Hell
Hell in dreams usually refers to your self created misery, perhaps arising out of such things as anger or resentment you cling to, or a sense of being different or unwanted. It may be due to feelings that burn in you, pain from past trauma, or memories of, or feelings connected with, a place or relationship you were deeply unhappy in.
Sometimes people reverse the roles of heaven and hell in dreams. Hell becomes attractive, full of excitement, and Heaven an insipid place. See: Devil.
Hell also represents the projection of your own inner state on to the world. If you are hateful, then the world also seems hateful; if you are depressed, the world appears depressing. In the unconscious, where the state of mind actually produces the surroundings, as in dreams, through your state of mind and feeling you literally create your own heaven or hell.
If threatening: Emotions, anxieties of which one is fearful; ones self created misery, perhaps arising out of such things as anger or resentment we cling to, or a sense of being different or unwanted; feelings which burn in us; pain from past trauma; memories of, or feelings connected with, a place or relationship we were deeply unhappy in.
People who have suffered birth trauma often dream of this as hell. Sometimes people reverse the roles of heaven and hell. Hell becomes attractive, full of excitement. Heaven an insipid place. See: devil under archetypes; mention of heaven and hell in spiritual life in dreams
Example: I then went into the telephone box and tried to make the call to reconnect, again another shock there was nobody to connect with, again the realisation that I was an orphan, another great wave of emotion tore me apart. I then turned toward the dogs as they came at me, I began to feel the sickness that I have always experienced in sessions but I just shrugged and let the feeling wash over me, it felt like I have always ended up in hell by that route, and I realised afterwards that hell is hell and will never be anything else. I felt that there was some thing deeper and so I kept to a centre line, again there was no feeling and so I turned toward the god dream that I had when Rob was here. The look of total love for me in God’s eyes gave me the strength to trust my own process.
Here is a dream experienced after a friend Kevin’s death from lung cancer.
Example: Suddenly it was as if Kevin was with me, talking with me. He seemed in one of his pissed off moods. Not badly, but certainly frustrated. He said that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t get home. Being half asleep I started to feel sorry for him. Then I suddenly realised that this was Kevin and he was dead, and not being able to get home was his life-long problem – at least the feeling of it – because he had been put in an orphanage when a child. So I excitedly told him that his life problem was now his death problem. That because he felt he couldn’t get home, he created this environment for himself now. I tried to help him create a different feeling stance, one from which he could ‘get home’. He began to get the idea, and the scenery gradually changed. He created a walled courtyard, sunny with vines and plants, with an adjoining house. The house had a room with a huge window overlooking a view of the sea.
But that is a frightening realisation too. For it brings us to the realisation that nobody else creates the hell or heaven we experience life to be. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in what we create of ourselves. Whatever we think or feel, even in the depths of our being, becomes a material fact of experience in our inner life. It is almost certainly this inner universe that religion speaks of as heaven or hell. Finding some degree of direction, mastery or harmony within this world of our own being, is the great work of human life.
Idioms: a hell of a time; a snowball’s chance in hell; all hell broke loose; all over hell’s half acre; catch hell; come hell or high water; get hell; give you hell; go to hell; go to hell in a handbasket; haven’t got a hope in hell; hell bent for election; hell of a time; hell to pay; hell’s bells; like a bat out of hell; like hell; one hell of a time; raise hell; the road to hell is paved with good intentions; sure as hell; the hell you say; till hell freezes over; to hell and gone; to hell with that; what the hell
Useful Questions and Hints:
What was the cause of the anguish, and could you get beyond the surface feeling?
Was there an event which triggered it, or so are there any clues to it?
If I am helpless can I open myself to admitting that my life has become unmanageable, and from that can I believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity if I surrender to it. (From the 12 steps of AA).