The study of how to interpret the dreams we have can be come a real passion and hobby if you let it. There are literally hundreds of books out and thousands of web sites that devote themselves to helping you put some meaning to the sometimes strange images and situations you find yourself in during your dream life. Some of these dream image dictionaries and interpretive methods are based on studies done by credible scientists like Freud and Jung and some are not.

Knowing how the author or the web site or book came to this system of rules for dream analysis and how to interpret dreams will help you decide if his ideas are worth considering when you decide to interpret your own dreams to look for meaning beneath the surface. You can actually find people who have written entire books giving detailed rules for dream analysis and how to interpret the images of dreams with no more knowledge of psychology or cultural imagery than you or I. If the author of the book discusses his or her “method” for understanding dreams and it seems to involve revelation from some strange far away source or it is based on the author’s personal genius alone, that may not be a guide to knowing what your dreams mean that you should follow.

Similarly be careful if the approach to understanding dreams that the book or web site you are looking at base their understanding on psychic readings, the occult or unusual religious texts. Unless this is your orientation, those kinds of dream interpretation are as much fronts to “convert” you to their way of thinking of the world more than helping you understand what your dreams are telling you about your own mind.

The study of dreams and what they mean to you in terms of how your mind works and what your subconscious is trying to tell you is a legitimate field of study that is part of psychology and medical science and that has been subject to scholarly research for many decades. This does not mean that your dreams do not have hidden meanings. In fact, the chances are they do. But it does mean that there are reliable and legitimate sources of information out there to help you analyze your dreams correctly and then interpret what they mean. You deserve that kind of high quality help with this important part of your life so make sure you insist any guide to your dream life lives up to that high standard.