Thread: Dreams Dictionaries

i don't tend to use dream dictionaries that often...but i do agree that some symbols are universal. And that's why i don't use the dictionaries. Because i've often found them to be way off, for the simple fact that the symbols can apply to so many people at once.
You've heard of Carl Jung?
he had a theory that all of us, have a 'collective unconscious' of dream motifs or symbols, which leads to us all at some point, having very similar dreams.
so, with that, you could say that if you dream of God and Angels, it's not going to mean much, because so does everyone else!
I think the key with symbols is, to try and equate them to your own life.
rather than take an interpretation from a book as gospel.

Why wouldn't dreaming of God and angels mean very much? I would think of those things as being highly important symbols

Originally posted by |616|G.H.f.a.R.
Why wouldn't dreaming of God and angels mean very much? I would think of those things as being highly important symbols

yes, they are important symboles, but they may be important in terms of a general spirituality, and not necessarily anything to do with the existence of a Christian God.
Example: I had a dream about three goddesses. I interpreted the dream to an extent, taking it to mean that i was meant to be pagan.
I have since found out it's nothing to do with paganism, but spirituality in General.
This has led me to studying something else, in that i'm trying to open up my 'third eye'

I believe that dreams are a connection to the unknown. If you believe in God then you know in the bible God used dreams to communicate with people. I also believe that there is the ability to heal, to find someone or something, to see the past, present and future, and much more in dreams. No matter the scientific explaination, dreams are a mystery. Ones ability lays in what they personally believe in and personal believe what they can do.

I believe that dreams have no connection to a higher power and the only "signs" that you get out of them is the ones that youv been trying to ignore, but since you saw it in a dream suddenly God sent it to you so you have to do something about it

Originally posted by irishcream

yes, they are important symbols, but they may be important in terms of a general spirituality, and not necessarily anything to do with the existence of a Christian God.

They DON'T have anything to do with God, if you look it up in a dream dictionary. According to "Dream Dictionary" by Tony Crisp, in a dream, God symoblizes a set of emotions used to deal with anger. If I had that symbol in a dream, I would just assume it's supposed to symbolize God like you did, until I looked it up.

Let me explain a little my recent history with my interest in dream symbols. I've always had a history of having tornado dreams, which I always love having, because obviously tornadoes look cool. My best friend has also always thought that tornado dreams were his favourite. Recently, I looked up 'tornado' in the dream dictionary, which says that tornados represent 'emotions or urges over which you feel you have no control'. The second I read the definition, it hit me in the face- when I'm watching a tornado in a dream, what's happening in my brain is I'm enjoying watching all the feelings and urges that I have rage out of control- which is indeed something I enjoy in waking life, for example getting really drunk and "losing yourself" kind of, and just having a great night.

Gaining a higher understanding of the nature of my enjoyment of watching tornados is actually what led to me becoming a lucid dreamer just a few weeks ago. The next tornado dream I had, seeing the tornado triggered all of my knowledge on the subject of tornados in my dreams, and I became lucid (and immediately started bashing in all these windows and lamps with a bat, it was sweet).

I believe that dream dictionaries provide a translation service for an astonishingly uniform coding system. I think that maybe people from radically different cultures may need different dream dictionaries, but that based on your overall knowledge of everything in universe, images that you have already seen will be used. For example, someone from a tribal culture who has never seen a picture of a tornado might see a raging fire in their dreams instead of a tornado to symbolize uncontrollable feelings, because it is the force of nature he has seen that contains the most beauty and power at the same time. (For us, fire is supposed to symbolize the desire to destroy, or passion, or sexuality, depending on the context.)

In conclusion, I am totally convinced that dream dictionaries are reliable sources of information, and that formulating a meaning for your dream without consulting a dream dictionary can produce completely uneducated messages.

In conclusion, I am totally convinced that dream dictionaries are reliable sources of information, and that formulating a meaning for your dream without consulting a dream dictionary can produce completely uneducated messages.[/b]

I completely disagree. every dream I've interpreted I've done so accurately without the aid of any dictionary.

