Weather in Dreams Often Implies Mood, Says Dream Analyst, David Rivinus

While there are rarely hard and fast rules about the meaning of dream symbols, when a weather condition is prominent in a dream, it is often a metaphor for the dreamer’s current state of mind, says dream analyst, David Rivinus.  

“We use these images all the time in our daily speech,” he says. “I’m having a sunny day; there’s a storm brewing; he was cold as ice.” These are expressions that are common in our normal communications, and they have become metaphors for our moods and morale.  

According to Rivinus, when we dream, these verbal expressions get acted out like scenes in a movie. If a dreamer finds himself walking into a hailstorm in a dream, it can mean that he is about to confront something that will affect his mood in an unpleasant way. “If we say something like: I walked into a hailstorm,” he explains, “it loses some of its impact because we translate it into an abstract concept.” But when we dream about being in a hailstorm, the images become much more graphic and dramatic. They can even be frightening.  

“That’s why dreams can be so unsettling,” he says. And it is also why there is a tendency to take dreams literally. The dreamer is so impacted by the images he has just witnessed that he can sometimes mistake them for being real.  

But according to Rivinus, that is rarely the case. “Dreams are only trying hard to get a point across,” he explains. “They want to be remembered, and bringing images back from the depths of sleep into consciousness is difficult.” So dreams exaggerate in a way; they often use really melodramatic images.  

Rivinus explains further that the images in dreams are always about the dreamer. “Even for those who have prophetic dreams that come true in real life, the images, additionally, are metaphors for something going on in the dreamer’s own life.” That is often a surprise to those dreamers who think their dreams are about something outside of themselves.  

David Rivinus is a dream analyst with over three decades of experience. He is the author of “Always Dreaming—Gaining Insights from the Metaphors of our Sleeping and Waking Lives” published by Ozark Mountain Publishing. He has lectured, facilitated workshops and helped dreamers interpret their dreams internationally. For more information, visit www.teacherofdreams.com.