The quick 5-Step version
Step 1. E is for Emotions
Feelings and your emotional reaction to the dream as you wake are the first clue to its meaning, and sometimes the most important. For example, if you see yourself dying but wake up feeling happy, it is not likely a prediction of your upcoming demise. Even if you do not yet understand the dream, note your feelings.
Step 2.
A is for Action into Story Line
The story line is not a summary. You “extract” the story’s main action and put it into new, more generalized words. For example, a young man dreams of trying to catch a firefly on a warm summer night. He keeps swatting, yet missing, chasing after it frantically, but it gets away. Out of frustration, he plunks himself down on the grass and sits quietly. As he does, a firefly comes near, and moving gently, he catches it. Here the story line is: “When doing something frantically, someone fails, but succeeds after they quiet down.” Or, another way of stating it might be: “Someone sees that they get what they want by staying calm and letting it come to them”. This describes the "overall" story but there is no mention of a young man, a firefly, summer night, sitting on the grass, and so on. The goal is to use words like “someone” and “something” to create generalities without using actual details to describe the main action and outcome.
Step 3.
S is for Story Matches Life
The basic question is not “What does this dream mean?” It is: “To what in my life or something within me (ideas, attitudes, emotions) does this dream refer?” The dream is not just an entertaining story; it’s an important communication about you and/or your life.
| Step 4.
S is for Symbols Add Detail
If you have ever played a game of Charades - the parlor game where one person silently mimes and acts out a word or phrase to others - then you know Dream Speak. That’s exactly how dreams speak to you, as a pantomime using one image to convey a related meaning. Three main methods of working with symbols are:
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Freud’s Association Method: Go backward in experience for associations with a symbol.
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Jung’s Parallel Association Method: List all current associations with a symbol.
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Pictures as Word Play: Visual images are often a “play on words”. For example, "lettuce" can be “Let Us”, or a circle can indicate: “going 'round in circles”.
Step 5.
Y is for You Take the Insight & Apply It
By step five, you can arrive at an interpretation that rings true for you. As a last step, write the “application” of what the dream invites you to do, become, or change. Does it invite you to work on an attitude or a talent, take a step in career, work, or a relationship, solve a piece of a puzzle in a problem? Set it down as: “I will take steps to calm down in that relationship”, or, “I will investigate how to advance in my career”. This will make the insights you receive concrete, ensure further clear dreams, and like building a house one brick at a time, will add much to our life, character, and happiness.
GUARANTEE:
USE THESE FIVE STEPS ON TWELVE DREAMS. BY THE 12TH, YOU CAN USE THE MEANING OF YOUR DREAMS FOR LIFE.
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