What Is Dream Therapy, And What Are Its Benefits?
Dream therapy involves analyzing what your dreams might say about your waking life, thought processes, and relationships. With the guidance of a dream therapist, you can learn to track and record your dreams each morning when you wake up and bring the information to therapy. Your therapist may help you decipher these dreams and their potential meanings concerning your treatment goals.
Benefits of dream therapy
There are various benefits associated with dream analysis therapy, including the following.
An understanding of moods
According to many dream therapists, emotions can arise from the unconscious mind. Dream therapy might benefit you if you have unstable moods or unexplained intense emotions. For example, your therapist can give you an idea of what your dreams might say about unconscious thoughts or beliefs contributing to these emotions.
As you discover potential meanings for your moods and emotions, your therapist can guide you in resolving any challenges that arise. They might use techniques from other therapy methods like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat these symptoms or challenges as you discuss them. You might also be asked to continue tracking recurring themes to see how often they appear and what moods you’re in when they do.
An explanation of symbols
It can be challenging to interpret dreams independently due to their abstract nature. The symbols you see in your dreams might be associated with various meanings. When you describe an account of a dream you had, be as descriptive as possible. Down to the very last detail, any information that you can provide may help your therapist unravel the meaning.
The presence of symbolism is prevalent in this line of therapy. Seeing specific images or having different experiences in dreams could mean something other than you might expect. For example, the following are potential meanings of common dreams:
- Flying: A desire for freedom
- Snow or blizzard: Feeling isolated from your community
- Spiders: Betrayal
- Losing money: Fear of losing power
- Cheating on your partner: Your needs aren’t being met
- Falling: Feeling out of control or not supported by an individual
- Dying: Uncertainty or fear
Some dreams, like nightmares, may also indicate past adverse experiences or unhealthy relationships. If you’re experiencing nightmares due to a traumatic event, a dream therapist can help you discuss methods for relief.
Creativity
The dreams that you have could spark your creativity. Many individuals report dreams as abstract and outside of the box. If you are creative and feel stumped on a project, dream therapy can help. You can analyze your vision with a therapist, going into detail about it. Tracking your dreams could also inspire you for a book you’re writing or a creative art project you’d like to make. For example, some clients paint their dreams to understand their symbolism further.
An understanding of nightmares
Nightmares can showcase what individuals most fear and reject in their lives. Interpreting nightmares with a dream therapist can help you understand your fears and know which ones to target in therapy. For example, perhaps you fear death and continuously dream of dying or losing others. Your therapist can help you find underlying reasons for these fears and face them through specific therapeutic techniques.
Encouragement of self-care
When you wake up each morning and write in your journal or record your dream, you take time for yourself. Partaking in this exercise can be a form of self-care that may ripple effects throughout your life. Focusing on self-care for a few minutes daily can show you care about finding solutions to your challenges.
If you are participating in dream therapy, the few minutes you use to track your dream when you wake up allow you to focus on yourself. It gives you an activity to mindfully focus on, such as journaling, and lets you consider your needs. Studies have found that expressive writing can improve mental health, and dream journaling is a form of expressive writing.
A sense of attunement with yourself
Dream therapy can allow you to self-reflect and connect more profoundly with yourself. When analyzing dreams, you are attempting to get to the bottom of pressing issues in your psyche, which is a form of self-reflection. Dream therapy can help you pinpoint why you feel a certain way by encouraging reflection and deep analysis. While you may begin searching deep within to find out what your dreams mean, you might find more than the symbolism or meaning of a dream.
Being more in touch with your innermost self could benefit you in all areas of life. Clients may experience increased self-esteem, better communication skills, and more restful sleep as a result. A dream therapist can guide you through this process and help you hone the skills involved in dream analysis.
Grief support
Grief can often be reflected in dreams, whether due to losing someone to death or ending a long-term relationship. You might dream about seeing the person and talking to them once again or have nightmares about the loss. Dream analysts may believe that what a client dreams about during a loss can signify how they feel about the situation. If you dream about living happily with your loved one again, you might be reflecting on missing them and remembering the positive emotions they provided you with.
