How to Know What It Means
Whether it's dreams, visions, journeys or meditations, most of us at one time or another have gotten what seems to be a vivid picture which we know is important for us to understand and utilize, but we have absolutely no idea what it means. Much like Alice in Wonderland we are left staring after the White Rabbit going "Pardon?". Some people can get entire feature length movies which make sense in context and at the time, but when they try to translate the meaning of them into normal life they shred like wet toilet paper, dissolving into little bits of nothing.
Akashic work can be quite similar to this even though we engage in it consciously and the process tends to be more experiential. We are shown things which may or may not make sense in context, the colors/shape/size/location of which all seem to have meaning, but no easily identifiable "drink me" or "eat me" label can be seen anywhere. We may go through an entire adventure, come out the other side feeling wonderful, transformed, amazed, healed or relaxed and rejuvenated, but still have absolutely no idea what just happened or what we should do about it.
The most common reaction to this is labeling or naming. The problem solving aspect of our brain, the concrete, "wrap your mind around it" process, kicks in to give us some means of making the information useful or normalized and so puts a word or phrase to the visual. Names and labels, no matter how simple or complex, are symbols which represent an individual or thing. Constructed of vocalized sounds and lines they encode a tremendous amount of information including: culture, geographic area of birth or parent's origin, community affiliation, gender, historical period of childhood, family of origin and possibly spiritual path. Even the most generic of names, Bob Smith, tells of North American heritage, probable male gender and middle/working class family background while the label "bitch" has turned into a much more complex term since it's humble beginnings as a female dog.
Naming something has the ability to give us dominion over it as described in the story of Adam. His being empowered by God to name things displays his status as more powerful than and caretaker of all the creatures God has made. It also sets up power dynamics when it comes to the creation of Eve. Is she his equal if he names her like the rest of creation? This power struggle is also seen in the Jewish mythology of Lilith who has become a complex symbol of empowerment, freedom, rebellion and defiance in her own right.
When we put a name or label on something we've seen in a dream or meditation, we are translating it into a tool, a piece of information, a part of a narrative which we can then use in our lives.
But, while names and labels have power, often they are an ill or incomplete fit. Rarely does a given name include everything about a person/object or even what is most relevant about them. They are somewhat like the tabs on a file folder or the name of a computer file. They indicate what may or should be inside, but we can't know for sure until we open them. Underneath the convenient name or symbol, universes await to be explored.
This is why dream books or dream encyclopedias are interesting, but the meanings they ascribe to symbols often come to feel like fitting square pegs into triangular holes or leave things more confused and scrambled than they were before. While it is common for the visual of swimming in water to refer to emotions, it can also be about fear of drowning, being out to sea concerning an issue, or you really need to go with the flow. While some symbols have a stronger, more universal meaning such as the Jungian archetypes, gods and goddesses from various cultures, and the most common of objects we learn to identify as small children, most have depths of meaning beyond just one label even in a simple dream.
For example, I once had a dream while I was working full time as an operations manager for an online tech firm. We were a small company, originally a startup, where everyone knew everyone else and their spouses and their children. I had a dream where I walked through the office past each individual and saw them as either a vampire, a werewolf, or in one case what I felt was a "marshmallow dead person." It was notable not everyone who worked at the company appeared in the dream. Everyone who did was at their desks or in their offices and those not in the dream simply weren't at their desk.
When I woke from the dream I first focused on the weird, but "right" feeling of how each person was portrayed. I took an inventory of who and what role they had been in. While this could seem like just something weird which came from my watching old horror movies, in reality it was a warning and guide to how people were being not only personally, but in their roles at the company, and in their careers. Some were vampires who took from others without being obvious, were charismatic, leaders, and manipulated things for their own ends. In fact, years later one of those in the dream would be caught embezzling millions of dollars from the company. Others were werewolves who had ulterior motives for what they were doing, felt fine taking out their reactions to things on others, and justified selfishness as just a part of who they are and what you need to do in order to get ahead. And the marshmallow dead person was someone who admitted they were just occupying their space in order to get their benefits and retire, which happened about 18 months later.
The dream didn't tell me new information, but validated what I already knew and put emphasis on it in ways which transformed it into something I couldn't quite ignore. I then had a choice on how to utilize the information for my best and highest good.
