How to Interpret Your Dreams

It would seem that sensory experiences are permanently recorded by our subconscious mind, even though we remain consciously unaware of them. Under hypnosis, eyewitnesses to a crime are able to recall detailed facts that they had previously been unable to remember. Asleep or awake, the subconscious, like the tape recorder, registers continuously. This is because the senses are awarenesses of the inner self which never sleeps. This may also explain why associations with some symbols appearing in dreams are difficult to interpret – they are not consciously observed.

Dreams symbols, such as a house, a bird, or a friend, always represent much more than that which first meets the eye. This is why the beginner can benefit from help received from those who have made a serious study of dreams. Carl Jung voiced much the same thought when he said that, if one understands symbols, one can understand the dream as much by empathy as by formal analysis.

The ideal, however, is for the individual himself to learn to understand his dreams by writing them down. Dreams are more easily understood in series. Dream researchers have discovered that three or even four of the dreams each night often relate to the same basic problem or subject, but in different symbols.

It is also helpful not only to pray for guidance, but also to learn to meditate. Meditation, which is the art of listening with the ego subdued, improves the clarity of dreams, expands the consciousness, and encourages extrasensory perceptions by breaking down the barriers between the conscious mind and the subconscious and superconscious.

Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of symbology is that it is a universal language, teaching and preserving permanent basic truths. What shorthand is to words, symbology is to ideas. This is especially true of religious concepts.

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