Yes no and other? Those are only options? How about sometimes? Sometimes your mind is trying to tell you something, or you’re stressed about something. Sometimes it’s just random images.
Or they don’t piece together the things that prompted the dream.
Someone will say they dreamed about a number of things and you can point out to them that they saw that on TV the day before, that we discussed our concerns about something and it all got jigsawed together.
So…my naked in public dreams never have an anxiety component to them, though I’d be mortified to run around naked in my waking life. So I unconsiously think I’m seen as competent? I shudder to think what my not infrequent zombie dreams mean then! 
I think there should have been a “sometimes” choice too. Most dreams are meaningless, but some are clearly your brain working over problems or bringing observations to light. For example, I dreamed about a close friend coming out to me a couple of years before he did, and until then I didn’t realize I suspected that of him. On some level it seems I must have, though.
If by dream interpretation you mean using your dreams as a means of understanding your personality, or understanding what’s troubling you, then yes I think there is a truth to it. Dreams can show a lot about your personality in my opinion, especially if you their are recurring themes or ideas.
If you mean using dreams to tell the future or whatever then no.
Slightly off topic: dreams aren’t always random, a lot of times I’ve had dreams where I find a solution to a problem I’ve been trying to solve (whether it’s mathematical, programming, scientific or just a general life problem). In addition there’s lucid dreaming (why would you ever need virtual reality if you can lucid dream).
This.
I have always had a vivid and robust dream life. I go through dream phases… I used to have dreams about dying, nearly every night, all in different ways but they ended the exact same… ‘‘this is it’’ fade to white. It would take several seconds for me to realize I was actually alive. Those dreams lasted for years.
I went through a phase where I dreamed constantly about death by tornadoes… those were the most common death dreams I had. Every night, tornadoes. Occasionally I still have the same tornado nightmares - with the exception that I usually don’t die anymore. I’m afraid of dying, but somehow I get away. Now consider the fact that I am much more mentally healthy now than I was back when those dreams started. I don’t think it’s a cooincidence that the character of my life and the character of my recurring dreams have changed.
I still have PTSD nightmares - those definitely have meaning, at least in the most general sense.
Then there was the sleep paralysis phase. The lucid dreaming phase. The ‘‘waking up shouting’’ phase which I’m still not quite done with yet.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I’ve had so many dreams with obvious messages, and so many changes in dreams as I have changed over the years, that I think the two are generally related. Which isn’t to say that some shit is just totally random. I still recall a vivid dream of jumping into an enormous vault full of mashed potatoes, a la Scrooge McDuck.
My dreams are so mundane that sometimes I mix up dreams and reality. Not in a way that causes any harm, but sometimes I’ll randomly “remember” something that happened at work then realize it happened in a dream not real life.
My less boring dreams are wishful thinking dreams about seeing someone I haven’t seen in a long time, meeting someone I admire, etc.
So in my case there’s nothing to interpret since my dreams are very explicitly about real life. I’m envious of those who even have the slightest bit of symbolism in their dreams.
I voted “other”, mostly for the reasons that people have already stated. I think any system of thought that claims dreaming about X means Y for everyone is total BS. Like, if you dream about crows, that means death or a bad omen, or something. Well, I happen to really like crows and find them fascinating, so if I dreamed about crows I would take that to mean something positive. …That sort of thing.
I have dreams that are clearly, clearly my brain’s attempt to work through something I’m going through in real life. Ever since my mother died, I’ve dreamed about her at least twice a week, and they’re always the same scenario – she’s alive, but she’s still dying, and I’m terribly anxious about having to experience her death again. Obviously, I’m working through grief.
But then I sometimes have these elaborate fairy-tale-like dreams that have no apparent connection to my real life, that are so bizarre and yet have a clear plot, feel so lifelike I experience all five senses in them, and are so interesting and fun to experience, that they almost feel like they come from somewhere outside myself. I’m not able to be simultaneously that original, creative, and coherent when I write stories in my waking life.
Someone once told me (and if anyone can confirm or deny this, that would be great) that in the Jewish mystic tradition, it’s not so much the dream itself that gives insight into the dreamer, but the way in which the dreamer retells the dream. I took this to mean: what features of the dream stand out to you, what emotions do you feel when you recall the dream, what connections do you draw when you analyze the dream in a literary sense, etc. How you turn the jumble of bizarre, sometimes contradictory, events and images in the dream into a coherent narrative.