Birds
The life cycle of a bird has so many similarities with important human stages of growth we frequently use birds to represent parts of our own important experience.
In general the bird in your dream can depict imagination, intuition, the mind, freedom from restraints, thoughts or hidden wishes or hopes, or your longings to move beyond limitations or boundaries. Because the word is sometimes used to indicate a woman, it can have that meaning – i.e. a ‘bird’.
However, birds illustrate to us on a daily basis that they can lift themselves above the earth and fly freely. In this way they are symbols of the enormous freedom of thought, of imagination, or spiritual freedom. In other words of the ability the mind has to recognise it is not limited to the life of the body and its senses. It can lift up and see great vistas in a sweep if it opens its wings.
The meaning depends on the context in which the bird appears in the dream. So in dome dreams, especially if the bird is flying high, or you identify and become the bird, it can show an expanded awareness or a greater insight into your life and the meaning of your life. This type of dream usually appears as a large bird that can fly high. This is because wider – or spiritual – awareness is like a higher, overall view of things.
Meeting this enlarged awareness may be painful or frightening as we approach it. The enlargement of what you experience is a form of growth and brings new possibilities, all of which can strip away old ways of life and relationship. This expansion of our viewpoint, upliftment of our emotions or mind, can be a link between the world we experience with our physical senses, and the deep world of our often unconscious passions, intuitions and insights.
A huge bird: The power of the collective mind or unconscious. It may uplift or be felt as threatening; something that can protect or be felt as a threat.
Bird attacking: Fear of ideas, ideals or opinions; verbal or mental (suggestions or suggestive behaviour) attack by others; fear of going beyond ones narrow boundaries.
Bird descending: A wider view or experience becoming known to you, or becoming available. In practical terms this may be experienced as inspiration or new insights regarding work or creativity, or a bursting of ones previous views or concepts into a wider insight.
Bird in house: Hope that something interesting or new will enter ones life; a wish for new love; a new idea; an intuition or precognition; a new person or event entering your life; something trapped in you that seeks freedom.
Black or carrion birds: Because such birds often feed on dead animals, they have the association with death or news of death. This may not be connected with someone dying, but perhaps that some project, love or aspect of yourself is being left to die; feelings or fears about death; something you are unaware of but is on the edge of consciousness.
Bluebird: Especially represents the personality or soul after death. But it can also show the flight of awareness into new or wider experience.
Dead bird: Threat to ideals or hopes of freedom; feeling life is only material; ones spirit feeling defeated or crushed; loss of sense of beauty or meaning in life; an ideal or hope has died; a flight of imagination or creativity has fallen.
Feather: See: feather.
Fighting birds: Family disputes; arguments about viewpoints.
Flying: Rising above something; an escape from a feeling of being trapped, or some fear; independence; freedom; self expression; ones love or thoughts winging its way to someone; the sexual act – possibly because during sex we may feel released and uplifted.
Hatching from the egg: Our birth and infancy; rebirth. Something new and uplifting coming into your life, or coming to life in you.
In cage: Feelings of being restricted or trapped; holding back love or inspiration; safety in restriction. If there are positive feelings around the caged bird, it might suggest the need to withhold love or freedom, but it could suggest feeling trapped in a relationship, especially if there are two birds in the cage.
Leaving nest: Gaining independence; meeting change; leaving a dependent relationship.
Making nest: Home building; parental urges; partnership if with another bird.
Nest: Home; family environment; security; even the womb.
The baby bird: Our own childhood, as in the following example. The old lady in the second example is once more reference to the mother, who the bird is first connected with before moving on to the difficulty of independence.
Freud said the bird represents the male phallus, and flying means the sexual act. Many languages use the word “bird” to mean woman. In Italy it alludes to penis. The bird is also used to denote a sense of death and survival.
The example shows. Pauline’s dream using the bird to depict her own urge to be independent of her mother’s influence, opinions, likes, dislikes and decisions. Later in the dream her mother hands Pauline the ribbon to hold, suggesting an offer of independence.
Example: I was standing outside the house of my teens, with my mother. She had a very young bird on a long ribbon and the bird was flying very high in the sky. As soon as she lets go the ribbon, a huge black bird attacks the ribboned one. Pauline.
