Dreams are messages sent by the subconscious whilst we are asleep. They do not operate on the intellectual, rational level - which is why we have trouble making sense of them in our everyday life. As we go about our life we take in far more than we appreciate consciously. Subtle cues that we miss are stored up in our brain and can provide us with knowledge if we can tap into it. Is someone telling the truth? A lie detector can tell by detecting subtle changes in breathing and heart rate. We pick up these signals unconsciously but consciously we listen to what what we want to believe. In our dreams we our given the real lie of the land
Often a dream will have a number of apparently different themes. Dreams reinforce their messages by offering the same idea in a number of settings: one moment you are on the beach, the next you are in a shopping centre, then at work etc. Each of these dream sequences will be saying something similar but in different ways.
Dreams can come from different levels of the subconscious. In some cultures dreams are interpreted and seen as messages to the whole community. Nomadic cultures, for example, may decipher the dream in order to find out where they should move to. These dreams come from the collective unconscious. Even in the West people have forewarning of plane crashes and other events through dreams.
On the next level, a dream may indicate problems with your life direction. Sometimes these are personality traits that everyone around you sees but you miss. These are often reoccurring dreams. The habit traits don't change so the dreams keep coming back. It's these dreams particularly that require the 'hard message'.
Other dreams are apparently more banal. You go to a fair and that evening you dream of being at a fair. The symbolism is the same however.
Understanding the language of dreams is one thing, but interpreting the dream requires more than this. For instance, you may overhear a conversation between two strangers. You can understand the language but you don't know the people involved and so the real meaning of what they are saying may lost to you.
