Eating

This shows you satisfying your needs, or trying to. Occasionally it refers to what your body needs to eat or avoid eating. If you are the one being eaten, it may suggest you are consumed by some passion, such as sexual desire, or ambition. Eating can also suggest any area of need, such as emotional, mental, sexual, depending on dream context. See: Food.

To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. For life, if you look closely, gives itself to itself; for we are all in the end one substance. 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. The urge to eat is an expression of life itself.

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. So eating here is about taking in the essence of what she loves.

Occasionally: Shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies.

To eat: 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. 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.

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.