Why are Dreams so "Weird"?

"Wow, I had the weirdest dream last night," is a phrase I hear often. Rarely do I get, "Oh I had this normal dream," yet if someone began speaking Sanskrit, we would also find that it sounded strange, unless we'd taken the time to learn the vocabulary, grammar, mythology, and culture of the Sanskrit language. So it is with dreams, granted that we take time to learn the language of symbols, the associative logic of dreams and some principles and differences of sleeping and waking consciousness.

Dreams generally speak in a multi-dimensional language of feelings, images and multi-level associations rather than linear words and concepts. Says author Bernie Siegel, M.D., "While our minds and our bodies communicate constantly with each other, most of this exchange occurs on an unconscious level. That’s why I often advise patients to start recording dreams, because the body cannot speak except by using symbols."

Dreams often come as series, throughout the night, for a few nights in a row, and/or within some natural cycle of weeks or seasons. They are also intimately interconnected with events in the dreamer's life, and often even with events that are yet to occur (which can make literal interpretation a challenge). Edgar Cayce wisely insisted that one should "interpret the dreamer" and not just the dream alone. Trying to understand a single isolated dream without any life context or a look at other dreams can be like trying to understand a weekly show from a single episode—not pointless, but quite possibly incomplete.

The dreams that are meant to assist you in waking life, hence which are the most important to contemplate, understand and act upon are recurring dreams, nightmares, and dreams which you've asked for or incubated. Otherwise, any dream which impacts you strongly or sticks with you clearly— especially the dream you remember just before getting up in the morning— along with dreams or dream fragments which spontaneously come to you later in the day, are the ones that your unconscious is trying to bring to your conscious attention. Dreams which have a powerful positive impact and leave you feeling uplifted, inspired or even completely awestruck can be understood, but better yet they can be integrated and have their beneficial impact magnified if you express them creatively (as with this issue’s exercise) by allowing them to blossom into a poem, painting, story, dance, song, collage, sculpture, or other art form. This same technique is also an excellent type of art therapy to express the fear and difficult feelings from less pleasant dreams.

Note the level of the psyche from which dreams come, which tends to be deeper at the start of the night (and often 'weirder') and closer to our waking awareness as morning approaches (dreams which are more likely to lend themselves to conscious understanding). Look first for simple practical advice about our daily routine such as diet, exercise, and challenges you face at school, work or in your relationships, yet trust that deeper issues are likely also undergoing resolution.

Your own gut feeling is always the best source to trust for understanding your dreams, and should also have the last word as to whether any interpretation is valid. As the Sufi saying goes, "only a fool takes the words of another over his own experience." This said, dreams are often meant for sharing and it's a practice I heartily encourage when done in a supportive, non-judgmental environment. Clear insights often pop up simply in the telling, and interestingly, these vary in the presence of different people. Sharing a dream not only refreshes it in your memory and gives you a chance to gain insights while viewing it more objectively, but you may also begin to glimpse how the source from which dreams come is so wise that it knows in advance who you will meet on any given day and often cooks up dreams that are also of benefit, if not sometimes mainly intended for those you later share them with. When sharing a dream, or especially when listening to someone else share a dream, take special note of body language, face expressions and voice intonation/fluctuation since these often reflect related unconscious elements.

A good rule of thumb to find out what a dream may relate to in your life is to look at the feeling present in the dream and search daily life, especially the previous day (and six days earlier, as research has shown) for the same feeling. This greatly helps you tie together the dream symbols and their waking counterparts. On the other hand, if the feeling shocks you, such as is sometimes the case of dreams with a strong component of anger or sexuality, for example, then the dream may be a safe outlet for such feelings which have been denied healthy expression in daily life.

Time and time again I meet people who bemoan how difficult dreams are to understand, and I've noticed that this stance fulfills itself excellently, since such people end up distrusting or completely blocking any insights as or before they come. Author Richard Bach sums this up nicely in his wonderful book Illusions, "Argue your limitations and they're yours." The solution and best overall method to improve your ability to understand dreams, though deceptively simple and perhaps tough to accept initially, is simply to believe that it is easy and natural to know what your dreams are saying, and that you are already good at it. Along with this, give yourself the suggestion that important dreams will start coming accompanied by a narrative or explanatory thoughts. You can even request dreams that interpret earlier ones. I made such a request once about a very important dream, and a friend I met later that week who often shares his dreams with me, told one he’d had that morning very similar to mine with the same characters and setting, and which clearly explained mine to me; I felt he 'unknowingly' dreamt it for me.

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