suggestions, but don't look to them for the final word on what your dreams mean. Only you can interpret what a particular symbol means in your individual dreamworld. A dog, for instance, might symbolize a fierce and menacing presence in the dream of someone who has grown up with a fear of the animal, but appear as a friend and guide in the dream of a true animal lover. Again, it all depends on the context.
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Although no two dreamers will derive the exact same meaning for every symbol, experimental dream research in this century has given us a way of dividing dream symbols into different categories along with some guidelines that will help you to recognize what these symbols mean in your particular dreamworld. Your dreaming mind, as director of several nightly movies, including a slightly longer "feature film" during the final stage of REM sleep, selects characters (and actors), dialogue, plot, and setting for a particular effect. The waking mind can then work backward, from the effect or emotion the dream contains to an analysis of each symbol and how it plays into the overall effect. In dreams, you'll find tragedy, comedy, and everything in between.
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 | | "A dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic."
Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and dream theorist
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You may ask why, then, dreams can be so bizarre and difficult to figure out at times. For a moment, imagine you are in another country, where the culture and language are unknown to you. Things look familiar, but the customs surrounding them are totally different. This is the situation in your dreamworld. Words sound the same, but can have different meanings. The people you meet, the places you go, the things you see all appear familiar, but may in fact symbolize or represent other things,
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