THE DREAM I was wearing some new clothes and feeling quite confident (in reality the dreamer was in psychiatric treatment. He had bought some new clothes the day before and was noticeably more confident). In the dream he was thinking of going out (to a bar) and talking with one of the nurses and said that he needed his friend Chris to be there.

GUESSWORK The day before the dreamer had spoken to his psychiatric nurse. He felt that she was thinking he was getting better when in fact he had made little improvement.

The "Guesswork" stage of interpreting a dream involves spotting issues likely to cause dreams. For help with this click here

ASSOCIATIONS AND SYMBOLIC MEANINGS
1. FEELING CONFIDENT. The dreamer was beginning to feel more confident and had been buying some new clothes. Previously he had been a little nervous of shopping for fashionable clothes and even more nervous of wearing them.
2. NEEDING HELP. The dreamer's psychiatric nurser often thought that the dreamer needed the help of his friend Chris to go shopping. This was not the case as he could do that without too much difficulty. He was still chronically bad at going out to social gatherings such as parties.

DREAM ANALYSIS In guesswork the dream was linked to the dreamers talk with his psychiatric nurse the day before. The dream deals with the following themes
- Needing his friend Chris to be there
- feeling more confident
- unable to do things because of confidence

If you weave together the different themes you find that they could capture these thoughts -"I spoke to the psychiatric nurse yesterday and I think she picked up on the fact that I was wearing better clothes and looked smarter. I think that they look for little signs like that. But that is not important to me. I am still unable to go out to bars and socialise. I cannot even do that with my friend Chris with me."

This dream has probably got more to do with the nurses at the psychiatric hospital where the dreamer was staying. The dreamer noticed was aware when the staff picked up on little improvements in his health and behaviour. He realised when the nurse asked him about his friend Chris that they were maybe making judgements about him improving. Maybe the nurse had made an assumption about him that he had always needed his friends help to go shopping for new clothes. Actually, he had never been that nervous of shopping. But in other ways he was terribly inhibited. For instance he would never go to a bar or nightclub.