There are many different ways to understand dreams. My method is a mix of traditional and contemporary methods, and intuition. More than anything I keep in mind that a dream is a communication: it has something to say. Here is an example.

The dream narrative: I am flying a 747. I am sitting in the front of the plane with my girlfriend. I think we’re going on vacation. I met the pilot who is a safe, tall and genetically perfect pilot. The plane lurches to the right and drops low; I don’t feel good about this. Through the window at the front of the plane I can see that we are brushing against buildings and trees. I hope we’ll make it to the track, but we’re going through dirt, rocks and steel girders. Although we are flying towards the ground, the plane maintains its shape, but eventually it stops. I push my girlfriend forward out of her rubble and onto a stone flag path. He leaves her there in the sun and I tell her to wait while I get the others out. I can see a completely broken wall that the plane has gone through. The wings have broken off along with the landing gear, although the fuselage is still intact. I see what looks like a seaside train taking passengers away and realize we are alone and no one will necessarily believe we were on the plane. I go back to the plane to look for my mobile to call my mother.

The interpretation of the dream: The central motive of this dream is the impossibility of the fuselage of the plane surviving the crash. Flying itself denotes a mental or intellectual, or even spiritual activity, which provides a clue as to the content of the dream. The vehicle in a dream usually represents the ego. The ego is the identity or separate self that we identify with throughout life, our self, and in this dream the symbol for the ego is the largest and possibly most successful airliner of our time. So, either the dreamer magnifies himself or has a magnificent life purpose.

He is in the front of the plane with his girlfriend who is (as he confided to me) fused or confused with his anima. The soul for a man is a guide, often challenging, towards inner fulfillment. Sort of like Beatrice in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The dreamer is with her but mainly saves her, which is curious in itself. What guidance does his soul give you? Well, he travels to the front, as he put it, “in the nose of the plane”, and realizes that he is going somewhere (on vacation), while usually in a dream he observes that he “comes back”. So the soul is involving him in the new search to go towards something.

It is well known that we must drive our own vehicle in our dreams. This denotes that we are in charge of our own lives. Here, though a genetically perfect individual, not the dreamer, is the driver or pilot. In other words, his unrealistic aspirations for perfection are driving him in his mental or spiritual pursuit goal (the plane flying) to achieve his goal (vacation?).

While the body of the plane, the fuselage, is intact, return to the “wreckage” of the plane to be reunited with the great modern symbol of the umbilical cord: the mobile phone. In the body of the plane she will find the navel that connects him and unites him again with his mother (the mother ship, the Boeing 747, was also known as “the Queen of the Skies”).

Since the umbilical motif ends the dream, we can safely assume that the message of the dream lies solidly here: Review and explore your early life, your relationship with your mother (in this case, the emotional abandonment, personal rejection, and betrayal) that has created emotional. -patterns of behavior that have perpetuated their suffering throughout their adult life.

Leaving the plane unharmed (“without feeling stress or fear” – the dreamer’s words) symbolizes escaping from the ego, as the dreamer suggested? No, go back to his early life and the ideas he will find there. Partly this is before the ego was formed, of course. But escaping the plane crash unscathed actually represents something much deeper. This dreamer has not fully committed to life. If he died today, he would regret not having really lived (he recognized that when it was put to him). The fuselage that maintains its shape and is not affected is the formation of the child’s ego that has ensured its survival. It represents the maxim: Nothing will affect me, nothing will hurt me… ever again.

He must rescue his girlfriend from the fuselage. Will he be able to love her? do you want to be with her? save her from her lack of feeling and emotional commitment? Other people are parts of him, aspects of his life. As he goes to rescue them (from the disassociation of his life), he sees them going where he was going before the accident: on vacation (on the train by the sea). The passengers, the other aspects of him are incidental and remote. But never so remote as at the exit of his dream. His experience of enjoying life is remote, implausible, and out of reach. They disappear from the dream leaving him (and presumably his anima-bride) alone with the uncertainty that even his continuance in the truth can be doubted (they may think we weren’t even on the flight). Flying is living, but we must be present and involved and committed: we must be here!

This dreamer is not amused, nor will he ever be, in the present circumstances, although he would probably refute it. Because even when he’s not engaged, he’s always looking over his shoulder for the perfect woman, the perfect vacation enjoyment, the ideal moment. The tall, genetically perfect and confident pilot is his mother’s perfect lover who represents the dreamer’s ineffectiveness, inferiority and inability to satisfy her, emotionally and by sexual association (the dreamer has confirmed the fantasies he has about sex with his mother ).

One last thing: push and push the girl forward. But it is she sitting passively next to her who always accompanies him at the front of the plane on the inner journey (in a sense, the dream itself). This journey, the inner journey, is a descent; a descent into the deep unconscious to hidden selves, repressed inner emotions and conflicts where her soul lives for a place with her heart, where her mother competes with her innocence. But if these fights or conflicts are allowed to continue, he can never be the winner. It is in the resolution of the conflict extracted from the deep intuitions that await him in the interior word that he can achieve his freedom. And not only his freedom but also the totality of him.

Are freedom and plenitude the meaning of the festive motif? His uncertainty is evident at the beginning of the dream; as a child or someone who is not informed only thinks “he might go on vacation”. Is the “vacation” the enjoyment and commitment to life that he craves? Or are the holidays an unknown spiritual path? Well, it’s both: holy day and full day, the religious-spiritual occasion as well as the celebration of his desire to be fully himself. But the wings of the plane (the spiritual traveler) have broken. By now he has missed the boat. And here is food for thought; because the train cannot deviate from the tracks that are indicated to it, while the wings offer the freedom of the air. So for now, his journey to freedom is halted, his wings are broken, but he is also denied the restricted access the train affords. He must wait with his soul and realize that he is already completely himself.

Analysis of your own dreams can be effective, but the deeper messages from the dream world are unlikely to come through unless you are working with an experienced and preferably gifted dream practitioner, for example a therapist, counselor, or other inner guidance. . Such a person should be able to help him monitor his dreams effectively and fruitfully and enter into an ongoing relationship with the unconscious which can be an unexpected treasure trove of wisdom in his life.