Dream Fragment Meaning

  In my years of dream study I’ve found that dream fragments can be greatly misunderstood. Fragments are not complete dreams, which caused me to discount them and think of them as inferior to a full length dream.Then I took a closer look at a couple of my own dream fragments. I don’t ignore them anymore.

Before I get too far in telling you what changed my mind about these dream snippets, I want to make sure we’re on the same page. Here’s what I mean when I use the term Dream Fragment.

A Dream Fragment is a very short dream, one or two seconds, up to a minute in length. Dream life and waking life are in different time zones, so let’s say they last for a flash. In this flash of time, a dream fragment is able to communicate the same dream logic that a full length dream does; as well as profound meaning. Despite its name, a dream fragment is not typically a fragmented piece of a longer dream.

Dream Fragment that Offers Life

  A few mornings ago, right before I awoke, I saw Danny Devito sitting at a table across from a young actress I’ve never seen before. I instinctively knew they’d just finished acting in a movie together and had gotten paid. Danny Devito says “Take your check and let’s go have some dinner”. The end.

  At first glance this fragment appears to be a part of a larger dream. It was as if I’d forgotten everything that happened prior to this scene and was left with an abrupt fragment. I’m used to dreams that flow from one scene to another. When there’s no follow up scene the dream can feel a bit incomplete. The question I had after I awoke was does this dream fragment have any meaning?

Although this fragment dream doesn’t offer much to work with, I still could extract meaning from it. Here’s what I found.

Dream Fragments often communicate just enough to begin a longer, deeper, conversation.

Equitis Bic

Let’s take a closer look at the setting of this dream. A long table, probably somewhere back stage. There are two professionals who have just finished an acting job, and gotten paid for it, sitting across from each other. The more experienced of the two offers some dinner.

When I’m setting out to try and discover meaning in a dream I look for things that stand out. I found it intriguing there are two people with different skill levels at an empty table. Why couldn’t they start out be eating dinner? It’s simply making a comparison it wants me to notice.

Two things are being compared; actors and the tables. Danny Devito is an experienced actor. I didn’t recognize the young actress with him, I got the idea she had minimal experience. We see them seated at an empty table when the offer is made to sit at a different table with food. An empty table is presented, but a table with food is suggested.

I wondered why Danny Devito is the recognizable actor in the dream. I’m not his fan, but out of the thousands of actors, why him? When I looked into the meaning of his name I discovered Danny is a variant of Daniel meaning “God is my judge”. Devito, which has its roots in the Italian word vita, means life. That is interesting. One who judges like God and comes from the lineage of life, is offering nourishment.

In other words, one who is skilled and judges fairly is offering life giving nourishment. Quite a lot of meaning for a dream fragment.

Dream Fragments that are Spoken

   One of my first experiences with fragments was with spoken fragments. Spoken fragments are simply words you hear that have no accompanying images. For me, this almost exclusively happens a minute or two after I close my eyes for a nap.

  When I was a kid I had to do lots of chores around the house. On of my leas favorite chores was mowing the lawn during the heat of the day. It was exhausting. As soon as I finished with the lawn I’d come inside the air conditioned house and collapse on the couch.

  It wasn’t uncommon for me to fall asleep, and as I did I remembered several instances where I started dreaming right away. The dreams I had during these short naps were often made up of a single picture that flashed in my mind’s eye for a few short sentences. Other times I remember hearing only words. A few times I woke up thinking someone turned on the television. Turns out the television wasn’t on. I’d just experienced a sound fragment.

More recently I experienced a dream fragment when I put my feet up and closed my eyes on a much needed break at work. A single, brief image flashed behind my eyelids. I saw a single piece of my writing paper being sprinkled with pepper. The image took up my entire field of vision and only lasted a second or two. This fragment seems meaningless at first glance because paper and pepper don’t go together. However, reducing these two symbols to their most basic meaning reveals pepper is a  seasoning and writing paper is a place to create writing. When these two symbols interact it produces the meaning “seasoned writing”.

Bizarre Dream Fragment

While seeing Pepper sprinkled on paper is a bit out of the ordinary, it isn’t exactly bizarre. I did encounter a bizarre dream fragment while perusing Reddit. I thought it interesting so I included it.

Here’s the dream:

So, I was sitting on a bench, speaking to some random friends and eating jelly and cream. The cream fell off my fork and onto my leg. I used the fork to scoop it off and ate it. It turns out a chunk of jelly had also fallen off. I scooped up more, this time looking at the spoon, and hey, that’s my flesh.

WhenI looked down and saw a deep square shaped hole in my leg, I was eating myself. When I woke up and thought about the dream I almost threw up.

This strangely bizarre dream is not only disturbing to read, it’s revealing. The most basic meaning of this dream is simply this: The dreamer is consuming something sweet with little to no nourishment. This very act is causing there to be a hole in the dreamer’s walk. the fact the dreamer wanted to throw up when they thought about it means this dream is a negative dream.

Although the dreamer didn’t say so, it seems as if they woke up right after they had this dream. The dream fragments I shared earlier in the blog happened right before I woke up. Many times dream fragments will occur right before the dreamer awakens. This means its fresh in your mind when you awaken.

I would encourage each and every one of you to keep some sort of journal on the nightstand next to your bed along with something to write with. This way you won’t miss any of the dream fragments that come your way.

Extracting Meaning from A Dream Fragment

Dream fragments are super short which means there’s not a whole lot to go on when you’re looking for meaning. I personally like long meandering dreams because the dream is telling me a lot while I’m wandering through the details. When there are few details it can be a bit of a challenge, but finding meaning within a dream fragment is possible.

When you’re trying to extract meaning from a fragment you’ve got to be very patient and very precise.

You’ve got to reduce the fragment down to its most basic meaning. That’s how I came up with the basic meaning for the bizarre dream. Cream and jelly are both sweet but have little to know nutritional value. Some of the sweetness falls onto the dreamer’s leg and after he eats it he notices there’s a hole in their leg. The most basic version of that is a hole in their walk.

It’s only natural to complicate the meaning of a dream. There are a lot of voices on the internet making dreams harder than they need to be. When you tune out the voices and reduce your dream to its most basic meaning the dream will surrender its meaning to you.

  EB