Spiritual Meaning:
When we begin to work spiritually with ourselves, there is a gargantuan store of knowledge that can be worked on, and with, to enhance our lives. By and large it can be accepted that dream characters are aspects of ourselves and that the dream is first and foremost about us. It often helps, therefore, to view the dream through not just our own eyes but as though we are experiencing it as our dream character. The interaction that takes place between us and our dream character is an attempt either to understand that aspect of ourselves or to achieve some kind of integration with it in order to have a wider perspective on life. As such integration progresses we achieve a wholeness and awareness, which enable us to work in a more spiritual focused fashion.

Psychological / Emotional Perspective:
In order to disentangle the various types of ‘information’that each character brings to the dreamer, it is often necessary to decide what or who each one makes us think of. That way we will reveal the deeper meanings and connections.

Authority figures such as judges, teachers etc. – our concept of authority first develops through our relationship with our father or father figure. Depending on how we were treated as children, our view of authority will be anything from a benign helper to an exploitative disciplinarian. Most authority figures will ultimately lead us back to what is right for us, although not necessarily what we might consider good for us. Authority figures in dreams initially appear to have power over us, though – if we are able to work with them properly – will generate within us the power to succeed.

Everyday Material Aspects:
The people who appear in dreams are the characters with which we write our ‘play’. Often they appear simply as themselves, particularly if they are people we know or have a relationship with in the here and now. We may introduce them in order to highlight a specific quality or characteristic. We may also permit them into our dream scenario as projections of our inner life or state of being, or as ways of handling problems in our everyday life. Sometimes, rather than trying to decipher the meaning of the dream, it is enough to look at what bearing the dream character’s actions have on our everyday life.