trust me, Raedwulf, I know what lucid dreaming is.
RR, In my dream group we share our dreams and help each other figure out what they are about.
We have some guidelines which include NOT trying to tell each other what a dream is about, but offering suggestions. In spite of which, one person does drag along one of those 10,000 dreams interpreted books and look everyone's symbols up.
Two techniques which I find helpful:
The gestalt thing where you imagine yourself to be each element in the dream and see what it has to say.
The dialectic method where you dialog with another character in the dream and see what it has to say.
When a thought resonates with you you are probably on the right track.
Often a series of dreams in one night are on the same topic; your unconscious mind keeps sending it back until you get it. The unconscious cannot communicate directly but through symbolic means. Something can be a composite -- ie, a person can be a composite of different people who have something in common.
What's called "day residue" is you mind processing thoughts of the day. These still have a lot of signifigance, as your unconscious can glom on to some very minor incident which turns out to represent something your unconscious was chewing on. (Hence remembered it.)