I believe different people could see the same symbols in dreams for different reasons, but I also believe they can mean the exact same thing. I think that if you were to see the same dream symbol as somebody else, that you're just going through some or all of the same issues in life as that other person. Is this what you meant by the title? That's how I'm taking it.
I tend to believe that most symbolism in dreams would be very personal. I don't tend to think there are any clear cut translations, but that one can use suggestions/generalizations to assist in figuring out what their dream may mean.
Myth lives in our dreams and unconcious and we live these myths both in our dreams and in our daily lives. There is some symbolism attatched to these myths and stories which seems quite specific and other symbols seem more universal and interchangable. So to answer your question , some of it is very personal yes and perhaps only you could know the meaning, but some is more commonplace, familiar to all.
somewhere arround 50/50 for most people. it all depends. less imaginative people tend more to have internal symbolisms identical to those of the surrounding culture. the less familiar they are with other possibilities the more so as well. a more imaginative, creative, even intelligent person, on the other hand, will more likely have a much greater percentage of their internal symbolism unique to themseves, that of less common cultures, or even their own imaginary ones. (jung wasn't completely wrong in principal, but maslow was much more accurate in detail) =^^= .../\...
That does make a lot of sense. I guess it's not a good sign that a wanna be writer tends to only dream about places he knows well, huh? =P
I think depending on whats going on in our lives, we 'plumb the depths' of our unconcious to different ..well, depths. And the deeper we go in to forgotten territory, the more symbolic and more otherworldly things become. I've been having wierd dreams for 10-12 years or so and in the begining i was baffled and consumed with trying to understand them, but gradually, over time you begin to see themes and scenarios that tend to repeat and slowly understand more about how your dreams are communicating with you and about how they are a world you actually spend time in, a part of you in another dimension so to speak. Your inner world. You can anylise your waking life the same way and it'll tell you just as mutch probably. There are messages if you pay attention. For instance, people sometimes say quite profound things to you, things that have a deeper 'other' meaning, ...and so from the mouths of babes comes wisdom. Amazing! Symbols may appear frequently in your life just to remind you of the magic and give reassurance. But also just the world you live in, your friends and family and activities. What picture does it show you?
I also think that the symbolism becomes more complicated when you have more going on in your life. My dreams are a lot more bland now than when I was going to school and had a job.
Some of my dreams are litteraly 'other worldy' I thought I had telepathy, according to someone on this site, im just clairvoyant. But my dreams are messed, I really dont see symbols from some of them, just these places, and people. and its always soooooo real, yet its not. I mean, its looks to me like home videos, thats how real it seems. but its so unfamiliar, that its like somebody else's home videos. This one dream that really stands out to me - was like Earth but different. Water was much thicker, wind was much stronger, sky was much brighter. I litteraly remember the wind blowing me out into this dark, reddish colored ocean, thick water. I spoke with a wise old man, althought I dont remember what he told me. Was a rather strange dream, nice though.
Some dream symbols are universal. For instance Jung's archetypes. Others are of a more personal nature... for instance, if one dreams of a relative, or of the sea... the sea may have personal significance, for example if the dreamer loves spending his/her summer holidays at the seaside, and hasn't been there in a long time...
"I really dont see symbols from some of them..." Hey minds eye, i don't think we are necessarily talking symbols as in 'The artist formerly known as prince' or 'the star of david' or 'anarchy' ... just things that have meaning to us and our intricate story. - So the people and places in dreams are the symbols themselves. I like my dreams of the cow goddess, and the few dreams of her i've had it is always a moonlit starry night and there is always water in these dreams, ... a canal or swimming pool. However a bit of research on google explains alot; The Egyptian goddess 'Mehet-Weret' is a cow goddess who's name literally means 'great flood' and she is a mother goddess, they connect with the great Nile in the heavens, the milky way which in turn links her with the primeval waters of creation. I was talking to a guy on another forum about this cow goddess and he had dreamed of a cow coming out of the sea and another of a cow standing on top of a dam ... so in his dreams of her the element of water was also there. Google, and particularly wikepedia, have become a great tool in researching my dreams.
that's how mine, most of mine, are. totally realistic depictions of places, in some instances parallel to places in this universe in their geographic layout in relation to each other, but possibly either imaginary or in some other parallel universe. one where the cultures are signifigantly different, both calmer and freeer mostly, where certain laws and principals of physics work differently, like teleporting being easier, even more likely, then actually travelling the distances on the ground and seeing everything inbetween. or not usually being able, as we are in this life, if we drop something, to go back and pick it up, insead of everything behind us being so completely chainged from when we went through it that the thing not only is no longer there but probably no longer even exists. somethings, certain things, in mine do seem to be fairly stable, like the location of towns in relation to each other and which local transit routes in them go to which places and in which directions. there are place in them i go back to and visit freequently that arn't there when in this world we're awaike in, but the places where they are in that dream world are real places geographicly in this one. somethings are different though, like san francisco actually being west of sacramento instead of southwest, portland and seattle being kind of mashed togather in one place, marysville/yuba city having a monorail loop, articulated trolles in san francisco resembling the old key system bridge units i never got to actually ride on when they were running. well the details, both of similarities and differences are numerous. often involving the abscence of keep out signs, fences, locked doors and the social atitudes that are the reasons for them in this life. sometimes there's cars but usually not. sometimes there's money based economics but usually there's not. and when there is, the money are these flat pieces of like straingely shaped plexiglass with smoothed edges that work in the vending machines just fine, and with no imprinting on them, just differet totally odd shapes, each shape and color tinting representing a different denomination. lots and lots of public transportation too, much of it small form factor rail. new and interesting things all the time. and yes, all of it totally real, even to smells and tastes and tactile sense and being able to read the print in books and display readouts and everything like that. and sometimes the strainge fun interesting words and names for things, that of course seem perfectly ordinary and what they are in the dreams themselves, but when i'm occasionally able to remember one or two when i wake up, are either completely strainge, or words that in this world and life, mean something else entierly. =^^= .../\...
