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Dream journal or dream dictionary?
A dream dictionary gives each symbol one general meaning; a dream journal records your own dreams so you can see what they mean in your life. Dictionaries are useful as a starting vocabulary and as cultural history. For understanding a particular dream, a journal does more, because the meaning of a dream depends on the dreamer's circumstances.
This is not a case against dream dictionaries. They are one of the oldest kinds of book there is, and people keep using them for reasons worth taking seriously. The question is what each tool can and cannot tell you.
What a dream dictionary is
The dream book has a long history. The only one that survives complete from Greek and Roman antiquity is the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, written around AD 200. It was not a casual list. Artemidorus travelled through Greece, Asia Minor and Italy collecting people's dreams and recording what followed them, and he wrote it as a manual with ways of classifying dreams and tools for reading them1. Freud, who was otherwise scathing about dream books, gave him credit for taking into account the personality and station in life of the dreamer2.
Most modern dream dictionaries keep the format and drop that care: an entry for each symbol, a meaning for each entry. Freud called this the "cipher method" in his translator Brill's wording, a way of treating the dream as a secret code where every sign is translated by a fixed key2.
What dictionaries are good for
Dictionaries collect how a culture has talked about images. Reading what water, teeth or a house have meant to other people can loosen your own associations and give you words for something you only half sensed. They are a quick prompt when you have no idea where to start. They can also be a pleasure to read as folklore, the way one reads a book of proverbs. None of this is trivial, and for many people a dictionary entry is the first time they take a dream seriously at all.
Where they fall short
The trouble starts when the entry is treated as the answer. Freud's verdict on the cipher method was that "everything depends upon whether the key, the dream book, is reliable, and for that all guarantees are lacking"2. Different dictionaries disagree with each other, and nothing in the method can settle which is right.
Jung, who took symbols far more seriously than Freud did, was just as firm. His approach, he wrote, "recognizes no fixed meaning of symbols" (paragraph 471). He interpreted a dream by "taking up the context", working out what each feature meant to the dreamer from their own associations (paragraph 542), and he warned that understanding dreams needs more than "routine recipes such as are found in vulgar little dreambooks" (paragraph 543)3. Whatever one thinks of his theories, on this point the two founders of dream interpretation agreed.
Research on dream content points the same way. Studies that compare dream diaries with records of waking life find that dreams broadly carry the dreamer's current concerns and activities, not in a simple one-to-one way but in a way that only makes sense against that person's life4. G. William Domhoff's book on the scientific study of dreams sets out how meaning in dreams can be studied through systematic content analysis of many reports from the same person, which is the opposite of decoding a single image against a universal list5.
What a journal adds
A journal supplies the two things a dictionary cannot: context and time. Context, because each entry sits next to what was happening that week and how you felt. Time, because a run of entries shows what recurs, what changes and what fades. A snake in one dream tells you little. A snake that appears in four dreams over two months, always after visits to the same relative, tells you something a book never could.
It also makes room for your own associations, which is where most of the useful insight comes from. In group dream work using the Ullman method, where the dreamer is helped to connect the dream to recent waking life, participants rated the insight they gained highly6. Dream work in psychotherapy follows the same principle: the therapist helps the client explore the dream rather than looking it up7.
| Dream journal | Dream dictionary | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A record of your own dreams over time | A list of symbols with set meanings |
| Where meaning comes from | Your associations and circumstances | A tradition or an author's key |
| Context | Built in: the date, the feeling, the week | None; every reader gets the same entry |
| Over time | More useful as entries build up | Stays the same |
| Good for | Patterns, recall, recurring dreams | Prompts, vocabulary, cultural history |
| Limits | Takes a few minutes each morning | Entries disagree; no way to check them |
Using both, sensibly
There is no need to choose absolutely. A reasonable order is journal first, dictionary second: record the dream, note your own associations and the week's events, and only then, if you want, read what tradition says about an image as one more association among others. If it rings true, keep it. If it does not, let it go. How to keep the journal itself is covered in what a dream journal is and how to keep one, and for figures that recur, the guide to Jungian archetypes in dreams explains a richer way of reading them. The wider subject is covered in the guide on dream interpretation.
Common questions
What is the difference between a dream journal and a dream dictionary?
A dream dictionary gives each symbol one general meaning that every reader gets. A dream journal records your own dreams over time, next to the date, the feeling and what was happening that week, so meaning comes from your associations and circumstances. Dictionaries are useful as vocabulary and cultural history; a journal does more for understanding a particular dream.
Are dream dictionaries accurate?
There is no way to check them. Freud's verdict on the symbol-key method was that everything depends on whether the key, the dream book, is reliable, and for that all guarantees are lacking2. Different dictionaries disagree with each other, and nothing in the method settles which is right. Research on dream content finds that dreams make sense against the dreamer's own life4.
What did Jung think of dream dictionaries?
Jung, who took symbols far more seriously than Freud, rejected fixed meanings. He wrote that his approach recognised no fixed meaning of symbols, interpreted dreams by taking up the dreamer's own context and associations, and warned that understanding dreams needs more than the routine recipes of popular dream books3. On this point Freud and Jung agreed.
What is the oldest dream dictionary?
The only dream book that survives complete from Greek and Roman antiquity is the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, written around AD 200. Artemidorus travelled through Greece, Asia Minor and Italy collecting dreams and recording what followed them, and wrote a manual with ways of classifying and reading dreams1. Freud credited him with taking the dreamer's personality and station in life into account2.
Can I use a dream dictionary and a dream journal together?
Yes, and a sensible order is journal first, dictionary second. Record the dream, note your own associations and the week's events, and only then read what tradition says about an image, treating it as one more association among others. If it rings true, keep it; if it does not, let it go. The journal supplies the context and time a dictionary lacks.
theDreamly is a journal, not a dictionary. It starts from a symbolic reading drawn from a curated knowledge base, then, on Pro, a Jungian reading and a CBT reframe built from your dream and your recent history, and patterns across months. It does not predict anything. The method page explains how the stages fit together.
Download on the App StoreRead next
- What a dream journal is and how to keep one
- Jungian archetypes in dreams: the shadow, the anima and animus, the threshold
- Recurring dreams: what psychology says
- Dream interpretation: what psychology actually knows
Sources
- Thonemann P (2020). An Ancient Dream Manual: Artemidorus' The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford University Press. doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198843825.001.0001
- Freud S (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams, chapter II, trans. A. A. Brill (1913). Project Gutenberg eBook #66048. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66048
- Jung CG (1969). The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Collected Works, Vol. 8, 2nd ed., trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton University Press, paras 471 and 542-543. press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691097749/collected-works-of-cg-jung-volume-8
- Schredl M, Hofmann F (2003). Continuity between waking activities and dream activities. Consciousness and Cognition, 12(2), 298-308. doi.org/10.1016/S1053-8100(02)00072-7
- Domhoff GW (2003). The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis. American Psychological Association. doi.org/10.1037/10463-000
- Edwards CL, Ruby PM, Malinowski JE, Bennett PD, Blagrove MT (2013). Dreaming and insight. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 979. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00979
- Hill CE, Knox S (2010). The use of dreams in modern psychotherapy. International Review of Neurobiology, 92, 291-317. doi.org/10.1016/S0074-7742(10)92013-8