The theory behind dream analysis is that the unconscious mind attempts to communicate important information to the conscious mind through images that have a very particular meaning to the dreamer. The reason that the dream is necessary is that it encapsulates the information of the unconscious in a simple form that may be understood by the conscious mind. Often this information is too painful or frightening in its raw form and must be couched in imagery that is tolerable to the conscious mind. In my work with my patients I have found dream interpretation to be one of the most powerful tools in understanding their lives and gaining insight into their current struggles.

Furthermore, I believe dreams to be evidence of a higher self that helps guide us to greater understanding throughout our lives. I will share one of my patient’s dreams and some of her background in order to depict the value of dreams (details have been altered to protect her privacy).This patient had a very active dream life, and much of her insight and progress came through our exploration of her dreams. She was a landscape architect and focused her work around planting naturally indigenous plants together in such a way that they would work in harmony to support one another. She was particularly proud of her own yard because, as she explained, it only contained flowers and plants that grew naturally in that area and represented what that area of the country would look like had things been allowed to grow without interruption. Her neighbors’ yards, however, were all meticulously manicured, with sprawling green lawns and plants and trees that did not grow together naturally, many of which were not even indigenous to North America.

Perhaps the most important dream for this patient was one in which she was working in her own yard, which she did every weekend in her waking life. She described the yard in her dream as being just like the one around her actual home. In the dream she was frustrated with her husband and daughter because they were unappreciative of her hard work, and they were not spending time with her while she gardened. In the dream her husband and daughter were in the neighbor’s yard laughing and having a good time with the neighbor. In the dream my patient continued her gardening, working her way into her backyard. When she got there she found a gaping rectangular hole. She jumped down into the hole and found that she could see all the way through to the front yard, and she could see the roots of all her plants showing through the earth that remained.

Connecting together the patient’s early history, her current life situation and her associations with the key features of this dream reveals her life story: my patient’s mother had walked out on her family when my patient was in grammar school and she had not seen her since; her only positive memories of her mother were of them walking together in parks while her mother told her about the plants they saw. In both her waking life and her dream life the plants represent family, specifically lost family. And, in both cases, she worked very hard to keep together the plants that “belonged” together. In her own yard she created a world that represented how things would have been had they “grown without interruption”. The tension with her family in the dream reflected her actual experience with her husband in that he resented the amount of time she spent working around the yard, and they often fought over the fact that he was left to take care of their young daughter by himself each weekend. Her association to the neighbor in the dream was that she was a good mother and wife. Her association to the hole in the backyard was that it looked as though a foundation had been dug out in order to build another house. When asked what she thought about the hole going all the way to the front yard, and the roots of her plants showing through, she said that the house would likely cave in and her plants would surely die.

At this point I doubt I need to interpret the dream for you, the reader, but for the patient it was still “just a weird dream”. However, as we discussed the emotional distance between her and her family in the dream (which was the issue that brought her to therapy to begin with), and their preference to be with the good mother and wife who laughed with them on the weekend, and the missing foundation under her home, she began to cry. She came to see how her actual garden was her only connection to her own mother, and how it represented her desire to create a close family of her own that would grow together and support one another. She also realized that all of the energy she was putting into this outward representation around her house was undermining the foundation of her actual home. The promising part of the dream was that a new foundation had been dug where a new home might be built alongside of her existing home. This new foundation represented the work she’d been doing in her therapy.

More than depicting how dreams may reveal a person’s life story, this example also shows the difficulty a person may have in understanding her dreams by herself, and how important it is for the person to make her own emotional connection to her dreams. The powerful part of this experience was when the patient grasped the depth of the wisdom of her unconscious mind, and the fact that a deeper part of herself was working to help her understand and improve her life in the way that she most wanted to by having the dream.

There are a few easy techniques to help you remember your dreams. First, keep a notebook, pen and flashlight by your bed and, if you awake from a dream, write down as much of it as you can before going back to sleep. Though you may believe you’ll remember it, you’ll likely forget much of it, if not all of it, by morning. Second, lie very still when you wake up in the morning and keep your surroundings quiet, and allow your mind to recall images from the dreams you had throughout the night. Again, write them down in as much detail as possible. Another technique is to set your alarm 40 minutes or so before you normally wake up in the morning, as this is when most of our dreaming occurs. As you begin to bring your awareness to your dreams in these ways, you will naturally begin to remember more of your dreams, and with greater detail. Give thought to what occurred the previous day, and throughout the past week, and think about the meaning the images in your dreams have to you. Remember, you could choose any images you want, but you chose those specific images for their specific meaning. By bringing your attention to your dreams, you will develop a clearer connection to your unconscious mind.