Alligator Crocodile

Feelings or fears of being attacked or overwhelmed, possibly from within oneself, or by a powerful mother – i.e. ones internal dependence upon mother. There is so much about ourselves we do not know, and when a new aspect of us, or a much larger power within us emerges – like and great creature from our depths – we react to it with fear. See Autonomous complex

The alligator and crocodile often represent a hidden form of treachery, apparently harmless until it opens its mouth to eat us, such as that of a person spreading malicious rumours or trying to undermine us in some way. Another attack from deep within can be from repressed emotions.

But the alligator or crocodile as a dream creature is not the same as an external alligator. It is an enormous creature from your own depths, your inner self or core self – the part of you that you are not aware of and are frightened of. See core

The alligator or crocodile is similar to the serpent and depicts the power of the emotions, influences and experiences emerging from the unconscious. If you do not relate to your unconscious urges constructively, conflict can occur. Then you may feel fear of these forces within you – fear of being swallowed, or dragged into dark feelings. That is, of being carried away, or possessed, by fears, urges, ideas, arising from within, or fear of the irrational.

The Egyptians worshipped a crocodile as a guide to the dead in the underworld. It represents not only a threat, but also a wealth of wisdom about unconscious things. It possibly represented the forces of the unconscious because of the observation of the crocodile emerging from hidden depths to lay its eggs on the river bank. In this sense the crocodile or alligator in some dreams represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Depending upon the dream, the crocodile may well depict your fears about your inner hugeness. When we meet this it shows a personal awareness of merging with the many lives held in the collective unconscious. It is illustrated by the Christian idea of being cells in the body of Christ. We retain individual life, but know ourselves as part of an eternal life. This is possibly a natural stage in ageing, as our physical prowess and motivations fall away, this immense inner life begins to open to us. See The Life Will

As some people keep pet alligators, there might be a very personal meaning if one has actually kept an alligator.

Example: Now I looked at the large pool where the river surfaced. A woman swam in it, and was going to enter the tunnels. As I watched I saw some huge crocodiles swim toward her. With great speed and confidence she swam away, obviously being able to match the threat. A group of people in the pond, through their group strength, also dealt with the crocodiles.

Example: I can remember that in the dream another person and I, a male but very indistinct and shadowy, were facing mythical creatures in some sort of odyssey. A strange sort of crocodile or alligator type creature was supposedly attacking me. I had mixed feelings about this. Partly I felt there was nothing to fear about the creature, but another feeling was that it might be able to do some damage. In fact it was biting me across my chest, but all I felt was a very strong tickling feeling that made me laugh.

Example: Now a huge unknown creature began to enter into my awareness. I felt the presence of an enormous creature rising to the surface of something like a swamp or a body of water. At first I thought it might be a whale, but as I paid attention to what was happening it defined into a huge crocodile.

This huge creature looked at me and said, “Mathew, join me.”

I laughed at this because it was so huge, and with so many associations of swallowing things, that I said something like, “What do you mean join you? Don’t you mean that you want to eat me?”

The creature replied to me, “No. No, it’s not like that, I’m just like a submarine. I have all these lives in me. I have many, many lives in me. I am life. I contain the many. You can swim this ocean alone Mathew, if you wish. Or you can join me, you can join the many. You can always, if you choose to live your independent life again and  leave us.”

I laughed here because I had the image of me being independent, stripping off, diving over the side of the boat into the ocean and swimming off. It is something I have often done in the sea, swimming long distances alone, or off to an island out to sea, by myself.

I began to give myself to that great creature which I now understood as the collective unconscious, the unity of lives. It felt as if it was absolving me, much as I had experienced earlier on. (One of those strange and beautiful, and also moving coincidences just happened. I am reading this in using voice recognition, and it is proving to be very accurate. But in the sentence where I said that I felt it was – and the word was supposed to be absorbing me – the software used the word absolving. And here I am again, back in the ocean, weeping as I know there is no judgment on the life I have led so alone and cut off.)

