The On-Off Tap of Dream Activity

[Bring4th_Austin]

Hey Plenum, what sort of methods do you use for interpreting your dreams?

Also, what causes you to go from doing dreamwork to ignoring dreams, causing the off-tap? I also have a tenuous relationship with dreams, and I would say that I tend more towards ignoring them and having them disappear into the ether. I will have spurts of activity where I decide to consciously interpret and contemplate my dreams, logging them as soon as I wake up and attempting to find meaning, but as is a theme in my life, the motivation wanes and I return to a less proactive state. I struggle with this motivation and wish I could be more consistent. Perhaps trying to find the heart of what causes me to stop my active dream interpretation will help.

one of the settings that I least like, for myself, is my childhood home.  Not because it was an abusive place, but it's associated with the origins of various imbalances - many through my own misinterpretation at those ages.  So whenever my dream setting is 'back there', it's usually a message themed around disempowerment and/or social dislocation.

Thanks for sharing this tidbit. One of the most common recurring locations in my dreams is my high school. I always heard that interpretation of being in school is related to the learning that one is doing in one's life, and while that made some sense, it never felt like it was the whole story. It seems very obvious, but I never considered that it could be that I have imbalances related to my high school experience. Public schooling was one of the biggest catalysts in my life, and high school certainly the most turbulent. I think this gives me a new and helpful perspective.

It's very common for people to encourage contemplating & interpreting dreams but, bc of my experiences, I feel compelled to stress the exact opposite:

I had an experience recently that supports the idea of not dwelling too much on dreams. When I was home for the holidays, I started to experience a stronger-than-typical internal catalyst that comes with visiting my parents. There's really nothing in the outer environment that would warrant strong emotional reactions - in fact, outer circumstances are very pleasant. But I still felt strong internal turmoil and unprovoked emotionally charged reactions. One night as I was going to sleep I determined to myself that I needed to get over this so that I could have a good visit with my parents, since I don't get to see them very often and I know that my mom at least could sense my unpleasant emotions.

That night, I had a very cathartic dream in my childhood home with my whole family. It was full of a wide range of emotions, situations, and themes. It felt like an intensive scouring of all things unconscious that could be causing these emotions, just bringing them to the surface and allowing them to be experienced. It was not a very restful night because of it, but it shifted my experience totally without any need to examine or interpret the dream. The next day all of the catalyst I experienced was gone and I felt a great sense of patience and peace that wasn't there before. The rest of the trip was totally free of this unpleasant emotional charge and I had a great visit with my parents. It seemed that all that was needed was the desire to be harmonious and then experience of the dream. I was amazed at how effective it was just experiencing the dream and not doing any "extracurricular" work.