Although I don’t believe in strict dream symbolism definitions, I do think that certain objects, people, situations, etc are tied to our subconscious. That only makes sense, right? It’s just that the symbolism is different for everyone. I’ve had numerous dreams with obvious symbols - a daisy, a snake, a burning moon… these seemed to dominate my dream and have a specific meaning. And sometimes there’s no symbolism whatsoever. I think it’s possible your mind just portrays the symbolism you are already familiar with, but it still differs per person, and doesn’t always occur and not necessarily to everyone. Whichever it is - dreams remain fascinating.
Anyone who’s tried WILD should have experience with the random thoughts and images popping up at some point… before I got into LDing I never paid attention to that but these days I am more aware when my mind’s falling asleep. I think it’s so strange it just randomly creates thoughts and images and keeps on going whilst I forget about what I was thinking about earlier and then fall asleep.
Anyway - I don’t think dreams are meant to have meanings… I believe they’re more a way of information processing through your brain whilst your body’s asleep. It HAS been proven that people who don’t dream for a few nights become paranoid, have hallucinations, become depressed and may eventually go insane. They’ve tested this with two groups, who got the same amount of sleep - only one group was woken up every time just before they entered the REM stage, so they never got to dream. They were the ones showing symptoms of psychoses, whilst the people with REM sleep felt fine.
Still, since your brain is processing information, what occupies your subconscious may come up in a clear or less clear way. I’ve actually had dreams tip me off on a lot of things, like relationships that weren’t going right, or projects that weren’t working out. I’ve had crushes on people only because I kept dreaming of them!
So, to conclude… there’s a distinction between the function, the working and the effects of dreams, and the only thing we can really be sure of is the latter, since we can observe it in daily life. The working of dreams can be analysed in laboratories with brainwave monitors and godknowswhat, but it still doesn’t tell us everything that our brain is doing, exactly. And the function of dreams remains mostly a mystery, although at least it’s been proven that dreaming is necessary for your sanity.