Use Intuition to Interpret Your Dreams

Our dreams are an important link to our subconscious. They can give tremendous insight into our psyche and our journey towards wholeness. In those moments when they are incredibly vivid, we find ourselves called to investigate their meaning.

Salvador Dalí's design of a dream for Hitchcock’s Spellbound.

My dream journal is always packed full of fresh notes that I’m yet to make sense of. It’s never as simple as Googling a particular symbol like a snake, discovering it represents a toxic person and taking that as the universal truth. What a dream snake means is different for each of us. Does that mean we should give up on dream interpretation? Absolutely not.

I recently read Inner Work, Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth by Jungian Analyst Robert A Johnson. I’ve since been using a simplified version of his four-step approach to interpreting my dreams in a way that’s unique to my inner world. I call on my intuition to help identify what lessons my dreams have for me. And I’m now collecting highly personal and profound interpretations that are starting to influence my life and my actions.

I highly recommend trying this method to see what you come up with.

Step one - dream associations 

So you have your sketchy notes outlining your dream, great work! Now break your dream apart into a series of symbols. You might have a list with a farmhouse, big toe, red shoe… etc.

The real work starts here. Step one involves coming up with as many associations as you can for each image. Importantly, these are your associations and how YOU relate to this image. What’s your experience with a farmhouse? Make sure each association springboards off the original image and you’re not creating a chain of associations. 

How do you know which association is the right one? Use the 'it clicks' method. Which association stirs energy within? Which one makes you feel something? Dreams are created from the energy within us, so it's important to follow the energy in your interpretation.

You’re learning to rely on what these images spark within you. Resist the temptation to take the symbol literally. These associations linked to our intuition open up much more profound interpretations. 

Step two - connecting dream images to inner dynamics 

This is an important step. If we can’t tie the dream images to thoughts, feelings or something going on in our inner lives, the interpretation won’t make any sense. 

For example, take the dream symbol of the colour blue. If the interpretation that clicks is depression, the next step is to ask, where have I been feeling depressed in my life? How am I blue?

Dreams are representations of what's happening in our inner world, so we work from this starting point. Johnson argues most dreams are portrayals of our individual journey toward wholeness. They show us the obstacles, blocks, conflicts and resolutions that finally lead us to a more complete view of the self.

Dreams show us our efforts to integrate parts of ourselves into consciousness. They show the ways we are in conflict with our intuition or inner guide rather than learning from it. This is the primary subject matter of our dreams and what we should look out for in our interpretations.

An easy way to connect with our dream images is to ask, what do I have in common with this dream image? If there is a thief in your dream, it might not mean you are literally a thief. In this case, I’d ask myself what have I taken that wasn't mine? How have I been dishonest? What do I need to steal back?

Think of each dream figure as living inside you. What qualities do they symbolise? Where have you seen these playing out in your life?

Dreams challenge our values and beliefs. The process of expanding our consciousness demands that we become aware of our inner dynamics and start to question them, rather than operating on autopilot. 

Step three - interpreting your dream

This step is all about tying your dream together into one unified story or message.

The key is to write it out. Keep working on it until the overall pattern of the dream interpretation makes sense for all the dream images.

Don't necessarily expect to get it right first try. The dream may need some thinking about. Writing it on paper helps take it from the abstract into the concrete. By writing it down you see if it really all hangs together and 'clicks'. 

When choosing between alternate interpretations, choose the one where you learn something. Test if the interpretation has energy behind it; if it arouses strong feelings in you. If the dream offers you insights that could liberate you from the patterns you've been stuck in, this is a sign there is tremendous energy behind this interpretation. 

Every dream offers small clues that tell us which is the right interpretation. Learn to watch for the small details in your dreams and see what they are telling you. This will make the difference in understanding a dream that would otherwise seem ambiguous. 

If you’re not sure between two interpretations, write them both up. Sometimes there is no one right choice or path, but the dream shows you the decision to be made and sometimes the consequences of the different choices. 

There are four key principles for validating your interpretations:

• Choose the one that tells you something you didn't know.

• If the option is self-congratulatory it's unlikely to be right.  

• Avoid interpretations that shift responsibility away from yourself.  

• Learn to live with your dreams as the full meaning may only become clear with the passage of time.

Step four - integrating your dreams using ritual  

Step four is about actively choosing to honour your dreams and deciding what to DO as a result. It’s not enough to intellectually understand the message. We want to take something symbolic from the subconscious and make it physical and concrete.

You may take further steps in your life based on the dream but first, let’s perform a small symbolic gesture to commemorate the dream and its lessons.

Use your imagination to invent a ritual that suits the lesson and the dream images. Get as creative as you like but simplicity works well too. Use your intuition and do what feels right.

I had a dream of clothes shopping, which I believe was ultimately about identity. As my ritual, I chose to give away some items from my wardrobe that didn’t feel like me anymore. I wrote each item a farewell letter outlining the reasons why I was letting it go.

Mine was okey, but you can do better. Extra points if you use your body. Getting physical is great way of putting the dream into the here and now of your life. If I had a backyard I may have dug a hole and buried my clothes with the letters.

And that’s it. Dream interpretation is big work. Learning to understand the symbolic language of your inner world may seem daunting but there’s so much growth to be found along the way. And like astrology, this is a powerful tool in the journey towards knowing and embracing ourselves fully.