1) That's a great point! I didn't even think to mention that.

2) I wholeheartedly agree with you. The feeling of the dream, the mood it provokes, the emotions you feel and what triggered them…all of those things are such important clues to what the dream is really trying to tell you.

3) I've definitely noticed it works for me. If I do a quick mental replay of my day immediately before going to sleep, it significantly reduces the number of dreams that are just rehashes of daily events, trivial problems, etc., and seems to make room for more meaningful dreams. I read about the technique a long time ago and can't remember offhand which book mentioned it but I've come across similar techniques in other books over the years. The key is to make sure as you do the mental replay you don't get stuck on one situation and replay it over and over, trying to come up with all the ways you "could have" or "should have" done something. You just run through the day quickly in your mind as a way of cleaning out the debris and then settle into your usual pre-sleep techniques for lucid dreaming.

I have 3 thoughts I'd like to add:

1) When analyzing the figures in dreams, people may also represent other people in your life, not just who they literally physically appear to be.

2) In my opinion, I think emphasizing the EMOTIONAL content of the dream is of utmost importance. Because of dreams bizarre nature, it is so hard to capture what they really are "about" with just a literal transcription & analysis. I think the emotional connection to the situations, characters, etc. are a key component of understanding a dream.

3) I'm really intrigued with this last bit about using a journal to get out your thoughts before going to bed in order to free up your mind to imagine other things. Is this something you've noticed happening to you?

P.S. I loathe dream dictionaries.