The other way of interpreting dreams, the traditional way which appears in various forms in ancient and indigenous cultures is to trade overly simplified labels or names in favor of specifics and context. Think of this in terms of spoken language. Words have individual meanings, but when put together one way they can mean this thing and put together another they can mean something completely different. Add ironic or sarcastic tones, a deadpan look, or an eye roll and you've got something else again. Context is king.
Also, our vocabulary and means of expressing it both connects us to those around us through word choice, dialect, accent and so on while at the same time allowing for our own unique way of being.
Hence a dream interpreter will rarely if ever try to interpret a dream for someone without getting to know the person first. In some cultures the interpreter might spend days with the person to see how they live and learn about their history. Others sleep near or even with the person in order to access their dreams directly and get a gestalt understanding of the person's context including all the emotions generated by and within the dream.
Once the dream interpreter has the context, they can decode the various layers of meaning within the dream and relay them to the dreamer. This is much like therapy in that they don't just give information to the person, but work with them to help them integrate the wisdom provided whether for healing, transformation, resolving a problem, answering a question, or becoming aware of danger ahead.
Such skills, like becoming an expert at anything else, takes hours and years of practice and dedication. Most of us don't have the inclination or time and just need to understand the information we're getting so we can deal with everything else on our plate.
So, what can be done? If simple definitions are like one-size-fits-all clothing (um, which to be honest mostly never does) and the traditional methods are like hiring your own personal tailor (wouldn't that be nice) then are we just stuck guessing?
Glad you asked. :)
One of the best techniques I have found which anyone can use to interpret their dreams is something I've come to think of as Jungian Mad Libs.
First, write down the dream, vision or journey. Don't edit out bits which don't seem to fit or make sense. Don't try to make things streamlined or linear like a good story. Just write it all down like you're a cop trying to take notes from an eyewitness to a burglary. There's no special technique for this. If you can do it right when you wake up, then great. If the dog really, seriously has to be walked before you write it down, then fine. If the kids are jumping on your very full bladder, take care of that first. Whatever you can remember once you have a chance to write things down works just fine. In fact, sometimes better because going back into the energy of the dream may give you more information you didn't realize you had when you first woke up.
Once you have everything written down, take a moment and circle all the things you've written down which are nouns, verbs and descriptors. If there's a big cloud, that gets a circle. Running - circle. Flying high - circle. Little green men - perhaps multiple small circles? ;)
Don't edit any words you've written down, just circle things. You'll notice this gives you a feel for what bits are big, relevant, and symbolic where other things are background.
This is now your Mad Lib page.
The next step may seem counter intuitive, but it's where the magic lies. Get another sheet of paper and possibly an online thesaurus at the ready. Then, starting from the last sentence you wrote, copy the sentence onto the bottom of the new page, but use different words for what you have circled. Have a sentence about being in your bedroom? Change this to standing in the sleeping chamber. Were you holding a glass full of wine? Then take a container of fermented grape extract in your hand.
Again, don't make meaning out of things. Going backwards helps you not try to make things fit together. Use a thesaurus to find words which mean the same thing as what you wrote and put them in. Do this for the entire dream one sentence at a time. If it feels awkward and the sentences don't sound like what you would write or say, then you're doing it correctly.
Once you're done converting all the bubbles into their new words, step back for a minute, take a break, do something else to let your brain relax and breath.
When you are ready, go back and read the new page from start to finish. Usually what you'll have is the definitions or actual meanings of things laid out rather starkly for yourself. This gives its own level of clarity, but also makes clear the context of things.
If you had a dream where you're swimming towards your partner and then are treading water but never getting closer or they are swimming away from you, this could mean any number of things. If you change the words to "Moving through emotional resistance to reach my other half which moves away from me" you can see much more of the wisdom being communicated.
This process is often clearer and more transformative if done with a friend or in a group. To do this you would write down the dream as explained above, then give the dream to someone else for the circling and Mad Libs word change step. Once they have rewritten the dream for you with the new words, they give it back to the dreamer, often with startling affects. Just as we can't see the back of our own heads because our eyes are not on stalks, so too we are often unable to see the clear meaning of something because we are too familiar and involved in the situation.
You can use this process not only with dreams, but visions, meditations, Akashic work and more. As with all things, repetition leads to insights and improvement, implementing insights and improvement leads to competence, and striving for fluency often leads to excellence. Or put simply, the more you do, the more you'll know.