Elephant
Although the elephant is much like any other animal in your dreams, it tends to represent the power and influence of the potent forces active in your body and mind, that if you relate to well bring about health and success, and if badly illness and ruin. For example the elephant can refer to the powerful responses in us such as fear, sex, survival, and the power of imagination to evoke great anxiety or great pleasure. Often our personality evokes these forces in a destructive and disorderly way. A person may have read an article about cancer for instance and develop a great fear they have the disease, causing much stress and actual physical illness in some degree.
So some elephant dreams revolve around how we relate to this power, and the attempt of the elephant to place us on its back to direct it. So in general it is your potential or energy. Also depicts your big self, or the power of the unconscious and your cosmic, eternal nature. The tremendous inner power of the unconscious, with a mahout, or conscious direction or co-operation can achieve wonderful things. Ganesh, the Indian elephant god, represents the remover of all obstacles, the power of life manifesting. He is the god of good fortune.
So it is the totality of yourself rather than awareness of only the conscious ego. It is what is referred to in Christianity as the ‘spirit’, the influence that can heal or instruct, thus power from our unconscious; strength; unforgiveness from association of long memory; patience; fidelity; intelligence or wisdom of the unconscious. In some ways the elephant has similar qualities to the crocodile in its link with the collective unconscious. The difference is that the elephant does not usually in dreams seek to consume you like the crocodile or alligator. It therefore depicts a relationship with one’s incredible potential that can lead to directing or working with the potent forces of the unconscious. See: alligator.
If we run from the elephant: Being afraid of our own strength or inner power. The question is, can we meet this enormous energy in ourselves enough to direct it? Sometimes represents the collective unconscious.
Elephant’s trunk: Sometimes a sexual symbol, the penis. As such it is usually referring to how your sexual feelings are being influenced by the great spirit of Life acting on you – the cosmic power of the spirit. Also the trunk illustrates the ability to get or reach out for ones own needs – see example below.
Example: During an experience arising from the use of psilocybin, I had a very clear mental image of a baby elephant. It was like a bas-relief made out of clay, but mobile. I could see that the baby elephant had some problem with its trunk, and I wondered why my unconscious had produced this image so clearly and what it meant. Immediately the image disappeared and a series of associations arose unbidden. It was that the elephant actually ate with its mouth, but it had to reach out for everything with its trunk. As a baby the elephant would suckle, but as it matured it would have to learn to get its own needs with its trunk, therefore the problem was about me reaching out for my own needs. Danny.
Example: The I experienced the elephant as a powerful force which I intuitively sense and feel some anxiety about. I felt the elephant as a powerful influence which works below the level of normal consciousness, which acts upon masses, although it obviously influences individuals. But it influences individuals unconsciously, so they are inclined in a direction along with many others. As it enters my life I sense it seems to be an influence which might direct me into a communion with this deeper, more inclusive or integrative influence. Thus my personal activities might have added to them this influence which co-ordinates the processes of life, and adds to ones small endeavours the stamp or power of a grander life – the spirit. The life of the spirit I sensed here as the ‘company’ where I was accepted as a worker in this wider organisation behind life.
Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it. AT.
Example: I looked out of a window and noticed a wild elephant in full charge. It ran past the end of the building and I went to the opposite window, seeing it charge another elephant. After the impact it seemed to be a strange mixture, in my mind, of elephant and rhinoceros. It then stood shaking with sexual motions, until a great deal of sperm came out and its tension was released. AT.
The above two examples illustrate firstly the enormous power of the elephant and how it is not usually an attacking or destructive power, and in the second example it shows the link between that power and the sexual drive.
Idioms: White elephant; pink elephants; rogue elephant. See: the self under archetypes.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If I imagine myself as the elephant what do I experience?
What powerful influence am I meeting or directing at the moment?
Am I aware in any way of the enormous impact the collective power of society and my own unconscious has on me?
What is my relationship with the elephant and what does this depict in my life?
See Do you imagine that is a real creature – Avoid Being Victims – You are the Projector
Comments
Dear Sir ,
today i saw female elephant had delivered five baby elephant in which one is big and other is normal and iam loving them. please give its meaning.
Hi Tony, will be grateful if you could tell me what this dream means: Riding an elephant, sitting near its head, going through a forest and seeing all kinds of animals (even dangerous animals but they are no threat at all), point them out to a few people with me, then going uphill on rocky terrain, elephant charges, at first am worried I’ll fall off, but then comfortable….finally put my hand in the elephan’t’s mouth but he’s like a pet and doesn’t hurt me….
