[Emma Kirby]

Hello everyone!

I’m wondering what it means when the feeling in someone’s dream is the opposite to what they are experiencing in their life at the moment? Does it mean that their unconscious is showing them how they could achieve that feeling?

/Emma

[Marion Khoshuei]

Hi Emma, that’s an interesting thought.
Would whatever made you happy in the dream actually be possible in waking life? And do you think it would actually make you happy?
What makes me happy in dreams is mostly flying unaided!
I had a similar experience some twenty years ago. I don’t remember any specifics about the dream, and I only remember it at all because I was getting used to the notion that dreams almost always reflect the mood of the preceding day, and this stood out like a lighthouse. Shining bright against the darkness of the previous day. Personally, I think such dreams are sent to remind us that there is such a thing as happiness, and to lift our spirits in times of crisis. I don’t think there was anything in it that I could have done in waking life, or I would probably have tried it, and so remembered more about it. If it were to happen now, I would analyse it for symbolism and so forth but I didn’t know enough about dream analysis back then.
Apparently the reverse can also happen, when one is in especially happy mood, but I have not experienced anything of that side of the ‘shadow side’.

[Emma Kirby]

Thank you for your answer, Marion! It wasn’t my dream so I wouldn’t be able to answer those questions, but I will forward them to the person in question. I think that she will be able to relate to her dream as an attempt to lift her mood and cheer her up since it was a happy dream. As you say, dreams almost always reflect the feeling and experience from reality. I don’t know if I’ve ever dreamt of an “opposite feeling” myself, but I’m aware that those kind of dreams exist as one of the questions in Jane Teresa’s dream analysis focuses on this.

[Marion Khoshuei]

As it wasn’t your dream, that changes things. You’ve worked with dreams so you know that dreams need to be carefully interpreted.
That they are almost never to be taken literally.
Your friend doesn’t.
It’s possible that your friend dreamed that she did something bad, but it made her feel good, in which case it is definitely not a good idea to even try doing it for real.

Dreams show us things to make us think about them, never to tell us what to do. We have free will, to decide what we want to do. Dreams may suggest something but it is up to us to think carefully about the consequences.

For instance, some of my dreams lately show me running away as a means of solving my problems, and in a way, that is indeed a practical solution, but with a bit more thought, the proper interpretaion is simply that it is showing me that’s what I want to do *metaphorically*. In reality, I really don’t want to move, I love my current location, and need to find a way to keep it.

[Emma Kirby]

I see what you mean, but her dream wasn’t negative in any way. She was really enjoying herself, having fun, which is the opposite to how she is experiencing her life right now.

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