A technique I picked up from Robert Waggoner's book on lucid dreaming that I've found very useful is asking the dream itself for its meaning.

Once you do that, it's like this new level of possibilities opens up... dream meanings start to come from within the dream, even within ordinary non-lucid dreams.

For instance, in a lucid dream, I would simply go up to people and ask them what they represented. They would almost always have an answer. If they didn't answer, I would direct my inquiry to the space above their head, to the "Dream Itself" and would again, 99% of the time get a response from a disembodied voice (Higher Self, p'raps) The tough part is in remembering what they say, because sometimes they do ramble on (very rationally of course) for awhile. I've found that this technique even extends to other people in your life, and that sometimes the dream figures wanted to discuss their meaning in reference to those people.

This in turn influences regular dreaming. The other night, I was dreaming that I was trying to fix my harp and trying to restring it.. as I noticed that several of the strings were "strung wrong", and bearing too much weight, and crossed in every which way. An instructor approached and said that he could fix it, but that it was better for one to fix their own harp. He opened a compartment in the back and showed me a set of keys and said that "every harp comes with its own set." Then he said that it would also be very helpful to take the harp on a cruise above Atlantis and I saw myself playing the harp in a boat cabin, particularly enjoying the feeling of "floating above" Atlantis.

As I came awake, the meaning of the dream came with me. (Sometimes it even occurs in the dream itself, but in this case it happened in the process of waking, in that lovely half asleep state)

The harp is meant to represent my body. My dreaming mind has attempted to communicate this to me in the past by showing me my violin with a broken head, which only made me paranoid about my stored actual physical violin. "One's instrument" = "Your body."

The harp was a much better representation, as an old and troublesome injury I'm sporting is DEFINITELY got "strings strung wrong" and "bearing too much weight", i.e. supporting muscles and tendons. And presumably the instructor was letting me know that I have the keys to heal my own instrument, and that everyone does.

Now the Atlantis bit might sound obscure, but it's really not... I've been dithering over taking a trip to a dolphin retreat center in Bimini that includes snorkeling above some Atlantean ruins, and the suggestion was that that energy would be beneficial to me. "Cruising / floating above" Atlantis was meant to differentiate it from "Go to Atlantis" which would have been more idly dismissed. The harp dream paired also with a dream that same night of... natch, swimming in a pool with dolphins.

Happy dreaming!