Dream Decoder: M-P

The majority of these words came from this site: Astrology.com

Message Received in Code

The dream plot often is forwarded along by very unusual events (e.g. suddenly the room turns blue and everyone disappears). Other times, a cryptic message works its way into the dream event.Often the code is symbolic rather than alpha-numeric, though it can be either. Other times, it is a riddle. Whether or not you can decode the message becomes the dream conflict.

If you can decode the message, does it mean anything to you? It may make perfect sense to you, but mean nothing to others in the dream, or vice versa. The point is that the message was decoded, showing insight. The relative meaning lies in whether or not the insight can be appropriated by the dreamer.

If you cannot decode the message, you may be experiencing life as incomprehensible at some level. This dream reveals that truth of your conscious life. The key is to look at who in the dream serves as a source of knowledge about the code.

Who gave you the message?

What was the reaction of others is when they learned of the message?

Are they worried for you, nonchalant, or joyful?

Kissing

Kissing is often associated with youthful love. It is teenagers, and not parents, who kiss until they are weak in the knees on the escalator in the mall. You can be kissing another, watching others kiss, or experience that I’m about to be kissed moment.Kissing another is often wish-fulfillment or sexual acting out. The wish-fulfillment may not be to kiss per se, but to experience the youthful energy of love. Kissing in this sense is the desire for the awakening of passion, not necessarily the passion acted out.Watching others kiss may be a sign of knowing too much about them personally or participating in their lives at too personal a level. The exception here would be if you are watching your partner kiss another, which is an obvious herald of infidelity or a desire for voyeurism in the relationship.

The about to be kissed moment is an interesting one. Often, it occurs as we wake up. This is the dream that may most accurately reflect a desire for actual passion with another. The reason we wake up is the taboo feeling that perhaps, while we want this, it would not be beneficial to actually participate in it.

Is the kissing comforting or threatening to you?

Is it something you sought after, or was it forced upon you?

Is your general experience repugnant, romantic, or passionate?

Movie

Attending

What kind of movie do you go see and with whom? If this is among the most memorable dream images, you may be trying to initiate or resolve a relationship issue by watching others portray it. The movie plot will often provide guidance on how to do this. Even if the movie is a film with nonsensical or overwhelmingly destructive events, your subconscious chose it for some desire that lurks below the surface.

You may be searching for a vicarious substitution for a life you consider mundane. In the film, what particularly (un)satisfactory events are portrayed by whom and how do those events parallel your own life?

Starring In

One of the strangest feelings to have is the dream that includes watching yourself in a movie. For starters, you are two places at once-watching yourself and being in the movie. While sometimes your dream logic says, oh yeah, this is a film I am in, other times it fails you. These turn into dream events that contain an out-of-body experience.

In either case, there is often a sense of derealization of whatever is occurring in the movie plot. There can be several reasons for this. One is to lower the psychological pain of a dream. Since you are watching yourself in the dream, you can reinforce your defense mechanism even in the subconscious state by saying, It’s only a dream. Another is to allow you to evaluate the events more objectively. Insight requires self-awareness. Self-awareness requires being able to discern your power and action in the world. The movie makes power and action more observable.

The other version of the movie dream is simple wish-fulfillment. Hey, you oughtta be in pictures. So you are.

Is your life so good or so bad that at times you wonder when the dream will end? These feelings in waking life can create derealization in dreaming perceptions.

Nagging

One of the reasons we respond so strongly to dream content is because it often is an exclamation point rather than a period. Dream statements exist in the superlative as often as not. This is especially true of the interpersonal relationships-some are revealed as the best; others as the worst. Over time, no interpersonal event is more draining than the nag. Who is nagging you and why? Some dreams include the nagger as a caricature of nagging, and the droning eventually becomes funny. Other dreams create a symbolic avoidance of a person because of a fear of nagging. The final version of the nag is the forward, ongoing sapping of your emotional strength through the dream story. There may be a facet of your waking life where you have chosen denial as your modus operandi. Nagging dreams may be a specific attempt to draw you back into dealing with it. More often, the dream is about a person that you are taking too seriously or not seriously enough. The interpretation depends on your waking relationship to the individual, the content of the nagging as it reflects actual waking priorities, and your honesty in the relationship. Are you meeting the expectations of others responsibly or do you feel inherently inadequate? Are others directly criticizing your inadequacy at certain levels?

Nurse

The nurse is a unique figure in medical personnel dreams because of the romance attached to the helping professions.Sometimes nurses are even portrayed as angels. Aside from the romantic component, nurses often functions as extras in other medical or sickness dreams.

