Although I’m convinced that many dreams are psychologically meaningful, I’m not a believer in “dream dictionaries” that say that dreaming of X means this and dreaming of Y means that. Based on my work both as a clinician and researcher, I think that when present, symbols and metaphors in dreams reflect the dreamer’s unique personality, way of thinking, interests, current concerns, and life experiences. For this reason, I’m a firm believer that to properly understand a dream, it is necessary to know the dreamer and, in an ideal world, to involve him or her in the process. I’m therefore highly sceptical of so-called “dream experts” who interpret dreams with little to no knowledge of the dreamer.
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