Eyes

This is about How we SEE the world and ourselves. Although eyes are not mentioned much in the collection of dreams used for data in this book, SAW, SEE, SEEING, LOOK and LOOKING, constitute the highest number of mentions. In a computer word count of 1000 dreams, these words were mentioned 1077 times. Feel, feeling, felt, came second with 855 hits. So dreams are predominantly a looking at and seeing activity, in the sense of insight and awareness.

Fundamentally eyes are about awareness – seeing and being seen. These aspects of relating to the world and others have enormous impact in our life. What we see, and how we are seen, leave great depths of feeling. Someone I know of saw his mother kill his father. That image will never ever leave him.

In many dreams the eyes represent our understanding, or how we ‘see’ the world, our view of things or other people. This is very personal. Also, they depict intelligence, our ability to give attention, and where we focus that attention, along with our boundaries of awareness.

Eyes are used in many ways in dreams. As these quotes from people’s dream descriptions show, eyes can represent the soul or psyche in its many moods – ‘dark deep eyes’; ‘desperation in its eyes’; ‘shining eyes’; ‘impersonal eyes’; ‘staring eyes’; ‘eye to eye’. So in most dreams the eyes display the inner feelings or situation of the person or yourself.

Here is another description of eyes that tells so much.

She looked at me quickly. Her eyes were very brown, but quite round. “I was very much in love with somebody, ” she said. Her eyes were wide open looking at me, and her mouth was trying to carry on speaking, but the weight of emotion behind what she wanted to say carried the words to her eyes, where they began to come out as tears.

Blindness: Not being aware, not wanting to see something – usually about oneself.

Eye Lashes: I have only seen a few dreams that mention eye lashed, and these either show a woman’s sense of her own good looks, or the loss of an attractive feature.

Example: This guy in a TV audience is telling how exciting his life is living with this black girl sitting next to him. As he is talking excitedly all this fake hair – side burns, eyebrows, eye lashes, etc. – falls off. She is laughing, embarrassed. He goes on talking without noticing.

Loss of sight or difficulty in right eye: Not seeing what is going on in the outside world.

Loss of sight or difficulty in left eye: Not seeing what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives, behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

Lack of eye contact: Avoidance of intimacy; feeling ashamed or bowed.

Closed eyes: Introversion or avoidance of contact; not wanting to see. It is a huge step into your inner world because you have shut out a major sense organ for sensing the physical world.

In the Sixties Donovan sang a song called ‘There is an Ocean’.  To quote some of the words, he says the ocean is, “The abode of Angels, the mystical Promised Land, The one and only Heaven, the God of man, Is but the closing of an eyelid away.”

That ocean is just an eye blink away.  When you close your eyes you are in the huge ocean of consciousness.  Of course you are never out of it.  But with open eyes and ears, you may be completely unaware of its enormous depths and dimensions.  Even with eyes closed you may be lost in the choppy ocean surface waves of thought and emotions.  So many impressions claim awareness, apparently of enormous importance.  Urges gusting from hormones, from deeply etched habits, claim attention.

But if we you can find your way through those surface influences, as important or potent as they may be, we you discover another dimension of our experience.  It is one we all know when we surrender our desires and thoughts, our conscious motivations and urges in sleep.  Then that other dimension speaks to us in dreams and visions.  And in it there are depths or heights, forms of experience beyond the images and emotions even of dreams.  And to go consciously and willingly into that realm is to transform it.

Hair in eye: This suggests some sort of irritant or irritation connected with what you can see or have seen. If it is the right eye it means something interfering with what is going on in the outside world. If the left eye it is an interference with what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives or behaviour; no ‘in-sight’.

The following example shows how eye contact can change a relationship, as if the eyes are in themselves a form of contact and touching.

Example: ‘ I saw a young soldier with a gun, but as our eyes met we were attracted to each other, and he put his arm round me.’ Pauline B.

Example: ‘I was dimly aware of a biggish black bird that came down close beside us on the step and pecked at the baby’s eye, then it flew off. The eye was gone completely.’ Heather C.

Heather’s dream shows the eye depicting the ‘I’ or identity. In fact her sense of self was damaged in infancy. Therefore ‘eye’ can often be a play on words meaning ‘I’.

Many eyes: This is usually about feeling watched or noticed, often by a god like awareness, either that or an audience or crowd looking at you.

Example: So I stood and watched the bubbles rise, and saw in each one of them an ‘I’, watching me like many eyes – a reflection of me looking back at me. All the lonely bubbles separated from each other, individual I’s, looking at me only because I was looking at them. They existed only because I existed, and knowing that I was their God, suddenly I loved them. Then suddenly, and with some shock I realised that I was a bubble, and only existed because a godlike awareness had caused my existence and was looking at me.

Example: The image was of a smart very confident and aggressive young woman. She was attractive and attracted but her approach was one of attack, so to have a relationship I needed to fight her. What I appear to be facing is that I have the sex drive, but what I am facing is a monster. In fact I had the image of a huge spider that could come out from hiding and drag you helpless into its lair, its many eyes shining.

Opening the eyes: If you have had your eyes closed for a long period, opening them in dreams represent opening them to a new realisation or experience, especially if you woke from sleep. It shows you have woken to new realisations and abilities.

Winking: A wink can suggest a communication that is hidden or only meant for a particular person or group.

