Your personal dream dictionary
Buying a dream dictionary from a bookshop is not really going to be very helpful to you because most dream symbols are personal to the dreamer. An elephant in Joe’s dream might mean something completely different to an elephant in Matt’s dream, for example. Joe might be a cartoonist who learned his first cartooning skills drawing an elephant character, so an elephant in his dream might symbolise ‘practice’ or ‘new skills’. Matt might have been
Dream interpretation: Slo-mo with glue feet
Have you ever dreamed of trying to walk or run somewhere only your feet feel glued to the ground, or the air around you seems viscous and sticky, making what should be an easy pace into an intense gym workout? You have? It’s a very common dream theme. So what does it mean, and why is it so common? This kind of dream tends to come up when you’re resisting progress with something in your
Dream interpretation: Landscapes
How many different landscapes have you encountered in your dreams? Have you visited mountains, forests, deserts, foreign cities, unknown suburbs, rolling hills and valleys, lush countryside, steep rock cliffs, or barren wastelands? What do these dream settings mean? The landscape in your dream helps describe the situation you find yourself in, the one your dream sets out to explore. If you find yourself in a dream desert, for example, you might be dreaming about a
Dream alchemy for every dream?
“Twenty times a day for two weeks!” is the startled response I usually hear when I describe the procedure for a dream alchemy visualisation to a first-time client. “Yes, then twice a day for another four weeks,” I add, “just first thing in the morning and last thing at night.” (Dream alchemy practices are simple exercises, such as visualisations, based on symbols from your dream. Your dream symbols come from your unconscious mind, so these
Bad dreams & dementia?
Recent research has got people all excited about a possible link between people who thrash about in bed while they’re dreaming and the later development of dementia, in particular, Parkinson’s Disease. Here’s a video clip (2019: Video clip no longer available) of me talking about this on The Morning Show, Channel 7, this morning. So let’s have a look at this: Normally, we don’t thrash about in bed while we’re dreaming. We might toss and turn
Inception: Can you control a dream?
Can you control your dreams? Can you control other people’s dreams? Have you seen the movie Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, released in recent weeks? It’s about a team of people who control other people’s dreams and get them to reveal their secrets. The team is asked to go one stage further: to control a target’s dream and implant an idea, so that when that target wakes up, he believes the
Sunrise video clip: lucid dreams
Here’s the video clip of my appearance on Sunrise, Channel 7, this morning. We’re talking about the movie Inception, which raises the question of whether we can control our dreams and whether we can control other people’s dreams. (2019: Video clip no longer live.) (Here’s the information-packed blog on lucid dreaming I wrote the next day.)
Dream interpretation: A suitable toilet?
Some people say it’s probably just as well that most toilets you find in your dreams are unsuitable to use because, otherwise, you might end up wetting your bed – or worse. This may be the case when your bladder is bursting and the physical sensation is impinging on your dream creating the whole, urgent, ‘Where’s the toilet?’ dream scenario. Body sensations can and do affect your dreams, and since most people need to get
Dream interpretation results: Suzanne’s news, episode 45
Here’s an update from Suzanne, my guest on podcast episode 45, The Dream Show. Suzanne had dreamed of a prickly cactus obstructing her way in her dream. There was mud to one side, rocks to the other, and no shoes to protect her feet. We discussed her dream on the podcast. Suzanne now reports: “At the time of the dream, a team mate at work was as prickly as a cactus, a real impediment to
Dream interpretation: What you did in my dream last night
What do you think of me? It’s a serious question! You’ve come to know me a little through these tips. How would you describe my personality? Write your answers down. Now, imagine the answers other people have given. Do you think they might have picked similar descriptions to yours? The chances are that there will be a variety of responses, because we all see people through different eyes, according to our individual experiences. If you’re