Perhaps others have posted this sort of thing already, but I've only seen discussions of interpreting individual dreams. After paying attention to and recording dreams for several years, I personally rarely find invidividual dreams of much use. I do, however, have a few individual dreams that stick out, sort of along the lines of what Jung called a "big dream" (if I recall correctly) - a dream with clear and profound mythological imagery. This seem to occur at times of major - and sometimes minor - transformation in my life.
However, I take a different approach to the overwhelming majority of my dreams, focusing on the big, long-term picture. I do so, figuring that this will reveal the really important things in my life, or the important things I need to learn or deal with. And paying attention to dreams in this way has led to some major breakthroughs for me.
1. Every two weeks or so, I go back through my dream journal and reread my dreams. I look for common themes, contexts, etc. I also compare these with longer-term trends I have noticed in my dreams over the last few years - or from my teens, when I used to record dreams as well. I often find these sorts of commonalities: dreams frequently involving travel, transportation, and exploration; struggling to perform some sort of activity, but have an inexplicable difficulty doing so; experiencing a threat; and so on.
2. Having found common themes, I then go back through all of the dreams involving one particular theme. These could occur in a variety of contexts and using a wide variety of characters, symbols, etc. But I look for commonalities within each particular type of dream. To find these, I ask myself questions such as, during travel dreams, do I arrive at my destination or does the dream focus on the journey? Or do I always get lost or end up at the wrong place? How do I feel during this - frightened, frustrated, elated? Do I have a common goal in these dreams? Having found common issues, I then try to relate them to my life and figure out what my dreams want to tell me. Of course, I work from the assumption that the important things in my life, whether conscious or unconscious, will shape my dreams more than the transient things that may have just happened on any particular day.
3. After doing this for a few months, or even while doing it each time, I try to look for changes in the patterns that may reflect changes in my life, subconscious, or whatever.
I'd love to hear about any variations on this or different approaches that y'all do.
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