Two Examples of Me Interpreting Other People's Dreams

Dream interpretation is quite an art. A lot of people are interested in it and look at it lightly, but it can be quite a serious endeavor. It can also be quite complex. Most people don't seem to understand the basic ideas, hopefully this will help provide a little insight.

This was posted in a dream interpretation group I'm in. Often, people are really searching for answers, but they haven't read Freud or Jung and don't really seem to understand where to begin. Also, it can be hard to get a more objective view of your own dreams, thoughts, and ideas, which is why it helps to have other people to talk to.

Packo

Hi guys, there are a lot of smart People in this group i know by the questions you guys post, i Wonder if you cold guide me: i had a dream Last night with a New born "Fénix", i actually helped it out of the "egg" (i know i know Fenix doesn't reborn though eggs), what could this possibly mean?

Obviously Packo is a second language speaker, I believe he speaks Portuguese, so ignore all of the grammatical errors. The sad thing about this were the responses. Most people just made jokes, not about his grammar, but about the dream itself. Now, I understand why. It's because they don't know what else to say and they want to say something anyway. Without understanding the basics of dream interpretation they can't offer any insights into dreams. Also, it's hard to do what needs to be done over Facebook comments, which would be free association. Here is how I handle it.

Jeff

This is why Freud invented free association. It depends on what you associate things with. Someone else can guess, for instance, that you associate eggs with the birth or creation of something new, and the phoenix with something that will regenerate and last beyond you. Also, the first birth of a phoenix is probably from an egg, it's just later regenerations that are from ash. So, maybe you are becoming part, or need to become part, of something (a movement, organization, purpose, etc.) that is being born, you need to nurture it, and it will live beyond you and continue to regenerate itself, but it needs help getting out of the egg, it needs help getting started.

This isn't necessarily right, it would depend on Packo's associations. But, I think this are reasonable associations to assume that many people have. So, this interpretation makes sense. Let's do another one.

Jennifer

This dream may be a little silly, but I am new to analyzing dreams and don't remember many of them.

Like JP, I have an autoimmune disease and have a limited diet. (Not as limited as his.) One of the things I can't eat is gluten.

I had a dream last night that I was really hungry and ate whatever was available. All there was to eat was dried dog food, but I was hungry so I ate it. As I ate it, I saw there was wheat in the ingredients list, but I couldn't stop eating. It tasted too good. (Ha!)

What does this mean?

First, a couple of notes. 1 - JP is Jordan Peterson, a famous psychologist. 2 - Jordan Peterson is a carnivore, meaning he only eats meat. It's like the opposite of a vegan. I believe Peterson only eats beef. I myself primarily eat meat, primarily pork, but I've added in some insights from the GAPS diet and adjusted the flavors to my liking as well, but that's completely beside the point.

Everyone seemed to take this dream literally for some reason. They all talked about how maybe she should be having a better diet, or getting a dog, or whatever. It was pretty crazy. Here is my response.

Jeff

This is why Freud invented free association. But I can take a guess. I think it's wrong to assume your dream is literal. Dreams are symbolic. What do you associate dog food with? Probably nothing good. So you can't stop yourself from consuming bad stuff. This bad stuff that you can't stop yourself from consuming may be social media, or news, or something of that sort. You know it's bad for you, but you can't seem to stop yourself.

In this case it's almost impossible to progress without comments from Jennifer. To guess at what she is consuming that's bad for her is difficult. Maybe it's literal, maybe she is eating too much bad food, too many cheat days or whatever. But, that assumption could lead us down a very errant path. Packo's case is similar. To know what organization or purpose or whatever he feels that he should be helping to break out of its shell is almost impossible to guess at without asking him some questions. But, these are a good start.

I hope this provides at least just a little insight into a better working of dream interpretation. There are two ways that you can do it. You can do a top-down approach where you impose set interpretations onto specific dreams. Or, you can do a bottom-up approach, which is what I use here and what I think is appropriate to use, where you use the associations that the person has and construct the meaning from that. Dreams are personal, their meaning is personal, and their interpretation should be as well.

I've written three fictional pieces that I like so far.

"The City of Peace" - A future history science fiction utopia/dystopia action adventure in a framed story of a father telling his son a story about the child's grandfather. That was a crazy sentence.

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2017/08/the-xprize-writing-contest-part-5-of-5.html

"The Birth of Hanniba'al" - A dark, somewhat alternative, historical origin story for the Carthage General Hannibal.

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2017/11/write-michigan-short-story-contest-part_30.html

"Matt's Eyes" - Don't read this if you don't like horror stories.

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/11/a-flash-of-horror-part-4-of-4.html

Here are three of my most popular posts.

"The Making of a Great First Line in Fiction"

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2017/12/the-making-of-great-first-line-in.html

"A Letter to My Niece in 2034"

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2017/12/a-letter-to-my-niece-in-2034.html

"The Most Important Question in Philosophy - Part 4 of 4"

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2017/11/the-most-important-question-in.html