Dear Tony,
I dreamed that there was a large elephant in the room (it was grayish in color). It was seated at first. I was standing before the elephant and it raised its trunk. I spoke into the trunk what I wanted and the elephant stood up and “defecated” and that which I had asked for materialized right before my eyes. The elephant then slowly moved into another room where I saw other people gathered. As the elephant passed them the things they wanted also materialized before them. This is where the dream ended.
Hi, I would like to know about my dream. I dreamt that a white Elephant stormed me, In some way I got away.
a few minutes later, I was giving water to other elephants but was looking over my shoulder for the white elephant that attacked me.
When I saw the white elephant he was relaxed and lying on grass. I was still scared of the elephant and tried to avoid it.
Do you know what this might mean?
Hi Tony,
today i have seen a dream where i saw , i was going some where in between i saw 2 elephant one is about deliver a baby , it was standing near by water(clear , blue colored water). one or 2 person is looking to the pregnant elephant, then i went away. after some time i saw two baby elephant ,one is little big and another very small , both are black, the small one very cute.i said myself it must the kids of that elephant i saw earliar.
Then the little cute elephant started coming with me, when i reached office it too came along by , it is holding my shall(dupetta) end, and laughing at me very innocently.
What it mean, I saw it around 5.45-6.00 Am
Hazrana – A lovely dream. I think you must have felt recently that something good was coming to you. I say this because the pregnant elephant gave birth. The elephant is a sign of great inner strength in you that has given birth a new strength. And the baby elephant is now your friend and will grow and be with you all your life.
Sometimes such a dream might signify a great pregnancy – a child with great potential.
Tony
Hi Tony
I see myself in a dream roaming around my old house in a street. Suddenly big elephants are passing with trunk up. I see like 10-12 of them all with trunk up passsing by me. Also i see a big giant dog very furious watching me while i was walking in the street nd then these elephants paas the dog and me it looks like they will fight but they dont after that i see no dog only elephants passing by.. Please advice what does that means .. Thanks & regards amit
Hello Tony. I had a dream last night that I owned a tiny elephant about the size of my 30 lbs dog. I had just brought it home and my dogs were excited, barking and jumping around it. The elephant was scared and started to lift up I guess in order to protect itself. I felt afraid for my elephant and afraid of my elephant at the same time. I felt like I have know clue what to do with this elephant but my final feeling was that I wanted it to feel safe. So I picked it up and soothed it and carried it away from my dogs.
I dreamt of a baby pink elephant, I was holding the pink baby elephant in my arms and i saying to my self o look how cute it is?
Evelyn – you baby elephant suggests that you are nursing and caring for a wonderful power that can grow in you. It is the power of tender love.
Tony
Hi, I had a dream that i was inside a newly built house, with my friends, that time seven elephants tries to come inside the house, we all run to save ourselves inside rooms and locked. Fresh water flows all over that house. After long time six elephants alone goes off, but one elephant waiting outside for us to come out… wht does it mean…
I just woke up from my dream- I was in a school-like environment, chilling outside, when all of a sudden a HUGE, TALL elephant on a rampage ran toward us and it struck such terrible horror in everyone!! We started screaming and running away trying to not get stomped on.. and I thought was pretty good at getting away very quickly but no! The elephant squashed me and killed me, but I respawned. I don’t remember anything after that. I never felt that much fear in a dream before.
Faith – When you dream you must remember that all you are dealing with are your emotions covered in images. Like a computer game nothing can hurt you or kill you. See – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us/#Reflect
So your dream was about facing fear and death. But what you really are facing is your feelings about what death is. And such feelings are usually illusions. The huge elephant is showing you that you are meeting the power of Life. But because we are so small and do not believe that there is anything other than us, it frightens you.
So the power of Life created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.
It is important to say that when a person enters real sleep with a little waking awareness, and either meets the experience of meeting the hugeness of their Life Will, it often feels like something alien or attacking, it is a shock. As we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it with fear or panic.
So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. But otherwise it will continue to haunt us as something that like death, will get you! But it is only our small self image, our ego, that react because it feels powerless, even though in reality the Hugeness is part of our totality.
