Dream
Dear Ian, Heard you on radio 2 and you were great so I would imagine I will be only 1 of thousands contacting you now.  My dream is always the same and has been for years – toilets!  Dying to go but no doors or huge queues or getting into a cubicle and there’s some reason it can’t be used. I found out a while ago that it’s something I need to get rid of in life but HOW CAN YOU DISCOVER WHAT???

Meaning
You are absolutely right that toilet dreams are about needing to get rid of something. Usually what we need to get rid of is the fact that we nearly always put other people’s needs before our own in our waking lives. That’s why there are huge toilet queues in your dreams. You are always helping others fulfil their own needs rather than taking some time to look after your own needs. You put the needs of others in front of your own and so you always end up at the back of the queue.

There is a very simple method to begin resolving these dreams and fulfilling your own needs and that is by using the word ‘No’. Even though it might upset you to turn down a request for help, you need to put your own needs before the needs of others. This is not being selfish; you can only really look after others when you really look after yourself. You don’t have to say ‘No’ to everything, just the things that are not fulfilling your own needs. Try starting off with some smaller issues and then work your way up to some more important ones.

As you do this, you will begin to set personal boundaries that you and other people will come to respect and the doors will begin to reappear on your toilets as you give yourself some private space to attend to your own needs. An unusable toilet symbolises that the way that you are currently asking for your needs to be met is broken in some way and is not having the effect that you desire. The clearer you set your personal boundaries, the more clearly you will be able to ask for your needs to be met. All your toilet dreams show that you dying to have your needs fulfilled by others but didn’t know how to make that happen. All you need to do is to say ‘No’ now and again and then clearly state your needs.

Dream
Dear Ian
My recurring dream is that I am packing both at home and away from home but no matter how much I pack more and more stuff appears and I never get to the end of it I end up missing my flight etc because I just cant finish the packing. I have dreamt this every week for the last few years. My dreams are very vivid and long and I am sometimes exhausted by morning!

Meaning
When we dream of packing, we are reflecting on how we organise our waking lives so we can pack as much as possible into them. Although you may seem really disorganised in your dream, I imagine that you are a very organised person in waking life. However, no matter how much you try and pack into your life, it seems as if there is always more to do. All this packing and organising is done in the hope that your efforts will take you somewhere special, beyond the routine of everyday life.

The missed flight indicates an opportunity that you feel you have missed because you have been so busy trying to fulfil the hopes and dreams of others. This reflects a continuing frustration that the fulfillment that you are striving for seems so elusive in your waking life. Your dream is actually trying to connect you with your higher sense of self and that is the opportunity that you are missing.

To move on from this dream, there is some baggage that you need to let go of in your waking life. Rather than trying to fulfil the hopes and dreams of everyone else, you should focus on what makes you feel happy and fulfilled and leave all that excess baggage behind.

Dream
Dear Ian
Have been desperate to find out what my recurring dream means.  I dream I am out and about and desperate for the toilet but when I finally find public toilets to use they are always flooded, disgustingly dirty and not private, everyone can see what I’m up to.   I’m so desperate for the loo, I use them anyway and it’s the whole thing of not having the privacy and trying not to get my feet wet.
What can this mean?

Meaning
When you dream about a toilet you are dreaming about your own needs in waking life and how you can fulfil them. The flooded toilets in your dream indicate that you have emotional needs in your waking life that you often try to ignore. When you make an effort to tell others about your needs, it often turns into a messy situation and you end up feeling disappointed with yourself. However, you are desperate to have your needs met so you keep drawing attention to them.

The need for privacy shows that you don’t want to appear needy and would much prefer it if other people could understand what your needs are without you actually having to tell them. Trying not to get your feet wet indicates that you are over cautious about stepping into emotional situations because you are unsure what the outcome might be.

