When Your Brain Drunk-Texts You: A Dream Survival Guide

Dreams are your unconscious mind having a tantrum in a language no one asked for. I found at least 9 ways to negotiate with your inner toddler before it flips a table.

Unless you have that magical lucid dream, we experience dreams but have zero sense of control. There is no controller, just a screen playing... Who's playing the script? Who's watching?

The Driver That Is Not Us

So, the unconscious and the conscious parts of us are things that each and every one of us experiences. However, we don't talk about it enough. This driver in our body that is not us, we ignore, until we explode, or we get this nagging voice inside of us to do something. "Growing a conscience".

These moments are when our unconscious mind is pushing things into our conscious awareness. A process of communication is ongoing within our bodies and minds.

Dream Deducting 101

So, which are the ways that dreams communicate with us? It's something I call "dream deducting"-detective-work-word. It's a great way to reflect on yourself. It doesn't take long, but it's an easy habit to build for more self-reflection.

This will help regulate your emotions, allowing you to become a better person and attract a better life, as well as better opportunities, even with friends and family. Or you become a nervous tick if you take it too far. Yikes.

Either way, it's a fun way to explore oneself. What's a better way to get to know yourself than by questioning why you felt a melting blade going through the back of you while a weird, goblin-like creature smiles as you hold the blade in disgust? What can I say... It really opens up doors...

I've also had: failing elevators, infinite rooms, death slashers, and other kinds of atrocities. I often dream about weirdly fascinating things. Anyway, here are some ways to think about dreaming.

1. Symbol Compression

Meaning: One dream image can carry multiple hidden meanings simultaneously.
Example:
Dreaming of a broken bridge →

• Fear of failed relationships.
• Anxiety about crossing into a new life phase.
• Loss of connection to self.
  (One image, layers of feeling.)

2. Emotion Amplification

Meaning: Dreams exaggerate buried emotions to bring them to the surface.
Example:
You act calm all day, but dream you're screaming uncontrollably in a burning building on the inside.
➔ Your dream surfaces the rage and panic you're stuffing down.

3. Shadow Encounters

Meaning: Dreams confront you with parts of yourself you reject.
Example:
You dream you're a thief stealing from friends.
➔ Hidden greed, envy, or guilt — parts you don’t want to admit — are asking to be seen.

4. Synchronicity Echoes

Meaning: Dreams sometimes mirror real-world events or emotional shifts — not by predicting them, but by processing what already happened under the surface.
Example:
You have a strange encounter with a black dog one afternoon — you barely think about it. That night, you dream of being chased by a black dog through endless streets. Only after the dream do you realize how much the encounter unsettled you.
➔ Reality and psyche are always tangled together, and if you learn to trust that connection, dreams can help you notice what your mind tries to skip over.

5. Absence as Message

Meaning: What's missing in a dream carries meaning.
Example:
You dream you're in your childhood home — but it's empty, silent, colorless.
➔ Signals emotional emptiness, loss of safety, fading identity.

6. Death and Transformation

Meaning: Dream deaths symbolize inner change or rebirth.
Example:
You dream you drown, but instead of fear, you feel peace.
➔ An old identity is dying — and part of you is ready to let go.

7. Dialogue with the Depths

Meaning: Dreams respond when you actively engage.
Example:
You write down your confusing dream about being lost in a maze.
Next night: you dream of finding a hidden door.
➔ The unconscious answers your attention by evolving the story.

8. Compensation Mechanism

Meaning: Dreams balance what your waking self ignores.
Example:
You're ultra-successful and confident, but dream of being naked and laughed at.
➔ Dream forces humility and vulnerability into awareness to balance your conscious image.

9. Mythic Participation

Meaning: Dreams tap into ancient, universal stories.
Example:
You dream you're fighting through darkness to save a dying tree.
➔ Mythic themes of death, rebirth, and sacred life. Not just your story — humanity's.

What The Hell Do I Do With This?

So you've had a weird-ass dream about chasing a purple elephant through your old high school while your teeth fell out. Now what?

1. Write it down? - Keep a dream journal by your bed. Don't worry about making sense of it yet; just write down what you saw, the facts, something to help you remember it by. Or, "just remember it," that also works.
2. Look for patterns - Do certain symbols keep showing up? Are you always running from something? Falling? Flying? Patterns matter. What is consistent, and does it have a reason?
3. Feel the feelings - How did the dream make you feel? Sometimes the emotion is more important than the content.
4. Connect it to your life - What's going on in your waking world that might connect to these symbols? Did that purple elephant remind you of your overbearing boss?

And most importantly - don't overthink it - Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar... but sometimes it's a symbol of that thing you're too afraid to face. Trust your gut. Because that's who you're communicating with.

So when in doubt, write it down. Because writing it down forces you to think about it more deeply, when you try to confront yourself (or your unconscious), you want to validate your assumptions because it doesn't always provide a clear answer.

But there are ways to "force" it to answer.
Oh shit I need to make another list don't I?

1. Write like you get paid for it

Forget grammar. Forget sense. You write because it gives you dividends. It pays you back. But you won't realise this until you do it.