 

Useful questions and hints:

What does the alligator represent to me?

What do I know about them?

Am I feeling threatened or carried away by any fears?

In what way is my intuition or awareness reaching beyond myself ?

Do I feel myself part of a larger whole?

See See Summming UpReaction to the unconsciousSecrets of Power Dreaming

Comments

-Jayne 2018-03-04 12:48:30

Dreamt my sister and husband are with me in a swamp like place on a walkway above the water. I’ve shown them a small box with some jewelry, and inside that box is another with more expensive gold jewelry. While sister is trying to close the boxes, pieces broke from one and fell on the floor. My husband said “oh no it broke”. I told her how to close it and proceeded to pick up the pieces. There was an alligator in the water that kept staying closer than the rest. I was stooped down near a wall which supposed to be safe, picking up the pieces and handing them back to put in box. Alligator is so close to me in the water, but still should be safe.
Then it lunges at my leg.
Tries to grab me but fell back in water. Comes around again. I get up and now I’ve gone higher up and it’s trying again and just barely issuing me. I’m jumping high and holding onto something and it keeps coming as I hit its nose back sometimes. It went on and on.
Then I woke up. I did have a headache when I went to sleep and a slight headache when I woke.

    -Tony Crisp 2018-03-05 12:45:01

    Hi – It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.

    Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/

    Tony

    Jayne – If a political cartoonist draws a fat man sitting upon a tiny thin man; at first sight, if we are not following or knowledgeable upon world events at the time, it may be quite meaningless; but if we know that a very large country has, through its tariffs, immobilised the exports of another country, we easily see meaning in the cartoon. A dream is very much like a cartoon. If we do not follow the politics of our own hopes and fears, our own best interests, the dream will be meaningless. Once we understand the symbols, however, it is often difficult not to understand.

    There is so much about ourselves we do not know, and when a new aspect of us or a much larger power within us emerges – like and great creature from our depths – we react to it with fear. See https://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/alligator-crocodile/

    So the swamp like place represents that you may be likely to get bogged down, stuck because of old attitudes or beliefs holding you back. For growth and change are forever pushing you to change for each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create your future.

    The central information the dream shows is that you try to pick up the pieces of the part of your life that is of the utmost importance that you have lost – lost because you were looking for. But to get near these parts you have to get near to the swamp which apart from restricting you is also a meeting with what is lying hidden within you, and so it may be felt as threatening or frightening. It is a place where the ancient or primeval may emerge. So it may be an experience of being held or swallowed by the swamp, which indicates strong feelings of being overcome by difficulties or losing your power – your alligator.

    Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

    See https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/integration-meeting-oneself/ and https://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

-Andrew 2018-01-28 17:05:53

Had a dream of 5 crocodiles. One was hanging out in the water bobbing in and out watching me. Three were swimming in around at various speeds one in a figure 8. And the last one (way bigger than the rest) was staying above the water for awhile until I walked closer then stood on it’s hind legs and started talking, can’t remember what it said but it was trying to egg me on to fighting it. So I approached and pushed it back for it to fall then come back up and try to bite a leg. So I punched it in the forehead and when it tried to swim away I grabbed it’s tail and drug it back out the water. Fist fought some more then westled for a bit until I chokeheld it into submission. Once it gave up and I stood back up to realize the other crocs had all paused slightly below the water level. I then walked off feeling angry but confident, then a new dream started.

-LeLanya Green 2017-11-07 10:30:19

I had a dream of a water refrigerator infested with baby alligators. like a water tub in the top part of a refrigerator opened like a freezer, despenced water threw the front of the door like. normal frig. go to vet me a cup of water and there is a sign on the door saying do not drink alligator infestation. opened the door and there where a bunch (maybe10) of baby allagtors about a foot long, swimming in the water cooler.

-Vicky 2017-02-26 5:31:17

I just had a awful dream…..

