Dream Explorations

In this thorough guide to dream symbols, motifs, and landscapes, Norment aims to help readers better understand their underlying feelings, anxieties, hopes, and desires.

This interestingly organized book looks at familiar dream occurrences and symbols from a variety of angles, offering multiple interpretations of common themes. In doing so, Norment, a certified dreamwork facilitator, allows a reader to hone in on a particular experience, using symbols such as water, animals, and fire, and familiar dream activities such as running, sexual encounters, and searching for lost items. The author describes her own dreams in detail (“I am walking and come upon an area that is a meadow surrounded by woods….If I were to go beyond a certain point it would become very dark and foreboding”) and then offers analyses of the varied possible meanings. What sets this book apart is how it lets readers extend the logic of Norment’s interpretations to scenarios that are specific to themselves. For example, in one chapter, the author first offers a broad perspective on the possible symbolism that food can have in one’s life. Then she offers particular scenarios: “I Give Two Ladies the Food I Fixed for Myself or Someone Else” and “I’m Pulling Possibly Spoiled Food out of a Freezer.” With these, she takes the dream concept of nourishment and explores its possible meanings: perhaps such dreamers feel that they are putting others’ needs above their own, for example, or they’re distrustful of something that seems nourishing. In another instance, the author interprets a refusal of food as a resistance to others’ ideas. In this way, Norment offers reasonable introductions of each symbol, which readers can then apply to their own dream material. As a proponent of self-realization, the author creates a guide for readers to form their own unique interpretations and journal them.

A successful, clearly written book about applying symbols to different dream scenarios.