ABSTRACT
Remembering dreams seems to diminish the likelihood of acting blindly because of unrealized pressures from inner emotions and unconscious experience and needs. It also seems to diminish the likelihood of using physical or somatic channels, such as asthma, constipation, a sore throat, and the like, as a way of expressing aspects of our emotional conflicts. Dream analysis brings a dimension to our inner mental world that widens its scope, creative potential, and range of self-awareness. In the long run, though often with temporary setbacks, dream analysis will help to build a better and healthier self-image. Dream analysis is, then, far more than a simple intellectual exercise. The word "analysis" has an unfortunate cerebral connotation, in that dream interpretation is really the emotional experience of a dream, efforts at comprehension embedded in free-floating associations that are quite out of control and often rather unexpected. Dream analysis also broadens a person's experience of the world.
