Dreams
The Hidden Conversation Within Ourselves
Joanne Harrison
7/6/202611 min read
Part One – Why We Dream
Almost every morning, millions of people wake from a dream, pause for a moment and then allow it to disappear. Within minutes the images have faded, the emotions become harder to recall and by lunchtime the dream has been replaced by the demands of everyday life.
Yet I often wonder what would happen if we treated our dreams with the same curiosity we give our waking thoughts.
After nearly two decades working in mental health, I have come to believe that dreams are one of the most overlooked resources we possess. They are not simply strange stories that entertain us while we sleep, nor are they random collections of meaningless images. In my experience, dreams can offer remarkable insight into both the surface of our lives and what lies beneath. They reveal thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviours that may never fully reach our conscious awareness during the day.
To begin understanding yourself as a dreamer is to uncover new depths of who you are, creating movement towards greater wholeness, clarity and peace within yourself.
Research tells us that most adults spend around seven to nine hours asleep each night, with dreaming occurring most vividly during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Across a lifetime, that represents thousands of hours spent in a state where the mind continues working long after the conscious world has become quiet. Sleep researchers have shown that dreaming appears to play an important role in emotional processing, memory consolidation and integrating our experiences. While science continues exploring exactly why we dream, I have developed my own way of thinking about them through years of therapeutic work.
I often describe dreams as our inbuilt counselling session.
Not because every dream contains a profound hidden message, and certainly not because every dream requires lengthy analysis, but because dreaming seems to give the mind an opportunity to continue processing experiences that may not have been fully understood during the day. Sometimes a dream simply reflects the ordinary business of living. At other times it quietly brings unresolved emotions, forgotten memories or repeating patterns into awareness through image and metaphor.
Perhaps this is why dreams have fascinated humanity for thousands of years.
One of the biggest misconceptions I encounter is that dreams should be interpreted literally. People tell me they dreamed about drowning and immediately worry that something terrible is about to happen. Others dream of death, snakes or strangers and search online for fixed meanings, hoping someone else can tell them exactly what their unconscious was trying to say.
I understand the temptation.
We naturally look for certainty.
The difficulty is that dreams rarely speak the language of certainty.
They speak the language of metaphor.
Over the years I have come to think of the conscious and unconscious as speaking two different languages. During the day our conscious mind is logical, analytical and linear. It solves problems, plans ahead and makes decisions. The unconscious communicates very differently. It prefers imagery, story, emotion and symbolism. Rather than explaining itself directly, it invites us into a conversation through pictures and experiences that often feel mysterious at first.
This is why dreams can appear chaotic.
They rarely unfold like a novel, moving neatly from one chapter to the next. A familiar childhood home suddenly becomes a school. A stranger becomes a family member. Time bends, places merge and events that seem impossible somehow feel completely natural while we are asleep.
At first glance, dreams can seem confusing.
Yet I have found that within that apparent chaos is often a deeper order, one written in a language very different from the one we use during the day. Learning to understand dreams is not about translating every symbol into a fixed definition. It is about learning to translate between these two languages — and in therapy, that translation always starts with two very simple questions, which I'll come to shortly.
People often search for understanding in the outside world while overlooking the remarkable conversation taking place within them every night.
I believe there are two sides to every person.
There is the outer life—the one filled with work, relationships, responsibilities and the roles we play for other people.
Then there is the inner life, where our thoughts, emotions, memories, beliefs and dreams continue their quiet conversation beneath the surface.
Dreams invite us to stand between those two worlds.
They ask us to look into the mirror with honesty and curiosity.
When we are willing to do that, something begins to shift.
Not because dreams magically solve our problems, but because they help us understand ourselves more deeply.
And understanding ourselves is often where meaningful change begins.
Dreams are not simply something that happens while we sleep.
They are an invitation to begin a conversation with parts of ourselves that may have been waiting patiently to be heard all along.
Part Two – Learning the Language of Dreams
Once people begin paying attention to their dreams, the next question is almost always the same.
"So... what does my dream mean?"
It is a natural question, but I don't believe it is the best place to begin.
In therapy, I rarely start by looking at the symbols. Instead, I begin somewhere much simpler.
"What did you feel when you woke up?"
That single question often tells us more than any dream dictionary ever could.
Dreams are emotional experiences before they are intellectual ones. The feeling that stays with us after waking often acts as a bridge between the unconscious world of the dream and the conscious world we step back into each morning. Fear, relief, sadness, joy, confusion or curiosity all provide clues that deserve our attention.
My second question is equally important.
"What do you believe your dream meant, and why?"
People are often surprised that I ask for their interpretation before offering my own observations. There is a reason for that.
The dream belongs to the dreamer.
