Coffee

Many drinks represent a stimulus similar to alcohol, with its property of changing the way you feel and how you act. They release energy, emotions, change feelings, and can thus be associated with spirit. An invisible power, or the power behind human growth, that changes our experience of things. Coffee may also represent sociability, friendship, the giving of affection. See: Alcohol.

Mostly it represents feelings about social ritual, about informal sharing and being stimulated. Coffee is a energizing drug, something that literally changes the brain activity, so alters the way you feel. In this way it is similar to alcohol, though with a different action – an upper instead of a downer. So sometimes it is used in dreams to show an influence that changes the way you feel or relate to life or stimulates you. 

Some people refer to coffee as their ‘friend’. As a symbol in a dream, it might therefore be depicting you achieving a feeling of ease, and the ability to better meet what is in front of you.

Other feelings people associate with coffee is illustrated when they  call it ‘juice’. This is a word used in the US for electricity, and suggests personal energy and the power to do things they might not do as easily without coffee.

Coffee, however much you are used to it, interferes with your depth of sleep. It isn’t that you don’t sleep, but the depth is not the same. So you are more restless and wake needing the next cup of coffee to get you going. So some dreams may be pointing to coffee in a way to tell you what it is doing to your health or well being. See the following dream:

Example: I walk into my dining room  (this shows that the area of concern is food intake). In the middle of the floor is a chicken brooder shaped like a very large coffee pot. On top of the pot is a smoking cigarette. All of the baby chicks die. I feel sad about the dying chicks.

That cup of Joe that gets us up in the morning to perform our secular duties, it says a lot considering what many of us are forced or coerced to do for a living.

While many attribute coffee’s vice-like hold on their physiology to its caffeine content, there is much more going on than a fixation on a stimulant. Its been known for over a quarter of a century that coffee contains a compound with powerful opiate-like properties and which is found within both caffeinated and decaffeinated forms. The average cup of coffee contains five times the amount needed for what is known as the half maximal effective concentration (ED50), which is a measure of a drug’s potency indicating a response halfway between the baseline and maximum. The ‘narcotic’ properties of coffee are no doubt due to a complex interplay between a wide range of compounds, but at least one compound has been identified that is responsible for increasing the release of our own opioids within the body: namely, cafestrol, a diterprene found within the oil of coffee, known to have potent pain-killing properties.

Coffee is also a ‘brain-booster’ and contains a compound called trigonelline which both stimulates the release of dopamine (not unlike cocaine), and stimulates neurite outgrowth, which involves the extension of dendrites and axons in neurons and which may compensate and rescue damaged neuronal networks in the aging brain. One of the greatest nutrition philosophers of all time, Rudolf Hauschka, described coffee’s affect on our body-mind as follows:

Coffee makes us more aware of our bodily structure. And since this structure is so wise and logical, our thoughts become logical in their awareness of it. Coffee thus helps thinking to find a firm foundation. The connection between bodily being and thinking, keeps calling itself to our attention. Coffee has the same effect on digestion that thought has on our upper man, i.e., a properly ordered metabolism goes hand in hand with orderly thinking. Both are founded on a properly ordered physical structure.”  Rudolf Hauschka, Nutrition: A Holistic Approach

Coffee is also one of the only sources of “bitters” remaining in the sweet-fixated Western diet, which sadly comes with a certificate of guarantee that the bearer will likely develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease or cancer at some point in their life. Could the extreme bitterness of coffee be the reason why it has been repeatedly shown to reduce type 2 diabetes risk, as it is one of the only ways we can balance out the highly inappropriate excesses of carbohydrate in our modern dietary configuration? We don’t normally think of grains as sweet, but they are on the glycemic index. Puffed rice, for instance, can make the blood sweeter than white sugar which is why carbs are known as “crouching diabetes, hidden sugar.” Coffee contains a wide range of blood-glucose and insulin sensitizing compounds, making it an ideal complement to a carbohydrate-deranged diet.

40 million Americans are estimated to be chronically ill with sleep disorders. Few people recognise their condition and its cause however. Signs of it are chronic tiredness; needing constant stimulants to keep going during the day; constant falling asleep during work, talks, driving, inability to wake easily in the morning. As sleep plays an equally important part in healthy long life as nutrition and exercise, it is important to assure its quality. If our pattern and quality of sleep is disturbed, we may fail to notice the influence of such drinks as coffee, tea, chocolate and alcohol, all of which disturb sleep.

Coffee grounds: Waste product, something left over from what you have been doing or your way of life and relationship. Sometimes this refers to stuff your body sees as waste to discharge or clear. But it may link directly with what you do to yourself to gain artificial stimulation .

Coffee tipped on you: Could mean someone is  “dumping” on you.

Coffee shop: Meeting of minds and feelings or a time of rest and perhaps review. Being open with someone. Something is being offered – what is it – what feelings or involvement does it ask or give? In some dreams it reflects the satisfaction of a desire and a time of pleasure – coffee and doughnuts.

Drinking coffee: This depends very much on the surrounding atmosphere and events of the dream. It is usually about being sociable and maybe communicative  – but sometimes it shows an attempt to wake up or become alert.

Offering, being offered or sharing coffee: Friendship, intimacy, what you thirst for or desire.

Idioms: coffee talk; wake up and smell the coffee.

Useful Questions and Hints:

The dream of the coffee pot brooder links coffee with the illness of the chicks – what does my dream link coffee with?

What am I feeling in the dream about the coffee?

What are the surrounding feelings and atmosphere?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – The power of Habits