The Basics of Dream Interpretation

Once we establish the credibility of dream reports, we also need principles for judging whether dream interpretations are sound. When someone explains, people naturally ask, "What is it based on?" Below are several guidelines for evaluating an interpretation.

First, the interpretation should be internally consistent and account for at least part of the dream’s content.

In other words, a good interpretation is coherent and plausible, and it explains most of the dream. Ideally, it accounts for every detail.

For example, consider a dream reported by one of Freud’s patients:

"In the summer, I was walking down the street wearing a strangely shaped straw hat, with the middle part curving upward and the brim hanging down, one side lower than the other. I felt happy and confident, and as I walked past some young officers, I thought to myself: you can't do anything to me."

Freud interpreted it this way: "The hat is, in fact, a symbol of the male genitals, with the middle part raised and the sides drooping. Her hat should especially be understood as representing a man, and ultimately one might say: 'to go under the hat' (in German, this means to get married)... So if her husband has such perfect genitals, she need not fear those officers. This means she does not wish to gain anything from them." Freud’s reading is fully self-consistent. It explains all the details, and the interpretations of the parts connect into a whole. The hat symbolizes the genitals, which clarifies why the center is raised and the sides droop. The thought "you can't do anything to me" indicates the officers cannot tempt her, aligning with the symbolic reading. Therefore, this interpretation carries a certain degree of credibility.

This principle mirrors how scientists evaluate theories. If a physicist proposes a theory that explains the vast majority of physical phenomena, it is accepted as correct. Dream interpretation is a kind of miniature theory.

A good physical theory explains as much as possible with as little as possible. The same applies to good dream interpretations. A solid physical theory aims for unity, and so does a strong interpretation. In the example above, Freud used a single sexual symbol to account for all the dream’s details, which makes for a very strong interpretation.

However, meeting this first standard alone does not guarantee that an interpretation is correct. A good interpretation should also at least partly satisfy a second principle.

Second, an interpretation should connect the dream to external stimuli or life events and allow one to infer or hypothesize about them. This, too, echoes how physics judges theories: a good theory predicts unobserved events. Likewise, a strong dream interpretation can infer unknown facts. Taking Freud’s reading of the "hat" dream as an example, he was confident for two reasons:

• The woman who had this dream suffered from agoraphobia and worried about being tempted by men when going out alone. The dream’s theme is: "If my husband's genitals are intact, I will not fear temptation." Clearly, the theme closely relates to her current anxiety about agoraphobia.
• According to the interpretation, the brim of the hat represents the testicles. In the dream, one side of the brim hangs lower than the other. The woman later confirmed that one of her husband’s testicles is indeed lower than the other.

This external evidence is compelling. In my experience, when an interpretation can infer something specific about the dreamer, the dreamer readily accepts it.

For example, I once interpreted a dream for someone who said that years earlier she had repeatedly dreamed of missing a train—arriving at the station just as it was pulling away. I told her she had probably been facing an opportunity at the time and was anxious about missing it. I asked whether she had been at a turning point or a chance to change her life. She said, "Yes, I was planning to work in Shenzhen. A classmate went there and told me it was great, but I worried I’d missed my chance and that there weren’t many openings left." Then she added, "Now I see what the dream was about. Back then, I thought it was a bad omen and hated it; I didn’t even want to wear the clothes I had on in the dream..." I interrupted and asked, "Was there anything special about the clothes you wore in the dream? Every detail in a dream has meaning. The fact that you noticed that outfit suggests it was tied to your desire to go to Shenzhen. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have dreamed of it." She thought for a moment and then said, "That’s right—the outfit was a gift from a friend in Shenzhen, the same classmate who encouraged me to go." She concluded, "Your interpretation is really accurate!"

Third, after hearing the interpreter’s explanation, the dreamer should feel that it makes sense and may even experience a moment of realization.

In my experience, while dreamers may not be able to interpret their own dreams, they can intuitively judge whether a particular interpretation fits. When it does, they’ll say, "That makes sense," or "I get it now." Sometimes they have a flash of clarity and say, "I completely understand—that’s exactly right." At such moments, they firmly believe the interpretation.

The dreamer subconsciously knows the answer—they just can’t bring it into conscious awareness. Once the correct interpretation appears, the dreamer recognizes it immediately. A correct interpretation helps bridge the gap between the conscious and the subconscious.

Sometimes a dreamer will hear an interpretation and strongly oppose it, adamantly denying it. This doesn’t necessarily mean the interpretation is wrong. If the dreamer objects calmly, the interpretation may indeed be off. But if the reaction is highly emotional and vehement, the interpretation may actually be correct. It may have hit a nerve, exposed a wound, and revealed an inner truth the dreamer is afraid to face. The dreamer may sense its accuracy but, out of fear and self-protection, resists exposing their inner self and thus vehemently denies it.

At this point, I’ve outlined several principles for assessing the credibility of dream reports and interpretations. At first glance, this may seem a bit cumbersome, but it has to be said. If I simply claimed that dreams have meaning without any guiding principles, it would be just my opinion—or even mere superstition. After laying out these principles and applying them to examples from ancient and modern literature, as well as to my own dreams and others’ dreams I’ve interpreted, I can confidently say that most dreams are indeed meaningful. As for whether meaningless dreams exist, I cannot yet say for sure.