Edgar Cayce famously said that nothing of importance happens in our lives that isn’t first foreshadowed by a dream. This doesn’t mean that all of our dreams predict the future, nor do they necessarily tell us what to do, but they do provide insights from our subconscious (or soul) minds to assist us with whatever is going on in our lives.

Dreams are phenomena or experiences for [each of us] to use and apply in [our] everyday walks of life.

— Edgar Cayce reading 4167-1

The subconscious mind is like a bird high above the road we are traveling; it can see more than our conscious mind, and we have access to it through our dreams. The more we learn to recall and understand dreams, the better we understand our deeper fears, desires, and unconscious knowing as the purpose of our dreams is to make us more consciously aware of these underlying motivations and how they apply to our waking lives. Dreams also tell us how our thoughts, actions, and intentions fit in with our spiritual goals and life’s purpose. They can show us the desires that are motivating us and even help us sense the needs of our bodies.

How to Work with Your Dreams

Edgar Cayce was not only known to offer meanings for the dreams of his reading recipients, which he did hundreds of times, but he could also fill in the gaps of pieces of their dreams that they had forgotten! While we don’t have a personal reading from Cayce available to us today, we can look at the interpretations he offered to others for insights into our own dreams–but the first step to working with our dreams is to remember them!

The following tips will help both those who already remember their dreams and those who are currently having trouble with dream recall:

1. Ask for a dream.
   Before going to bed at night, ask for a dream. It helps if you have a specific reason for the dream. For example, you might say to yourself, “I am considering a job offer, please give me insights through my dreams” or “Please help me understand how I can heal my relationship with my sister.”
2. Keep a journal by your bed.
   Your journal is an important tool for getting your dream written down before it is forgotten. Whether it’s morning or the middle of the night, if you wake up remembering a dream, write it down!
3. Look for symbols.
   If there are key players in your dream such as a car, a dog, food, water, your mother, make note of it. You’ll find you can track what these symbols mean to you over time.
4. Record how you feel.
   Generally, the feeling that accompanies the dream reveals how your soul feels about events, decisions, or conditions. Upon waking, Cayce recommends that we capture the initial feeling we have from our dream.
5. Be consistent!
   If you would like to keep receiving insights from your dreams, the key is to keep asking and keep journaling.

How to Work with Dream Symbols

Edgar Cayce said the best interpreter of any dream is the dreamer. Dreams are very personal messages that require intimate knowledge of the dreamer. Professionals may offer clues, but they cannot authoritatively analyze another person’s dreams.

Our subconscious minds communicate through the use of universal symbols—images that seem to have a common meaning among people all over the world. For example, a symbol such as a lion has a universal or archetypal meaning of power and vitality. Birds frequently symbolize various kinds of love or spirituality. Water is often suggestive of emotions or the unconscious mind. A grandmother or grandfather can symbolize our “Higher Self’ or our own internal wisdom. Myths or fairy tales often have similarities among cultures, and these similarities are shown through universal symbols and themes. Often our own dreams contain these same kinds of symbols.

Over time, you will come to learn what water, fire, and other common symbols mean to you. In the beginning, you may find it helpful to start with the archetypal meanings of these symbols.

Dream meanings and the interpretations given by Edgar Cayce’s readings are available in our Dream Dictionary.

This dictionary may be used as a starting point for assembling a more complete reference for your personal dream interpretation. One way to do this is to devote one section of your dream journal to a personalized dictionary. Whenever you dream of a symbol that does not appear in this dictionary or that perhaps has special meaning to you, add an entry to your personal symbols dictionary.

In exploring our dreams and listening to messages from our subconscious, we can begin to find answers within our own self. The answers have been there all the time; we just never knew how to look for them.