I'm afraid I don't really think dreams hold any meanings. I mean, here's a list of the most important events that's happened in my dreams recently (or ones I remember most):

[list][*]Escaped from Yuuhuzan Vong (Starwars Extended Universe Aliens) [*]Ate a eye[*]Swallowed my own tounge[*]Escaped from an assaination[*]Escaped a fat caesar dude
[list]

If you can find any relation in that that isn't vauge, then I'll be damned.

some dreams are harder to interpret than others, but i know it's possible and i think they ALL mean SOMETHING.

Ate a eye *

Swallowed my own tounge [/b]

those look easier to interpret o_o

if you just give it some thought you may be able to connect it with a situation or something in your life...eating an eye...was it someones in particular? since eyes are how people SEE, and you CONSUMED it, maybe it means like...you've taken someones views...i don't know. and swallowing your tongue, maybe means something like you've prevented yourself from speaking...? if you just think about things like that, what things mean and what they mean to you personally, you might find something...and it's really fascinating (to me anyway) when you do.

Originally posted by hysteria
some dreams are harder to interpret than others, but i know it's possible and i think they ALL mean SOMETHING. *

Ate a eye *

Swallowed my own tounge

those look easier to interpret o_o

if you just give it some thought you may be able to connect it with a situation or something in your life...eating an eye...was it someones in particular? since eyes are how people SEE, and you CONSUMED it, maybe it means like...you've taken someones views...i don't know. and swallowing your tongue, maybe means something like you've prevented yourself from speaking...? if you just think about things like that, what things mean and what they mean to you personally, you might find something...and it's really fascinating (to me anyway) when you do.[/b]

im sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I could look at a plant on the side of the road and relate it to something that has happend to me or will happen to me if I think hard enough,

its like "look at that coke bottle laying there" then I think hard about what it means "of course!" "the coke bottle represents me! I have been cast aside by someone very close to me, or I will be!"
5 weeks later, my girlfriend dumps me, "im so glad I say that coke bottle and knew this was going to happen!"

see, its how much you bhelieve it means something

fuck you.

Originally posted by hysteria
fuck you.

I was just making a point

Originally posted by Kaniaz
I'm afraid I don't really think dreams hold any meanings. I mean, here's a list of the most important events that's happened in my dreams recently (or ones I remember most):

[list][*]Escaped from Yuuhuzan Vong (Starwars Extended Universe Aliens) [*]Ate a eye[*]Swallowed my own tounge[*]Escaped from an assaination[*]Escaped a fat caesar dude
[list]

These definitions are fairly specific:

1. Eating an eye

Eating represents satisfying a desire for something. Eyes represent your own viewpoints. Therefore I would say while you were eating those eyes in your dream, your brain was satisfying its hunger to have its own viewpoints. Did it somehow feel good to eat the eyes, or you were kind of happy while you were doing it?

2. Swallowing tongue

Hysteria already defined this one for you. One explanation of why you had this dream would be that you had this dream at a time when you were practising or forced to practise not always speaking your mind out loud, and your brain was continuing that practise in your sleep.

3. Escaped Assassination

Assassination represents different things depending on what your role in the situation is, but an assassination in which you are the victim simply represents a very difficult situation that you are faced with. If you had a dream that you escaped an assassination, I would guess that your brain was jerking off to the concept of escaping bad situations, possibly because you had just escaped one and it was a major relief.

4. Fat ceasar dude

'Caesar' isn't listed in anything I have, but there is a very specific meaning behind seeing dictators in your dreams. A dictator represents a suggestion, to you, that you are being too controlling and need to be more flexible. If you escaped the fat ceasar dude in your dream successfully, I guess this would have to represent you, and your success in escaping a suggestion in your waking life that you are too domineering. That would tell me that either you have a domineering personality type, and it's all good, except that someone told you unfairly to stop being that way, or that social domination is the way that you're accustomed to interacting with people, which sometimes gets you into trouble, but you don't want to stop acting like that, so you 'escape' the idea of not having a dominating personality type on a regular basis, and your brain was continuing its practise of escaping that suggestion.

