Key points

Dreams inform us about waking emotions, offering clues to unresolved feelings and inner conflicts.

Exploring feelings in dreams helps people name emotions and process complex experiences.

Dreams used in therapy can develop our understanding of “mentalization” and foster emotional regulation.

Not everyone remembers their dreams, and those who do will often say their dream “was weird” and leave it at that. An ancient proverb reminds us, “A dream uninterpreted is like a letter unopened,” and in today’s culture, we might compare an unremembered dream to leaving an important text or email unread.

If we recognize that dreams are not merely dreams but —as both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung believed— portals to the unconscious , filled with signals, messages, and meaning in the

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