The ribbons are a reference to Pauline’s own girlhood. When she lets go of her girlhood, moving toward independent womanhood, she feels threatened by her internal feelings of guilt – i.e. a child feels guilty if it acts differently to what its mother wants. This is the black bird. To become independent we have to find a way of doing what we wish despite this internalised mother. (Internalised means all the standards, self controls she learned from her life with her mother, she now carries within her as her own urges even if absent from her mother.)
Example: An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in its squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost its mother. It sounded as if it were crying. Andrew.
This dream is clearly about Andrew becoming aware that at some time he felt abandoned by his mother, and this part of him needs helping to grow into greater independence.
blackbird or black bird Unconscious urges. At times we may relate to enormous waves of feeling in an anxious way, and this relationship of anxiety may be represented by a black bird. The bird may be shown attacking something or oneself because that is how we relate to the emotions or energies – i.e. we feel attacked by them. The black bird can also link with feelings about death, the negative aspect of mother, or something unconscious that we are becoming aware of.
chickenIf being eaten suggests nourishment. Otherwise a female, or the female in a male; being ‘chicken’ or scared.
The cock: a male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence.
The hen: Mother; motherhood; being immersed in motherhood concerns and perhaps not having a life beyond that.
Chicks: This is a reference either to your own babyhood and feelings or events associated with it, or to external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.
Idioms: chicken feed; chicken hearted; she’s no chicken; cock of the walk; don’t count your chicks/chickens before they are hatched..
crow rook raven Being carrion birds, and so often seen near corpses, they are linked with death or feelings about death; bad news; fear; unconscious feelings. It can at times depict the negative aspect of father. The dark intelligence in underhanded people or animals; forces in life that seem to have intelligent direction yet are not outwardly visible. Bad luck.
cormorant Intellectual ideas that have the power to dig deep and bring up unconscious wisdom. Because the cormorant is used to dive and catch fish, it suggests you are practising some form of introspection or self examination.
crane Inner feelings about wholeness; good luck. The ability to deal harmoniously with the libido or energy within.
cuckoo Wanting to, or feeling your partner is, having sex outside your relationship; pregnant with child from another man than ones partner.
dove Peace; lacking aggressiveness; awareness of one’s potential; religious experience; relatedness. See:
eagle buzzard hawk Sometimes the hunting, providing parent; dominance; a male figure; an uplifting power of feelings or ideas; a protective influence; a threatening influence. Often the ability to develop an integrated vision or perception out of a wide range of experience. This is because the height of the bird and its steady gaze give it unusual perception and wide awareness. See: as it relates to mega-concept.
Idioms: Watch like a hawk; eagle eyed.
feather or feathers See: feather.
goose/geese Freedom; your soul; wanderlust; foolishness or group conformity. In some cases you might use the goose as a symbol for life long relationship.
owl Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ?sees what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ?feeds by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.
Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird.
See: Second in wife under family and relationships .
Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn.
parrot Repeating without judgement what others have said; accepting or copying something without evaluating it.
peacock Pride; self display; vanity; the desire to be more attractive; sometimes the same as phoenix.
In some cultures the peacock represent the soul or psyche – ones sense of self with all ones individual memories and characteristics. Because the peacock could shed all its beautiful feathers and then grow them again, early Christians saw it as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.
As the peacock is a male bird displaying for the sake of a mate, it can also obviously represent male sexuality in its proud, ostentatious or displaying mode.
Example: There were trees and a grassy patch of ground. A dog was having puppies. But a great flock of small black birds emerged running and skimming over the grass. I heard myself remark, They are smaller than the others and there are more of them. Then, from among the trees emerged a large peacock, tail half raised. The dream left me feeling that from small things could emerge something large and beautiful. Mrs E. E.
penguin The penguin hardly ever appears in dreams, or in fact in literature generally, so I have not been able to gather from people’s dreams how they use this symbol. From common associations however, it is likely to represent foolishness; a difficult life situation; coldness in relationships. Because of recent studies of the penguin and the major National Geographic film, the penguin might now depict lasting love and wonderful care and survival skills.
