If you have always wanted to understand what your dreams mean, you have to think in graphical terms. I’m not just talking about thinking in terms of pictures, although that is a good start. You need a dream map.
You’ll have to relate these pictures with each other. You have to come up with a system where one picture leads to another, and by stepping back you can see how these pictures are interrelated with each other.
By doing so, and seeing an overview of your dream and the many themes that contain, you will get closer to an interpretation that makes a lot of sense as far as your waking life goes. The best way to do this is to come up with a dream map.
While a lot of people seeking to interpret their dreams, stick with dream journals, those are fairly limited. You are stuck with words and if you fail to focus on specific key details because you’re in a hurry to get everything down. Your dream journal entry might not be as accurate as you would wish when it comes to interpretations.
What is a dream map a dream?
A map is a series of hastily drawn pictures with some notation. The point of a dream map is to quickly identify as many of the images and symbols in your dream in a very small amount of time.
When you wake up from a dream that you remember, you really only have a narrow window of time to get everything down. The most effective way to do this is through picture stories. So you just draw a picture that may be so badly drawn that it is only recognizable to you.
That’s okay, as long as you have a notation as to what that picture means. The notation doesn’t have to belong, it can be just one word. When you look at this series of pictures and maybe arrows going from each of these pictures, you can then get an overview of what was going on in your dream.
This way you can map out the sequence of images, and by doing so, come to appreciate the different meanings and the different themes that each picture brings to the table and in the range of meanings each picture represents.
How to draw a dream map correctly?
The key to drawing a dream map is to be as quick as possible. Most people remember images. Start with those. Just draw the pictures and then make a one-word or two-word notation.
Don’t dwell too much on any picture. The key is to just get everything out of your head while you can still remember a lot of the details of your dream. Once you have everything down, you can then draw arrows with notations above the arrows. This represents transitions during your dream.
First, you may have seen a flying dragon, and then maybe it starts to rain gold coins. In that case, you should first start with the dragon and then the notation of its color and the fact that it’s flying, and then the arrow mark to the next picture indicates the clouds that are raining gold and then you move on to the next dream image.
The key to an accurate “dream map”
The key to accuracy for dream mapping really boils down to getting everything down. And then the key is to draw the arrows so you know the transitions and then make the notations in a short period of time. Once you have everything down, you can then go through the sequence again and your memory will fill in the gaps.
Because the problem with dream memory is that if you don’t get the major parts and sequences down, you’re more likely to forget the whole dream except for just a shallow appreciation that your dream was about a central motif.
For example, if you dream about ducks, that’s all you will remember. You will just say to yourself, “Okay, I dreamed about ducks”. You don’t know what kind of duck appeared or what they were doing, the sequence of images, all of that is lost to you. What you’re stuck with is that you dreamt about ducks.
When you have a dream map, you lay everything down so when you go back, you can then fill in a lot of the details. This is how you get to the bottom of an often conflicting, confusing, yet very rich collection of themes that a typical dream brings.
Do I need to make a dream map?
If you’re having a tough time interpreting your dreams or even coming to coming to a basic understanding of what you’ve been dreaming of, you need a dream map. A dream map enables you to be a more disciplined thinker when it comes to your nighttime visions.
While it doesn’t guarantee that your interpretation of your dream images will be 100% accurate. At least this gained some sort of confidence from the fact that you’re not missing any detail.
But let’s put it this way, you are more likely to come up with an accurate interpretation of your dreams if you have put together a dream map that makes sense to you.
What does a dream map suppose to look like?
You don’t have to be a great artist to put together a dream map, it just has to be clear enough for you to jog your memory. That’s really the bottom line. The drawings in themselves don’t have to truly reflect the dream images that you’ve seen.
For example, if you saw the devil in your dream, you don’t necessarily have to go to mind new details. You can draw just a basic stick figure and a notation. As long as it jogs your memory and you understand the full range of themes as well as emotional triggers that you experienced in your dream, that’s good enough.
How to look at a dream map as an overview?
Once you have all the symbols together in the arrows going from one image to the next, you will then have a general overview of your dream. You then go back and try to fill in the details with more notations.
During your third pass, things will start to fall into place and you will get a fairly clear sense of what your dream was about or the things that may have possibly triggered it, and the different images in your dreams.
You might also even appreciate internal conflicts as well as possible opportunities and possible opportunities. What are these opportunities? Well, it may turn out that thanks to your dream map, this dream that you had about a centipede, for example, is related to a previous dream you had of some madman chasing you.
This can lead to a better understanding of how you think as well as the most common dream images your subconscious comes up with to communicate key truths to your waking or conscious mind.
You might also want to read these:
Dream interpretation and symbology have fascinated me ever since I read Freud’s classic, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Ever since, I have explored Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Jungian psychological ideas about the meaning of dreams. Thanks for joining me in my exploration of the amazing intersection between our conscious waking world and the rich expanse of our subconscious-the home of our intuition, instincts, and hidden potential.
