Our lives are divided into waking and dreaming. The gap between the two lies in the process of dream work and can be analyzed by dreamworkers. The esoteric nature of dreams makes it hard to pin down and interpret them, hence the need for dream interpreters and dream analysis. Dreamers can get valuable insights from seemingly inane dream scenarios. In some cases, you can even find solutions to problems that are plaguing your waking life.
What is Dream Work? Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, defines dream work or dreamwork as a process of distorting messages into the cryptic symbols and scenarios in your dreams. For instance, a dog in your dream is a symbolic stand-in or distorted imagery of a loved one. The process of reverse engineering or analyzing the product of dream work is dream analysis. There are four aspects or steps in dream work. They are as follows:
Condensation: This aspect of dream work occurs when two or more dream symbols or unconscious concepts are combined. For instance, you might dream about a stranger whose facial features are combinations of people you know in reality. In another example, your anxiety about work and fear of insects may manifest as a house infestation.
Displacement: In the second step, what seems like a mundane thing in the manifested content can suddenly have deeper latent meanings. The opposite could be true. In addition, what seems sinister may actually be harmless upon deeper dream analysis. This is the process of displacement. So, when you dream of death, it can mean a new beginning or an ending of a terrible phase in your life. In other sources, displacement is the process of projecting a dreamer’s issues into something unrelated. For instance, innocence may appear as a pristinely white dress.
Secondary revision: The dream then gets revised in an attempt to make your dream narrative more coherent. By revising certain elements to make a dream scenario make sense, certain dream symbols can be interpreted differently based on this new context concocted by your subconscious.
Considerations of representation: In this last step, imageries can appear as puns or wordplay which adds another layer of meaning to an object in the dream world. This ingenious process of dream work relies on the dreamer’s past experiences and knowledge for crafting witty symbolisms. For example, finding salt in your wound could be a reference to the idiomatic expression “adding insult to injury” or a lot of bananas in your dream could mean going crazy as in “going bananas.”
What is the Job of Dreamworkers? Dreamworkers are the people who uncover the hidden meanings of dreams. They are also called dream interpreters, dream analysts, or sometimes even psychoanalysts. Dreamworkers essentially break down the symbols within your dream and interpret them using different methods, such as free association. Although there are general meanings to specific dream symbols, the different experiences and background of individuals can lend a whole new meaning to common dream symbols. This means the job of dreamworkers is to work with dreamers on an individual level, or sometimes as a group activity, to devise more accurate interpretations of a dream.
Dream Work in Group Therapy or Psychotherapy. Because deep-seated trauma can get repressed and buried in the subconscious, dreams can provide a wealth of hidden meanings that can unravel a person’s traumatic past. This is why dream work has been used as a tool in psychoanalysis to help mentally unwell patients face their fears or achieve closure from past trauma.
Those cases are complex and need the expertise of trained professionals. But ordinary people can also benefit from dream work. Sometimes we are blind to our self-destructive patterns, for instance, or unaware about possible threats to our well-being. Enlightenment and self-awareness can often be achieved by paying attention to our dreams.
There are tons of resources online for dream analysis and ways to integrate your experiences into the interpretation. Simply recording your dreams can help you find patterns or spot recurring dream scenarios which you can dissect using your current state of mind or existing issues you may be trying to resolve. Ultimately, dream work allows you to explore your subconscious and get to know yourself better in the process.
It’s that time of year again when you look back to assess your life based on accomplishments and areas for improvement. Are you excited to get started with your goals or are you still wallowing in regrets? Either way, it’s nice to have a list of resolutions to help you hit the ground running this coming 2019. If you still haven’t thought about your New Year’s resolutions, you may want to examine your dreams for subconscious signals about what you should set your sights on.
But let us take a closer look at the symbolic representations and some details contained within dream related to the images of rats. Apart from their physical characteristics and features which can evoke deep feelings of repulsion and disgust both inside the dream and afterwards, some commonly-experienced dream visions can reveal interesting, if not unusual associations and imagery, especially in the context of a particular dreams scenario.
For people who are naturally afraid of rats in wake life, these dreams could be either a confirmation of their phobia and repulsion directed at the animals, or a subconscious attempt to examine or question the nature of such fear. The symbolism of encountering a rat is quite often accompanied by the scenes of dark, untidy and unpleasant surroundings transposed into the dream from reality. Therefore, it’s a good indication of the dreamer’s preoccupation with cleanliness, purity or natural aversion to chaos and disorder. However, it could also be quite possible that the person experiencing dreams about rats spends some portion of his or her wake life in unclean, cluttered and messy environments, e.g. as a warehouse worker, a head of a large household which is difficult to manage, and the like.
Undeniably, during the younger formative years, when the very foundation of memory and cognition is shaped, our subconscious reflections capture a great variety of new imagery, visual and sensory aspects of the everyday life. No wonder, adolescents experience very diverse, if not chaotic dream visions comprised of interwoven symbolic elements accumulated during the wake hours. It would probably be a complicated task for a young person to sort out distinct and discernible visions contained in their dreams in order to interpret them in a meaningful way. The exploratory nature of human mind causes us to retain important moments of our lives, but in a very erratic and disorderly way, so their analysis as far as dream interpretation is concerned, becomes difficult, if not impossible altogether. At this stage we could draw an analogy of subconscious brain activity resembling a computer file system which is being constantly updated without a whole lot of sorting and categorizing of the individual files within that system.
