Where can dreams take us in therapy?

It might be a cliché: the psychotherapist who says ‘tell me about your dreams’. However, dreams are a useful tool many psychotherapists welcome into therapeutic work, inviting the unconscious mind of the client to step forward. Dreams can provide powerful and impactful material as part of the therapeutic process. 

Dreams in psychoanalysis

In the early 20^th century, Sigmund Freud noticed that his patients’ dreams often revealed material held in the unconscious; thoughts, wishes and experiences that the dreamer never knew they possessed until they were dreamed and remembered. He suggested that we could take in aspects of everyday life unconsciously, which we might later access while dreaming and by recalling dreams in waking life. He also believed that dreams are a means of wish fulfilment; that they enact our unconscious desires, and he would interpret them as such. 

Carl Jung also saw dreams as a way for unconscious processes to be expressed, but viewed them less as wish fulfilment, and more as symbolic material. He believed that the imagery in dreams could help guide the dreamer through symbolic meaning-making in relation to their personal associations. This supported individual, symbolic interpretations, alongside his idea of dreams containing archetypal symbols, familiar to people collectively, and carrying shared meanings. 

Why might therapists be interested in your dreams? 

However dreams are understood and interpreted, many psychotherapists agree that dreams can provide rich and valuable insights into a person’s psyche. Dreams may reveal hidden elements of experience, beliefs and feelings that might otherwise be difficult to access. 

In the therapy room, dreams can become vessels containing underlying thoughts, desires, emotions and fears. Often they seem strange and difficult to decipher. Sometimes they may appear nonsensical and chaotic, or even dull and uninteresting. They may sometimes seem clear as day in their meaning, striking you with a new realisation about yourself. 

Dreams provide another window through which to view things. Much like music and art, they can activate our thoughts and emotions and carry, at times, dreamlike qualities. We can approach dreams creatively and playfully, but also seriously and respectfully, in order to reach a deeper understanding of ourselves. 

How can we understand what a dream really means in therapy?

To really use dreams in a helpful and therapeutic way, we need to pay attention to the associations, circumstances and cultural context of the dreamer. The therapist may also attend to their own associations as you explore a dream together.  

The meaning of a dream might initially seem crystal clear, for instance a dream of sitting a driving test, just as a driving test is approaching. If in the dream, you fail, you may feel you are expressing a fear of failure; if you pass, you may feel you are expressing your wish to succeed. But what of the car you are driving? Is it the car your grandmother drove when you were a child? Is it the exact shade of blue as the scarf your mother wears? Does the car feel safe, or does it suddenly lose its wheels or launch into the air?

With additional details, the dream might hold deeper meaning and could offer insight into past and present pains, protections, or areas needing attention. So, yes, the dream could simply relate to the upcoming driving test, but it could also be offering material to help make sense of much more that is being held in the unconscious.

There is not one book nor one set of coded symbols that can tell you exactly what your dreams mean. There are some symbols that appear across cultures with a kind of collective understanding, but even these can be subject to personal associations superseding collective meanings.

How we can pay more helpful attention to dreams

To maintain an interest in your dreams, some people find it helpful, and enjoyable, to keep a dream diary. Dreams can be recorded in a physical book or on a digital device, whichever feels more manageable. A useful approach is to keep the diary by your bed and write down your dreams, with dates and times, as soon as you wake up. Many people report that, in practicing this regularly, the number of dreams they remember increases. This method can help with spotting patterns, recurring symbols and imagery, and can also help to process whatever the dream may be revealing, as you bring it more explicitly into consciousness. You may then wish to reflect on your associations with the dream imagery and bring the dream into therapy to explore it further.