K1 Dreams use the current day residue—events and materials from the dreamer’s life. During the day there are innumerable events, objects, symbols, emotional events and personal stories from which the dreamer’s subconscious can choose. The question before us is always, Why did the dreamer’s subconscious focus on these particular items or events at this particular time? The dream almost always gives us far more than what we have been seeking. That is because dreams are a tremendous condensation that fits the maximum amount of meaning in a collage of often conflicting or strangely appearing symbols.
Key 2A: Male characters are most often used by the dream to indicate actions. Female characters most often are used by the dreamer’s unconscious to represent emotions. This is not absolutely so, but it is usually the way things work out because of cultural trends over thousands of years.
The degree of the sex typically indicates the degree of integration between actions and emotions occurring within the dreamer.
Fire means change because it transforms matter into energy.
Key 2B—Projection: A very important principle is that each character in the dream is a projection of a portion of the dreamer’s subconscious. The character in the dream is first and foremost a part of the dreamer’s unconscious. This first level of interpretation almost always has some validity. It is most tempting to interpret dream content as interpersonal interactions, but the interpreter cannot possibly know all the details needed to make accurate interpretations. The level of certainty rises from approximately fifty percent to as high as ninety percent when one considers each character or animal in the dream to be a symbolic part of the dreamer’s subconscious, which fits into Carl Jung’s panoramic view of dreams. This is a principle that the therapist must keep in mind consistently. Dreams are first and foremost intrapsychic conflicts, and are secondarily interpersonal conflicts. Dreams are frequently due to condensation of the maximum amount of meaning into the fewest possible symbols. Dream symbols are so packed with meaning that it is usually relatively easy to discern one of the three or more meanings the symbol represents.
Key 3: Water is virtually always emotions and the subconscious. The ocean is the huge symbol of the primordial unconscious. Raging water, typhoons, and stormy seas represent turbulent emotions. Rain is typically depression, but it can be regenerative, as rain causes growth. Snow and ice are cold emotions. The ocean typically is the unconscious, land is conscious events, and the beach is the semiconscious or where the unconscious meets consciousness. A person strolling along an ocean beach in a dream is typically trying to sort out his or her conscious and unconscious issues.
Ice is frozen water and therefore represents cold emotions.
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