Breaking the Language Barrier: Learning to Interpret Your Dreams

Gardner / Breaking the Language Barrier
Chapter 3
INTERPRETING YOUR DREAM
Let’s Put Your Dream in the Proper Context First
With any type of communication, having some appreciation for the context of the idea being
communicated is just as important as the literal translation of the idea itself. How many times in
a day does someone ask you, “How are you doing” And how do you generally respond to this
question Doesn’t your response depend upon who’s asking the question Even a simple
question such as this one gets interpreted differently depending upon the type of relationship you
have with the person who’s doing the asking of it. If the question came from your best friend, in
comparison to if it came from the cashier at the local grocery store, or your mother, or your boss,
or whomever, do not those same four words conjure up a different meaning for you In this
example, who’s asking the question provides the context of the idea being communicated. The
idea itself is the actual question, “How are you doing”
I don’t mean to be over analytical about something so simple because this could very quickly
lead to confusion, but every one of us takes these interpreting considerations into account every
time we hold a conversation with someone. We’re so adept at translating in this fashion that the
process hardly makes a conscious impression; we just do it. Dreams, the language of your
unconscious mind, are no less sophisticated to decipher. With dreams, however, it is the category
the dream falls into which provides us with the context of the message. And it is the elements
within the dream that convey the message (the “words”) itself. We have to account for both of
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