5. Star Wars

*insufficient data

* * * * *

I personally find it valuable to decode my dreams, because I find it offers valuable advice and offers neat little insights into the way my brain works. Then again that's me, I'm not you. I also think it's perfectly okay to just enjoy the weirdness of your dreams- like eating an eye, how many people can say they've done that? The way I see it, dreams are basically your brain jerking off to the mental functions it enjoys, and if you use a dream dictionary and try and make sense of the dream than you wind up learning neat things about your brain and how it works.


|616|G.H.f.a.R.

I truely beleve that dreams can give you a message. But that being from your subconscious and giving you a totally unbiased, abstract view and un perceptualized view of any given situation.
That does not mean that is not from a higher power though. I personally have no idea.
As far as dream Dictionaries....No way can they be universal. We are all so differant they would have to be tailored to each individual.
Some of the obvious could be clear to anyone. For Example. (I dream of floods and drowning a lot = interpreted > Your life is inudated with intense emotions and you may be overwhelmed.) I think I could have maid an assumtion like that.

Originally posted by SantaDreamsToo


im sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I could look at a plant on the side of the road and relate it to something that has happend to me or will happen to me if I think hard enough,

its like \"look at that coke bottle laying there\" then I think hard about what it means \"of course!\" \"the coke bottle represents me! I have been cast aside by someone very close to me, or I will be!\"
5 weeks later, my girlfriend dumps me, \"im so glad I say that coke bottle and knew this was going to happen!\"

see, its how much you bhelieve it means something

BAWHAHAHAHAHA!!!! IF this isn't the Dumbest thing I've ever heard of. SantaDreams you Need some spiritual guidence!

[quote]As far as dream Dictionaries....No way can they be universal. We are all so different they would have to be tailored to each individual.

And yet we are all a lot more similar than most people would ever imagine. If you've ever studied music, you may learned an interesting fact: all people specific harmonies with specific emotions and feeling- it's a fact you can't argue against. So out of the 12 notes in the musical scale, you can combine them to make 11 different harmonies. A minor-third harmony evokes sadness. A major third makes people think of happiness. A tri-tone makes people think of confusion and disorder. And it goes further- one chord out of the seven chords in a musical scale, following one another produces effects that are universal among people- a 5th chord followed by a 1st chord is parallel with a feeling of resolution or completement. This is why people sometimes say, in a seemingly cheesy way, that music is the international language- because it is. Every human equates the exact same feelings with the range of musical melodies and chord progressions. I think maybe the same thing applies to people with images on the subconscious level.


|616|

the heavy music and agressive vocals in black metal make me feel happy. does that mean it's the same for everyone else?

Originally posted by hysteria
the heavy music and agressive vocals in black metal make me feel happy. does that mean it's the same for everyone else?

First, let me give you my highest approval, for I too am made happy by the sweet sounds of the heaviest music on earth, such as death metal and industrial. Next, allow me to offer my lowest contempt for completely missing the point hehe jk

The individual harmonies and 2-step chord progressions themselves, on their own, are what trigger universal human reactions. Find a nearby piano and hit C and Eb, and tell me that sounds like anything but sadness. C and E- tell me it doesn't sound happy. C and G sound powerful together- this interval is called a perfect fifth, and are the two member notes in the "power chord", that chord commonly used by guitarists in rock.

Ps- just wondering, do you ever spend your lucid time in dreams doing your dream analyses Hysteria? A friend of mine says he does that and it kicks ass, and that's the entire reason why he prefers self-analysis to dream dictionaries. It sounds like your analytical ability is pretty good, but still pretty different from the stuff you find in a dictionary. Have you ever found your analytical ability is enhanced because you are in the dream itself while you are analysing it? Damn....come to think of it that sounds like a pretty great way to have the greatest lucid dreams on earth!