Owl

The owl is the archetype of wisdom in many cultures’ parables. The owl is often a sign of longevity, as well as knowledge. This knowledge pertains especially to the future and the mysteries of the night. You may be seeking such knowledge or be receiving an oracle hinting that you may be in possession of such knowledge.Is the owl in your dream mysterious or forthcoming?

Does the owl speak to you? What does it say?

Oxen

Oxen are the animals of agriculture and work. If you dream of oxen you may see yourself as wanting to return to a simpler, farm-based life, or that your work is never ending.

Are you bearing the burdens of others unnecessarily or unfairly?

Paralysis One of the most troubling dream events, and startling physical side-effects of REM, is paralysis. Large muscle groups often become paralyzed during a dream, presumably to prevent injury to the dreamer in case the dreamer’s instincts would cause a physical reaction to dreaming visuals. It can be troubling if the dreamer becomes aware of his body in a paralyzed state without being aware of the fact that the mind is still in a dream state. Suddenly stripped of every physical capacity for defense, the dreamer can experience great panic or victimization in the dream. This scenario is a troubling version of the lucid dream. Instead of mind awareness and body control, the dreamer has body awareness and no mind control. Hundreds of years ago, this phenomenon was observed and named having a witch on your back. The idea was that an unfriendly spirit within the dream had pinned you to your bed. Indeed, it is not uncommon to have a sense of spiritual oppression in a dream that includes paralysis.

Playgrounds Playgrounds are the scene of many of our most favored childhood memories. What makes a playground dream significant is who accompanies you and what age you are in the dream. It is not uncommon to have a playground dream where the dreamer is the only child among adults or the only adult among children. These dreams usually indicate that there is a disparity between how you are acting in the world and what a more appropriate disposition would be. You may need to either lighten up or take yourself more seriously, depending on some of the distinct images in the dream.Equally important in the playground dream is the presence of particular friends or family members. This is especially true if they have passed away in waking life but participate in the dream as living characters (see dead people as live characters). Dreams of this nature are often pointing towards incomplete relationships that are either repeating themselves in waking life or need resolution. A 44-year-old woman reports this dream: I am on a playground … there is carnival music playing in the background. I am on the turntable apparatus that spins faster and faster. Suddenly, I vomit in front of my friends. I feel humiliated for losing control. I am very sad because I have on my favorite little girl dress. This dream is interesting because of the mixture of happy and sad memories. The dreamer does not report ever vomiting at a playground in her conscious memory. However, upon investigating the dream, she realizes that her father is the one making the turntable spin. She feels as though she was enjoying herself tremendously up until the crucial moment. Then she realized the dress she vomited on in the dream is one she was given the summer her parents divorced. Playing Sports IndividuallyYou may feel responsibility for your own success or satisfaction. Many times, entertaining ourselves stems from being neglected by others, so we dream of playing alone and enjoying ourselves in spite of them. Other times, it is a product of distancing ourselves from others, even if perhaps they would want us to play in the group.Do you feel a sense of loneliness or comfort in the dream? With Others Dreaming of playing with others can be a symptom of your need to enhance your interpersonal communication skills. It can also inform you of the possibility that you have been neglecting communion with others, and that you need to seek more camaraderie in your life. Was the game in the dream for fun or competition?

Politicians

In the media age, dreaming of things political is becoming more frequent. Since we are often exposed to the intimate details of public figures’ lives, we feel we know them, even if we only know about them.Consequently, we work these figures into our dream lives when events in our lives seem to empathize with what we know of public figures.

Often, politicians, like celebrities, pop into our dreams for no reason other than the fact that we are bombarded with images of them on a daily basis. What may be important, though, is your waking-life perceptions of the politician who appears in your dream.

Problem-solving

Problem-solving in a dream situation and solving waking-life problems through dreaming are two very different experiences. The former is a dream event while the latter uses the dream event to address waking concerns.In dreams, you may find yourself able to solve more problems than you normally do in waking. Problems that you can solve in dreams are virtually limitless because you are not bounded by logic. Many times this can work to the dreamer’s advantage. If you are able to solve problems effectively, it is a reflection of untapped competence in a particular area of your life.

The idea of problem-solving through dreaming comes from the saying, Let me sleep on it. The ego is designed to differentiate which ideas are allowed to enter consciousness. Consequently, some thoughts are dismissed before they even get a chance for deliberation. The problem is that most of us are prejudiced by our experience to eliminate potentially good solutions to our problems. This is due to the neurosis that is part and parcel of every personality.

By sleeping and dreaming about a particular problem, your mind accesses a broader variety of problem solving choices than it would normally have the ability to recognize. When you awaken, you may not remember the specific dream content, but the problem may be miraculously resolved.

Always take note of the methods used in your dream situations to solve problems therein. Is there any situation in life that may benefit by employing similar tactics?