Dreams and their meaning

What do dreams mean?
Dreams often bring us advice that we have missed in our waking lives ... sometimes playing 'devil's advocate'. Once we've made a life decision, we may find our dreams questioning our certainty. Or if we can't make a decision, we may have a series of dreams, each promoting a different choice!
Some dreams are very powerful, leaving us upset, angry, frightened or confused when we awake. We feel we must heed their message, but are left struggling to understand them. Such dreams may be bringing important feelings from deep in our unconscious, usually difficult feelings that we don't know what to do with, and don't want to know about.
Sometimes working with powerful dreams can be very demanding. However, those who have worked with dreams for many years find that they seem to come from a beneficient place. Dreams challenge us when we need challenging, and support us when we need support; they bring advice when we're being reckless, and spontaneity when we're too rigid.
Dreams are a window onto the emotional landscape of our lives. Dreams present emotions to us in symbolic form, as stories rather than as feelings. We often need our emotions presenting in this way - maybe there are emotions we would rather not feel, or maybe our emotions are so complex we need a whole story to make sense of them.
We comprehend our world through symbols: the common symbols of letters and words, the poetic symbols of metaphors, the artistic symbols of pictures, and the great spiritual symbols of myths and divinities.
Through studying our dreams, and the symbols they present to us, and through connecting with the underlying emotions, we can find new ways of understanding ourselves and our place in our community, our world and our universe.
Dreams can present us with new possibilities, and can confront us with old fears. Working with our dreams we can learn how to unleash the energy locked up in our fears, and move forwards with confidence and vigour into new opportunities.