Dreams: What do they portend?

I've been paying attention to my dreams for as long as I can remember. For many years now, I've kept a dream journal in which I record the dreams I've had that night. I discovered that by training myself to write down my dreams as soon as I wake up, I can often recall quite a few details. But if I wait too long, they disappear. Thirty years ago I used to see a Jungian therapist every two weeks for about three years. During each of our sessions, I brought in the dreams I had the previous two weeks. But instead of her interpreting them for me, we'd discuss them together to figure out what they were trying to tell me. I ended up compiling an entire notebook book containing more than a hundred dreams.

I remember that many of the dreams I had back then were often very negative, at times even violent. However, as the years went by, and I started feeling better about myself, the dreams too became more positive. Quite a few of them kept repeating over a period of several years. For example, after my dad died eleven years ago, he often appears in my recurring dreams, usually in a positive light since our elationship improved as we both got older.

The other night I had one of these vivid recurring dreams. I was living in a city that resembled Cleveland, Ohio, feeling at sea and doubtful about my future prospects. I was a senior in college, living in a dorm, and about to graduate. But I was very worried about getting a job after graduation. Not only was I scared of going on job interviews, but I suspected that I had flunked out of many of my courses. But I was afraid to look at my college transcripts. This recurring dream had a lot of variations. Sometimes I'd be back in high school or even grade school. But in these dreams, I would always be an adult who had to repeat my high school or grade school classes. And the other students treated me as like one of them.

Another recurring dream involved my '69 Ford Mustang which my dad gave me when I was thirty-two years old. I'd either be trying to steer the car so it wouldn't veer off the road, or be trying to get it to stop. But the car would'nt stop no matter how hard I pushed down on the brakes. I often dreamed about the home I lived in when I was a teenager. My dad had fixed me a kind of den in the basement that was to serve as my own room. But I never enjoyed using it. I preferred instead to use the rooms on the first floor like the kitchen, dining room, amd living room. But in my dreams, I'd often end up down there in that dank dark basement room. When I tried to figure out what these recurring dreams meant, I often drew a blank. But sometimes they did make sense. I never did like going on job interviews. And I was always scared of not succeeding in school.

My most vivid dreams have pointed me in a positive direction and. Often, they helped me make important life decisions, for example, the dream that warned me to leave a dysfunctional day-treatment program. I believe that, by paying attention to my dreams, by recording them, and honoring what they're trying to tell me, I'm enhancing the quality of my life.