You should keep in mind that dream analysis is simply an interpretation of your dreams, not a definitive answer for all that “ails” you, so to speak.

If you are having some major life problems, we suggest you seek the assistance of a trained professional. You can still, however, pay close attention to your dreams and report them to your therapist for some insight into your troubles.

Your dreams are unique to you. They can represent all that is good in you and all that you need to improve upon. When you better understand your dreams, you can better understand yourself.

Sleep well!

The following websites were used in researching this blog/ebook:

www.dreammoods.com
www.wiki.ehow.com
www.dreamemporium.com
www.near-death.com
www.about.com

First, the dreams could be unconscious advice. Maybe in some way you are betraying yourself, forgetting something, or not fulfilling a potential. For example, persons on the edge of a midlife career change may have dreams about being in school and searching for a missing classroom, or they may find themselves in a class about to take a final exam while realizing that they completely forgot to attend the class all year. Thus the feeling of panic in the dream points to the real feeling of panic in their current life about the failure of their present career.

Second, the dreams could be an admonition, based in guilt. Imagine, for example, that you are embezzling the bank for which you work. Then you start having dreams about burglars breaking into your home.

Well, the dreams are simply a depiction of something happening to you that is similar to the hurt or moral injury you are inflicting on someone else. This same dynamic often occurs in children’s nightmares: in waking life, children often experience angry feelings toward their parents and yet lack the cognitive capacity to express these feelings openly; so, in unconscious guilt, the anger becomes turned against themselves as threatening nightmare images.

Third, the dreams could be hints of a repressed trauma. As I say above, nightmares often accompany the emotional pain of a traumatic event experienced in adulthood. But if a trauma in childhood is repressed, dreams reflecting the emotional intensity of the trauma can persist throughout life—as a repetition compulsion—until the trauma is eventually brought to conscious awareness and healed.

Finally, the dreams could be psychic premonitions. This is a rare phenomenon, but it does happen to some persons.

The best advice we’ve found about disturbing dreams is to just ignore them. You can try to analyze the images you find, but that is most likely not going to give you the answers you need.

People with anxiety disorder might also experience what experts term “night terrors”. These are actually panic attacks that occur in sleep.

It is especially difficult to remember these types of dreams since they conjure up terrifying images that we would just as soon forget.
In poetic myth, the Nightmare is actually a “small nettlesome mare, not more than thirteen hands high, of the breed familiar with the Elgin marbles: cream-colored, clean-limbed, with a long head, bluish eye, flowing mane and tail.” Her nests, called mares’ nests, “when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in rock-clefs or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully chosen twigs lined with white horse-hair and the plumage of prophetic birds and littered with the jaw-bones and entrails of poets.”

Thus, in a pagan world of myth and blood sacrifice, the Nightmare was a cruel, fearful creature. Our modern word nightmare derives from the Middle English nihtmare (from niht, night, and mare, demon), an evil spirit believed to haunt and suffocate sleeping people. And so, in today’s world, when we speak of a nightmare we mean a frightening dream accompanied by a sensation of oppression and helplessness.

The blood-thirsty aspect of the mythic Nightmare, however, can give a good clue about nightmares in general, for in psychodynamic terms nightmares are graphic depictions of raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and rage that have not been incorporated into the conscious psyche. Thus we tend to encounter these “ugly” aspects of our unconscious lives as terrifying dream images in whose presence we feel completely helpless.

Nightmares are quite common in childhood because this is a time of our emotional development when we all have to come to terms with, well, raw, primitive emotions such as aggression and rage.

Traumatic nightmares can also occur as one of the many symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Repetitive, intrusive nightmares following a trauma often contain symbolic themes that mirror the original trauma and relate to threat to life, threat of abandonment or death, or loss of identity.

Therefore, traumatic nightmares need to be treated differently than other dreams. It’s not enough just to “know” intellectually the psychological reasons why you have these nightmares. An event is traumatic because it disrupts your previously secure—and illusory—sense of “self.” And so, to heal from a trauma, you must take the initiative to make conscious changes in your life to accommodate the traumatic shattering of your illusions about life and identity.
Some believe that nightmares have a physiological nature as well. Edgar Cayce believed that Nightmares, which bring with them an inability to move or cry out, usually indicate the wrong diet. To end the nightmarish dreams change your diet.

We found a technique online that can help people who suffer from recurrent nightmares. It is not meant to be a cure-all. It is just a suggested treatment to deal with frightening nightmares. The idea is to use this therapy every night until the nightmare has been resolved. It is called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy.

Here are the steps of Imagery Rehearsal Therapy:

1. Write out the text of the nightmare. Tell the story, no matter how frightening, in as much detail as you can remember.

2. Create a new ending for the nightmare story and write it out. Be careful, however, to make the new ending peaceful. Remember that the nightmare is grounded in emotions such as raw anger that have been provoked by a trauma. The point of a new ending is to “tame” the emotions, not merely vent them in violence and revenge.

3. Rehearse the new version of the story in your imagination each night just before going to sleep. Do this as close as possible to your falling asleep without any other activity between the rehearsal and sleep.

4. Perform a relaxation exercise. Do this immediately after the rehearsal, as a way to fall asleep peacefully. You may use any technique with which you are familiar. This could be meditation, yoga, or breathing exercises.

The “cousin” of nightmares is disturbing dreams with unpleasant images.

