First and foremost, any time you’re dealing with a bothersome dream, it’s important to interpret the meaning. The above interpretations are more common examples, but Loewenberg says we always want to apply our own personal associations to content of our dreams.
For example, a client of hers who was having spider dreams had the personal association of viewing spiders as home invaders. This translated to a real life issue she had with a friend, who she felt was invasive and intruding on her life.
The emotions you experience, as well as your thought process in the dream are important, too. “What do you remember thinking when you saw the spider? That will directly correlate to something in your real life that’s currently an issue,” Loewenberg notes.
Starting a dream journal and making sure you’re getting adequate REM sleep are two other ways to make you dreams become more clear to you. Once you’ve decoded the message you think the dream was trying to show you, you can begin taking action in your real life to work on it.