If you've been wondering what a particular dream could mean, this book should provide you with a good place to begin exploring the subject. Mazza has written a "user-friendly" text in which she discusses material she collected from various sources including her own ongoing dream groups. Her approach involves facilitating an interpretation, not providing it. She suggests each dreamer must act as his own interpreter and she provides some tools to do so.
Her work has lead her to formulate some ideas about "Common Dreams and Themes" such as falling, running, being in public with no clothes on, etc. which she includes in a separate section. I have not experienced every one of the topics she discusses, but have had dreams about being paralyzed, falling, flying, traveling long distances, being terrified by an unknown presence, etc. I found the thematic section most useful as Mazza provides suggestions at the end of each segment in a "try this" paragraph.
Although Mazza finds dreams often appear to have common elements just as often they do not. Even when the dream seems common, the individual dreamer will have his own interpretation. Each of us has unique dreams. As I read Mazza's book, I kept thinking of the narrator in "Rebecca" who opens with "Last night I dreamt again of Manderlay..." I myself had a recurring dream from childhood on, that only became clearer to me as an adult in my forties--and I am still exploring it. The dream may have been a childhood memory or it a memory from a past life. I told my mother every time I had the dream and she would say, oh maybe you are another Bridie Murphy (a reincarnate writer).
Maybe, maybe not, but as a result of this and other dreams, exploring the meaning of dreams has become a lifelong habit. On more than one occasion discovering the meaning of a dream has proved incredibly illuminating. I will never forget a dream I had where I was "sitting on a fence" talking to my ex-boss. This dream helped me to understand my suppressed feelings about my boss. I was literally "on the fence" where he was concerned. Meaningless random firings of neurons indeed. Read Joan Mazza's book and get a handle on your own dream life.