Your life experiences, relationships, memories and emotional history are unlike anyone else's. Although therapists can help explore themes and patterns, no one can fully understand a dream without first understanding the person who dreamed it.
Only then do we begin exploring the wider picture.
Who was in the dream?
What relationships appeared?
What emotions changed?
What stood out?
What felt familiar?
What felt impossible?
Rather than searching for one correct answer, we become curious about the conversation unfolding beneath the surface.
This is one of the reasons I encourage people to be cautious when using dream dictionaries. I understand why they are popular. They offer certainty in a world that often feels uncertain, and they may even point towards interesting themes. However, dreams are rarely generic. A dictionary might tell you that water represents emotion or that a house represents the self. Sometimes those themes may resonate, but they are never the whole story. Dreams are shaped by the dreamer's personal history, relationships, memories and emotional life. Remove that context and we risk misunderstanding the very message the dream may be trying to communicate.
Carl Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz both recognised the importance of exploring dreams through dialogue rather than relying on rigid symbolic definitions. I have found this incredibly valuable in practice. Left entirely to ourselves, we often interpret dreams through the same beliefs we already hold. We unknowingly become caught in a loop. A second perspective does not tell us what our dream means; it simply helps us notice possibilities we may never have considered on our own.
Although no symbol has a fixed meaning, I have noticed certain themes returning repeatedly over the years.
Water is one of the most common. Often it reflects our emotional life, although the nature of the water matters. A calm lake feels very different from a violent storm or a flooding river. The emotion experienced within the dream is often more important than the water itself.
Homes appear frequently too. In my experience, houses often invite us to reflect upon identity. Different rooms, hidden spaces or changing houses may symbolise different aspects of ourselves, different stages of life or forgotten experiences that still influence us today.
Schools, workplaces and shopping centres often seem to explore our social world. They may reflect how we relate to others, how we see ourselves within groups or how we navigate expectations placed upon us.
Old family homes appear regularly in dreams. Rather than simply revisiting childhood, they may be inviting us to revisit experiences, beliefs or emotional patterns that quietly continue influencing the present.
These observations are not rules.
They are invitations to become curious.
Dreams are not like reading a novel from beginning to end. They move differently. Scenes change unexpectedly. Time bends. One place becomes another. Someone you know suddenly becomes someone else entirely. At first it can feel chaotic. Yet I have often found that within that apparent chaos is a remarkable order.
The unconscious does not communicate through logical arguments. It communicates through metaphor. That is perhaps one of the greatest differences between our waking and dreaming minds. The conscious mind tends to think in straight lines. It analyses, compares, plans and solves problems. The unconscious speaks through image, emotion, story and symbol. It is almost as though they are speaking two entirely different languages.
Dream work is not about choosing one language over the other. It is about learning to translate between them.
This becomes especially important when we begin exploring recurring dreams and nightmares.
People often assume nightmares are simply frightening experiences they would rather forget. While that is sometimes understandable, I have found that nightmares often deserve our attention.
In my experience, nightmares frequently seem to serve one of two purposes.
Sometimes they appear to be the mind's way of processing overwhelming experiences that could not be fully integrated when they first occurred. Trauma, grief, fear and loss may return through symbolic imagery rather than literal replay. The emotions can feel intense because they are drawing our attention towards experiences that perhaps were too overwhelming to process at the time.
At other times, nightmares appear to reflect something happening in the present. I have worked with people whose dreams seemed to confront them with behaviours that were harming them. Whether that involved addiction, destructive relationships or ignoring their own wellbeing, the dream did not lecture them. Instead, it presented powerful imagery that invited them to stop, reflect and ask themselves difficult questions.
Again, this is not about prediction.
It is about awareness.
Recurring dreams often follow a similar pattern. When people tell me they have experienced the same dream for years, I become curious rather than concerned. Sometimes recurring dreams suggest that an important conversation remains unfinished. The dream keeps returning because something within the dreamer's inner world is still asking to be acknowledged.
One practice I occasionally encourage is beautifully simple.
Before going to sleep, ask a question. Not with the expectation that your dream will provide a perfect answer overnight, but with genuine curiosity. If someone repeatedly struggles with confidence, scarcity, grief or relationships, they might quietly ask,
"Can you show me something that will help me understand this?"
The answer may not arrive immediately.
It may not arrive literally.
More often, it appears through metaphor, emotion or story, asking us to reflect rather than react.
That, to me, is the true language of dreams.
They do not speak to us as teachers standing at the front of a classroom.
They speak as storytellers.
And every story invites us to look beyond the obvious and discover something we may not yet have recognised within ourselves.
Part Three – Bringing Dreams Into Waking Life
Understanding a dream is only part of the journey.
The real value of dream work lies in what happens after we wake.