In waking life, we often hope that our own needs will be met if we look after the needs of others but usually we just end up being taken for granted. The best to resolve these dreams is to put your own needs before the needs of others by using the word ‘No’ now and again. This is not being selfish; you can only really look after others when you look after yourself by clearly stating your own needs.

Dream
Hello Ian,
I heard you on Chris Evans’ show and was very impressed. I wonder if you have time to answer this one for me. Last night I had a range of odd dreams. Firstly, I was at my family home with my parents and I looked out of the landing window to see a plane nosedive in the distance; I wondered if it would crash, and it did. There was a ball of smoke and I remember seeing a number of vans (oddly) being thrown into the air with the force of the blast. It was awful to see it. A little later I had a dream that I was still at my parents’ house and the sky was dark, dark grey and full of tornados coming for us everywhere you looked. I looked out the window and my mum was in the garden so I called her back inside. Then suddenly the tornados were in the house and me, my mum and dad had to run around dodging them. Strangely they didn’t seem to do any damage to the house, and we managed to avoid them, but it was rather frightening! Then my best friend called me in tears to tell me that her flat had been destroyed in the tornadoes and a friend of hers had died because of them. It was at that point it suddenly hit me that my own house was down the road, and I had no idea how it was. I went back and each one of the rooms was dark and dank and severely damaged. What’s odd is that I’m sure I’ve had dreams in the past about tornados, and I’ve certainly had numerous dreams about witnessing planes that crash in the distance. What could this mean?

Meaning
When we dream of an aeroplane we are usually considering some activity in waking life that we are involved in. This activity usually relates to work life, particularly if our job involves working with information or ideas. There is some project in your work life that you are trying to land and you are concerned about it. The vans being blown into the air indicate that you have anxieties about being able to consistently deliver.

When we dream of tornadoes we are reflecting on possible emotional turmoil. This may be related to insecurity at work. The older, wiser part of yourself is not too concerned about this feeling of insecurity because you know you can always rise to the challenge, but you are worried that it may affect your lifestyle outside your job in the longer term.

When you look down the road to your own house, you are considering your professional future in your waking life and you realise that you have been neglecting your own needs by probably working too hard and not looking after your own personal fulfilment.

Crashing planes usually symbolise anxieties about the future in an information based profession and tornadoes often represent the emotional anxiety associated with this. It also shows that you tend to over analyse things and worry about situations rather than trusting your instincts to help you find the greatest fulfilment.  Look after yourself and your future will look after itself.

Dream
Hi Ian
I was just wondering if perhaps you could analyse my dream??? I had three dreams in the same night, waking up fully between them all. The first one was a docter telling me that my boyfriend had terminal cancer, and i had to break the news to him myself. The second involved me having to tell both our friends and family about the cancer. The third involved us trying to find a hospice for his last living days,but i was obviously upset and was trying to explain that i wanted to look after him at home, which i am capable of as i am a nurse. I obviously found these dreams very disturbing and upsetting. I would really appreciate and would be very grateful of an interpretation.

Meaning
When a woman dreams about a man who is close to her, she is often considering the more masculine aspects of her personality that he symbolises for her. In this dream, your boyfriend is probably representing your confidence and your ability to assert yourself. When we dream about cancer, we are often reflecting on a situation in waking life that we feel may be growing out of control. There is some situation in your waking life where you feel confident and would like to be more assertive but you fear that if you do, then things will grow out of control and something special will come to an end.

Your need to look after your boyfriend indicates that you spend a lot of time looking after people in waking life, both professionally and in your private life. You usually put the needs of others before your own needs. However, for your own health, you need to look after your own needs too. You are worried that if you do try to assert your own needs then it will end in tears. The hospice symbolises the fact that you would like to be looked after sometimes, rather than always feeling that you have to look after others first.

The best to resolve these dreams is to sometimes put your own needs before the needs of others by using the word ‘No’ now and again. You don’t have to say ‘No’ to everything; just start off with some small things and work your way up to the bigger issues where your own needs are really not being met. This is not being selfish; you can only really look after others when you look after yourself by clearly stating your own needs. Be confident and be bold. If things seem to be spiralling out of control, just stand your ground and clearly state your needs without becoming too emotionally involved.

