So, you have your dream divided into three sections, and for each section you have all of the dream-facts down.

With the three-part section, what happens is this: There is a physical situation which represents a mental situation. So the first dream situation represents a kind of report of what's going on in your mind; and it could be anything: a feeling of losing control; self-congratulations; the fact that you need to tell yourself something -- anything.

Don't worry about what specifically that message is yet -- look first at the structure.

If there's trouble in the second section, it's because your dreaming mind sent you a message and you rejected it. The trouble represents the turmoil between your conscious mind and your dreaming mind. So, look at how you responded to the first situation (the first message) just before the development of the second situation (trouble).

It's a conversation: the message from the dreaming mind; your response; and the new message (the second situation).

Now, the second situation has some effect on you-the-dreamer: it overwhelms you, you solve the problem, you win the fight, you escape, whatever it might be. That's the outcome that leads to the third, final, situation.

Again, the final situation is a physical representation of the emotional and mental situation that the dream results in.

There's no rule that your dream must follow this three-act structure; you might have a very simple dream, which is really just one act, or a complicated one with more message-response cycles. However, your dream will follow the message-response pattern, almost certainly.

When you've gotten a sense of the message-response pattern of your dream, it's time to look at what the dream is about.

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