Following Your Dreams, Literally

Dreams. You’re told to follow them or have them. You’re supposed to dream big or have realistic dreams. But what about the vivid imagery that bombards your slumber some nights? Are you supposed to follow those as well? Because if so we’d have a lot of people doing crazy things like obsessing over marrying a certain celebrity, robbing a local pet store because they’re housing a unicorn or dying and coming back as a ghost to save the day.

Or…is that just me?

So what’s the difference between the goal-oriented dreams and these exercises of your imagination ones? In my opinion, there’s no difference.

I believe you dream certain things for a reason. A lot of research I’ve come across attributes the dreams you have to be a response to the last thing you think about before you fall asleep. Your brain creates these images in order to help yourself work out the problem you’re facing in your waking life. So in essence, in order to solve your problems, you need to follow your dreams.

That’s where dream interpretation comes into play. Certain images in dreams correlate to issues in your waking life. Some common symbols or images in dreams are:

Car Trouble: this represents a feeling of loss of control over something in your waking life. You might feel powerless or that you’re about to hit rock bottom.

Communication Errors: This involves not being about to get in touch with someone or something due to machinery malfunction. If you dial a wrong number on your phone or can’t seem to get reception or log onto the internet, you’re feeling out of touch, removed and disconnected.

Being Lost: You dream about being lost when you’re making a big decision in life that you haven’t quite made your mind up about yet. By finding your way out of whatever area you’re lost in you are trying to steer yourself in the direction of the right choice or decision.

Missing the Bus: Or that important meeting you’ve been preparing for day and night. It’s always a fraction of a second and all of your world seems to shatter around you. It signifies missing an opportunity in your waking life especially when struggling to make that important decision.

Failing a Test: Maybe you couldn’t find the room or you realized you didn’t study. This is common when you’re unprepared in your real life or you feel like you’re pursuing the wrong avenues.

Dying: When you or someone you know is dying in your dreams this could mean a few things. For one you can be hurt emotionally or it may be warning you for an upcoming event that will cause physical pain to yourself or a loved one. When it is someone who is very close and relatable to yourself you can interpret that as that part of your own personality being dead.

Being Chased: There are those nights you wake up with your heart racing because you’ve been running in your dreams from someone, something that has been chasing and haunting your slumber. This is one of the most common symbols in dreams. It’s all about feeling threatened. You need to turn around and look at the aggressor to try to identify what it most closely resembles in your real life.

Teeth: This is another common image in dreams. You open your mouth to discover teeth missing or horribly decaying. This could be seen as a humiliating meaning. You don’t want to see yourself like that just as you don’t want others to see you. It is all about the importance of your image.

Nudity: When you show up to your presentation at work or school naked it might be kind of embarrassing, unless you’re making a statement. But in dream world this is code for feeling vulnerable or exposed. Maybe you recently revealed a secret or your personal opinion about something that made you feel like you shared too much. Or maybe you’re destined to be a nudist.

Falling: I don’t think I have to explain what the dream entails because this is the most common dream image that we all share. You feel your body falling, falling, falling and right before you hit the ground, you jolt awake (or you go splat). But what contributes to these dreams is feeling overwhelmed, insecure or unsupported. In order to stop falling, you really have to diffuse the situation that’s overwhelming you.

Babies: You dream that you’re pregnant or you already have a child with a partner. This is all about creating something new. In your waking life that doesn’t mean literally creating a child but more of a new idea, something fresh and pure.

Weddings: This is all about uniting. Where in real life you’re tying yourself to another person in a lifelong commitment, in your dreams its about marrying your conscious and subconscious minds. In doing so, the dreamer reaches a new level of awareness.

Mountains: Just like in waking life, mountains represent obstacles. If you’re feeling trapped by the mountain, you’ve got an obstacle to overcome in your waking life but if you’re pushing forward, you are aware of the challenge ahead.

The symbols and images listed above are just the tip of the iceberg in dream interpretation. They’re the quick fixes, the most basic things to look at and interpret to understand the messages being sent to our conscious state from our unconscious.

So when you wake up and recall what you had been dreaming about, it is important to look at the ‘why?’. Your mind is trying to tell you something that you have not yet accepted and by trusting in your dreams, you can achieve things that have intimidated you in your waking life.