Cul-de-sac

The cul-de-sac means you feel or fear there is no way ahead in your present direction, or no way out of a present situation or relationship; or at least, no way to develop it further. Don’t forget this only reflects a feeling, and not a situation cast in stone. Shift the way you feel, look at it from a different standpoint, and the thing can change. See: Secrets of Power Dreaming.

This has definite sexual implications, usually representing the inside of a woman’s legs. A door at the far end is the vagina. If there is a sexual element in your dream, then it may also indicate guilt, or a sexual experience that has no future. There is another aspect of cul-de-sac expressed in this next dream – the materialistic view of life.

Since being a young child I have dreamt I was in a cul-de sac, with a Punch and Judy show at its entrance. A skull lives in the P&J show and if anyone tries to leave the cul-de-sac the skull goes into the house to prevent them leaving. What does this mean?  Fiona.

In this dream a cul-de-sac is way of saying a ‘dead’ end. Death is the subject of this dream, as shown by the skull hiding in the show – of life. This is a view of life many of us are given as  children, and do not shake off – that life is a dead end, leading to nowhere but the grave.  This attitude may cause us to avoid full participation in life because life offers only a conflict in which every one is eventually killed. The crocodile gets us all.  In nature nothing exists that does not carry forward what existed in the past, even at a physical level.

Another example of cul-de-sac is given in this dream. It was dreamt by a man who having read Freud’s idea that we want to sleep with our parent thought it was totally ridiculous.

Dreamt I run away from police into a cul-de-sac. It is night and I cannot see a thing. I feel my way to a door, and knock. An old woman of about 60 comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and embrace her sexually. Then she is naked and I feel her cold flesh against mine and I have intercourse with her. As I do so, she moans in apprehension and pleasure. I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good. When she’s back upstairs, she notices the window is open, and a strong wind blows the curtains apart. This terrifies her into feelings of guilt and shame, and she makes me hide behind the bed while she tries to close the window. She leans out of the window to push her neighbour’s curtains back also, and falls to her death. I then wander in gardens outside.

This is a description of the whole Oedipus complex as stated by Freud. The older woman represent the mother.

Useful questions:

What dead end in life am I moving in and perhaps not recognising?

What leads me or directs me into the dream cul-de-sac and what can I understand from that?

What does the dream drama say about this – i.e. is there a way out, and what am I learning?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions