How to Study Dream Reading
From how symbols work to the dreams people have most
Reading dreams is not a matter of memorizing a dictionary. Learn first how symbols come to mean what they mean, and you can work out dreams the dictionary does not list.
Stage 1 · How symbols are read
Start with how tradition and psychology each look at dreams, and by what rules a symbol takes on meaning. Once that is in place, the rest is application.
- 1. The Principles of Dream Interpretation — Reading Symbols Through Tradition and Psychology — Why people have interpreted dreams, the views of traditional interpretation and modern psychology, and the ideas of auspicious dreams, ominous dreams, and reverse reading.
- 2. Common Dreams and Reading Their Symbols — What do the common dreams everyone has at least once — of pigs, water, fire, or losing teeth — really mean? We set out a broad frame for reading recurring dream symbols.
Stage 2 · The dreams people actually have
Learn the common dreams first. Animal dreams, and dreams that lead to numbers, are the subjects our tradition returns to most often.
- 3. Animals in Dreams — The Meaning of the Pig, the Snake, and the Tiger — A pig dream means wealth, a snake dream means wisdom and wealth — or so they say. Here is how the animals that often appear in dreams are read in traditional dream interpretation.
- 4. Dreams and Lucky Numbers — The Play of Reading an Auspicious Dream as a Number — Where did the saying that you buy a lottery ticket after dreaming of a pig come from? Here we look at the grain of an old amusement — reading a dream's symbols into lucky numbers.