How to Use Gestalt Therapy to Interpret Dreams

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Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Perhaps you have consulted a dream interpretation book hoping to find out what the symbols and events in your dreams represent. Unfortunately, unlike what the dream interpretation books claim, there is no one set meaning for each symbol or event in a dream. While some common dream symbols usually have a similar meaning, such as a house in a dream that often represents the dreamer’s self, the meaning of other symbols is so highly personal that only you can interpret them.

A very simple and ingenious method of dream interpretation was developed by Frederick S. Perls (1893–1970), one of the originators of Gestalt therapy. Perls’s method allows you to go behind the veil of your unconscious mind and discover what each dream symbol means to you personally. It is easy to learn and works for every type of dream, including nightmares.

Underlying Principles of Gestalt Therapy Dream Interpretation

1. The dreamer is the author of the dream.
2. Everything in the dream, including other people, animals, inanimate objects, and the weather, expresses an aspect of the dreamer.
3. The main character in the dream represents the part of your personality that you consciously see as you. Other people or things will represent other parts of you.
4. If something is missing in a dream, it also relates to the dreamer’s self. For example, if you are in a car without a driver, the missing driver is an important part of the dream.

How to Interpret a Dream

I have made up a nightmare about a spider jumping out of a television to illustrate the basic steps of Gestalt therapy dream interpretation.

Step 1. Tell your dream aloud from beginning to end in the first person as if it is happening to you in the present.

I am at home watching a TV show, and all of a sudden, a giant spider jumps out of the screen at my face. I scream and wake up very scared.

Step 2. Now tell the dream from the point of view of each thing in the dream. Be the thing as if you were given that part to play in a movie. Say whatever comes to mind without editing yourself.

TV: I am the TV, and all I do all day is wait to be turned on so I can show things. Some of the things I show are very popular, and other things I show people do not want to see.

Spider: I am scary. I am one of the things people do not want to see. I sometimes jump out of the TV when someone is trying to avoid seeing me.

Room: I am the container. In me are the person, the TV, and the spider. This person opened my door and entered. My TV has a message for her. The spider symbolizes it. She turns the TV on, and the message jumps out at her. She is scared and screams and wakes up.

Step 3. Have the different things in the room talk to each other. Say whatever comes to your mind without editing it.

Room to Person: Why did you leave by waking up? If you came into me and turned on the TV, you knew you would see something.

Person to Room: I hope I never open your door again. I did not understand what would happen if I turned on the TV.

TV to Person: I am here for your benefit. There is something you need to see but keep avoiding.

Person to TV: Why scare me like that? I hate spiders, and having a giant spider jump out of you was too horrible. Please do not do that again, or I will never watch you.

TV to Person: I am your brain. You have lots of scary things you have buried in me.

Spider to Person: You need to see me. I could have taken another shape, but I already tried that, and you ignored me in those dreams. I realized that you would just tune me out if I wasn’t scary and aggressive.

Person to Spider: Well, you are here now. I am listening.

Spider to Person: I represent everything you do not want to think about. If you let yourself think about what scares you, you will learn what I am.

Additional Tips on Dream Symbols

• House or apartment. This is a common symbol for the self. The state of the home reflects your current state. For example, if you are in a house with a shaky foundation, in real life, you are likely to feel unstable.
• Danger. Whatever is dangerous in the dream represents something you are afraid of in your waking life. For example, if in the dream you are on a small island by yourself that is about to be swamped by a tsunami, you may be feeling overwhelmed.
• Phones. Phones generally represent our ability to communicate. If your phone is dead or lost in your dream, then you are likely to be feeling cut off in some way and unable to communicate.
• Lost items. If you lose something important in a dream and go looking for it, the item’s function can give you hints about its dream meaning. For example, if you lose your wallet that contains your identification, money, and credit cards, this is likely to have something to do with your identity and whatever money and credit represent to you.
• Combined people. If you wake up and cannot decide who someone in your dream is because, for example, the man looked like your father, but you were calling him by your husband’s name, that person is a combination figure who shares aspects of both people.

Common Therapy Dreams

The night before beginning therapy dream. Whatever people dream the night before their first psychotherapy session usually represents their concerns about entering therapy. Here is an abbreviated example:

I am on safari in Africa. I am about to enter the jungle for the first time. I hired a guide, but I am not confident she knows how to get me through the jungle safely.

Extra rooms dream towards the end of therapy. A successful therapy expands the client’s thinking and adds new possibilities to their life. Here is a short version of a common type of dream in a successful therapy:

I am in my apartment and suddenly discover a door I never saw before. I open it, and there is a corridor leading to a wing of my house that I didn’t know existed. It is very spacious. I wonder why I never noticed it before. The rooms are lovely. I am very happy that my small apartment has more space than I knew it had.

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Where in the house are you?

As I mentioned earlier, houses usually represent you. Here are some examples:

• Basement. Going downstairs into a dark basement often represents entering the depths of your unconscious mind. Whatever you find in your dream symbolizes something you are concerned about but usually avoid.
• Attic. The attic is at the top of your house and often represents thinking or things stored in your mind. Some things to think about: What do you have in your attic in the dream? What do these things represent to you? Is it easy to get into your attic?

Summary

Perls taught that we design our dreams and that everything in a dream represents an aspect of us. The person we identify as ourselves in the dream represents our conscious idea of who we are—the parts we currently identify with. The other parts, including non-human things like the weather or the road, also represent parts of our personality. Playing all the parts in our dream allows us to discover disowned or unrecognized aspects of ourselves. Perls is reputed to have said that if we thoroughly worked on a single dream and all its implications, that could be a complete therapy in and of itself. It is all in there.

Adapted and expanded from a Quora post.

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