But Vanessa - If I would really help you to understand your dream I would have to re-educate you.
So first I would say that you are so out of touch with who you are. Think of the time in your mother’s womb when at first you were just cells dividing themselves - a sort of vegetable. Then you took the next step in your evolution in forming the beginnings of a spinal column.
Creatures still lived and survived because of the development of their nervous system, what we call the spinal cord. But even prior to that development, single and multi-cellular creatures responded to their environment, sought food, and reproduced. Their behavioural responses were very limited, but that was simply because their physiology had not developed complexity. Considering that we are – you and I – the surviving cells of those earliest creatures, we can see the potential innate in them is now expressed as our own complexity and enlarged behavioural repertoire.
But then our forming body then took another step in evolution and moved into a body with gills like a fish - remember that at the time we were immersed in water. That was the beginning of a reptilian phase, which became our reptilian brain which each of us have and is still an important part of yourself.
This is sometimes called the ‘R-complex’, and includes the brain stem and the cerebellum. It carries our genetically transmitted ‘instinctive’ behaviour such as suckling at the breast as a baby, aggressive response as with and including territorial defensiveness, the courtship and mating behaviours in reproduction. One of the best known expressions of this brain is the ‘flight, fight or freeze’ response in survival situations.
This brain deal with behaviour that is either innate, as described above, is learned and has become habitual, or is a conditioned response. If it is habitual we can repeat it without having to learn it or be very aware of how we do it – as with riding a bicycle or driving a car once we have mastered the skill.
The ‘R’ (reptilian) brain deals with those responses and actions, behaviours and attitudes, that we express without much awareness, or erupt from us because of an external stimulus. It has great strength, but also can lead to powerful anti social behaviour and psychosomatic illness. This is because it links intricately with our unconscious physical and psychological systems and with our self regulatory functions. So it throws into consciousness things that might detract us from a direction, a decisions or a relationship. This might not be rational as far as we are consciously aware, but is nearly always based on past experience that throws up a red danger signal. There are no moral judgements at this level of our awareness. The ‘R’ brain simply gives rise to acts in ways it has learned that enable survival, reproduction and food gathering. In actual lizards it has a limited range of behavioural responses. But the best aspect of the reptile is the alligator crocodile, which cares for its young.
So this is where your dream of the crocodile comes from and because of the next level of our evolution we turn it into the carrier of lives.
And the next level is the mammalian brain. This deals with the skills shown in mammals such as wild dogs and apes. Whereas the lizards do not demonstrate mutual activity in hunting or caring for young, mammals show enormous awareness of bonding, caring for young, group activity, hierarchy and recognition of family and pack. They also have a much bigger pool of behavioural responses and can learn even more.
This ‘brain’ integrates and refines the functions of the reptilian brain. It provides emotional range and intensity, and gives a greater complexity to what motivates or deters us. It is this greater awareness of how we relate to others, and the social structure in which we exist, along with a sense of what place in it we occupy, that enables us to modify and coordinate the impulses arising from the reptilian brain. Here too lie the beginnings of being able to reflect and learn from experience in that way. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/ So not only do we have an active reptile in us but also a mammal brain that precedes our human brain. Of course we are a mammal animal ourselves which many of us try to forget. We also, because we are educated in a language that is a tremendous link with ancient and archaic ways of viewing who we are, leaves us almost completely out of touch with our history as shown in our body. I known many people will say there is no evidence for memory of out development in the womb - but in fact there is, but everyone usually ignores it. But if you wish to see for your self read Stanislav Grof’s book Realms of the Human Unconscious.
But here is a quote from Stanislav Grof’s book:
“Another interesting aspect of these experiences that I found quite unusual was the fact that subjects, when discussing them (their experience of memory in the womb), seemed to avail themselves of specific knowledge of embryology and the physiology of pregnancy that was far superior to their previous education in these areas. They have often accurately described certain characteristics of the heart sounds of the mother and child; the nature of various acoustic phenomena in the peritoneal cavity; specific details of positions, physical features, and behaviour of the foetus; relevant facts about placentary circulation; and even details about exchanges between the maternal and foetal blood in the placentary villi….”
We think in terms of words most of the time and we forget that as mammals we have very long memories which we call instinct, and through using words to think with we give ourselves a good reason to forget it. But dreams if we do not attempt to understand them with words, but instead go deeper into our feelings and the magic our self regulatory process, can begin to discover our fantastic depths. See
http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/Tony
