One of our favorite pastimes of being human is projection. We come into the world with our parents projecting their hopes, dreams, fears and approach to life on us and society does the same. This is not something they are "at fault" for, this is natural and even necessary for each of us as we learn to become autonomous beings.
Why would that be necessary? Self-awareness and transformation are on the other side of projection. Learning what is ours, what is being projected on us and what we are projecting on others is useful information. When we can catch ourselves on the giving or receiving end of projection and name it as such, we can then take a look at the source, energy and true intention behind it, which allows us to take action.
Are we projecting a fear? Something we care about? Is it a shadow quality that we are not seeing in ourselves? Is it a quality or lifestyle that we desire? Are we projecting how we want to be loved, communicated to, approached? Or are any of these things bring projected on us from the other person?
We can all feel the energy when it is happening. It is charged. We sometimes only recognize it in retrospect. In fact, projection could be defined as the unconscious transfer of our own state or emotion, assigning it to a person or situation.
This is where our dreams show up to help us because while we are sleeping, our subconscious makes its projections onto dream images (people, figures and objects in our dreams). This gives us the incredible opportunity to take what is unconscious and make it conscious without having to project on others in our waking life.
From a Jungian dream work perspective, everyone and everything in the dream is you, meaning every image in the dream is acting as a symbol of you, as an aspect of you.
"We see things not as they are, but as we are." -- Anais Nin
How do you work with this? First, record your dream taking note of the people and symbols. It is also helpful to identify the archetypes at play. For example, if there is a girl in your dream, is she a Friend, Shadow, Feminine or Exotic archetype or any of the many others? You can tell by her actions, energy and your emotions in relation to her in the dream.
Now that you have the images/symbols and archetypes, start with the most potent one, whatever brings up the most energy and emotion. List all of the qualities that you identify with that person or object in waking life. You may even do a free association where you quickly write down the first ten or so qualities that come to mind.
Next, assume that this person is a reflection of an aspect of you. From this perspective, you can use the archetype and the qualities that you listed to tell you more. If it is a Friend archetype, then the qualities may point to qualities that you desire to have. The context of the dream may then reveal some clues as to how to go about that. If it is a Shadow archetype you are focused on, then perhaps your subconscious has projected qualities of yourself that you need to develop or your fears onto the dream image so that you can finally face them. If you have a strong aversion to a character in your dream, it is likely that there is a part of yourself that you are strongly denying or fighting. Again, the rest of the dream can give you information as to how to handle the projection.
By acting as one of those funny mirrors at the carnival, our dreams do just that, they mirror different aspects of ourselves back to us so that we can have some fun and have a heart to heart with ourselves. They give us the opportunity to look in our own lives from the outside, in.