Idioms: All eyes; an eye for an eye; apple of his eye; bat an eye; beauty in the eye of; believe my eyes; black eye; bright eyed; catch your eye; can’t you see; cry your eyes out; eyeball this; eagle eyed; evil eye; eye of the storm; eye opener; eyes glazed over; eyes peeled; evil eye; feast your eyes on; fresh pair of eyes; give her the eye; got my eye on; I see; I saw it with my own eyes; sheep eyes; keep an eye open; keep an eye out for; lay eyes on; one in the eye; meet eye to eye; more than meets the eye; out of the corner of my eye; turn a blind eye; keep your eyes open; easy on the eyes; right before my eyes; turn a blind eye; sight for sore eyes; wink of an eye; you must be blind; your mind’s eye.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am ‘seeing’ or understanding in my dream – can I define it?

In what way are eyes shown in this dream, and what idiom or life situation does that suggest?

What feelings or unspoken words are being expressed here?

Try Exploring Dreams -Techniques to useSecrets of Power DreamingProcessing Dreams

 

Comments

-Alejandra 2018-06-11 15:24:14

I dreamed the my 11 year old son had 1 eye closed up and later on just seal off. I didn’t feel bad at the moment but when I woke up I was worried about it.

    -Tony Crisp 2018-06-13 12:52:35

    Alejandra – You have left out important information, I need to know what eye it was – right or left as it is important.

    Also nearly always when people dream about someone they know or a strange new person or situation they automatically believe the dream is about that person, situation, or animal. But it is usually our thoughts or feelings that are portrayed as the person or even the animal; for when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them.

    So what does your son represent? Try using https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson

-Laura Lynne Watson 2018-05-31 15:26:23

I had a dream that I had run off somewhere exclusive with my twin sister. It reminded me much as when we played as kids; the big house had little hallways, short windy staircases & hidden rooms. We made it up to the loft & I could tell we were out in the country. When i saw the sky it looked beautiful so i pulled out my phone to take some photos. My sister sat in front of the window & insisted I take photos of her in front of the window. She looked wuite strange tho, she no longer looked like herself & at this point in the dream I didn’t think I was with her anymore, but someone else. She had freckles scattered everywhere, bleach blond hair, tan skin & her eyes looked strange. Her pupils were very dialated & they were long like how cats pupils take up the iris horizontally. The iris of her eye was white, much whiter than the whites of her eyes but they were almost non existent because of how dialated her eyes were. She kept starring me in the eyes & she asked me if she freaked me out & I moved closer to show her I wasn’t scared. As I got closer I could see her dialated pupils moving, getting larger then slightly smaller.

-Jessica 2018-04-03 0:01:52

I dreamt I was at work at the hospital and a psychic came to visit. The psychic came right up to me and whispered to me that I worry to much about my health. I was relieved with what he said but I felt a sudden urge to ask him a question. He was in a hurry to go so I stopped him in the doorway. I asked if I could just ask him one question and as he turned around I could tell he was annoyed. I said that I have always felt like I should be able to see spirits so why can’t I. He responded by comming up to me and taping my eyes closed and in that moment I began to see gold outlines. I was so happy when I awoke.

    -Tony Crisp 2018-04-04 10:30:11

    Jessica – The dream starts with you working at healing yourself. And that produces the psychic, a part of you, for all the people, animals, places you see in your dreams, are simply your own feelings, fears, hopes and wonder projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind as images. We all have psychic ability, but we are bombarded with information that we being psychic is not possible, or you have to be extraordinary.

    The psychic is obviously part of your abilities – so see https://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/using-your-intuition-1/ – Many of the characters or elements of our dreams act quite contrary to what we consciously wish. This is why we often find it so difficult to believe all aspects of a dream are part of our own psyche. Some drives or areas of self act or express despite what we would want. These are named autonomous complexes. Recent research into brain activity shows that in fact the brain has different layers or strata of activity. These strata often act independently of each other or of conscious will. Sensing them, as one might in a dream, might feel like meeting an opposing will or being possessed by an alien force. Integration with these aspects of self can of course be gained. See https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/ and https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/life-will-and-conscious-will/

-Lisa 2017-06-18 1:44:01

I dreamt I saw my left eye filled with green stuff and something white around my eyeball. I went looking for water and started cleaning my left eye and felt relief as I could see again with it and it was clean from whatever was ailing it. I remembered telling someone I need to go see a doctor to examine it to make sure everything is fine. What does it mean.

-Ann 2017-04-17 15:56:22

I was walking out of what appeared to be an office building, following a woman when all of a sudden as I exited the building it appeared that a blanket was removed from me and I could see.

    -Tony Crisp 2017-04-18 7:01:09

    Ann – What does it feel like exiting an office building? I’m glad that’s over – My God another day done, and it will be the same tomorrow – Thank God its Saturday!

    Anyway, it is a work atmosphere, and the blanket was removed from that view, and you could SEE!

    I believe most of us lived in a world that is so unnatural we are blanketed from realising how much of life we are not seeing. And I am not talking about ‘having fun’ or a ‘good time’. Those are ways we cope with this life. See http://dreamhawk.com/interesting-people/the-weird-and-wonderful-mind-superminds-1/

-Jason 2016-03-05 22:43:40

I woke up and straight away looking for the answer of my dream. two eyes appeared on top of each leg. Two eyes appeared on top of each knee. All eyes were dried and dead. Can anyone help to intepret such dream?this is my 1st time having such weird and spooky dream

-Sam Serghini 2015-12-21 23:36:59

Hello, i hope you guys can help me. I dream a lot, lucid dreams, just dreams, astral travel. It just happens and wont just go away.

Anyway, the thing is. My dead grandmother was flowing me to many doors in random houses and warned me that there was something going on with ‘the eyes’ she also mentioned my mom.. i do not understand anything she was trying to tell me. But i rememher saying her ‘She told me about the eyes, the eyes” i do not understand what she means and im trying to figure it out. Do you guys have any idea

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