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Old Mar 21, 2014, 12:04 AM
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shabur shabur is offline
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Member Since: Feb 2014
Location: Illinois
Posts: 437
There are a couple ways to interpret dreams. One thought is that everything in the dream represents you. Another way to go about it takes a little work, but I have found it helpful with my dreams.

Write down each major component of your dream. For each component write as many one or two word descriptions of that component. Next, using the component and the words you've just written down write what that component might be saying to you. After doing that, look over all that you have written and you should be able to come to a conclusion about your dream.

As an example, I used to have this dream where I was naked in a park among many other people who were dressed and staring at me. There's a bright white gazebo that I run to to try to hide, but there's only open lattice that isn't helping me hide.

To use the gazebo and being naked as examples, :
The words I chose for the gazebo were - purity, open, no help, place for people to watch, etc.
The thoughts I had where - you can't hide, I'm not going to help you, everyone sees everything, etc.
The words I chose for being naked were - dirty, exposed, ugly, embarrassed, etc.
The thoughts I had were - people are seeing things I don't want them to see, being naked is dirty/bad, being naked in front of people is so wrong, why can't I hide, why does this keep happening, when will I learn, etc.

After completing this for the entire dream what I was able to understand was as I was working through PTSD for childhood abuse and a rape, I had exposed something that I found embarrassing and I held myself responsible for. Why did I let my uncle do those things to me? Why did I trust the guy who raped me? I should have known better.

I've never been comfortable talking about sex or bodies as I was forced to do in therapy. As much as I trusted my tdoc, I really struggled with it. There was no "covering" up. It was "out in the open".

I hope this helps.