Sometimes when there is a symbol in my dream, I will bring it into my real life. I find that somehow therapeutic. It's not really even intentional on my part. I'm wondering if it helps bring my conscious in synch with my unconscious? Does it let me grapple in real life, at least a little, with what my unconscious is working on? Does anyone else do that?

Here are two examples:
I had this dream months ago that my husband was a water python and lived in a river. I was talking to him (the snake) in the river and he died. I remember at first being not quite sure if he was dead or not, and then feeling kind of numb and just emotionless when I looked at the dead snake body, and worrying about how I was going to handle planning the funeral and helping my daughters grieve. When I woke up I was very upset that I had this feeling of "not feeling" when I looked at the dead snake. It haunted me for days and weeks after. A little while after that, I was at a toy store and saw a big display of stuffed snakes. They called to me. I bought a 6 foot long blue and black snake that reminded me of the snake in my dream. And I slept with it for months after that. I almost felt like I was trying to face this horrible feeling of "not feeling" from the dream, by confronting that snake every night. One day in August, after my vacation, I came back home and saw the snake in my bed and wasn't bothered by it anymore and didn't want to sleep with it anymore. So I packed it up and put it away. It's almost like I had moved on. I think this was kind of an outward symbol of my growth, and emotional resolution.

The second instance was my dream where T and I worked together in a garden, pulling out weeds and planting flowers. The flowers were yellow. Several weeks later I was at the nursery buying some flowers for a friend and I saw lovely pots of yellow flowers for Fall. Spontaneously, I bought some for myself, and they are sitting outside on my doorstep. I realized later I chose them because of my dream. They make me feel good whenever I see them. I feel more connected to that good feeling I had in the dream of being with T and working together in the garden.

Does anyone else bring their dream objects into their real lives? It somehow seems to help me. (I have never told T either of these dreams or about the dream objects. I wish I had more time in therapy for that!)