Basics of Dream Analysis/Interpretation
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Your Dreams Are About You
Your dreams are about you, and more specifically about your emotional energies. Always keep this is mind when interpreting an image/action {symbol} as well as the whole dream.
*People in general represent aspects of your own self.
*To see people you know in your dream signifies qualities and feelings they possess you desire or see in yourself
*To see people you don't know in your dream denotes hidden aspects of yourself that you need to confront or acknowledge

More About Known Persons
If you dream about a relative or known persons the dream is not about that person but how it affects you emotionally. They are in relationship to your emotions. There can be literal experiences with that person but again it is an experience that had an emotional affect on you. The other person may have something in common with you the dreamer or could have shared experiences {example: someone you grew up with and shared an experience that for you possessed strong emotional energies}. If someone dreams about you the same applies. Their dreams are about their emotions and your appearance is in relationship to them.

Note: Most dreams are negative because the nature's intent is to help resolve negative emotional experiences. Anxieties, insecurities, negative emotions brought about from negative experiences that possessed strong psyche energies. Unresolved they remain a factor in an unfulfilled life. Resolving the issues that underlie the negative forces will open the life to a more balanced and harmonious life.
For more on people see People in Dreams below

Dreams Are About Your Emotions
The thing that sets man apart from other animals are our highly developed emotions. And because of these highly developed emotions humans have to deal with the conflicts that stem from the experiences from which they came. Nature gave us the dream to do just this. When we dream the images and actions pictured are attempting to communicate the emotional energies that unconsciously affect if not control our waking existence. Dreams are about the emotional energies that form our waking psychology. But dreams are absent the bias of the ego and instead present our true selves, the truth about our lives that consciousness often neglects or represses because of the pain associated with the associated memories. Withot dreams painful memories would build up to the point where we could not function coherently and our waking lives would be more like zombies walking without logical orientation. The simple act of dreaming helps release the stress from conflicting emotional energies whether we take them serious or not.

All Dreams Have at Least Two Meanings/Applications
All dreams, if all images in dreams, have at least two meanings or applications. In my approach to dream analysis I interpret the images and actions as having two applications to the dreamer's life. There could be more but the two aspects I specifically look for are related to the foundations/early life experiences for the dreamer's emotional life and the second about recent emotional experiences {that often can be traced to foundations from early life}. We all have 'issues' from childhood and those experiences with strong emotional energies go with us throughout life, or until they are resolved. The more recent emotional experiences would also have strong emotional energies that cause conflict in the dreamer's psyche {conscious and or unconscious}. As long as the emotional energies remain unresolved they will be a part of the dream. They unconsciously affect personality, traits and attitudes. The reason as outlined below is to help the dreamer resolve the issues/conflicts.

Dreams Are Nature's Tool For Healing the Psyche
Just as the body has the immune system to heal and protect the body, the psych{ology} has the dream. It is an evolutionary process as is the whole body system. This is my theorem and although it is not one of Jungian concepts it is a common sense application. Jung did believe that the archetypal images that come through dreams are derived from different organs and thought centers in the body, and as such represent evolutionary drives. Dreams have a specific biological function with the intent to heal emotional conflicts and bring about wholeness to the dreamer's life.

Literal vs Symbolic/Metaphorical
Although the language of dreams is primarily symbolic there will be occasions when the images/actions can/will also* be literal. For instance, when there is a dream statement that reads 'I was in my childhood home' the reference will be symbolic/metaphorical because the house represents the dreamer's psyche {see house in Dream Dictionary}. But there can be a literal application as well if there were specific experiences that possessed strong emotional energies that occurred in the childhood home.

Metaphors As Symbolism. A metaphor is where one thing is spoken as if it were another. The house in a dream is almost always a metaphor for the dreamer, the house being a representation of the dreamer. The house would represent the dreamer's psychological, physical and/or spiritual condition, a proxy for the complexes. In most instances you should take dream symbols as metaphorical references to the dreamer's condition and not a literal interpretation, to fully understand the message in the dream.

The Science: Neuroscience Studies
Regarding the biological evolution of REM sleep and dreaming, emotion theorist Jaak Panksepp (1998) comments that: "People who hold dream experience in great esteem may be correctly affirming the importance of affective information that is encoded through our ancient emotional urges for the proper conduct of our waking activities... the REM system may now allow ancient emotional impulses to be integrated with the newer cognitive skills of the more recently evolved brain waking systems. This could help explain many striking attributes of REM sleep, ranging from its heavy emotional content to its apparent functions of enhancing learning and solidifying memory consolidation."