Alternatively, if you are having nightmares surrounding the death of your loved one, it might indicate a traumatic loss. If the dreams leave you feeling deeply unsettled, terrified, or scared to sleep alone, speaking to a dream therapist can help you understand where these dreams come from and why you aren’t having positive dreams about your loved one. In some cases, a dream therapist might refer a client to a psychiatrist for medication, as certain medications can reduce the occurrence of nightmares.
Does dream therapy benefit everyone?
Dream therapy may not be a suitable choice for every client. If you are interested in getting more in touch with the subconscious side of yourself or are a creative person, you may enjoy it. However, if you’re looking for a structured approach or in-depth conversation about other areas of mental health, a dream analyst may not benefit you.
Some therapists believe that the concept of interpreting dreams is not a reliable approach. For instance, many providers believe that dreams are random and not connected to feelings, happenings, or information from our waking lives. There are many theories about dreams, so seek a provider following a view you believe in.
No matter what you believe, there are hundreds of modalities of treatment available and many methods to try. People from all walks of life have reported success using dream therapy. If you think dream therapy might be right for you, consider contacting a therapist for further guidance. You might also be able to find an integrative provider that uses dream analysis alongside other techniques.
Counseling options
Individuals can find a dream therapist in many ways. One standard method of seeking support is through an internet search. You may discover psychologist directories that allow you to filter professionals by your location, insurance plan, and preferred form of therapy. If there aren’t many dream therapists in your area, you can also try online dream therapy over the phone, video, or live chat sessions with a licensed provider.
Platforms like Regain for couples and BetterHelp for individuals offer connections to thousands of specialists practicing hundreds of forms of therapy. Upon signing up, you can indicate your interest in a dream therapist and receive support tailored to your needs through a match-based therapist-client system. Once you receive your match, you can partake in unlimited messaging with your therapist and use the platform’s app journal feature to journal and track your dreams.
If you’re unsure about the effectiveness of online therapy, note that many clients find internet-based methods like online CBT more effective than in-person therapy, and one study has found that it is often significantly more cost-effective. You can get started anytime by signing up for a platform or contacting a telehealth specialist.
Takeaway
Dream analysis therapy offers many benefits to clients looking to understand how their dreams communicate to their unconscious minds. To get started, reach out to a therapist near you or online, and learn how dreams might be impacting your life.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Below are several of the most frequently asked questions about dream analysis therapy.
What is a dream therapist?
A dream therapist is a counselor or therapist specializing in dream analysis or therapy. Dream therapy involves finding the critical aspects of a dream that signal different parts of the client’s subconscious. A dream therapist is specially trained to listen to your descriptions of your dreams and help you make sense of them through research-backed techniques.
How does dream therapy work?
Dream therapy is often done one-on-one with a therapist and a client. The therapist asks the client to describe their dreams with as much detail as possible. While the client is describing a dream, the therapist may ask questions to understand the emerging themes further.
Unlike other types of therapy, dream analysis focuses specifically on what is seen in the dreams and not on the intention, thought process, or decision-making process behind certain behaviors. When you’re dreaming, you may not be able to fully control what you see or feel. That’s why dream therapists may focus on the role symbols and ideas play in your dreams when trying to understand your subconscious and the thoughts that can drive your conscious behavior while awake.
Many dream therapists use techniques like lucid dreaming coaching, dream tracking, and journaling to help clients come to conclusions about the themes in their dreams.
Should you pay attention to your dreams?
There is debate among psychologists about whether dreams have meaning or not. However, if you believe in the importance of dreams, you might find it beneficial to track or pay attention to the themes that show up in yours. The messages that appear may reflect unresolved emotions or challenging experiences you’ve had.
In dream therapy, you can talk openly about any dream, including those you’re ashamed of. Dreams might come with feelings of guilt or embarrassment, and some elements of your dream may symbolize an entirely different theme than it appears. Dream therapists are there to support you, not to judge you. Talking about the themes you don’t bring up with anyone else may allow you to receive support in a new way.
Do dreams mean anything?
Many trained psychologists believe that some dreams have meaning. While not every detail of your dream is necessarily significant, major themes may appear in many people’s dreams. These themes and recurring patterns have allowed psychologists to study the meanings potentially associated with these patterns. With so many people having the same types of dreams, psychologists argue that it would be challenging to state that they are random or not caused by something.
