The problem with the idea of dream analysis is that no one can accurately analyze a dream but the dreamer. One may draw broad associations and posit symbology represented by certain elements of a dream, but those symbols could very well be entirely irrelevant to the next person. Everyone has different symbols; the same thing means different things to everyone.

I bought a dream analysis book once and after looking through it decided it was hogwash. A stranger can no more understand your dreams than they could diagnose a disease. You wouldn't leap into a new prescription without consulting a doctor based on something you skimmed on a medical Wiki, would you? Then why would anyone accept an unobservant stranger's theories on what their own dreams mean?

The most important thing to ask about a dream is how it made the dreamer feel -- in fact, treat it like any experience they recall. When you see a cat, how does it make you feel? What did you do about it? An ailurophobe will have an entirely different response than an ailurophile! For me as a cat lover/owner, the appearance of cats is usually a portent of doom, because my responsibility over their well-being comes under duress when the cat(s) comes into jeopardy. A kitten in my dream will probably be washed away in a flood or starve to death due to my failure; my OWN cats will probably have to die at my hand to save them from pain or incurable disease. I know what a cat means personally to me, but I would not pretend the meanings apply to everyone else.

Anyone who says they don't understand their own dream probably just don't want to because it presents recognizable symbols pulled their own personal mythos that tell them things about their own emotions they don't want to confront. Perhaps a dream has them doing something they wouldn't do in real life, probably violent or personally abhorrent. Dreamselves tend to exist in a state of uninhibition, so it's unreasonable to blame ourselves for something we did in a dream -- or failed to do.

The guilt we express over dream actions are probably just the guilt we feel over our repressed desires, or flitting fantasies; who has not daydreamed of beating up someone who was rude to them? A dream makes it an experienced event, visceral and tangible at the time, and probably quite enjoyable and cathartic as well. But it's important to remember we have little control over our dreams.

The other possibility is that a dream expresses fear, whether over something concrete like spiders or monsters, or a potential event such as being assaulted or having loved ones die. Or, being fear over difficult choices, such as whether or not to keep a child, or to euthanize a pet. Sometimes we've already made these choices; sometimes we don't know if we ever want to. I think even a nightmare has the potential to titillate, as it gives us frightening scenarios from the mysteries of the unknown. We may have seen or heard of these events but never experienced them ourselves. This, too, can add to the guilt of a dream; who wants to admit to being thrilled by a dream of kidnap and rape? It would not, however, imply consent to such things in real life.

A Discover magazine article I read (I'm far too lazy to dig up the citation) posited that nightmares were a mental training grounds, where are minds take the things we fear and force us to confront them, to experience or overcome them, to test us and ask us what we would do. When I started squashing bugs in my nightmares, I became less afraid of them in real life, and had fewer nightmares about them.

Nightmares are also often the product of a stressed mind. Anyone in a state of rage or depression is pretty likely to have nightmares.

While we have LITTLE control over our dreams, we do have some. Not including lucid dreaming (which I've only experienced rarely), we can cultivate a particular mindset through our daydreams, interests, the media we watch/read, the games we play, the things we think about on a general basis. If a person has a particular predilection for pondering about violence, they will probably have more violent dreams. We tend to dream about work because work is ubiquitous in our daily lives, and heavily imprinted in our thoughts. This is hardly avoidable, although stressing out about work will probably lead to work-related nightmares.

Believing that we will dream and actively trying to recall or record them when we wake are good ways to ensure longer, more vivid and memorable dreams. Believing we will not dream is a good way to not dream or not remember dreams. Cultivating the idea of dreams leads to dreams! Some people express jealousy over my intense and long-winded dreams, but remember that this comes with intense, long-winded nightmares as well, which can be emotionally draining. Is it worth it? I find that it is.

Recognizing that my own stress leads to nightmares has helped me try to analyze my nightmares for sources of stress (but there is barely any need to analyze. We understand our dreams if we want to; confusion is a sign of denial), and working on ways to reduce stress in real life, to thus reduce nightmares. Sometimes simply looking at pleasant imagery before bed can help.

So while dreams are mostly out of our control, they are not random enough to disregard meaning from, nor objective enough for a stranger to understand them without context.