Dreams have, since time immemorial, been a source of fascination for humans.

Indeed, Freud once said that, “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”

And, as a relational trauma recovery therapist, one of the best ways I’ve found to “travel that royal road” is through Gestalt Dream Analysis.

Gestalt therapy, developed by psychiatrists Fritz Perls and Laura Posner Perls, views dreams as parts of the personality that have been unexpressed, existential messages we send to ourselves where every figure of the dream is an aspect of ourselves.

This means the setting (the house, the middle school hallway, the field of flowers) that the dream takes place in is an aspect of self; the people – “positive” and “negative” – who show up in the dream are aspects of self; even pets or inanimate objects like cars or trains, all are aspects of the self.

To understand what a specific dream symbol means, you assess each object for the qualities and characteristics that this figure symbolizes........

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