Dreams are a VERY interesting subject from a psychological standpoint. They are often a mush your brain creates using conscious and unconscious elements from your actual life, usually the most pressing matters to you.
There are a lot of books on "reading" your dreams. Some of them can even be spot on at times, but it's not my preferred method as they can be miles off cause they're essentially a narrower scope of the following. What I love using is associative thinking.
When I wake up sometimes, I try and recollect what I dreamed about. As I recollect elements, I put my brain in a sort of an half-empty state (not thinking about what's around me right now, just the dream and anything connected) where just any thought, an association may drift in. It's a really, really interesting process and is actually not at all complicated nor up-my-own-arse (yes, I know it sounds it at first
) sort of thinking, it's both scientifically proven and I've used it on myself lots of times to literally connect every single aspect of my dream to what has been going on in my life recently/most pressingly onto my subconscious (exams pressure, shit happening over something, feeling too lazy but reluctant to admit it to myself etc.). It does take time however and sometimes you're not able to fully identify what the dream "meant" because the associations are deeper in your subconscious and you don't realise them or you simply forget your dreams or vital parts of it too fast.
To give you an example, you dream of a girl. First thought, who is the girl. Try to focus your mind on a certain aspect, preferably something memorable to you. Shape of the girl? Height in proportion to the "dream you"? Do you remember a colour associated in the dream with her hair, did you think of her as a redhead perhaps? Most importantly, has there been a girl on your mind recently? This way you can eventually arrive to the realisation of who and/or what was in your dreams.
Once you have a few aspects, try to put them together. Where were you when you saw her? What was happening? Was she happy? Was she in danger? It doesn't need to be direct, remember, you're looking for associations, your brain can connect blue and sky just as well as it can connect blue and BSOD
it's all about what's been on your mind lately/constantly and connecting it with the elements from the dream.
If she was in danger, what was your feeling in that situation? Remember, you're the one who's observing and having the dream, it's all about you and
your perception within the dream, it's not necessarily her that's the focus of your dream, but possibly the feeling you have in the situation where she's there. Did you feel like you needed to hurt whoever was putting her in danger (anger towards her parents/ex-boyfriend/a friend she flirted with/professor who gave her a shit grade etc.)? Was she about to fall off something tall (she's in a bad situation according to you perhaps)? Or was there no actual danger, merely your perception of there being a danger cause what you actually felt was the need to protect her (care for the person, even if you're reluctant to admit it to yourself "out loud")?
I don't want to dive too deep into it and no, that wasn't my dream, just something I ran with and kept going to give you an example of how you could (not 'should' mind you, 'could', it's about the way you perceive it, not me) do it.
Hope it's not too off topic, just love the subject so thought I'd share. I haven't had a lot of time to deconstruct my dreams lately or I'd maybe share actual examples, I blame the temperature - had 2 very lively ones before I woke today in fact, but was too hot to think about it at the time and now they've mostly dissipated :\