While every image in every dream you have might not have a significant meaning, there is a consensus in the scientific community that many of the recurring images or patterns you see in your dreams lend insight into your subconscious. Talk to a psychologist or analyst to find out if the images and patterns you’re seeing in your dreams are relevant.
What are the advantages of dreams?
There are several advantages of dreaming. If you’re having dreams and remembering them when you wake up, it can be an indicator that you are completing all of the stages of sleep during the night and may not be missing out on the rapid eye movement (REM) or non-rapid eye movement (NREM) that your mind and body need to rest fully. These stages of sleep, during which you have dreams, are necessary parts of a complete sleep cycle.
Dreams might also lock information into your long-term memory. What you see in your dreams may be based on information or stimuli you’ve received throughout the day. While dreaming, your brain might try to organize this information before storing it in long-term memory. You may have particularly vivid dreams or recurring ones that keep coming back to you throughout the years. In these cases, the themes and ideas represented in these dreams could give more profound insight into your subconscious.
How do you analyze your dreams?
There are many sources for dream analysis, and many of them are available online. A quick internet search turns up thousands of websites that offer clues as to what the images in your dreams might be telling you. You can find lists of different themes and images in dreams, along with what these themes and images might represent. Although websites can be a valuable place to start, consider getting a second opinion. Some blogs may not have research-backed information and may pull findings from nowhere for more views.
A psychologist or dream therapist may be the most beneficial option. They are specially trained to find the key details and images from your dreams and then draw research-based conclusions about their significance. They can also help you identify patterns in your subconscious mind and learn how to apply this knowledge to your thought processes and behavior. The symbolism offered by a dream analysis may be more based on research than online information.
Are dream interpretations valid?
Like other therapy types, dream analysis is based on research and scientific publishing. Over the past century, psychologists have been studying dream analysis and dream interpretation. They’ve built a reliable method for interpreting dreams to understand the subconscious. Studies have shown how this understanding of the subconscious, as gleaned through the analysis of dreams, can be harnessed and applied to the cognitive processes and decision-making processes of clients.
Are dreams therapeutic?
Dreams may be therapeutic because they help you process all the stimuli your brain has received throughout the day. They may help your brain categorize what you’ve seen, heard, and felt. Dreaming and then analyzing and understanding those dreams is a possible way to process the stimuli constantly bombarding your brain during waking hours.
In some cases, though, dreams can be disturbing. For instance, in recent trauma or loss cases, dreams often recall or bring back the images of the traumatic event. This process may interrupt a person’s ability to get through all of the stages of their sleep cycle, and it can cause emotional distress. Analyzing these bad dreams and looking at the underlying trauma and grief that might be causing them can help clients work towards reducing their occurrence. While the dream itself may not be therapeutic, it can offer a point to begin your treatment with a professional.
What does it mean to dream about someone you used to like?
Dreaming about someone you used to like could signify that you miss that individual. There may be unresolved issues surrounding the relationship, or the person might represent a particular time in your life. A dream therapist can help you further explore this theme.
Can dreams tell the future?
Some people believe that dreams can be prophetic. Your brain might tap into your intuition when in a relaxed dream state. If you believe in the predictive nature of dreams, pay attention to what’s happening when you sleep and write it down in the morning. You can then have a record of what occurred if any of your dreams come true.
Why do people appear in your dreams?
You might see people you know in your dreams representing your relationship with them, another person you’ve met, or abstract ideas. For example, you might see your mother in your dream after communicating with someone who reminds you of her, such as a teacher or coworker. One of the benefits of dream therapy is delving into your dreams and figuring out the significance of people in your dreams.
Why do we forget dreams?
Dreams are often forgotten because they’re experienced during the REM sleep phase. REM occurs deep into the sleep cycle, and when you emerge from that cycle, you may forget the dreams unless they’re brought into active memory through a practice like writing. According to Scientific American, people forget dreams when the brain is missing a hormone called norepinephrine that should be in the cerebral cortex. This area of the mind is responsible for memory and consciousness.
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