Q&A about Dreams
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about working with Dreams
Q: I have a few reoccurring dreams that I am trying to decipher. Is there a good book on dreams that you can recommend to me? I would like to decide my dreams and better understand what I need to work on.
A: Recurring dreams are very important as they are repeatedly trying to convey the same type of message or pointing to the same type of pattern in life. I wouldn’t like to be too brief in answering this question. The subject of recurring dreams is too important to miss discussing in more detail, so there is a special post about working with recurring dreams on this website.
Regarding the books for learning your own dream language. I would humbly reference my book “Language of Dreams. Bridge into Unknown” [ISBN 978-5-0051-3355-7] for the Russian speaking community. The primary purpose of this book is to provide the reader with tools and methods for working with the content of their subconscious (super-conscious, actually) and for depicting the symbolism based on their own associations and experiences, enabling them to do it by themselves with no need for the intermediary between their Higher Self and their conscious mind.
Dream language is unique in certain way for each dreamer, this is why I always advice to stay away from any “dream dictionaries” that are widely spread in internet and even in the book stores. If you already use such books, then at least stay with only one of them: even though your dream guides in this case won’t be able to use their “native” language (so, the communication won’t be really free), but at least they’ll know exactly how you are going to depict each symbol based on your chosen book. From all the dream dictionaries Edgar Cayce presents the most reasonable symbolism that can be applied in many cases.
The beauty of trying to learn your own dream language is that you actually don’t need to read many books in order to learn it. Your own dreams are the teachers that provide learning material on the nightly basis. But at the beginning it might be useful to learn how to approach this whole project of working with your dreams, and there are good books out there that may help with that, before you’ll become fully autonomous in this work.
I would recommend for the English speaking readers to start with “Realities of the Dreaming Mind: The Practice of Dream Yoga” by Swami Sivananda Radha. She gives good overview of the dreaming experience and how to use dreams as a spiritual practice. What’s important to mention about this book is that Swami Sivananda Radha wasn’t an ordinary person when she was writing this book. She is one of the examples of rare people who quit the mundane world and fully devote their life to serve God. So, her dreams are much less symbolic than dreams of any average human being who is still experiencing life in the normal sense (i.e. going through circles of problems, dealing with karma, building relationships, pursuing career etc.)
For that reason I would recommend after reading “Realities of the Dreaming Mind” to get familiar with the work of Carl Jung. It doesn’t have to be an in-depth study of his multiple volumes of writing (unless you have an interest in it). But just reading the first part of “Man and His Symbols” (the part of the book that’s written by Jung himself) can be enough for understanding the main idea about the symbolism of our dreams.
And then, as I mentioned before, your own dreams will provide you with everything you need for learning.
At the beginning it may not be quite easy to depict the meaning of certain symbols, so, please, don’t be frustrated – dreams will bring up the same subject again and again and they’ll show it from the different angle, so that eventually you’ll be able to pinpoint the meaning. Starting to write your own Dream Dictionary will help to speed up this process. It’s persistent work that requires patience but it’s well worth it.
Additional way to help yourself in learning to interpret your own dreams is to join one of the dream interpretation groups and to see how it’s being done by experienced dream interpreters. It doesn’t mean that someone is able to give 100% correct interpretation, but simply watching this practice might be useful in a way that you will see the variety of approaches and eventually find your own strategies for working with dreams. Personally I recommend “Dream Interpretation with Edgar Cayce’s A.R.E.” group on Fb as it has some really good dream interpreters there.
Q: I’ve had several dreams in the past where I see airplanes crashing. I’m never on them, but observing from the ground. It’s always close to me and I try to run to the crash to help those onboard. I never make it to helping them before I wake up. In the last one, I made it to the plane but woke before getting inside.
A: Regarding the symbolism of an airplane, every dreamer might have different meaning of this symbol and even the same dreamer may see airplanes in different dreams representing different aspects. In order to correctly depict these dreams, I would need to talk with the dreamer on the personal level like at the counselling session (I have to apologize in advance, if there is any interest in that type of work: even though I’m certified counsellor, it’s just not possible for me to take any clients right now – the book I’m writing takes a lot of my time). So I may suggest only some general ideas about how to approach the airplane dreams.
If we look at the airplane from the perspective of its purpose/function, then as any other transportation device an airplane takes you from one place to another. The difference is in the higher speed of the airplane and also that it’s touching the ground only at the beginning and at the end of the journey. Another difference is that its place is in the sky (which may refer, for example, to the mind).
Getting from one place to another may symbolize Change, or pursuing a goal, moving in the certain direction in life, starting a new stage of life, projecting some ideas into the future etc.
As one of many possible variants of interpretation, this dream may be pointing to the situation where you had an idea, an aspiration, dream, goal to achieve, but it failed for some reason. Also it can be a project, even a business (anything that can “take off” or to be “launched”) that crashed.
“Crash” can have different meaning and associations as well – if you look at your current situation in life, try to see where the “crash” is and if it’s still possible to save something in this area, to minimize the damage (it looks like these dreams intentionally point to this particular task of saving some part of the aspect that failed/crashed!)
Though I gave some ideas about depicting these dreams, I should also mention that sometimes symbols are so far away from any reasonable explanation and can be based purely on very subtle associations of the dreamer with certain objects, that it’s almost impossible for someone who doesn’t know the dreamer to suggest the right answer.
In my practice, for example, I had a dreamer who was dreaming about an airplane flying backwards. And only after he faced certain problematic situation in his real life (couple of days after his dream), it became possible to understand that this backward airplane was symbolizing the planet Mercury going retrograde. So, this dream was pointing to the astrological influence on the catalytic event that was happening in his life at this time. Even though it was “late” interpretation, nevertheless it gave an important clue, pointing to the underlying reasons for someone’s erratic behavior, so that the dreamer would be aware that such catalyst may repeat again during the next Mercury retrograde, unless his opponent resolves his internal issues before that.
This is just an example of how unique is the symbolism of any particular dreamer. So, it always brings us back to the idea of learning our own dream language so that we can uncover personal custom-made solutions hidden in our dreams.
Author: Rita Lev, 2021
