I try to approach dreams more from a scientific perspective than the mystical point of view that many people promote. Like Freud, it makes logical sense to me that during sleep the subconscious can enjoy greater freedom and control of the mind. He (the subconscious) likes to sit at the brain's control board and playback memories of things that recently happened, and memories of things that happened a long time ago. He also likes to take a look at your current fears and phobias (I don't know if he is trying to help or not, but he doesn't really have anything else to do at that time of night). He's even looked at problems I recently faced during waking hours, and given me solutions, making some of my dreams extremely valuable and practical. However, the conscious mind is watching all this on another monitor in another part of the brain, and he can't make sense of any of it. He just sees a jumble of anecdotes and has no information regarding time and context. Unfortunately, the conscious mind is what we deal with in our waking hours, so we awake and say something like, "I had the strangest dream last night!"
Jung made great strides in dream interpretation with his theory of archetypes, which basically states that objects and people in dreams actually represent specific ideas and that these archetypes (by definition) are the same in different people's dreams. Problem is that you can't hold fast and true to this theory simply because objects mean different things to people of different ethnicities, age, gender, and lifestyles. An example I read on another web site was about a stuffed toy tiger. If I dreamed about the toy, it might be that my dream was about issues in my youth. If a child dreamed about the same toy, it was probably just a fun dream, and I believe some dreams are best explained as being just entertaining with no special meaning.
The dream I had last night could definitely be explained as just being fun, although because it again happened at my parent's house, I am open to the possibility of there being more to the interpretation. In the dream, Mom is nagging me (I'm in male mode) to clean out the closet in what was my room when I lived there (something she does in real life too). I'm looking at all the male clothes (I have no female clothes there for obvious reasons) and asking myself how I am going to pack all those old clothes into my suitcase so I can fly back home. Then I get an idea: I'll wear as many of the clothes as possible on the plane!
The first item I put on is an old black t-shirt that appears to have writing on the back, but I can't read it. I then notice that I have 2 blue jeans jackets and put both of them on. I then turn to look at myself in a full mirror and am shocked to find that I now have the tiny waist of a gorgeous supermodel (I've recently started dieting and exercising). I pull the jacket back and place my hands on my newly trimmed waist to make certain it is for real and discover that my t-shirt has been replaced with a very pretty black knit blouse. I look back at the mirror to see a hint of cleavage in the scoop neckline and my hair is now short, cute, and very feminine. That's when I awoke.
Like I said, odds are that dream was just fun entertainment playing in my mind. But on the off chance there was something mystical, I'm going to look for those blue jean jackets next time I visit my parents!
