even if some things are harder to figure out than others. One obvious theme has stood out to me in my dreams, and that has come across when I try controlling the different elements.

Controlling water, for me, is by far the easiest, while I have the most awful time trying to control air. I'll start up a gust of wind that never ends and I can't get it to stop - it suddenly feels like I'm stuck in a tornado. This happened on a few occasions, and all I felt was frustration until I stopped to think about what these things symbolize and represent.

I started to realize that I was so good at controlling water because I've been very adaptable and attracted to change in my waking life. And air was so difficult for me to control because I'm feeling a lack of freedom in my life. These are things that I knew deep down, but never came to a full realization of until I had a closer look into my subconscious via lucid dreaming (and failed dream control).

I'm curious to know what kind of activities are the most difficult for people to do in dreams. Some people are naturals at flying, while people like me try and try and seem to never get it down. What things are easy, and what do you guys think they represent?

I've never had a lucid dream long enough to even exercise control. But about the symbolism, in some cases, for some people, you probably have a point. However, in other cases, I imagine the ability or disability to exercise control has to do with physical expectations. For example, it might be more difficult to move a boulder than a feather, not because you have some affinity for birds and associate rock with education and have issues concerning that (or something), but because in real life a boulder is much heavier than a feather and you do not expect to be able to lift it.

Oh definitely, obviously you can't take everything too literally and try to discover representations for every little thing. It must be within reason. But I mean with things that should be equally difficult to control; like the four natural elements, for example.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

But I mean with things that should be equally difficult to control; like the four natural elements, for example.

The four elements were believed in by the ancient Greeks, but have nothing to do with real elements, and I don't see why they should be equally difficult to control. I perceive 'earth' to be the heaviest, followed by water, air, then fire, because they seem to be weighted in this order (even though water is probably heavier than 'earth' is most cases). So for me, it seems I'd have an easy time moving fire, but only because I perceive it to be light (not heavy) in real life, not for a deep psychological reason.

But I still agree that there are probably many things in dreams that are easier to control for psychological reasons.

I can often be a very pragmatic person, so when I become lucid I often have trouble gaining control. It can be hard for me to realize that there are no limits and that I can move boulders if I want to, although it's impossible in real life. Most of the lessons that I've learned from my dreams haven't been very symbolic. They are usually obvious. Air has always been hard for me to control. I have little trouble flying, but sometimes it seems I will hit a barrier in the sky due to what feels like very heavy wind. I'll try with all my strength to move past it, but I won't be able to budge. Strangely, as soon as I turn around I am free to fly the opposite direction from the barrier. Strange that my mind creates such limits.

Yeah, it's strange how some things randomly work and some don't, but I think that dream interpretation can be used in lucid dreams as well as non-lucids. The very essence of dreams themselves are based on symbolism. All of the images you see and scenarios that you are in are simply hallucinations, completely random thoughts conjured by your subconscious, while the emotions and feelings attached to them are what seem to be the most connected to reality and your waking life. A key concept in dream interpretation is that it's not what's happening that really matters, but how you feel about it. Even if you don't feel that something isn't symbolic, it probably still is

I don't really "struggle" with powers, because when I try them, generally there is training behind them and then I know the mechanisms that let them work for me. So, I don't really know much about the symbolism with that <.<