Put the pieces together into one interpretation

Combine your associations and the parts you found into a reading of what the whole dream is saying to you now.

Por qué funciona

In Johnson's third step the work of the first two is brought together into a view of the dream as a whole: what it may be saying to your conscious attitude and your present situation. Doing this only after the associations and inner dynamics are on paper keeps the interpretation grounded in your own material rather than in a theory brought in from outside.

Cómo hacerlo

1. Lay out your associations and the parts you named side by side.
2. Write two or three sentences that answer: what is this dream showing me about how I am living or feeling right now?
3. Ask whether the reading tells you something you did not already know. If it only confirms what you already believed, try another reading.
4. Hold the interpretation lightly for a few days and notice whether later dreams or events support or change it.

Evidencia

Interpretation is the third of Johnson's four steps. Johnson's steps have no outcome research of their own. Hill's model has a parallel insight stage, and in one of Hill's studies undergraduate students who volunteered for a dream session named insight and links to waking life as its most helpful parts. (anecdotal)

Feeling that an interpretation is right is not evidence that it is; dream research cannot verify what any single dream means. Treat a reading as a working hypothesis.

Fuentes

• Johnson, R. A. (1986). Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth. Harper & Row.
• Hill, C. E., Diemer, R. A., & Heaton, K. J. (1997). Dream interpretation sessions: Who volunteers, who benefits, and what volunteer clients view as most and least helpful. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 44(1), 53-62.

Error común

Choosing the interpretation that flatters you, or the one that puts the problem in someone else. A reading that asks nothing of you is usually the least useful one.