Hi everyone. The fresh meat is here to slap you in the face with his opinion for the very first time, and I have to say, SantaDreamsToo was dead on--in my book anway. People always are looking for some deeper context to completely objective phenomena. When I say "people," I mean those who are easily suggestable. Dreams do no need to have some deep powerful message, and, as an agnostic, I certainly don't submit to the fallacy that "God" sends us messages while we lie idyllically in bed.

To illustrate my point, let me remind everyone that when we dream deeply, the "logical" area of the brain (the frontal lobe) is resting, and thus not functioning properly. The lower, shall we say "less evolved," areas take over while the higher fuctioning zones rest. Why then are we to assume that something spectacular is happening at this time? We are not thinking logicaly! This is why seemingly random images appear and bizzare occurences seem perfectly natural. In waking life would you see a purple elephant and think "oh, how cute"? Of course you wouldn't! You'd say "Holy [explicative deleted]! A purple elephant!" (no pun intended on the whole "God sending us messages while we sleep" thing).

Now keep in mind that this assertion is rather speculative. I can't tell you that I know why we dream in the first place. Nor can I tell you I'm an expert on the subject. However, I do have another reason that's rather personal for the opinion I've formed. I used to experiment with drugs to try and achieve something "supernatural." However, with a little help I realized what was really happening, and understood how stupid I was being. I stopped that nonsense. But I did learn something valuable through the experimentation. I learned that at times when I felt like I had touched something that I wouldn't have been able to achieve without the drug, I was actually being completely illogical. I was allowing my deluded emotions to take over my thought processes since my brain cells were being destroyed. But I thought I was being smart. I thought the drug was making me smarter! This drugged state and a dream state are parallel because our brains are not functioning at peak performance and we are subject to make mistakes that may seem logical but aren't. It seems natural to me that some people could mistake dreaming for touching something supernatural.

But if we take the supernatural factor out of the equation and we assume that dreaming is actually a subconscious process in which we are trying to convey incredible meaning to ourselves, wouldn't this be something absolutely imperative to us? We are trying to communicate something important, right? Why then do most people forget their dreams instantaneously when they awake? Something of that magnitude should surely be remembered! Are we to assume that most of the 7 billion people on earth are mentally handicapped and can't send a message four inches away to another part of the brain? Are we to assume that this sublevel area must use some complicated technique just to communicate with the rest of our body?

Now, I am not refuting that interpreting dreams can potentially be helpful. Instead, I am asserting that the interpretation be taken into individual consideration, and that only the dreamer will fully understand the implications of certain images he or she recieves. Using a book to evaluate someone's mental processes in a dream--a book written by someone who does not personally know the dreamer--is silly to me. It is perfectly logical to me to accept that dreaming can consist of purely random images at times that may not have some extravagant context. It's possible that, as we rest, certain emotions can indeed trigger images that do have a meaning, but it takes individual soul searching to evaluate that phenomenon.

Please keep in mind that anything I've put forth is subject to change at my discretion as I review and recieve new information and material. But at the present time, these are my thoughts. For the "spiritual" people out there, please excuse my skepticism on the topic, and perhaps you can teach me something I don't already know. I try to be open to new ideas always.

Well as for the left side of the brain being inactive during dreaming & therefore making our logical side be inactive... I have to disagree. When we lucid dream, there is no change in brain activity as far as we know. The left side is still inactive... however we are still logical while lucid and can decifer who we are and what 2 plus 2 is.

Children typically remember there dreams, I believe the main reason people start forgetting is because society conditions us to believe that their irrelavant and random images. If you don't think something is important you will forget it. The subconscious mind may believe its important and try its best to convey it to us, but if you consciously say dreams are useless it will override the subconscious's need to remember dreams. Young people typically remember, while adults do not? hmmm.