I dreamt that my family and I were at a zoo like place with alligator in a lower body of water. A stranger was saying it’s rolling my family and this stranger all huddled together but I could not see.we all started running, my son was behind pushing a baby stroller but I don’t know who was in the stroller he put it over the edge and I could see the ripples in the water but never did I see the alligator I tried screaming but I couldn’t nothing came out, my son was screaming ,laughing something it was different, I looked at my husband he just stood there, looking down.

I woke up petrified, very scared, I’m still shaking.
Please help I’m worried.

-Maguii 2017-02-22 18:23:25

I dreamed that i was speaking to a person but that person wouldnt answer me back, it was dark and then something was bitting my leg and I started to push it away but i couldnt. Then medium alligators start attacking but it wasnt me who they were attacking anymore it was a white women with blond hair. Then the medium alligators backed up a bit and then a biq crocodile attacks, plus again the other alligators. They ripped her two arms and a leg and I could felt her pain. I couldnt wake up . Her pain i could felt it and i couldnt wake up because she was just starting at me. Once i woked up my whole body hurts. Im saying hurts because know tgat im typing my body still hurts. If there a meaning to my dream or not?

-Lauren 2016-07-05 13:42:22

I have had several different dreams where I am saving a relative from an alligator. It’s always a different relative but usually someone I feel can’t fend for themselves (like a child or grandmother) and it’s always a different scenario (sometimes in a pool, sometimes in a lake) but every time, the relative is oblivious that an alligator is present. And every time I jump in and save them. I’ve also had alligator dreams where there will be hundreds of them and I’m just walking around them. What does this mean? Why do I dream this so often?

-Bernadette 2016-04-29 0:50:27

What is the meaning of having a pet alligator that totally loved me but i was scared of it and didnt eant to let it know i was scared cuz it might turn on me.

-Ritta 2016-02-22 14:51:38

I had a dream of bringing a medium alligator in th house .. it was i a pink nylon bag.. i put it in the kitchen floor thinking it won’t fit in my small refregerator ..
then a small white poppy showed up there scared from th alligator.. i tried to help him out .. till th dog stepped on the alligator’s back and went out!! Wht does all this means?

-Ritta 2016-02-22 12:14:09

I had a dream that i brought a medium alligator to my home.. it was in a pink nylon bag when i freed it in mu kitchen.. i had a thought that it was too big to e put in my refregerator.

then i saw a small white poppy trying to go out of th kitchen and im trying to help him he was afraid of the alligator until he stepped on the alligators back and jumped to my lap.

-Londa 2016-02-01 19:15:55

I dreamed that I was at work getting ready to clock out and leave. Then the dreamed switched and it was me, my son, his friend and a baby at the car outside by a swamp full of crocks. The child was riding a little tricycle by the swamp and fell in. His friend jumped in to save the child but the crocks started attacking him. I son immediately jumped in to help his friend but ultimately my son died. I was devastated in the dream. I believe the baby and friend was OK. I don’t remember. What does this mean?

-Neha kanswal 2015-12-09 4:14:14

I saw that i was beating cats and crocodile with a stick… As i saw that crocodile was in the floor not in water…I beaten them with 2-3 sticks as when em beatng them becoz of their hard body stick is breakng up ol tym… But still with new stick i em beatng them hard… When i saw that there was a dog who was hidden behind the chair i saw him strted loving himm….

-Neha kanswal 2015-12-09 4:10:36

I saw that i was beating cats and crocodile with a stick… I hate beaten them with 2-3 sticks as when em beatng them becoz of their hard body stick is breakng ol tym… But still with new stick i em beatng them hard… When i saw that there was a dog who was hidden behind the chair i saw him strted loving himm….

-piscean 2015-04-25 18:17:48

I saw a small black alligator that was coming to me so quickly suddenly towards me
I was in fear
But that creature doesn’t harm me
But feeling of fear was there
The dream was broke ..

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