I've always been a vivid dreamer, both when I am asleep and when I am awake, and have always felt there to be a lot of meaning behind the dream state.
Since I can remember, I've had a recurring dream that I am in a basketball stadium which I knowingly visited once (or so my mind tells me) as a child in a town near where I used to live. From this point on, I have had a recurring dream where I am at this stadium with other people as there are basketball games happening in the background and the air seem almost heavy, people are moving through it at a slow and struggled pace and the noises become slow and muffled, yet crystal clear at the same time. It is almost as if time pauses, like in a movie when a scene is played in slow motion and sound is distorted. I've been having this dream at least once a month for I'd say nearly 25 years and have never been able to pinpoint its meaning or any significance in my life as to when it occurs. Come to think of it, I've never really explored this dream so much as to what it means as I have with others. For a while, this dream was accompanied with another where I was exploring the surrounding countryside with my brothers as a child and there was an abandoned house which was two story but whenever we should climb the stairs, I would wake up and would never know what was on the top floor. For years this occupied my mind and yet again, I've never been able to pinpoint what this has meant, though, these dreams stopped a few years ago so perhaps whatever the meaning or the message within it, has been delivered or I have learned.
Regarding dreams and my interpretation of them, I typically used to believe that when I dreamt of snakes, this was due to my immense fear of them. I was once also told that this meant that someone was talking ill of me behind my back too. It wasn't until I began to explore my spirituality that I discovered that when I dreamt of snakes, it was during periods of immense transformation in my life. The snake is symbolic of transformation in that it sheds its skin of the old and the new comes through, leaving the old behind. Thinking about each time where snakes have appeared in my dreams, at every point it has been where I have been going through a transformation in my life, be it career, relationships or spiritual transformation or evolution.
Finally, whilst it took him nearly seven years to do so, my late father who passed away 10 years ago appeared to me in a dream at a point in my life where I felt I had no answers for the questions I was asking regarding a relationship I was in and what to do. I remember this first dream quite vividly. During it, my family and I had decided to visit a clairvoyant in order to bring in messages from him, it was a dark night in an old house (the house from my dreams as a younger child perhaps), I'd left the room briefly to use the bathroom and when I returned, there was a voice that said "quick, he's back now we can start." I remember seeing this white light in the room and the figure of my father with a simple message of "you know what you need to do Jamie, I'm always here to support you and that's all you need to know." Shortly after, I woke up with a soaked pillow from the tears which I had cried during the night and felt an overwhelming feeling of calm and validation of my thoughts at the time and acted on this advice shortly after.
Some twelve months later, I had unfortunately contracted Glandular Fever for the second time and was away working in a rural town. I'd gone to the doctors there to get blood tests and was feeling sorry for myself, alone in a small town, away from family and friends, living in the shadow of a break up and not knowing where my next move was. That night following my blood tests, my father appeared to me again in a dream, though it was in my usual doctor's waiting room back home. He walked in casually and I looked to my right and it was as if he'd never left. I casually asked him how he was and what he was doing here to which he replied "I heard you were a bit crook, just wanted to stop by and make sure you're okay, you know you're going to be okay Jam." He left shortly after and within the dream, I had the overwhelming sense of calm again. I awoke from this dream, once again with a soaked pillow from crying all night but had the sense of calm over me and that all was going to be okay.
I've had three dreams in the ten years that he's been gone where he has appeared to me at points where I am not knowing where my next move in life is, or where I am sick and feeling sorry for myself (I take some pride in knowing that there has only been three times where I've felt like this ha ha). Dreams for me have always had a higher purpose or a meaning or simply when I have not had time to think during that day, my brain has gone into overdrive during the night with processing and I've awoken much clearer and issues from the previous day. Where I've dreamt of snakes and attached a meaning of transformation, it's a moment in time for me to pause and reflect and look at what aspect of me has, or is transforming and then consciously work through it. The same goes for where I've dreamt that I've lost my teeth, for me this is where I feel like I have lost or have a lack of control over a situation so it prompts me to look at what is going on in my life and work through it either alone, or with another to restore calm.
For me, my dreams are a place where I go to be free, to live uninhibited and allow whatever needs to happen to happen and then come back to that space in my waking state and make choices or observations based on what happens during the night and am happy with doing so.