Dream study impacts culture. We are put in touch with the inner poet who dreams. We hear our inner, subjective response to the outer world. That helps spiritualize our lives.

People are learning to feel more comfortable hearing one another's dreams. It used to be that if you told a dream in public, someone had to make a joke to relieve the tension introduced by that alternative reality.

Hugh Lynn Cayce, Edgar Cayce's son, is quoted as saying, The best interpretation of a dream is one you apply.

Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. It introduced the notion that there existed certain predictable and identifiable processes by which dreams were formed.

I published in 1978 a report on dreams in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. It was the first study of its kind to demonstrate that it is possible for people to make constructive use of their dreams to improve their lives.

The usual comment from psychologists and psychiatrists was that it's best not to encourage people to look at their dreams because they are liable to stir up problems for themselves.

It is easier to learn to interpret dreams if you have a reason to use them for something constructive. You apply your dream insights to making constructive changes in your life.

There is both a skill factor and an effort factor in dream recall. People can develop dream recall skills, such as lying still in the morning and writing down whatever comes to mind.

Rather than seeing dreams as containing hidden messages, see dreams as experiences of empathy. Then use empathy with the dream to reconnect with the experience of dreaming itself.