Nightly dreams are a regular part of many people’s daily lives, but few know dreams can actually be interpreted and they can reveal elements about a person’s psyche. Freshman Ryla Stark has an interest in the meaning behind these nightly visions and has begun to analyze her and her friends’ dreams.
Stark has been decoding dreams for a year, but she only recently started to write them down. Her interest started when she used to talk about her dreams with her family at the breakfast table. They would talk about the dreams they had and what the meanings could be.
When anyone asks her to decipher their dreams’ meanings, she follows these steps: find out what type of dream it is, see what the main elements or words mean and then piece it all together to see how the dream correlates in real life. According to Stark, she sees four different types of dreams: normal dreams, ones you cannot remember, lucid dreams, nightmares and ones that cause sleep paralysis. Stark says that almost each and every element in a dream has a certain meaning and it can all be broken down.
“A common one my friends have had is seeing someone who is usually taller than them or shorter than them in a dream, this usually means that the person is feeling small, or lacking confidence,” Stark said. “There is a meaning for just about every word you can think of, but for your example, flying usually means you need an escape from Earth’s problems, or it could mean you feel in control in a situation in real life.”
According to the Calabasas Courier, dreams provide a looking glass into someone’s innermost emotions and help people escape reality. On one occasion, Stark’s friend gave her a description of a dream she had when she was younger. Stark’s friend always thinks about it and wants clarification of what it could mean. People who analyze dreams like Stark, help others to find reassurance on personal topics that come through in dreams.
“I almost always decode other people’s dreams, one time a girl sent me a ten-minute video of dreams she had as a kid that she always thinks about and she said that she really just needed that clarity. I really enjoyed helping her out,” Stark said. “Almost all dreams, no matter how nonsense they are, can be related to how to deal with your feelings, or a situation you’re stuck in. A lot of times, a person who feels stuck in real life could have a solution on how to act by reading something in their dreams.”
Stark recommends everyone have a dream journal because it shows growth in someone in a weird and sometimes funny chronological way. Not only do dream journals help people emotionally, but it can also be something interesting to look back on.
“I like looking back on it because it shows that even those bad dreams I had, I made it through it,” Stark said. “I feel like a lot of people, especially ones who are struggling emotionally should definitely have a journal. I think that even writing down dreams can be silly and fun to look back on later so even if you can’t decode them.”