Dream Puns & Puzzles

Try these puzzles to test your natural abilities as a dream interpreter!

There's a lot more to dream interpretation than looking up symbols in dream dictionaries or learning a dream language. Deep within we all know how to interpret our dreams: we have just lost touch with the art, mostly because we have been taught at school to think and analyse the world in a different way (left brain thinking).

Dreams reflect what is going on for us in our waking life. Imagine each of these pictures was a 'freeze frame' from a dream. Take each one in turn and see if you can tune into the dreamer's feelings. What do you think these dream pictures might be reflecting about their dreamers' lives?

This way of looking at dreams relies on your natural intuition - your natural ability to stand back and 'see the big picture' - the 'holistic view'. Holistic thinking uses the right side of your brain more than the left (analytical) side. Forget words, forget symbols, forget labeling the individual bits and pieces of the 'dream pictures' - just FEEL the message!

My Feelings about these Freeze Frame Dreams

Dream A
The dreamer feels confused by too many opportunities. Which is the best way to go? Will he end up going nowhere because there is too much confusion? It is night-time, so perhaps he is 'in the dark' about what to do or where to go next.

Dream B
The dreamer feels confident about 'bridging gaps' in her life. The basis of her life (the ground) has not been firm recently. It has been changing, leaving big gaps (where once she felt safe), but she knows that if she looks ahead and keeps her eyes on her goals, she can get through the changes in her life without 'falling in any holes'. When she's feeling low ('in a hole') she knows she can climb up and out and take the next step successfully.

Dream C
The dreamer feels threatened but 'can't see' where the threat is coming from. Is the 'pressure of work' 'overloading' his mind so much that 'he is blind to' what is really happening? Does he feel the pressure of a 'deadline'? Is he unable to free his mind enough from work to look ahead and to see what is coming? Is he a 'sitting target'?

Dream D
This person is feeling 'on top of the world', perhaps, and also supported by everyone and everything.

But Dreams Are More Than Freeze Frames!

Of course they are.

The man whose dream starts with feeling on top of the world (Dream D) might find his world exploding by the middle of the dream, leaving him falling because he was 'too laid back' (can you see that in the picture?) about his world.

The man who was confused about which road to take at the beginning of his dream (Dream A) might have flown into the air at daybreak and seen that all three roads combined again further along, discovering that it doesn't matter which road he takes - as long as he does take one!

The Freeze Frame exercise is a way of getting the 'feel' of a dream. From here you can look at a whole dream and let your feelings flow as the dream frames flow. Look for the overall flow, the story-line - not as a literal story-line - an intuitional story-line.

Dreams show our unconscious thinking and feeling patterns strongly. Our unconscious thinking and feeling patterns affect our lives, often far more strongly than our conscious thoughts and feelings. So dreams reflect our lives - our lives as they are shaped by conscious and - more significantly - our unconscious thoughts. Dreams help us to understand how our unconscious mind affects our life and help us to change this for the better. If you can trace the 'intuitional story-line' of a dream by looking at the 'whole picture' you get can get a good feel for how the dreamer's unconscious mind is shaping their life.

Dream Puns

Dreams are sometimes a bit like cryptic crosswords, especially when they use puns to get a message across. Have another look at Dream C. This kind of scene could come up for a man who has been working on an opportunity in Manila. Pressure of work has resulted in not being able to see clearly enough and now the Manila opportunity is folding and he is feeling that the end is near. Get it? The dream pun is 'Manila Folder' (isn't that what is sitting on his head in the picture?)! Sounds very bizarre, I know, but we are absolutely BRILLIANT at doing this in dreams! Always look for possible puns.

Here are some common dream puns and their meanings:

Here are some great ones I've seen recently:

Dream Cliches

Solving dream puzzles can be achieved by looking for cliches. Dreams often act out visual cliches. Dream D, for example, illustrates the cliche 'feeling on top of the world'.

Here are some common dream cliches:

Try your hand at interpreting these three dream cliches:
answers at end of page*
Contact me for details of illustrator

Summing Up

A boy's dream finishes with doing maths:    'summing up' perhaps?

Summing up, the art of Dream Interpretation is perhaps like doing a  cryptic crossword puzzle. There are many different approaches (puns, cliches, freeze-frame feelings, symbolism and much more) and sometimes you arrive at a dream interpretation (finish a crossword puzzle) not quite able to explain how you got the final picture (how you got all the answers right when you didn't understand some of the clues!). Sometimes the interpretation just 'suddenly fits' (all the horizontal and vertical words in the crossword fit in with each other). That's the magical point where you realise you've got it RIGHT!

Further Research

# Look at the dreams in the Dream Index and see how many seem to be puns or cliches. How many paint a picture that gives you a good 'feel' for the dream?

# For advanced 'freeze frame' puzzles mixed with an introduction to dream symbolism, visit the Dream Gallery.

*Cliche Answers:
"I bend over backwards for you"; "I'm at a crossroads"; "I'm always stepping right into it".

Further School Project Resources Pages:

Dream Characters
Ideas for Dream Projects