It can also represent something rare and unusual.
phoenix The ability to find a new impulse, new strength, new growth even in death; the power in oneself to transform the dying, depressed, dark and desperate into new endeavour and growth.
stork The soul; symbol of birth or babyhood, and perhaps parenthood; the beauty of the wider awareness of the unconscious.
swan Grace; beauty; dignity. In mythology often represents the psyche or soul and its connection with a spiritual world; the side of human nature usually hidden because unconscious, often referred to as the spiritual – meaning the consciousness of connection with all life.
The swan in your dream may be linked with an ending of something due to the association with ?the swan song – a final act. It can also suggest amorousness, or the ideal of love in sexuality, and as such may represent virginity or a blend of male and female.
vulture A relative waiting for you to die – or vice versa; people around you trying to live on you – or vice versa; difficult feelings about dependants; an environment of ill will or hopelessness.
white bird Anything white usually depicts thoughts and feeling that are inspirational or uplifting. They are often shown as similar to the white Pegasus, the lower sexual energies lifted into a power of wider awareness.
Idioms: Charm the birds from the trees; a bird told me; the bird has flown; bird in the hand; bird of ill omen; free as a bird; odd bird.
Useful questions are:
Is the bird in my dream expressing any of the important stages of growth such as babyhood, leaving the nest, or making a nest?
What quality or attitude is the bird expressing and how does that relate to me?
What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?
Comments
I had a dream that was so vivid. I had it two weeks ago. I had a dream that my ex husband had masturbated and had blood on is hands.
I witnessed the scene and a beautiful Golden Phoenix came and gently landed beside me.
I don’t understand the dream but the next day my life changed literally.
It was the most incredible dream, I don’t ever think of phoenix’s it is really strange.
Jan – I wish you had told me how your life changed.
It’s about how a man can allow himself to be caught in something that has caused him to have blood on his hands, to be guilty of something.
The Golden Phoenix is representing a time in which you went through fire to arise a new person. It is like an initiation into a new life and a new awareness.
Maybe forgiveness should be a part of this. The past is dead.
Tony
hello!
I have been going through a hard time and last nights dream keeps bugging me.
So it was sunny and good weather, I came out of my house and I looked up, there I saw 2 identical birds, really beautiful one was light blue and the other white, but they were made out of paper, they were alive and flying but they were flat. I wanted to cry when I saw them but held my tears back. Then I walked to the middle of the culdesac and saw my man sitting on the sidewalk by his aunts house. I wanted to run to him but went backwards instead and saw my dog, who was falling into a hole in the ground.(the hole wasn’t really deep) I caught him looked once more at the birds and went home. Ive never dreampt about birds. Please try to explain what it means :/
Thank you!
Asya
Asya – The dream starts with a happy and sunny situation. And in that frame of mind you see two paper birds – beautiful but not real. You cry but you do not say why, and you hold back the expression of emotion.
Emotions are our feeling energy moving, and to hold them back causes a block that then feels like a form of depression. So you want to run toward you man but go backwards, probably because of the held back feelings, because feelings are the great creative energies of dreams.
Birds usually represent imagination, intuition, the mind, freedom from restraints, thoughts or hidden wishes or hopes, or your longings to move beyond limitations or boundaries. But they are seen as beautiful but without life. And so you pull your ever loving companion the dog out of the hole that you and he have been in. Try visualising a different ending, by running up to your man with warm feelings.
Tony
id love some help figuring out this dream i had, i cant stop thinking about it…
ok so the earliest part of the dream i could remember was standing inside a fancy old kitchen that im assumin was in a castle, the chairs were all fancy wood with red fabric on them, i was standing in the kitchen with people of high authority standing around me. a king, queen and someone else i cant recall. there was a big silver bird cage that was open to the side of me. as i was standing i began to close my eyes within my dream and began to have a case of sleep paralysis within my dream. this has never happened to me before. My eyes were closed and i began to get the familiar rush of panic and cant open my eyes. i hear a womans soothing voice yelling my name because she could obviously tell something was wrong. when i snap back into my dream a decent sized white bird is attacking my left arm and hand but i cant move. the bird begins to focus on my left hand as i regain control of myself. i then smashed this bird repeatedly into a silver platter on the table. all i remember was that bird not letting go and at that point i woke into reality in a state of sleep paralysis.
please help me interpret this i get the feeling that the message is very important
Ryan – You were in a very good place, with a sense of approval by authority figures – even mum and dad.