To dream of a car accident symbolizes your emotional state. You may be harboring deep anxieties and fears. Are you “driving” yourself too hard? This dream may tell you to slow down before you hit disaster. You need to rethink or re-plan your course of actions and set yourself on a better path.

To dream that a loved one dies in an accident indicates that something in your own Self that is no longer functional and is “dead”. It is also symbolic of your own relationship with that person. Perhaps you need to let go of this relationship.

Accident dreams may also represent your straightforward fears of being an actual, physical accident. You may be simply nervous about getting behind the wheel. This dream may be a clear warning to cautious of approaching vehicles.

This is only a general partial list – of course. Every single detail in your dream could have some hidden meaning. There are a lot of places online to find information about the specific details of your dreams and what they might mean.

You need to discover the link between all these images and what they might mean. This process is a bit like those “connect the dots” puzzles that reveal a hidden picture.

Psychologically, you simply need to understand what this net of associations from the dream is telling you specifically, at this precise time of your life, about your current problems and conflicts.
Quite often, these associations are purely emotional; that is, you can take a particularly graphic dream image, examine your emotional reactions to it, look back into your past for times when you felt the same emotions, and then ask yourself in what way those situations from the past have any bearing on what is happening in your life now
Repetitive dreams indicate that you are continuing to miss the point about the meaning of the dream. If you don’t “wake up” to the unconscious meaning of the dream but instead persist in seeing it through your own wish-fulfillment needs, you will remain stuck in your own self-deception.

Almost everyone has experienced a nightmare at one point or time in their life.

To see and talk with your dead father in your dream signifies that you are about to enter into an unlucky transaction or rotten deal. Thoroughly think through your decisions before entering into them.
To see your dead mother in your dream signifies your wretched and mean-hearted nature towards others around you.

Seeing your dead parents in your dreams may mean your fears of losing them or your way of coping with the loss. You may want that last opportunity to say your final good-byes to them.

To see your dead sibling, relative, or friend in your dream foretells that you will soon be called on for aid and assistance. It may also mean that you miss them and are trying to relive your old experiences you had with them. In trying to keep up with the pace of your daily waking life, you dreams may serve as your only outlet in coping and coming to terms with the loss of a loved one.

Do not fear conversation with the so-called “dead” in dreams. If the communication is one-sided, it denotes telepathy. If both participate, it may be an actual encounter of bodiless consciousness.

To see children in your dream signifies your own childlike qualities or a retreat back to a childlike state. It is an extension of your inner child during a time of innocence, purity, simplicity, and a carefree attitude. You may be longing for the past and the chance to satisfy repressed desires and unfulfilled hopes. Take some time off and cater to the inner child within. Perhaps there is something that you need to see grow and nurtured.

To dream that your own grown children are still very young indicates that you still see them as young and dependent. You want to feel needed and significant.

To dream that you are watching children but they do not know you are there is a metaphor for some hidden knowledge or some latent talent which you have failed to recognize.

To save a child signifies your attempts to save a part of yourself from being destroyed.

To see an angel holding a scroll in your dream indicates a highly spiritual dream. Your future and goals are clearer to you in dreams of this type. The message on the scroll is particularly significant.

To dream that you are being abducted by aliens indicates your fears of your changing surroundings or your fear of losing your home and family. You feel that your space and/or privacy is being invaded.

To see aliens in your dream signifies that you are having difficulties adapting and adjusting to your new surroundings. You are feeling “alienated” and invaded. On a psychological level, seeing aliens may represent an encounter with an unfamiliar or neglected aspect of your own self.

To see a couple in love or expressing love to each other, indicates much success ahead for you.

To dream that your friend is in love with you may be one of wish fulfillment. Perhaps you have developed have developed feelings for your best friend and are wondering how he or she feels. You are so preoccupied with these thoughts that it is evitable that it finds its way into your dreaming mind.

On the other hand, the dream may also suggest that you have accepted certain qualities of your best friend and incorporated into your own character.

To dream that you are making love in public or in different places, relates to some overt sexual issue or need.  Your dream may be telling you that you need to express yourself more openly. Alternatively, it represents your perceptions about your own sexuality in the context of politic and social norms. You may be questioning your feelings about sex, marriage, love, and gender roles.

To dream of lust, suggests that you are lacking or feeling unfulfilled in some aspect of your life. Alternatively, you need to exercise some self-control.

To dream that you die in your dream, symbolizes inner changes, transformation, self-discovery and positive development that is happening within you or in your life.

Although such dreams may bring about feelings of fear and anxiety, it is no cause for alarm and is often considered a positive symbol.

Dreams of experiencing your own death usually mean that big changes are ahead for you. They mean you are moving onto new beginnings and leaving the past behind.

These changes do not necessarily imply a negative turn of events. Metaphorically, dying can be seen as an end or a termination to your old ways and habits. So, dying does not always mean a physical death, but an ending of something.

On a negative note, to dream that you die may represent involvement in deeply painful relationships or unhealthy, destructive behaviors. You may feeling depressed or feel strangled by a situation or person in your waking life. Perhaps your mind is preoccupied with someone who is terminally ill or dying. Alternatively, you may be trying to get out of some obligation, responsibility or other situation.

To see someone dying in your dream signifies that your feelings for that person are dead or that a significant change/loss is occurring in your relationship with that person. Alternatively, you may want to repress that aspect of yourself that is represented by the dying person.