In other words what Jungian psyche has proposed about the dream has been verified by recent neuorscience studies.
Read: Why Do We Dream? Recent Developments In Neuroscience May Have The Answer

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Common Images in Dreams Note: The example dreams I provide in this section are dreams posted at the Power of Dreams Dream Forum and have my analysis, most with an amplification of the images/actions as well as a response from the dreamer> The response from the dreamer is how I verify whther the analysis is correct.

People in Dreams
People are common in dreams. Unknown people represents aspects about the dreamer, usually unknown or hidden/repressed aspects. Dreaming about someone from your past often is about a person who had a meaningful impact on our life positive or negative. If someone in your past bullied you, you might have a dream about that person later in life because a more recent event or experience relates to the past experience. This is a literal application but with a focus on the 'bullying' more so than the person. Keep in mind that people, known or unknown, are representative of aspects or relationships of the dreamer.

On the other hand {a second application which shold be looked at first} the bully could be an inner aspect. You are bullying yourself because of some type emotional stimulus. The bully is a metaphor for an inner weakness or a repressed rage. These qualities would be related to earlier life experiences {more often from childhood} that have become an innate attitude or personality trait.

For specific types or actions of people see Characters from the Dream Dictionary.

Houses
This is probably the most common dream symbol I see when analyzing dreams. A quick explanation of what a house in dreams represent.

Your self-image, your soul {Greek for psyche}. The rooms may be your emotions, attitudes, complexes. If it is parental home, what you may feel may say a lot about your childhood feelings. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious. References to something high up in a house could also be pointing to the intellect since it is the highest part of the body {mind}. So too a reference of digging a hole under the house could be pointing to the unconscious. The deeper you dig the deeper into the unconscious.

An old, run-down house represents old beliefs, attitudes. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking.

Being inside a stranger's or an unknown person's house indicates that there is something that you have yet to discover about yourself. There may be repressed memories, fears or emotions that you are not confronting.

For more about what houses represent see Houses from the Dream Dictionary.
For definitions on houses and related terms such as attic, rooms, basement, etc. see House and Related Terms

An example of a house dream is one from renowed author, speaker and Jungian scholar Jean Raffa. This is a dream posted on her blog MATRIGNOSIS: A BLOG ABOUT INNER WISDOM. I interpreted the dream {on her blog} and posted at the Dream Forum. Her response is included in the post at the Dream Forum. The dream is titled 'Revisiting My Childhood Home'.

Another example of a house dream is old house, dead people, and blood everywhere {a dream posted in 2008}.

Another dream involves the dreamer's mother's house {the second dream of two posted}. This dream involves the relationship with the dreamer's mother and illustrates how relationships play out in dreams and the emotional energies involved.

Cars/Autos
The car is you and generally represents the direction in life you have taken. Your position in a car usually defines who or what emotional energies has control of your life. If someone you know is driving the car then that person has in some way control of yor life. Other people {unknown} in a car represents unknown aspects related to your personality or personal attitudes. Those attributes are controlling factors in your life. There are many more situations involving cars listed in the dream dictionary under cars.

An example of a car dream was posted at the dream forum in February of 2016. It is titled Car Accident Dreams.

Water
Water in dreams represents the unconscious and your emotional state of mind. The deeper the water the deeper the unconscious associations {oceans often represent repressed aspects hidden deep within the unconscious}.

An example of a water dream is In Water- Women asks to hold my head & kiss me. Strong emotional energies involving the dreamer's mother.

Being Chased
What is bothering you emotionally? What are you running from? Being chased is one of several common dream theme stemming from feelings of anxiety in your waking life. In such dreams, you could be running from an attacker, an animal, a monster or some unknown figure who wants to hurt or possibly kill you. Some reasons why you wold have chase dreams are:

Being chased signifies avoidance of some issue or past experience

Being chased signifies running away from yourself. You may be suppressing or rejecting certain feelings or certain characteristics of your Self {true self}

Being chased signifies fear. This may involve feeling vulnerable in some aspect. It is a metaphor for some form of insecurity. Often such feelings stem from childhood.

Avoiding or running away from a situation you feel incapable of handling.

Chasing someone or some thing may represent a desire to obtain something these things possess.

Death/Dead/Dying
These are some of our most frightening dreams. But in reality they seldom have anything to do with death. Death is usually a symbol of some type of closure or end. If you are the dead person in your dream, it could imply that you would like to leave all of your worries and struggles behind and begin anew. Dreaming about someone that you care about dying may express your fear of losing them.
An example of a death dream is Semi-Truck death

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