How to Understand Dreams – Simplicity and Reduction

Dreams can be great fun, but they’ve got a well deserved reputation for being hard to understand. They just don’t make any logical sense most of the time. For many years I was the dreamer that woke up baffled after long and confusing dreams. Then I was introduced to one of the best rep secrets about dreams – reduction.

Chefs know the process of reduction very well – it’s one of their secrets to creating delicious food. Sauces stocks are often submitted to the process of reduction by simmering or boiling out the excess so the flavor is concentrated and intensified. When it comes to dreams, the process of reduction singles out and intensifies the meaning of a dream’s elements.

THis, dear dreamer, is a first important step to understanding your dreams.

Reduce and Simplify

A dream can be easily reduced down to its most basic points. Long dreams, medium sized dreams, and short dreams can all be summed up in one sentence. Here’s an example of how its done.

I dreamed that I’m running as fast as I can carrying a little bird that I’m trying to save. I pass through an intersection and this lady steps in front of me and holds up a stop sign and says “Stop!” I stop right there. She says “Drop the bird and take this egg!” I get overwhelmed about taking the egg when she says it’s an eagle’s egg. I felt a huge sense of responsibility connected to this egg. I said “Are you serious? You’re giving me this egg? It’s going to be a huge eagle someday!” As I said that the egg cracked open and an eagle head popped out!

I woke up with this sudden feeling that this is such a serious thing.

The first but of reduction I’ll be doing is reducing the entire dream into one sentence. In order to do this I need to follow the action of the dream. Here’s a list of the actions in this dream:

Running, Stopping, Dropping the bird, Taking the egg, Expressing disbelief.

Here’s my one sentence that summarizes this dream. The dreamer is hurrying on their way, gets stopped, and exchanges a small thing for a potentially big thing with a lot of responsibility.

In order to get a better, more detailed understanding of the dream. I’ll reduce the elements of the dream. The elements are as follows:

Stop Sign — a warning

Bird — an animal that flies

Egg – infancy under development

Eagle — animal that soars

So then, when I combine the reduced action with the reduced elements here’s what I get.

The dreamer is hurrying on their way, when they get a warning to stop what they’re doing and exchange what they have for something greater that’s in its infancy.

This process of reducing and simplifying takes time and practice and works no matter how long or short your dream is.

Ignore the Details

One of the greatest challenges to the Reduce and Simplify method are details. Dreams are often filled with lots of detail. These details can a distraction to understanding the basics of a dream. It’s very easy to single out a detail or two, and those few details can confuse the entire dream. Therefore, its best to ignore the details of the dream at first and focus on the overall picture of what the dream is saying.Once you do that move to the elements of the dream and then fill in the details. Few people know they can have a basic understanding of the dream without knowing the meaning of the details.

The Interpretation of the Dream

The meaning of this dream is simply this: You have the potential and coming opportunity to pick up something greater than the small thing you’re carrying right now. This dream is telling the dreamer they have greater potential than they realize and what they’re called to do is something greater than what they’re currently carrying.