Dream
Dear Ian
I had a dream about moving house round the corner from me and being afraid to go over a bridge. This was in the same dream. I know that it is not financially possible to move so what does it mean.
My house at times feels like it has not got enough space but it has 3 bedrooms and should be adequate. When I dream about moving house I go through all the rooms but there is still apprehension about moving in the first place. I hope you can make sense of all this

Meaning
When we dream about a house, we are usually dreaming about our own self and how others see us. When we dream about moving house we are considering making a change in our waking lives and are concerned about how this change might be viewed by others. Being afraid to go over a bridge indicates that this change involves some form of commitment in waking life that you are unsure about.

The different rooms in our dream houses represent different aspects of our character. For example, the kitchen symbolises our ability to nurture others, the bedroom represents our privacy and self awareness, and the living room shows where we are most comfortable and at home with ourselves. Going through all the rooms suggests that you are concerned about how making this commitment will affect all aspects of your life.

The apprehension that you are feeling about this commitment is triggered by the feeling that you will lose your current identity in some way. This is especially true if you are thinking of committing to some sort of partnership with another person and feel that you might no longer be seen as an individual. However, making a commitment usually makes far more aware of our real identity and that can be a very moving experience.

Dream
Hello Ian,
I have a recurring dream which has gone on for many, many years. In it I am being pursued almost hunted by I presume Aliens. They are desperate to find me. A huge factor in these dreams is spacecraft. Sometimes I am outside and I can see searchlights looking for me. Sometimes I am hiding in buildings and smaller craft fly by ever so slowly looking in windows trying to spot me. Naturally I feel frightened but always somehow manage to escape. I would really like to know the meaning of this dream.
Many thanks

Meaning
When we dream of being pursued or hunted, there is some unanswered need that we have in waking life and we are not acknowledging it or doing anything about it. Dreaming about aliens usually means that our unresolved need is about doing something that seems alien or unfamiliar to us. The desperation of the aliens to find you reflects that fact that you are very keen to meet this need.

The spacecraft indicate that there is some form of travel associated with this need. It may be that you would like to journey to some unusual and exotic location or perhaps just change your daily routine in some way. However, change can very often be scary and no matter how exciting the prospect might seem we sometimes just try to ignore it and hide away instead.

Your dream is urging you to allow some change into your life. This doesn’t mean that you have leave behind everything that is known and familiar to you. All you have to do is be open to new experiences and make the most of unexpected opportunities. Just trust yourself to go boldly to places that you haven’t gone before.

Dream
Hi Ian,
For a very long time I have been having the same dream and have searched high and low for a meaning, but have had no luck.  This is going to sound stupid but basically I keep having dreams about salmon?  Sometimes they are HUGE!! Sometimes they are dead floating in water. And other times I’ll jump of a cliff into water.
I you could help make any sense out of this I would be very, very, very grateful.

Meaning
When we dream about water, we are always reflecting on the emotions and feelings that we experience in our waking lives. Salmon symbolise how we can purposefully and instinctively use our feelings to guide us to a place where we feel accomplished and at home. In your working life, you probably try to be as rational and objective as you can when you are dealing with new situations and are often required to focus on the facts of the matter rather than expressing how you feel about the circumstances.

However, the dead salmon indicate that you are throwing away the valuable information that your feelings are providing. Sometimes these are huge insights and ideas. Jumping off the cliff into the water shows that sometimes you just need to let go of your reliance on solid facts and use your instincts rather than your thoughts.

In our working lives we often find ourselves in turbulent and fast flowing environments. Everything seems to be changing around us and we either sink or swim. The only way to reach our chosen objective is to stop over analysing the situation and gracefully trust our instincts to navigate us to a successful outcome.