The open cage is a sign of freedom – a case of escaping from the prison of ones body. It was natural to react to this with fear, because it feels like dying. But it was a pity because it was a doorway to a freedom few people ever experience.
The white bird is the soul that can take flight, and because of your panic reaction it was pictured as an attack on you, so you gave it hell.
The fight was against the paralysis, which is normal every time you dream. When you dream your voluntary muscles are paralysed and another will takes over causing you to make all the actions in the dream. Everybody goes through it, but they are asleep at the time so do not struggle against the force of another will taking them over. Because you were in a lucid phase you were frightened, though there is no need to be. It illustrates how our conscious mind fights the deeper core mind, and why we have dreams that shock us.
Tony
I dreamt last night that there were two songbirds in a cage, i opened the doors to let them out but they kept flying back in, one was blue and one was white, i couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to fly but they looked happy and content. The previous night i dreamt that i let a single song bird out of a cage. i was wondering what the significance of letting birds out of a cage. Im not stuck in any bad situations at the moment and am single so its baffling me a bit !!
thank you , kind regards Emma
Emma – It need not be that you are stuck in a bad situation. Birds usually depict the mind and its flights or imagination and freedom. But a cage can also illustrate the mind, and so your dreams might be saying that you are comfortable in the beliefs and education you have and do not want to explore new ways of thinking and being. Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-paradigm/
Tony
Can anyone plz help me to debug a dream i saw last night?
I saw that i am standing near my house with someone, perhaps in the garden.. then I saw a group of white birds coming down. they all came and sat on the ground. among them I noticed two white peacocks , very beautiful. I pointed towards them to show to others( i dont remember who)..Plz help me. I have never seen such a dream..
Rozee – This type of dream is always about something special happening or about to happen. The central thing is the sense of beauty you experienced in the dream. The peacock is a symbol indicating the soul, which links with the beauty you felt. But the beauty is something that is welling up within you, and does not link with external things. It is often the first thing we notice as we become aware of spiritual realities.
The fact that the birds are white also increases the strength of the dreams message. Anything white usually depicts thoughts and feeling that are inspirational or uplifting. They are often shown as similar to the white Pegasus, the lower sexual energies lifted into a power of wider awareness.
Tony
HI. I am curious about my dream last night. I dreamed of a yellow chick, and seems like a bird.. it has a white triangle thing on its head. its following me.. and whenever I tried to get rid of the chick it attacks me.. seems real.. its always following me even when i sleep its beside me.. there are also scenes when it looks like a newly hatched chick/bird. I dreamed of it 2 consecutive nights and its in in my head the entire night i was asleep…
interesting, though im still a bit bemused. i dreamt last night i was being plagued by loads of different birds, owles, eagles, sparrows – all shapes and sizes. i was being chased, the sky was full of them and the pooped on me and it left marks like id been shot – bleeding bullet wounds almost. i was really frightened and kept hiding in shelters etc – then i woke! that the heck – never dreamt anythign like this before..in fact i rarely dream anything with a storyline, theyre normally jsut bits and pieces usually reflecting the days events if anyhting at all.
Last night I had a dream that I was given a gift as an egg. For some reason I kept thinking there was a tadpole or a frog in the egg, because the egg seemed to me at first glance to have a tail. I wen to touch it and I slipped and I cracked the shell. Thinking I killed a small frog, I was really sad. Then someone brought to me the cracked egg in a shoebox and it turned out to be a baby penguin. And the penguin was to be my friend.
I forgot to mention that the baby penguin was not harmed.
Chris – The egg is a promise of a new life. The shell is only a protection and it was obviously broken at the right time. (Out of curiosity, did you have a difficult birth? The reason I ask is because the egg and frog can sometimes refer to your own prenatal life.)
The penguin is a difficult one for me to find a meaning for, as so few people dream of penguins. So my best guess is that it depicts something unusual that has come into your life. But to be sure see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/ – and please let me know what you find.
