An Uninterpreted Dream is Like an Unopened Letter (C.G. Jung)

To understand messages in our dreams, we often automatically reach for old ways that are not necessarily the best options. If our dream moved us on emotional level and left behind an intense feeling that, like a song heard on the radio, stayed with us for the entire day- this dream is very likely to be the best material for dreamwork. If you have been experiencing strong feelings after waking from such an emotionally impactful dream, taking a closer look at this particular dream might be an excellent idea.

Old-fashioned dream dictionaries, which help people with interpretation of dreams, are not the best choice, especially when emotionally impactful dreams come to us at the time of serious difficulties in life. Dreams coming to us during tough times are very likely to communicate very important messages.

Well interpreted messages from dreams speed up the process of therapy. Conclusions drawn on the basis of dreams are like shortcuts that lead to our unconscious. We could get in touch with our unconscious very slowly by expanding our awareness, however, expanding our awareness takes a bit of time and we do not always have the luxury of taking as much time as we want to get to our destination as soon as possible. Dreams are like coded messages with the access code hidden inside ourselves. The access code to our dreams hidden in our body is the language of our feelings. The access code to our dreams hidden in our mind is our own interpretation of the symbols.

As you can see, recording and understanding all impactful dreams in the process of therapy is very important. Recording dreams for later use in therapy requires paying attention to events, colours, time of the day or the night, people, animals, any enthusiasm or aversion towards someone or something and the intense feeling we wake up with, especially if it brings a strong sense of discomfort.

One well interpreted reoccuring dream can help the dreamer solve a problem they have been struggling to resolve during only two counselling sessions (introductory consultation + the dreamwork session).

In my work with dreams I mainly use techniques I learned during a 55 hour certificate level group training in dreamwork run by Nicole Reilly, who is a senior practitioner, a supervisor and a lecturer at CCPE in London.