1. Dreams are constructed by a relatively objective aspect of our mind. It focuses on the interrelationship of things.

2. Our intellect is primarily a task-oriented aspect of consciousness, and is thus fairly subjective.

3. Our dreams are coherent statements encoded in symbolism (for the most part).

4. Dream analysis is essentially the decoding of the symbolic content of dreams.

5. Symbolism is ordered by a purely logical perspective.

6. The meaning of symbolism is derived from our association with things on 3 levels.

  a. The personal level of association is our personal experiences with that thing.

  b. The cultural level of association is our cultures experience of that thing.

  c. The universal level of association is what that thing is axiomatically, essentially.

7. Most dreams are concerned with whatever issues are most significant at that point in your life. They are a YOU ARE HEAR sign.

-I had a dream recently in which I was kissing a 20-ish blond woman.

-She was hesitant to respond at first, and when I began to pull away, out of response to her hesitancy, she pulled me into her.

-I suddenly realized that I was about to commit an act of adultery, and abruptly walked away. 

   The dream was about my expressing a socially acceptable (blond) aspect of my heart (the woman). This socially acceptable expression of my heart was my socially interacting with some guys down at the local Panera restaurant. (I am not a person who has invested a great deal of my life in such social relations. I have been too focused upon counseling).

    My kissing her was the symbolic representation of my engaging in light conversation with my pals.

    Because doing this kind of social activity was uncommon for me in the first place, I unconsciously reinforced my tie with that behavior by making an unofficial rule (that I had to continue doing this socializing, no matter what).

    The sudden realization that I was committing adultery was the symbolic way of stating that I was not being true to my own heart (my wife) by imprisoning myself in the unofficial rule I had made for myself.

    In fact, I wanted to begin the writing of another book, and this meant that I would need some time away from my friends in order to focus on writing.

 

  This dream analysis illustrates the use and value of dreams to the dreamer. I needed the objectivity on my life situation in order to know what I wanted to do about the use of my time. My dream did not tell me what to do; it simply gave me an overview of my current life issue, and allowed my reasoning mind to choose what it wanted to.

  I have learned to take this same approach with patients. I don't tell them what to do. I simply support their quest for objectivity, and then they can make the decision about what they want to do about things.

  One more thing. When one becomes comfortable doing dream-work, one begins to see an undercurrent of symbolically encoded objectivity running throughout one's life. This is a very interesting phenomena, and one that tends to alter ones view of ourselves, and the universe around us.

  I have come to see the spiritual aspect of human existence in somewhat more concrete terms, via my intercourse with the object aspect of the human mind. Spirituality has become for me less about rote learning of a theology, and much more about the dynamic expressions of insight originating from the aspect of human consciousness that has traditionally been known as the human spirit (but that modern man is want to call the unconscious mind).