If we stay with the symbol of priests as an example. Words that may come to mind could range from spiritual, comforting and religious to self-sacrificing, bigotted, controlling or deluded.

The client above who used the words, "organised religion" to describe what the priests symbolised for her.

The main thing to remember is that you can relate every adjective that you would use to descibe the symbol, to yourself, a part of yourself or a facet of your belief system.

Now write down a one or two words that come to mind when you think of your dream symbol.

The third question is:

The 4 Step Technique Explained

1. Identify the symbol

The first thing to do is identify the symbol and write it down. Don’t have a discussion with yourself about why this symbol has appeared, just accept it!

A dream I interpreted recently featured a group of priests. The client couldn't understand why the priests were there, so I asked the question - Why priests, not football players, cleaning ladies or politicians?

The reason is because the dream was about the clients' spiritual direction and priests symbolised an element of that for her. No other symbol would have been right. Dream Symbols are NOT RANDOM.

The symbol you want to understand will also be “just right” for your dream's message to you.

The second important question to ask yourself is:

2. What words/adjectives come to mind when I think of the symbol?

3. What emotion/s do I feel when I think of this symbol?

The emotion will tell you a great deal about what the symbol means for you. Going back to the symbol of priests you could feel reverence, admiration, submissive, indifferent, angry, awe, disgust.....the list is almost endless. If you find this part difficult here is a list of possible emotions.

The client felt indifferent toward the priests and concerned and distrustful about what they were doing.

Now for your symbol. Write down the main emotions you feel toward the symbol.

Priests

Organised Religion

Indifferent, concerning, distrust

Priests + Organised Religion + Indifferent, Concerned & Distrustful = the priests represented disillusionment with, and distrust of organised religion.

Now do the same “sum” for your dream symbol and find out what it means for you!

By breaking down the symbol into it's component parts it becomes easy to understand the personal meaning it has for you. For the client, the symbol of priests represented her disillusionment and distrust of organised religion.

See how easy it was? This is a far more beneficial and accurate method of interpreting dream symbols as compared to relying on a dream dictionary where the symbols have generalised, rather than personalised, meanings and the symbol descriptions are totally out of the context of dream story. You do not need to be psychic to understand dreams just an open mind and heart and a few easily learnt tools will enable you to interpret any of your dreams or nightmares accurately.

By the way, the client's dream in it's entirety was about her developing her own sense of spirituality and taking responsiblity for it, rather than having it fed to her in a passive way.

The purpose of this guide is to demystify the whole subject of dream interpretation and to make readily available the knowledge you need to understand your dreams for your own personal growth, development and self awareness. You do not need to be psychic to understand dreams, nor do you need a dream dictionary. You just need practical and useable steps that you can immediately incorporate into your life. You will find this guide easy to follow, down to earth and informative. And after reading it you'll wonder why dream interpretation was such a mystery before! It really is simple when you know how.

There are four main elements to interpreting dream symbols and I've called this (rather uniquely!) the 4 step technique. This system will enable you to quickly and easily understand, connect to and interpret, any symbol that appears in your dreams. I developed this technique by systematically breaking down the process I was intuitively using to interpret my own and my clients dream symbols. I felt people needed a simplified and reliable way to gain access to the depth of meaning and significance that their dream symbols were trying to relate and the 4 step technique was the end result.

The first thing to realise - and you intuitively know this, is that the symbols that appear in your dreams are NOT RANDOM. Each and every one has been selected by your mind (or soul, higher self) to give you information about something pertinent to you - to give you an opportunity for healing and self discovery.

I will show you how to use these four elements, and as we go through the process, I have included an example of a real dream symbol to aid your un-derstanding. The first time you do this it may take you 5 minutes but the more frequently you do it, the less time it will take you, and after a short while it will become almost automatic.

So get your pen and paper ready and let's get started.

This is what the lady who had the dream with the symbol of priests would have written down.

4. Bringing the three elements together

This article is the unique work of Susana Serer and is held under copywrite law -It may NOT be copied in any way or reproduced without written permission from the author. Contact Susana.