Over the years, I have noticed that the people who benefit most from their dreams are not necessarily those who have the most vivid dreams or remember every detail. They are the people who become curious. They develop a relationship with their inner world instead of dismissing it.
Like anything worthwhile, dream recall is a skill.
Some people naturally wake remembering every conversation, colour and emotion. Others wake knowing they have dreamed but cannot remember a single image. Neither experience is right or wrong. Just as some people naturally enjoy running while others have to train, dream recall develops differently for each individual.
The encouraging news is that it can be strengthened.
One of the simplest practices I recommend is setting an intention before you fall asleep. It doesn't need to be complicated. A quiet thought is often enough.
"I'd like to remember my dreams when I wake."
That simple intention begins signalling to your mind that your dreams matter.
The next step is creating a routine.
Keep a notebook beside your bed. Before reaching for your phone or beginning the day, remain still for a few moments. Dreams often disappear within minutes because our attention immediately shifts to emails, conversations and responsibilities. Give yourself permission to remain in that quiet space for a little longer.
You don't need to remember everything.
A single image.
A colour.
A sentence.
A feeling.
Even one small fragment is enough to begin.
Over time, something interesting often happens. The mind begins recognising that dreams are being valued, and recall frequently becomes easier.
When you begin recording dreams, resist the temptation to interpret them immediately. Instead, become an observer. Notice recurring emotions, recurring places, recurring relationships. Notice what changes and what remains the same. Patterns often reveal themselves over weeks and months rather than in a single dream.
This is one of the reasons I encourage people to keep a dream journal rather than analysing each dream in isolation. Dreams speak in conversations, not isolated sentences. Looking back through months of dreams often reveals themes that would never have been noticed otherwise. You may discover that similar situations, emotions or symbols quietly return during periods of stress, transition, grief or personal growth. It is the unfolding story that often becomes most meaningful.
Dream work also invites us to become more compassionate towards ourselves.
Many people are quick to judge what they dream.
"I shouldn't be dreaming that."
"What does this say about me?"
"I must be a terrible person."
In my experience, dreams rarely ask us to judge ourselves.
They ask us to understand ourselves.
That distinction changes everything. There is a significant difference between observing a dream with curiosity and approaching it with criticism. The first creates insight. The second often recreates the very inner criticism we may already be trying to understand.
Sometimes clients ask me whether dreams can predict the future. My honest answer is that I don't work with dreams in that way. For me, dreams are less about predicting tomorrow and more about understanding today. They reveal the conversations already taking place within us. They help us notice emotional patterns, unresolved experiences, hopes, fears and beliefs that may otherwise remain hidden beneath the pace of everyday life.
They invite awareness.
And awareness creates choice.
That choice is where change begins.
When people start paying attention to their dreams, they often notice subtle shifts in waking life. They become more reflective. They recognise emotional patterns more quickly. Relationships begin making more sense. They respond rather than react. The distance between their inner world and outer life gradually becomes smaller.
There is greater honesty. Greater self-awareness. Greater compassion.
Perhaps that is why I see dreams as much more than interesting stories.
I see them as invitations. Invitations to understand ourselves more deeply. Invitations to listen rather than ignore. Invitations to discover parts of ourselves that have been patiently waiting to be recognised.
Most of us spend our lives developing the outer world. Far fewer are taught how to explore the inner one. Yet the quality of our inner relationship shapes the quality of our outer life.
Dreams invite us to stand between those two worlds and look honestly into the mirror. Not to search for flaws. Not to prove that something is wrong. But to understand ourselves more completely.
When we learn to sit quietly with ourselves, something remarkable begins to happen. We stop searching for all the answers outside ourselves. We begin recognising the wisdom that has always existed within.
This does not mean every dream contains a profound revelation. Some dreams simply help us process the ordinary events of life. Others help us work through grief, trauma or difficult emotions. Some remain mysterious for years before suddenly making sense in the light of a new experience.
That mystery is part of their value. Not everything meaningful needs to be explained immediately. Sometimes understanding arrives gently, one dream at a time.
If your dreams leave you feeling curious, unsettled or moved, don't rush to find the quickest interpretation online. Stay with them. Write them down. Reflect on them. Ask questions. Notice what changes over time. And if a dream continues returning, or feels emotionally overwhelming, exploring it within therapy can offer a safe and thoughtful space to understand what it may be communicating.
I often say that dreams are our inbuilt counselling session. Not because they solve our problems for us, but because they invite us into a conversation we may never have realised we were having.
Perhaps that is the greatest gift dreaming offers.
Not certainty. Not prediction. But understanding.
Because as we begin understanding our dreams, we often begin understanding ourselves — and move a little closer towards wholeness, peace and the person we have always had the potential to become.
The dreamer who is willing to look within does more than remember dreams.
They begin remembering themselves.
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