In Part II you met the selves: pride, anger, fear, desire and the rest. At night they do not rest. Free of the day’s good manners, they act. Much of what you call a dream is that.

If you fight in a dream, an anger may be speaking. If you cry, something held back by day wants to move. If you keep dreaming of being late, chased or unprepared, a fear is at work. A lustful dream shows a self the day keeps quiet.

None of this is a reason for shame. It is useful. By day the selves hide behind good reasons. At night they show their faces. A dream can show you a self you would never catch awake.

So read a dream as a mirror, not as a fortune. Ask who in you was acting, not what the future holds. Books of dream symbols exist, but the surest way to understand a dream is your own honest look at it.

Not every dream is only a mirror. Some carry teaching, and a few are real meetings in the inner worlds. Pages 55 and 60 return to that.

But most nights begin as a mirror, and the work begins there too.