There’s a method I like to use with dreams, whether they’re long or short, complex or simple – as long as they have enough energy and potency to capture my attention and fascinate me enough to mull over. It is to distill that dream down to one phrase. Often a piece of advice.
For instance, I did this with a dream that had many moving parts but was capturing me with “what is it trying to say!” – it held my attention through the day. And in the end I came up with a message which I felt represented the dream:
“Put your effort where you have agency”.
I feel this is great advice always, but it especially meant something to me at the time of the dream.
Other dreams have questions – for instance, upon having another carpark dream where I wander for hours looking for my car, I considered the phrase, “Where have you parked your agency?” It is less catchy but still a helpful frame.
Some other sayings that come out of dreams may be more personal to yourself or contextual to the dream, but generally, they can be distilled in a way which is almost universally good advice or a good consideration.
You can see over time if there’s a pattern – such as the one I literally just saw while writing this, about agency.
This kind of distillation is helpful if you have repetitive dreams, which are repeating usually in order to get a message across to you, or to process something that is stuck. Spending time with them and unwinding, distilling or evolving their narrative can free up energy for yourself and for the dream to move and change.
The process of distilling a dream really is just spending time with it and looking at what each piece means clearly, and how they interact. Sometimes it comes to you in the shower, or while driving.
You might have another way of working with dreams like drawing them or making a map, and start to feel what a distilled phrase is.
I note that usually I would only do this for particularly strong, meaningful or body-felt dreams, because of the attention and energy it sometimes takes. There needs to be a feeling of, “I have to get to the bottom of this!”
If you do this, and find a phrase, feel free to share it here – I’d love to know!