Eat Eating

Satisfying one’s needs or ‘hunger’. This can be any area of need, such as emotional, mental, sexual, depending on dream context. To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.

Occasionally a dream about eating shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies.

Eating is also taking something in you that needs to be digested. This is mostly about our life experiences, but can of course sometimes relate to food. See digest

If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family – ie we all evolved from single celled creature and gradually developed different bodies so we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we do it might be questionable.

It is a deep seated urge to eat, but often our dream self expresses it as a great hunger for life experience – all manner of experience, not just the frothy ‘enjoying oneself’ sort. Instead of running or avoiding things, even scary things. take them into you. This is like eating; you take something in and it becomes you. This is because we project all things outside of us in dreams, and to some extent we lose the energy they would otherwise give us. So accept that every part of your dreams is an expression of some part of you. So taking it into you makes you stronger and more capable. See example under alligator.

Example: With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

Here the dreamer’s emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life.

Example: ‘I am putting four of our puppies under the grill and cooking them.’ Maureen. LBC.

Although Maureen hasn’t eaten her puppies yet, her dream illustrates how food is used to represent emotional needs. Maureen is childless, has a lot of mother love, planned the pregnancy of her bitch, and gets enormous satisfaction from rearing the puppies. She is literally hungry for the exchange of love and care she finds in dealing with her puppies.

Example: A male friend of mind had finally come back from his vacation and I was flirting with him and he turned me down. We were eating pancakes outside. I remember leaving the table and the pancakes no longer hungry. Then I came back wanting to eat the pancakes again. Then I got in my car and drove for a long period of time.

In the above dream the hunger is for a loving relationship, but when she is turned down she loses her hunger, but regains it and regains her drive.

Here is a completely different view of eating:

“I had prepared some food to eat later. When I ate it I experienced the most wonderful awareness of hunger and absorbing, not just the oats, nuts and seeds, but also the environment, and all that I had learned and taken in from Jacqueline. I mean by this the total environment, earth, air, water, culture, history, people. I felt like a hungry animal, cramming food in my mouth, loving it, and knowing I was feeding Life as well as myself.

I felt that if we have the courage, we are a firmament of experience. By exposing ourselves to experience, and allowing ourselves to really feel the pleasure, the torment, the passion of what we meet, we are feeding the essence of our being, Life itself.. But we are more than a mouth, we are also a way of gaining insight, of integrating experience, and that is the real food of for our essence.

I felt this is the real human work on the planet – consciousness, integrative sentience. This, I felt, is certainly my work, my function. It is to feel, to experience, to cry, to laugh and certainly to love. But in the midst of all that, to connect, to learn, to ask why or what, to gain insight and knowledge even if that is a struggle.

Life, places are situations where we can feed. Life says, “Take this in! Take this in! Experience, feel, ferment. Then show it to me. You are my digestive organ.”

Humans are the body of Life. So each of us has a fundamental function we can perform in the body of life. The brain, the nervous system, the mouth, the digestive organs, the muscles. But if you will not perform your function; if you are so shot full of being something just for your own ego or needs, then you forget you are part of this super organism – this massive body of Life. Then you have lost something wonderful. You have lost your place in the scheme of things. But if you will not feel your emotions, your fears, your passions; if you will not get mixed up in the dirt and splendour of life, then you are not really alive. You are not a part of the consciousness of Life”.

Occasionally: Shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies. Also: To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.

To not eat: Shows a conflict with the physical reality of one’s body and its needs; an avoidance of growth or change; an attempt to be isolated from others, reality, the whole.

Avoiding certain foods: Expression of decision making in dealing with needs; food allergy.

Fasting: Withdrawal or turning away from natural urges. Or learning a different relationship with the instinctive forces. Not taking in what society, the world is offering.

Giving food to others: Giving of oneself to others, or nurturing some aspect of oneself.

Eating objects or repulsive food: Meeting objectionable experiences; trying to ‘stomach’ things which make you ‘sick’.

Example: ‘I ran into a house and came face to face with a huge stag. I noted the open back door, whereupon he started eating my leg. I was pushing against his horns and managed to stop him chewing me.’ Jasmine C.

Being eaten: The first part of Jasmine’s dream, not quoted, is obviously sexual. Being eaten therefore suggests she is being consumed by her sexual drive. Being eaten, especially if it is the face, also shows how our identity, or her fragile sense of self, is feeling attacked by emotions or fears, other people, or internal drives. The classic story of Jonah illustrates this, and shows how the conscious personality needs to develop a working relationship with the unconscious.

Eaten by dogs or maggots: Feelings about death. See Individuation

Eating an animal: Integrating our natural wisdom and energy; absorbing strength from sources other than or conscious personality; sensual pleasure and nutrition.

Eating clothes: Trying to digest feeling about your social image – how you appear to others, or how you feel you appear to others. There is a big difference between the two. It might also suggest having a hard time enjoying your life situation or even your own self-image.

Idioms: Eaten away; eat dirt; eat humble pie; eat like a horse; eat one’s heart out; eat one’s words; eat out of one’s hand; eat out of house and home; what’s eating you?; proof of the pudding is in the eating; dog eat dog. See: food.

Useful questions:

What am I eating and what does the dream situation suggest about this?

Is this saying something about my needs?

Is there any hint of this indicating nutritional needs or allergies?

See Levels of Awareness – Levels of the Brain – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams