Dreamwork is a way for me to integrate my subconscious with my conscious, I find it very valuable to unite these two sides of myself. Dreams are far from meaningless in my experience: they have given me great insight and hope. I would not, as you mention, take them literally, more symbolically and metaphorically, but they're like art in that regard: is it useless because it is abstract? Of course not.

As far as dreams relating to trauma content, again, they can't be taken literally, but can certainly express the pain of trauma and include *elements* of trauma, without being the same as a record of it or memory.

I am concerned about "signs" of abuse and somatic experiences being taken literally, those things can occur due to so many variable causes, I think it's most important to just learn to accept what we have and work on improving/healing where we are at, as pushing for memory can lead to inadvertent tampering of it. Memory is just a sense, and is prone to shifting, blurring and such over time.