Tony
I dreamt that I was in my yard, it was now getting dark and I laid on the ground and an elephant laid beside me, i somehow had known it was female, a baby and my best friend, she was grey and had the cutest glassy eyes. i felt really loved by this animal. She was gentle and the atmosphere was calm and cool and as we laid down, she took her trunk and put it over me as if she was hugging me
Ree – You have found peace and love within yourself. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/
I think you have felt or achieved this inner peace by loving and accepting the love of your inner self, your inner instinctive self. The elephant is only a baby at the moment, but if you continue to feel the love it will grow into a wonderful power in your life. You grew from a seed in your mother’s womb, and as it did so took you through the whole process of evolution, through the vegetative phase as cell division, then into the reptilian phase and up to the mammalian. Then you entered the time when you learned the amazing computer like program called language, up until then you were a little animal and you were living in the ‘unconscious’.
So your present self that you call Ree is a very new thing, and rests on the shoulders of a very ancient and beautiful animal. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrain
Tony
i saw a dream in the early morning as follows. there were 2-3 elephants brought for some personal prayers. the 2nd elephant was dragged on four legs attached to the 1st elephant. i was seeing n saying that the dragged elephant will die and eventually after the prayers while coming out of the house it died. after that though the elephants did not scare me, i got scared of the elephants and did not want to go. i felt that it may attack me. after this when i woke up, i woke with heavy heart and uneasy feelings. what does this mean. appreciate your reply. thanks
I had the worst nightmare in years two nights ago. t was the worst came of the sheer horror and powerlessness I felt. It was sort of TV and sort of that I was there (you know how dreams can be), but I heard a ruckus and look down to see a few elephants in a small corral being shot with cannons is a small corral, basically from point blanks range, the people and the cannons were in there too. The Elephant took 2 or three blasts to die and their screams were heart wrenching, I was trying to talk over the screams so my daughter wouldn’t be as traumatized as I was. I felt so helpless, all I could do was hope they died quickly and that I could protect my daughter from seeing it. I couldn’t help cause they were far off, the men were violent and dangerous and all of them had already been hit once with mortal wounds but the time I saw what was going on. I felt so bad all morning. I guess I am looking for a meaning to that dream… I wonder if the elephants represented earth, the power of nature, etc. I have been mourning the death of nature lately….well much of my life.
Soni – First of all nightmares are a healing process. Their aim is to face you with the awful emotions of a trauma and shock, probably from childhood. If you meet them as your own feelings and do not think they are about other people it will help.
You say you have for much of your life you have mourned the death of nature. Well that is what the elephants depict. But instead of calling it nature you might think of it as LIFE. For at some time you had an experience that led to the feelings you had in the nightmare. If instead of seeing the images of the dream you hold the memory of the feelings and trace it back in you until you find the source it will explain the dream to you.
The elephants are usually representing the massive inner power we have, and in some way the access to that power has been murdered in you. Fortunately nothing can ever be hurt or die in our inner world of dreams. So please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us/#Victims also – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
Tony
Last night I drempt I found a baby elephant the size of a 30 pound dog and I quickly possesed the animal as my new pet. While walking the elephant we came across 2 giant elephants, whom I assumed were the parents. In fear of being stompped, I ran away from the baby elephant to a small white house for protection. I was running in knee high snow which created slow movement and great anxiety. The larger elephants made no attempt to harm me and eventually left. Upon doing so, the baby elephant cried in fear of being abandoned. I felt sad for the baby elephant and embarassed for my cowardness. I ran to her, looked into her eyes and promised never to leave her again, while petting her. Her eyese were full of comfort and I want to also say empathy. We continued our walk and went to my grandmothers house, which I haven’t been to in 30 years and in my dream the house was in a condemened status. Later we went to my house and I carried her upstairs and we took a nap with my husband in our bed. She cuddled with me and wrapped her trunk around my husband. During this time I was conforted but I was concerned with what I was going to do when she got too big to go up the stairs and I feared I’d have to donate her to the zoo. When I woke up I was sad the elephant was not there. This dream has been troubling me all day.
Hi tony,i had a dream last night about a procession i was spectating..there were many elephants in the procession among hordes of people..icant recollect but i think the place was sri lanka and it was a hindu festival/ceremony..i saw it for a while but i had this fear that the elephants might snap and go berserk at any moment so i was getting away from the venue in a hurry..wonder what it means..
Saeed – Like so many people who dream of elephants – myself included when I first considered my dreams – we are afraid. But what we are afraid of is our own wonderful inner strength. We are raised to believe in other people, authorities, leaders, doctors and ‘important’ people. But within each of us is a wonder we are born with – it leads us to our destiny.
So do not be afraid of your elephant/strength; even if it attacks you, it is only attacking your old self, your wrong view of what you are that needs to be destroyed. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
Tony