Also yes there are times in dreams that we feel we have the answer and that things are logical, Only to wake up and see that it makes no sense. Drugs do something simular. I think some of this is suggesting that we are deluding ourselfs, but in another sense it could just be that while in this alteredstate of consciousness we can percieve things in a more open minded view than the normal consciousness can. Who knows, All i can say is people have come up with some great ideas in these altered states, that they wouldn't have normally came up with, so it can prove to be usefull.

As for my opinion on dream journals, I think there are many universal meanings that apply to most poeple... However it is no substitute for personal logical reasoning, since peoples experiences can wildly differ just as much as they are highly simular.
Let me end with this point-
People are the same in many ways & yet they are so very different just as much as they are the same.

So... Like real world dictionaries, Words only mean what you think they mean, for the most of us words will be relatively the same for us, but there are instances where they are not. And don't forget about context, it can change everything... thats one thing a dream dictionary does not have.

-Daniel

I wasn't really intending for the topic to veer off into "decipher Kaniaz's dreams" but since you did take all that time to do it, it's only nice if I reply.

Originally posted by |616|G.H.f.a.R.
Eating represents satisfying a desire for something. Eyes represent your own viewpoints. Therefore I would say while you were eating those eyes in your dream, your brain was satisfying its hunger to have its own viewpoints. Did it somehow feel good to eat the eyes, or you were kind of happy while you were doing it?

I did feel a vauge happiness, but as for the whole viewpoint deal, I don't think it relates to me.

Hysteria already defined this one for you. One explanation of why you had this dream would be that you had this dream at a time when you were practising or forced to practise not always speaking your mind out loud, and your brain was continuing that practise in your sleep. [/b]

Well, at that time, it was more or less the opposite. I was always speaking my mind..

Assassination represents different things depending on what your role in the situation is, but an assassination in which you are the victim simply represents a very difficult situation that you are faced with. If you had a dream that you escaped an assassination, I would guess that your brain was jerking off to the concept of escaping bad situations, possibly because you had just escaped one and it was a major relief.[/b]

Well I escaped the assaination, then I sorta..assainated the assainators.

'Caesar' isn't listed in anything I have, but there is a very specific meaning behind seeing dictators in your dreams. A dictator represents a suggestion, to you, that you are being too controlling and need to be more flexible. If you escaped the fat ceasar dude in your dream successfully, I guess this would have to represent you, and your success in escaping a suggestion in your waking life that you are too domineering. That would tell me that either you have a domineering personality type, and it's all good, except that someone told you unfairly to stop being that way, or that social domination is the way that you're accustomed to interacting with people, which sometimes gets you into trouble, but you don't want to stop acting like that, so you 'escape' the idea of not having a dominating personality type on a regular basis, and your brain was continuing its practise of escaping that suggestion.[/b]

I ran away from him but I didn't actually escape (woke up)...I don't think that relates very well either.

I personally find it valuable to decode my dreams, because I find it offers valuable advice and offers neat little insights into the way my brain works. Then again that's me, I'm not you. I also think it's perfectly okay to just enjoy the weirdness of your dreams- like eating an eye, how many people can say they've done that? The way I see it, dreams are basically your brain jerking off to the mental functions it enjoys, and if you use a dream dictionary and try and make sense of the dream than you wind up learning neat things about your brain and how it works.[/b]

I don't really believe in it; you see I think that given a dream full of objects, you can easily pick one of at least a hundred objects/things/emotions/actions and make it relate to you in some way, more or less. But some dreams certainly do have some sort of "message" (although not intentional). One person I knew kept dreaming about their old house, which was funny because they really missed that house. So I figure your brain can sometimes, although not alot, make things "link" with your real life and thoughts, but when you start thinking of everything there as a symbol, it gets a bit vauge - for me at least.

Originally posted by |616|G.H.f.a.R.

