A Sample Dream Interview - Big Fish

Excerpted and edited from In Your Dreams

Matteo dreamt: "I was fishing off the coast of Sicily and had been out almost all day. I had caught a number of fish, but they were too small so I threw them back. Then I caught a big one! My friends below decks distracted me, asking if I wanted to come have a drink, and the fish got away."

I: What was the big fish in your dream like?

M: This fish was huge. It was the one I had been waiting for all day! There were lots of others, but they weren't big enough; they weren't right."

I: So, Matteo, is there anything in your life that is like fishing all day for a fish that is huge, the one you have been waiting for after having thrown back so many fish that weren't big enough?

M: That reminds me of my search for a wife! I've met a lot of women who are not quite enough for me. Yes, and recently I've been going out with a special woman and we are already in conflict. She is jealous because I go out at night with my friends about three times, maybe 4 times a week.

Maybe my dream is warning me to pay more attention to this relationship if she really is the one I want. I need to pay more attention to her than to my buddies I guess.

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Did you notice?

The sample dream interview followed the basic Dream Interview Steps:

1. Elicit a rich DESCRIPTION as if you were being interviewed from someone from another planet who makes few presumptions about your life or your thoughts and opinions.
2. RECAPITULATE or Restate the description using only the dreamer's or your own words when you are playing both roles.
3. Try BRIDGING the descriptions to waking experience by asking, "Is there anything in your life, or anyone, or some part of yourself THAT IS LIKE (the thing, person, action described)?