There are two kinds of dreams: those that are reproductions of one’s
waking thoughts or actions, or the result of digestive disturbances;
and those that proceed from some psychological condition which we
cannot probe or understand. Many dreams are of so trivial a nature
that it would be foolish to attribute any importance to them. Others
seems to come from some outside inspiration and are prophetic. The
ancient sages who were celebrated as interpreters of dreams had a maxim
that the “Result of dreams often follows their interpretation.” They
meant that if you believe that a dream means a certain thing, you will
fashion your actions so that that thing will come true.
When the meaning of a dream is indefinite, many interpretations can be
put on it and all of them be capable of coming true. If you are told
that a dream means illness, you may take it so to heart that you will
actually fall ill, or if you are philosophical, you will shape your
diet or your deeds so that good health may result from the warning. If
a man dreams that he will have financial disaster, he may become so
unfitted thru fear that he will neglect his business and thus invite
the ruin which he imagines the dream foretold. Or he may, if he is
wise, take the opposite course and so shape his business methods that
success will follow instead of ruin.
In the following tables we give the interpretations of common dreams as
they are and have been given from time immemorial in most of the best
known sources, with quite a number of original meanings as experience
has shown them to us. Remember that the interpretation of dreams may
vary with the peculiar conditions and circumstances surrounding the
dreamer, and what would be true in the case of a sickly person might
have the opposite meaning in the case of a robust man. “Man is master
of his fate,” says a poet. The troubles that cause one person to take a
pessimistic attitude and contemplate suicide serve to spur another on
to new endeavors and new successes.
This book is not intended to foster superstition, but to offer a means
of solving many of the mysterious occurrences in our lives and help you
rise above your surroundings to a higher plane of usefulness.