And yet we are all a lot more similar than most people would ever imagine. If you've ever studied music, you may learned an interesting fact: all people specific harmonies with specific emotions and feeling- it's a fact you can't argue against. So out of the 12 notes in the musical scale, you can combine them to make 11 different harmonies. A minor-third harmony evokes sadness. A major third makes people think of happiness. A tri-tone makes people think of confusion and disorder. And it goes further- one chord out of the seven chords in a musical scale, following one another produces effects that are universal among people- a 5th chord followed by a 1st chord is parallel with a feeling of resolution or completement. This is why people sometimes say, in a seemingly cheesy way, that music is the international language- because it is. Every human equates the exact same feelings with the range of musical melodies and chord progressions. I think maybe the same thing applies to people with images on the subconscious level.|616|

That is very interesting. I wonder if the same set or similar set of principles are followed by color as well? Primary, secondary colors and such.

I am not denieing the fact that physicaly our anatomies are not very similar. But that is talking physiology.
When comparing that to lucid dreams it would only come into account if your talking about brain functions, chemicals and other functions of our brain. But in context to a dream dictionary it seems irrelevant to me. Do to the fact that no two people have the same background. Or even the same hour, minute or second. This is what would make up a determination of ones dreams wouldn't it? There own life.
Unless these messages are sent from a higher being. But the odds of everyone seeing this code is as likely as everyone interpreting the Bible the same way. It would be the Tower Of Babble Dictionary.

Hello Keeper of the Grove. (Welcome )
You seem to be defining meaning as having to be like an aspiration or an Epiphany, with such great emphasize on it. But don't you think that tapping into your subconscious is a way of viewing a point of view from a totally differant approach? So it is not nesiccarily an imparitve skill.

Personally i dont think dreams are in any way realted to a higher power such as a god, but are only interpretations of our waking life, thing that some how link you to your waking life but yet imaginary enough to be crazy as. I also have a dream dictionary and persoanlly think its a load of shit, they need to be like tuned to the individual, for example: one dream i was a sniper in the british army doing a mission with a 3 man team, this could b weird for a person that may not have n e idea of that sort, but it just so happens that i own rifles, into sniper stories and camoflage and own a ghillie and have a detailed book about snipers in the brit army...coincidence?

Well as for the left side of the brain being inactive during dreaming & therefore making our logical side be inactive... I have to disagree. When we lucid dream, there is no change in brain activity as far as we know. The left side is still inactive... however we are still logical while lucid and can decifer who we are and what 2 plus 2 is.

Children typically remember there dreams, I believe the main reason people start forgetting is because society conditions us to believe that their irrelavant and random images. If you don't think something is important you will forget it. The subconscious mind may believe its important and try its best to convey it to us, but if you consciously say dreams are useless it will override the subconscious's need to remember dreams. Young people typically remember, while adults do not? hmmm.[/b]

I have encountered numerous models that attempt to explain why humans dream, but I cannot say that I know which is correct. The model I was using may be outdated or false, but it does make sense, at least in a limited fashion. I am certain that when we dream (excluding lucid dreams) we are not as logical as when we are awake. Given, we are more logical when we are lucid, but lucidity is much closer to consciousness than deep sleep.

Many people believe children are wonderful, perfect specimens that we must all adore and marvel over, but my experiences have not led me to this conclusion. I live with six of my cousins, and they can be real demons at times. Children's brains are not as developed as adults'. So, why are we astonished that they remember their dreams more often than adults? Adults have stress, anxiety, and everyday worries that demand their attention. However, if they slow down and focus on remembering their dreams, I'm sure they will be just as apt as a child, if not more so.

A book that tells us what our dreams mean can only achieve a limited degree of certainty. For instance, if the book says that the image of a snake means something in particular, for everyone in existence that has never heard or seen of a snake, they will not be able to communicate this meaning to themself. I'm not sure who has never experienced seeing a snake, but for those who havn't, they are surely missing out. The same general principle can be applied to all images that are supposed to have a universal meaning. Also, I'm sure that there is no book out there that says "If you dream about Peggy, this means you are feeling anxious and hurt," but I know that this is true for me. It wouldn't be true for anyone else, and her image may change meaning to me as our relationship changes.