You Need Only Five Minutes to Analyze a Dream

This is a first glance at a quick method to analyze your dreams in five easy steps, as summarized below. Further details about each step follow in Chapters 3 through 7.

Discovering what your dreams mean is as easy as learning to ride a bicycle. Use these five steps to get your balance on a dozen dreams and you will be on your way to a lifetime of dream insights. Once you get into the rhythm, you can begin to see the meaning of many dreams in five minutes.

1: Emotions

Note your feelings (1) during the dream and (2) as you wake up. Your emotional reaction to a dream is the first clue to what it means, and on occasion, your reaction is the most important clue. For example, if you see yourself lying in a coffin but wake up feeling happy, the dream is not likely a prediction of your demise.

2: Story Line

The story line is a generalized “restating” of the dream without repeating the actual details. It is not a summary. A summary merely extracts the main ideas using the same terms as the original story. To get the story line, you extract the main action and the end result of the dream without using the actual words. You replace the story’s original words with general terms like “someone” or “something.”

FOR EXAMPLE, a young man dreams that he is trying to catch a firefly on a warm summer night. He swats at the fireflies yet keeps missing; he chases one, but it gets away. Out of frustration, he plunks down on the grass and sits quietly. As he relaxes, a firefly gets close and he gently catches it.

THE STORY LINE IS: “Frantic activity fails, but someone succeeds after becoming quiet.” Or “Someone gets what they want by staying calm and letting it come to them.”

3: Match the Story Line to an Area of Your Life

As always, the question is not “What does this dream mean?” The question is, “To what in my life (my actions, decisions, or relationships) or in me (my personality, attitudes, or emotions)—does the dream refer?” Like fitting a puzzle piece into the big picture of your life, determine what, in you, or in your life, may sound like the story line.

4: Symbols

The brain is hardwired to visually record and remember your memories, thoughts, and events. As a result, most memories are “pictures linked to feelings,” which is important to note. Since the brain stores memories as images, it is no surprise that dreams—which are a by-product of the mind—also use pictures to communicate their message.

Dream symbols are pictures that relate to and are “linked to” memories and experiences such as graduating from school, receiving flowers, or a special exchange with a loved one. First, see how the image makes you feel, and second, check out what past experiences the symbol relates to in your life.

5: What the Dream Means

By the time you run a dream through steps one to four, you have noticed your feelings (step one), created a story line and matched it to a real-life situation (steps two and three), and observed how its main symbols relate to your personal experience (step four). By that time, an “aha” moment often comes together to reveal the dream message.

Applying what you learn from the dream is crucial. Whether the message invites you to change an attitude, explore career options, or expresses congratulations for a job well done, using a dream message helps unleash your potential and sets you on the path to success, peace, and happiness.