Tony
I keep having this dream where a male swan eats a baby swan. Then the mother swan is looking around for her baby swan. I don’t like these kinds of dreams and I need to know what this means. Thank you
Hi, I dreamt of seeing a gum tree with hardly any leaves and a flock of black cockatoos were perched on the branches. Two of the birds had red chests. I pointed this out to the person I was with as the birds are not common in my area and I gave never seen one with a red chest. I have heard that black birds can symbolize death. My mother is terminally I’ll with bowel cancer, could there be a link? Thank you.
I dreamed that a small colorful bird, like a parakeet, was attacking my right pointer finger. I kept shaking my hand to get the bird off to no avail. It was digging into my finger. I finally hit the bird with my left hand. It’s head came off and it dropped dead to the floor. I was horrified that I’d killed it. Any interpretation?
Ok I can not recall most of my dream but there is this part if it that stands out. I’m in a yard no particular, and I was standing by a tree but ut was not like real world looking. I felt a presence of a love, not like a motherly love but one of two lovers, so anyways there was a bird flying around that was transparent but yellow and this bird landed on a branch of the tree and once it landed it was not transparent anymore and was yellow in full color, I tried to put my hand out for the bird to land on my hand and it would not, I felt very statisfied and I’m not one for find dream meanings but something told me to look it up
I had a dream I saw a group of owls sitting on a ledge in the back of my grandparents house. My grandpa drew my attention to them. As I looked they flew away except for a baby owl that couldn’t fly with them. Then a bigger owl swooped back around and picked up the baby owl and took off again. The baby owl and bigger owl both had a pastel rainbow pattern of their stomachs….I have no idea what this means.
i had a dream i was walking and stopped to look at a creepy tree only about a foot taller then me…and a big eagle swooped down and landed on the right upper side. then a big black owl with ginormous black eyes landy on the same tree but lower and to the left. and i just stood there and took a picture. then i dont remember any more of it..
I had a dream this morning which I can not stop thinking about. it begins with a happy scene of a park with children playing.. myself, my ex-husband, and my shamanic teacher meet outside a building (across the street from the park i believe), it is sort of run down. i introduce my ex and my teacher and my teacher offers to heal him in some way. next myself and my teacher are in the building and doing some improvements to it, tidying it up, and move a huge fridge. (my ex is no longer in the dream at this point.) my daughter is playing in the building. my teacher and i are drawn to some pipes or hoses which run everywhere in this place. at this point, the building feels like it is owned or previously owned by myself. i remember being ashamed that it is not in better repair, i have not lived in it for some time and did not like living there for the most part. it does not reflect who i am at this point. as i look at some pipes/hoses on the floor i see about two small birds, pretty, black base with lots of color. one bird comes to me and jumps on my left hand, i am happy. i turn my head to see if my shamanic teacher sees it, then a tiny white owl lands and secures himself firmly on my right hand. i am very happy and surprised because i love owls. (the other bird disappears at this point) i turn to my teacher to tell him about it, but instead of calling him by his name, i say “look dad!”. i feel kind of dumb for calling him dad and then wonder why i called him this, i wonder if this is a past life i am recalling, then i wake up. i am grateful for any insight <3
Sahara – It sounds from your dream that you have come quite a way on your inner journey. And obviously the dream is a healing one in some way. But I think the healing is not your actual husband but a part of you. Because dreams are simply images which are trying to communicate something important. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/
The main work seems to be in connection with the previously owned building. I feel the dream is describing what I call the past places of your dwelling – your past dwelling places or past lives. The reason you can’t remember them is that this body has developed a local recent memory. In other words you have a new brain and only the memories of the present brain. The long memory is in your Core self, which is only usually available when you dig deep enough into yourself. And I feel your work on yourself is uncovering the Core memories.
The fridge is probably a sign that you have had a lot of you in cold storage and it needs removing so you can remember who you are.
Then you have a wonderful gift in the bird and the white owl. It is white because it is an expression of your Core vision, your intuition, which can see in the dark places of you and bring them to light.
Saying Dad shows how we feel when we are in the presence of a Parent. Not of course our actual teacher, but your inner parent. You will meet it fully soon I am sure.
Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-yoga/
Tony
My deep gratitude to you Tony. I would like to send you a private message if you do not mind. In Lak’ech Ala K’in, Sahara