Journaling

What questions should you ask about a dream?

Start with the feeling: what did the dream feel like, and where have you felt that lately? Dream-work methods that researchers have studied explore a dream’s feelings and images first and look for meaning after (Edwards et al., 2013). Add a few questions suited to your kind of dream, hold the answers loosely, and see a doctor if bad dreams often disturb your sleep (AASM, 2020).

Last updated: 2026-10-13.

Why start with the feeling instead of the meaning?

Starting with the feeling follows the order of the dream-work methods researchers have studied (Edwards et al., 2013). In Hill’s well-established method of working with dreams in therapy, exploration comes first: you tell the dream, report its feelings and say what each image brings to mind, looking for where it touches your waking life. Then comes insight, the search for possible meanings, and last comes action, thinking about what you might change. In research by Hill and colleagues, insight grew with more time spent on what the images bring to mind (as reported by Edwards et al., 2013).

Ullman’s group method, described in the same paper, works in a similar order, and it keeps the dreamer in charge: the dreamer decides whether anything said is relevant or useful. So “What did the dream feel like?” asks for something only you can know, and “Where have you felt that lately?” ties it to your own life without handing you a meaning.

Can you interpret your own dream without a therapist?

You can interpret your own dream without a therapist, within limits (Heaton et al., 1998). In that study, 25 volunteer clients each had two dream sessions about a week apart, in random order: one with a therapist following Hill’s model and one self-guided. They reported more depth, mastery and insight from the session with a therapist, and 88% preferred it. Questions you ask yourself are not therapy.

Talking a dream over in a group has some support. Across 11 sessions of Ullman’s group method, participants’ insight scores were very high, on a par with those in studies of Hill’s therapist-led method (Edwards et al., 2013). A later study compared a recent dream with a recent event: in the Ullman group, insight ratings were slightly higher for the dream, while a second group run by another method found no clear difference (Edwards et al., 2015). Both studies were small, with 9 to 11 people per method, mostly women, each talking a dream over with two researchers, and both measured how insightful a session felt.

Which questions can you ask yourself, step by step?

The prompts below turn the stages of Hill’s and Ullman’s methods into questions you can ask yourself (Edwards et al., 2013). Skip any that feel like too much. If a dream replays something that happened to you, start with a doctor or therapist instead (AASM, 2020).

1. Tell the dream again, slowly. What comes back the second time?
2. What did you feel at each point, and how strongly?
3. What does each image bring to mind? Take your time here.
4. What was going on in your life in the days before, especially any worry or new experience?
5. Picture a friend telling you this dream. What feelings would it stir in you?
6. Read it back to yourself as “you”: “You’re in a library…” Does anything new stand out?
7. Which links fit, and which don’t? You decide.
8. Is there anything you might do differently after this dream?

Which questions fit which kind of dream?

Some prompts suit some kinds of dream better than others, so use the ones that help and skip the rest.

How do you know when a question has landed?

A question has landed when it brings one of two kinds of “aha.” One is spotting where part of a dream came from, such as yesterday’s conversation. The other is a new thought about your life, and Edwards and colleagues (2013) argue the two should be told apart. Many images may never trace back: in their hour-long Ullman group sessions, the dreamers found waking-life sources for only 14% of the dream text.

A neat fit can still mislead. In one set of studies, people treated dreams as more meaningful than similar waking thoughts, and gave more weight to dreams that fit what they already believed (Morewedge & Norton, 2009). Edwards and colleagues (2013) also note a long-standing critique: a dreamer’s sense that an image links to their life is not, by itself, evidence that it does. So keep your answers as possibilities. Write them down, look again in a week, and check whether the same thread runs through other dreams, the method behind finding patterns in your dreams.

When is a question not enough?

A question is not enough when dreams are hurting your sleep or your days. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM, 2020) says most nightmares need no treatment, and counts them as a sleep disorder when they come often and keep you from restful sleep. It advises talking to your doctor or a sleep doctor if disturbing dreams often wake you, bring fear, anger, sadness or disgust, and make it hard to fall back asleep. Its list of treatments includes counseling and imagery rehearsal therapy, in which you reimagine a nightmare with a less frightening outcome.

The AASM (2020) also notes that the same nightmare can keep coming back after severe stress or a traumatic event, and that more intensive counseling may be needed when nightmares follow a trauma. The guides to nightmares and to changing a recurring nightmare explain the options.

Sources

1. American Academy of Sleep Medicine. (2020, October). Nightmares. Sleep Education. sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/nightmares/
2. Edwards, C. L., Malinowski, J. E., McGee, S. L., Bennett, P. D., Ruby, P. M., & Blagrove, M. T. (2015). Comparing personal insight gains due to consideration of a recent dream and consideration of a recent event using the Ullman and Schredl dream group methods. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 831. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00831
3. Edwards, C. L., Ruby, P. M., Malinowski, J. E., Bennett, P. D., & Blagrove, M. T. (2013). Dreaming and insight. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 979. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00979
4. Heaton, K. J., Hill, C. E., Peterson, D. A., Rochlen, A. B., & Zack, J. S. (1998). A comparison of therapist-facilitated and self-guided dream interpretation sessions. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 45(1), 115–122. doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.45.1.115
5. Morewedge, C. K., & Norton, M. I. (2009). When dreaming is believing: The (motivated) interpretation of dreams. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 249–264. doi.org/10.1037/a0013264