Dreams are not messages from somewhere outside yourself. They''re messages from the parts of yourself that don''t get to speak during the day.
The imagery that comes up while you sleep - houses, water, teeth falling out, someone you haven''t thought about in years - uses a symbolic language that psychologists and symbol-readers have been mapping for a long time. There''s remarkable consistency across cultures in what certain images tend to mean. Water almost always maps to emotion: calm water, turbulent water, water you''re drowning in, water you''re swimming through easily. Houses map to the self - the rooms, what''s in them, what''s locked.
What this interpreter does: you enter the central image or theme from your dream, and it surfaces the traditional symbolic meaning along with what psychological territory that symbol is associated with. Then it asks you to make the connection yourself - because the final interpretation always belongs to the dreamer, not the dictionary.
A few patterns worth knowing. Recurring dreams are the most important ones. If the same scenario plays out every few months, your unconscious is not letting go of something unresolved. Flying often signals a desire for freedom from a specific constraint - usually one you know about but haven''t acknowledged. Being chased almost never means danger; it usually means avoidance.
Write the dream down immediately on waking. The details dissolve fast - the ones that disappear first are usually the most significant.