The faster you write, the more unconscious you go; the slower you write, the more conscious you go. And you will experience that feeling again once you write.

A diary or some tool/system towards reflection is a must if you care about self-improvement in any way. Writing is a great way to document and discover yourself in new ways you didn't know existed within yourself.

2. Mirror Dialogues

Stare at yourself. Speak out loud.
Answer yourself with a different voice, a different posture, a different rage.
Let the other versions of you out of the basement.

(Yes, it feels insane. That’s how you know you’re close.)

And the hard thing is that it requires quite a bit of courage to be a little weird. If you're okay with being a little odd (especially if anyone ever finds out), then this is a great method!

3. Ask a Question and Refuse to Move

Sit there. Stare into space.
Ask your mind a question like: "What do you want from me?"
Don’t move until something whispers back.

(First comes boredom, then rage, then answers.)

This one I can NOT recommend at all. It's just pure fucking torture. But it works... If you hate yourself enough, then this one might be perfect for you!

4. Dream Baiting or simply said: "Prayer"

Before sleep, write a question on paper.
Demand a dream to answer it.
Most nights it won't.

(But when it does, it’ll punch you in the gut, not the brain.)

This one is a little like praying. A prayer in itself does NOTHING. But just saying out loud (or speaking in your thoughts), makes us integrate the problem. It allows us more deeply ingrain our wishes and wants, which can make us be more hopeful, or cheerful. And cheerful people get helped more. We are all the first to defend the good people around us. Think of neighbours, family, friends.

Tip:

It might be the only way to speak to our subconscious is in a pleading way. Our subconscious does not WORK for us. It is longer a part of humanity than our conscious side is. It deserves respect and a humble approach. We are connected on this journey together. Treat it like a friend, and I find it opens up to you more. Or figure out that I'm full of shit and wrong.

5. Free Movement (aka Controlled Possession)

Turn on multiple tracks. What are you vibing with the most? What are you gravitating towards and WHY? Are you being pushed to your destiny, or are you being invaded by your feelings? Do you have problems to solve and change? Do you need time to let things go? Are you just enjoying yourself?

The unconscious speaks in muscles before it speaks in words. Let loose with the music, try to become one with every track. And try to figure out where your emotions are leading you. Validate them and see if you are confronted with something you don't want to see, or something that you feel is missing.

Start writing it down and see if you can make sense of what you've written. Most of the time, something will pop up.

(Music is just a great way to check your emotions.)

Let your body say the words you don’t have.

6. Create a Ritual of Madness

Light a candle. Smash an egg. Sing nonsense away to force things out. Create a ritual that says, "Hey unconscious, I have this thing to look at." It can be anything because it's supposed to be an SOS. After a while, your subconscious picks up, and you can more easily send an SOS.

Your unconscious doesn’t speak English. It speaks symbols.

7. Active Imagination

(From Jung.)
Deliberately imagine a dream figure, feeling, or symbol —
Then talk to it and let it talk back.
➔ It's like lucid dreaming while awake.
➔ It can spark genuine conversations with hidden aspects of yourself.

Example:

• Imagine the wolf from your dream.
• Ask it why it chased you.
• Let it answer. (Don’t force it.)

It can be anything or anyone with whom you feel comfortable. A pet that has passed away? A cool fictional character (Batman?). Whatever floats your boat. Once you've found this "thing". You ask it questions. It doesn't matter WHAT. It will lead to the things you need automatically. Just make sure not to force an answer if nobody is answering. You ask why nobody is answering. That might lead to a new answer.

You act as if it's there. Hidden in a cave. And it will come forth, but only if you give it time and space. It needs to trust you. And you need to trust that someone will answer.

8. Art Brut

(Ugly art as unconscious expression)
➔ Paint, sketch, sculpt — without trying to make it look good.
The unconscious leaks through images faster than words.
You’ll surprise yourself with what you draw when you stop controlling it. You try to disable every "verification mechanism". It's not about being pretty, technically correct, or containing words, figures, and so on. You need to create a 0-expectation environment and let yourself be you.

But not everyone feels like their subconscious is using words. Some things go beyond words. Then Art Brut might be great for you.

9.Random Word Association (Controlled Chaos)

➔ Open a book at random.
➔ Find a word.
➔ Write freely for 5 minutes on how it connects to your problem or question.
Randomness disarms your conscious mind, allowing deeper material to surface.

I love this one when I have a problem identified. To get to the core of trying to solve something, you need to think about a problem in many different ways. This is a great way to review that process more quickly.

Closing Thoughts

Am I a dream teller now? Can I apply for a certificate? Maybe you get one too! Either way, I hope you have a fun list to go and explore your dreams and yourself. It's quite fun to do.

If your partner is kinda wacky, then you can even discuss such with friends. And if they would look at you weirdly, maybe subtly send them this blog. And then they see this message... Too... And now it is awkward, especially if you haven't read to the end.

For more wacky content, you can just subscribe. Then I can send you the next cool article. So you don't need to keep refreshing my page every day until a new one comes out. I knew you would do this! Help the refresh button pinky syndrome by subscribing today!

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See you next week... or whenever DR. CHAOS decides to smack the idea printer again.

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