Dream Analysis was Developed by: Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung both used dream analysis in their work and wrote extensively on the subject.
"In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams."
--excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_interpretation
Overview: "To use dream material clinically—that is, in psychotherapy—we need to realize that we never use the dream itself. That might sound strange, but think about it. When you tell someone about a dream, it’s impossible to depict the jumble of images that you perceived while you were sleeping. All you can do is put the dream into words in an imperfect attempt to describe what you experienced. So, in the end, to talk about the dream you really talk about the text of your perception of the dream.
The text, of course, is language, and, as such, it’s already a form of interpretation of the raw experience. So does it even matter if the images came to you because of random electrical activity, or because of that cheap, greasy pizza you ate before going to bed, or whether they are profound revelations from your unconscious? Your attempt to make sense of those images, wherever they came from, reveals something about your current psychological process.
The clinical work of dream interpretation, therefore, involves three things.
First, you need a written text of the dream. It’s best if you write it down right after you wake up from the dream. But sometimes it’s possible to remember a dream—or a dream fragment—that you haven’t written down, and so your psychotherapist can write down what you say.
Second, you have to describe thoroughly and understand your psychological associations to the various dream images. These associations must come from your personal life, not from a “dictionary” of fixed meanings. Essentially, this amounts to asking, “When you think of this particular dream image, what other things come to mind?” Dreaming of Mrs. Smith from your childhood, for example, doesn’t necessarily “mean” anything, but what you thought about Mrs. Smith when you were a child—in essence, what her life, behaviors, and values suggested to you then—might have something to say about the problems you struggle with today.
Third, you have to discover the links between all these associations. This process is a bit like those “connect the dots” puzzles that reveal a hidden picture. Psychologically, you simply need to understand what this net of associations from the dream is telling you specifically, at this precise time of your life, about your current problems and conflicts. Quite often, these associations are purely emotional; that is, you can take a particularly graphic dream image, examine your emotional reactions to it, look back into your past for times when you felt the same emotions, and then ask yourself in what way those situations from the past have any bearing on what is happening in your life now.
"
--excerpt from http://www.guidetopsychology.com/dreams.htm
Official Websites for Dream Analysis:
http://www.asdreams.org/
http://www.dreamanalysis.info/
Wikipedia's page for Dream Analysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_dream_interpretation
Resources related to Dream Analysis:
