Personal Interpretation

Hey ..

I was wondering over all the months I've been dealing with dream interpretation in reading and practicing of the following:
Since dream symbols and their associations can mean anything just as much as anything paradox to it, the field of possibilities of the true interpretation is VERY vast.
I've come to the conclusion, for my progress, that it almost makes no sense to interpret a dream before I haven't analyzed every person, every circumstance in every age of my life, and feelings/emotions and consequences relating/being caused to/by it.
So I barely feel totally released by an interpretation. How could I? Since I don't know 100% which thoughts I get while interpreting are true, and which ones are "shadows" - I always have reason to question my interpretation. I don't know if I am on the totally wrong lane - interpreting what I selfishly think is necessary for my own good; and not what's truely best for me and my inner self - and therefore in consequence to social circumstances etc.
So .. is it possible, that the unconscious uses symbols, which associations we get while we interpret individually, that fit to YOUR or MY way of understanding the meaning of a symbol? So in the end, if you follow what comes to your head first .. if you just let it go - not listen to a dreamsymbol-interpret-book - you'll be fine?

Although that post was difficult to comprehend sentence by sentence (english not your first language?), I agree with what you said. The symbol of a cat to me could be drastically different from what it means to something else (maybe they had a cat during a traumatizing event during their childhood, or were attacked by a cat during their 5th birthday party), and the same applies to everything else. However, certain things seem to represent similar concepts in a similar way in most people, which might not otherwise occur to the average person, which can aid in dream interpretation. Not everybody is the same, but there are definitely common symbols between many people for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Slight

Hey ..

I was wondering over all the months I've been dealing with dream interpretation in reading and practicing of the following:
Since dream symbols and their associations can mean anything just as much as anything paradox to it, the field of possibilities of the true interpretation is VERY vast.
I've come to the conclusion, for my progress, that it almost makes no sense to interpret a dream before I haven't analyzed every person, every circumstance in every age of my life, and feelings/emotions and consequences relating/being caused to/by it.
So I barely feel totally released by an interpretation. How could I? Since I don't know 100% which thoughts I get while interpreting are true, and which ones are "shadows" - I always have reason to question my interpretation. I don't know if I am on the totally wrong lane - interpreting what I selfishly think is necessary for my own good; and not what's truely best for me and my inner self - and therefore in consequence to social circumstances etc.
So .. is it possible, that the unconscious uses symbols, which associations we get while we interpret individually, that fit to YOUR or MY way of understanding the meaning of a symbol? So in the end, if you follow what comes to your head first .. if you just let it go - not listen to a dreamsymbol-interpret-book - you'll be fine?
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You are obviously making this much more difficult than it needs to be.

Consider this, that dreams be taken literally. What is so difficult about that?

And then the primary concern is not that you understand some translated relevance to your waking life. the primary concern is that you be responsible for your actions and choices within the dream.

Did you kill the little puppy dog? Should you have killed the little puppy dog? That is the kind of thing you should be worrying about. Your behavior.

There is nothing to understand that is at all difficult. Do you approve of your behaviors and choices or not?

If you have decided badly, then resolve to behave differently and better in your future dreams. That will make you a better person, inside and out.

Thanks for the answers.

@ Leo:

How can I resovle behaving differently and better in future dreams? That's probably possible if you LD and ask your dream charakters questions. The answers give you hints in waking life.
The only way to change my dreams is to change something in waking life. To know what I should change, I need to see the relation dream - waking life (interpretation). Only this way I can know if, for instance, the killing of the puppy meant "problem solved" or "killing my relationship to others through acting like this or this".

Or how do you change your behavior in your dreams ( = objective reflection of your waking life)?