PUZZLE

If you dream of trying but failing to complete a puzzle or crossword, this suggests an intellectual approach to problems in your waking life. Such dreams may be urging you to allow emotion to play a greater part in your decision making. On the other hand, if you complete the puzzle or crossword and are satisfied with the result, your dreaming mind may be suggesting that you should use an intellectual rather than an emotional approach to solving your problems. Dreaming of being unable to find a word in a Thesaurus or dictionary may be suggesting that you should listen to your instincts or your emotions.

If you find the word you are looking for, however, this may suggest that you should adopt a more objective approach.

If you are puzzled by a mathematical equation or can’t understand someone who is speaking another language in your dream, this suggests an inability to understand a certain person or situation in your waking life. How you reacted in your dream may help you find a new approach to the situation.

If a code that is hard to understand or decipher appears in your dream and you are the one who found it, this suggests some problem or person or aspect of your personality that is puzzling you.

If you awoke from a dream with a riddle running through your mind, are you feeling confounded by someone or something in your waking life? Your dream may have contained clues to both the meaning of your dream and a reallife riddle, but if it continued to mystify you perhaps you need to use an intuitive, rather than an intellectual, approach to solving problems in your waking life.

In Greek mythology, the Sphinx posed the famous question to Oedipus: ‘what goes on four feet, two feet and then three, but the more feet it goes on the weaker it will be?’ Oedipus replied ‘man’; it is man who crawls as a baby, walks as a man and then uses a cane in old age. Oedipus’ answer shows the importance of using your gut instinct or intuition rather than a rational, logical approach to seemingly impossible questions. The same applies for any dream situation which leaves you flummoxed. Your dreaming mind may be urging you to use the powers of your intuition and to channel your instincts into that place where the answer lies.

If you dream about a puzzle, the meaning relates to whether (or how easily) you solved it.

If you found it difficult to solve, or you failed to solve it, you are stuck in a troubling real-life situation and you don’t know how to proceed.

If you solved the puzzle in your dream, you will be able to conquer your real-life problems.

A real-life problem or challenge.

Feeling stressed, perhaps from real-life problem solving.

Working on a puzzle for fun might mean you’re in the mood for problem solving or mental challenges, or that you’re experiencing some extra energy during the dream state.

See Problem, Math, Riddle