As we age, we gain more experience and start to separate discrete events in our “file system” into more stable and recognizable elements, which are often compiled, coded and stored based on their importance to us. Over the span of our lives, we increasingly attribute more significance to some events while forgetting or even completely ignoring those that seem mundane and unworthy of remembering to us. Figuratively speaking, the subconscious retention at this stage could probably be compared to an old vinyl record etched with certain well-defined and vivid symbolic visions coming alive during our sleep and leaving lasting recollections long after we wake up and go on with the conscious existence.
Many dreams are inherently related to emotions and feelings experienced while dreaming, for example soothing and comforting feelings of warm summer rain, feeling secure and protected while observing rain falling outside in bad weather from inside the house, or expression of loneliness and discomfort while being caught in the cold rain on the street and so on. For some people, while experiencing dreams about rain, the visions can evoke feelings of stressful and worrisome existence, some kind of disturbance or effects which result in excessive introversion, low self-esteem and depression projected into wake life. Psychological aspects of experiencing these kinds of visions can add to formation of complexes and states negatively affecting person’s life, especially if dreams are recurring in their nature.
As it has been mentioned before, dreams about rain are closely related to symbols and visions of water, therefore there are a lot of similarities in the way these two type of dreams are interpreted. Often enough, the notions of clear or dirty water are approximated to explain similar dreams about rain. Many sources regard clean and fresh rainwater as a symbol of personal rejuvenation and renewal, the ability to start life over and expect to be favored by the destiny that lies ahead.
Not surprisingly, remembering and interpreting certain dream symbols can often result in revelations which were somehow already anticipated or expected by the dreamer. However, there are dream symbols which may be difficult to fathom, and a deeper understanding and analysis of life’s circumstances are needed in order to form a cogent connection to the dream visions themselves, especially when a dream is recurring. These symbols may reveal some deeply-rooted subconscious desires. They may be hiding repressed memories of long-forgotten traumas. Or they could be perceived as warnings based on dreamers’ previous life experiences and practical knowledge alerting them about upcoming unfortunate events, giving them ample time to steer clear of future dangers.
Interpretation of dream symbols using discrete representations of objects, actions and events experienced in a dream can result in some broad ideas for interpretations, however, more detailed combinations of symbolic attributes pertaining to specific dream visions produce much better interpretation results. Many dream interpretation sources posit that symbols are what can be considered elements of the universal language for dream interpretation and often belie a more deeply-rooted and inherent meaning.
Taking the third dream sample a bit further, it is possible that such a complex dream vision could only be the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. For the sake of argument, and knowing that it would bring readers to a better understanding of symbolism and symbolic meaning, let us assume that one dreamer dreams of “cuddling a crying baby in a room full of countless other people who are doing exactly the same thing, i.e., each cuddling a crying baby, and all seem to be working in a collective effort to calm all the babies down, to no avail.” In analyzing this rather convoluted dream vision, dreamers will be guided by their own conscience, that is, an inner awareness of what part of the vision truly strikes a chord with them in order for them to decide that it is indeed the symbolic image they are seeking a specific answer for. The possibilities to narrow their inquiry to a searchable dream description are as divergent as “many babies,” “strangers taking care of babies,” “baby tantrums,” “room full of crying babies,” “room full of people cuddling crying babies,” and so on.
Money as material or physical objects (cash, coins, etc) is usually a representation of having or gaining power and ability to control other people in real life, it can also point out the ability to be in control of your actions and competency in such aspects as work, social relations and certain niche in society. A very important element in finding the right meaning of dreams, which involved money, is paying close attention to the nature and circumstances as well as other people present in these dreams. You may want to recall your own role in these relationships involving money, were you giving money away, borrowing money, or maybe just looking at someone who had a lot of money in their hands?
Many of us are visited by visions and symbols in our dreams related to being rich and wealthy and trying or wanting to share this wealth with others around us, which can represent subconscious desire to help someone, not necessarily in a material sense, but spiritually or because we know we possess more knowledge or experience to be in such a role.
A good example here is a vision of a dog. This animal commonly referred to as man’s best friend and companion. Still, some people harbor insurmountable subconscious fear toward this animal. Dog symbols can carry completely opposite emotional meanings associated with them. Individuals dreaming about aggressive dogs and who are actually frightened by dogs in wake life maybe experiencing some type of a warning by dreaming about angry and aggressive dogs as their fear is manifesting itself on a subconscious level. The symbols contained in the dream can vary in attributes, such as where the dogs was seen, how big it was, how aggressive it behaved and so on. The extent of fear is emphasized by additional details accompanying the dream, so when looking for the best 
We frequently dream about our pets and domesticated animals, even though we are not dependent on or thoughtful of domesticated animals compared to the past, when people heavily relied on cattle or farm animals to sustain their very existence. Domestic animals or grazing animals in your dream are often a symbol of prosperity and abundance as well as balanced living conditions in your household. Other sources, which are more dated, always attribute dreaming about domestic animals to prosperous and wealthy life and easily overcoming hardships related to food supplies and general way of maintaining household and providing for the family.