Can Dreams Be Really Understood?

Imagine talking to a person who speaks a language which is a mixture of English-Japanese-Sanskrit-Russian-Sign Language-Greek. Then imagine that you were asking directions for, let's say the nearest restroom in a place you are very unfamiliar with. (With the requisite biological prompt effected by soiled food.) Of course you could understand his English but given it's only a fraction of the language mix, more often than not you wouldn't be able to decode what the other person is saying. And given the due motivation that your stomach is flooding you to do, concentration would be extremely difficult. This is how I imagine the communication between the conscious and the unconscious is - a confusing situation indeed.

But of course, given the previous example, there is actually a way to understand the lingually-mixed individual. Remember, verbal communication is just one part of the equation. We could mime, we could gesture, and we could communicate with our eyes. And that person could also shift to the same communication making it an altogether manageable ordeal. This, I surmise, is what happens when we dream, the unconscious shifting to a different mode of communication to talk to its conscious counterpart. Granted, it will not be a complete translation from one construct to the next, but at least there's some common ground for both to dwell on.

It is with this commonality where dream interpretation is exercised. To think of raining toads, flying cats, and the myriad irrationalities of one's dream world is to put it into a perspective that may easily be understood. Even the alterations of time and space brought about by a dream have direct consequences to the conscious - that is, if we can only understand what they mean. Of course, even if we could clearly see mundane objects in our dreams, their simplicity might be more than meets the eye. I dare say that this may even the root of psychosis because it's an explanation for why discordant realities exist for a person - a dream superimposed over normal reality.

Do I believe in dream interpretation and its value in my life? Definitely, though I don't have the tools or the present competency to deal with it in depth. I do believe that there is a part of my mind that I don't have direct access to, but is constantly feeding me information - I'm an intuitive type after all. I believe that through dreams, my unconscious puts out a constant stream of answers for the overt (or covert) questions that I constantly ponder on, if only I could fathom their meaning. Another task for personal integration, I believe so.