Antlers
Because they are the growth and protective tools of some male herbivores, they may represent conflict between males or protection of the female. The male often links with bold and powerful masculinity and sexuality in a natural and potent form. They can also suggest supernatural power when worn by shaman’s or in initiatory rituals. Also, because they are the sign of a male seeking a mate they might be linked with power over nature and fertility.n also be seen as a wall trophy of the hunt for a woman – or just as a sign of male prowess. They are also a sharp and defensive weapon, either against other males or to herd females.
The following dream by a woman is obviously about her feelings about mating.
Example: The three of us were on our way to a lively night out and I suggested a short cut through Richmond Park. Suddenly this old man stepped out and advised us not to do so as stags were rutting. I thanked him and replied they would be too busy to care about us. As we walked through, trying to ignore the fact the stags seemed to be stuck together, we felt relieved. Suddenly an enormously big stag with tremendous horns and a leering and vicious expression came swaying toward us after breaking free of a female deer. Jasmine C.”
“In the Trois Freres cave in France, a man wrapped in an animal hide is playing a primitive flute as if he meant to put a spell on the animals. In the same cave, there is a dancing human being, with antlers, a horse’s head, and bear’s paws. This figure, dominating a medley of several hundred animals, is unquestionably ‘The Lord of the Animals.’
The further back we go in time, or the more primitive and closer to nature the society is, the more literally such titles must be taken. A primitive chief is not only disguised as the animal; when he appears at initiation rites in – full animal disguise – he feels himself as the animal. Still more, he is an animal spirit. At such moments he incorporates or represents the ancestor of the tribe and the clan, and therefore the primal god himself. He represents, and is, the “totem” animal. Thus, we probably should not go far wrong in seeing in the figure of the dancing animal-man in the Trois Freres cave a kind of chief who has been transformed by his disguise into an animal demon”. Quoted from Man and His Symbols by Jung. See Mammal Brain; ShapeShifter.
The following dream is about a woman seeking the spirit of manhood to carry her off.
You helped me a bit with my dream. In my dream I was in a forest, and in front of me was a herd of deer. They all ran away except for a single stag. Suddenly I was beside it, and in my head, I asked if he wanted me to ride him. I saw his eyes and then climbed on his back. As soon as I grabbed on to his antlers, he ran off with me.
The next dream is an encounter with the energy we have within us that is our inner animal. But it is communicating you must not go this way until your personality dies. Death is a part of initiation because the usual human person cannot open to the enormous world of the unconscious because they are frightened of it, and so have to let themselves completely enter their inner world to become a different person.
I dreamed that I was driving my car on the highway and I saw a huge moose on the road. So, I stopped, hoping the moose would move. Then all of a sudden, the moose charged at me (at this moment I thought: I’m going to die), then the moose charged right through my windshield with its antlers. I went flying back with glass exploding everywhere, and then I woke up.
The next dream is an example of this death and its transformation.
There was another big hill, but this one was covered with vines, grass, and tree bark maybe half a foot deep. I was watching a bunch of elk with weird antlers eating when I noticed a big ball of fog roll in. It was at the bottom of the hill, which was connected to the ocean. The fog turned into what looked like dandelion seeds and they multiplied by the thousands until it was a solid, floating mass that not even air could fit between. It started spreading toward me, so I tried to run up the hill. I couldn’t, though, because of all the forest debris in the way…it was like quicksand. Then some seeds got into my lungs, populated, and suffocated me. Then I died and somehow transformed into an elk and started eating grass.
The following is an attempted interpretation.
The ocean is that from which our life has sprung, and so it is the source of the enormous urge to promulgate. I see the dream as a way of illustrating your desire to attain and to meet with the extraordinary urge to promulgate, to populate. But the urge is not just to procreate with a child but to express your essence and make it real in the world. When you realised the cloud was too much for you to deal with you tried to climb above it, but the bark was in the way. I see the debris as all the thinking and words you have collected and are bogged down by. Like words they are lifeless protective things that fall away. You tried to grow or rise by thinking or trying too hard.
But then you died – you no longer expressed your ego -because the seeds suffocated you. The path you are trying to walk is up the hill toward a greater awareness. But death is a necessary part of that. Your personality that has been raised on words and thinking has to die to make way for growth. This type of death is like the spider that sheds its skin because it has grown too tight. So, death is like recognition that we have grown as far as we can in our present mind state. That mind state has to die to give birth to another one.
And then you meet and become your totem animal. This is very much a Native American dream theme, and according to tradition it means Moose represents self-esteem and is also about the magick of life and death. Late autumn and early winter is moose’s cycle of power.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are the qualities of the deer in your dream?
Does it link in any way with a feeling of entering the magical realm of nature or the unknown?
Are you feeling about it as you would with a female?
If a stag, are there symbols linking it with sexuality, such as its horns or its attraction to you?
If you use Talking As it may help you discover the natural part of you.
Comments
My daughter dreamt that we met a stag with regal antlers and that it willingly let me (her mother) saw one of them off – we can’t make any sense of this dream. Can you interpret?
I just had a dream that a woman was walking away from me and I took her antler off her head. It just pulled off really easily and I put it on my head. She was upset with me, and I felt badly but did not offer it back. Any thoughts?
I dreamed I was at home and there was a lower outage. I looked in the kitchen and panicked as I saw this light illuminate and come closet to me before disappearing and starting again. This time panicking I followed it with my eyes. It stopped on a pair of glowing moose antlers sitting on a coffee table? next to me and realized that the light was somehow coming from the antlers. Then I woke up
Also. Everything else I saw in my dream items wise are what we have in the kitchen. However, the antlers and coffee table don’t actually exist
Last night I dreamt that I pushed my upper left tooth out with my tongue and it turned into an oyster, then a pretty piece of a gray antler in my hands. I was laughing and smiling and thought myself rather beautiful in the dream even with a missing tooth. In the dream I thought it made me more beautiful. Please explain.
I had a dream walking into some woods. A man was there and had big antlers on. He was friendly and kind. Something fierce laid underneath that when I looked in his eyes. But it wasn’t something I feared. After a few months go by I am falling in love with this guy. He is wonderful and witty. We would love to go into the woods. Something happens, I don’t tell him but he knows. He is happy I can tell.
Hi – The answers I give arise not out of me thinking up things to say, but from fifty years of exploring dreams in depth. So some of what I write may seem wild. This may be because dreams arise and are experienced by a level of your mind or awareness that very few people have any concept or experience of – usually called the unconscious. So their view of dreams arise from their thinking mind, a very different creature than the thing giving you Life. Life dreamt millions of years before even humankind awoke and developed self awareness – a very young and precocious child. So I try to describe what takes place in the deeps of you.
But it would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.
Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonor http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/
Tony
GA – The fierce underlay was in you too, otherwise you would have felt frightened. Also the antlers represent his oneness with the animals, that I guess you too feel.
You are falling in love with your real soul mate – your other half because we are all dual creatures. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/ and also http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/
I dreamt of for bucks, 2 does and a fawn walking towards me as I opened a window to a home to look at them, there was snow that covered the ground, as soon as I opened the window the fawn climbed in the window and I fed the does grains from my hand. The Bucks had huge antlers and were calm until someone in unaware of made noise behind me and scared them off and then I helped the fawn out the window to catch up with its pack. I remember saying to run away, go catch up with your family!
A huge stag charged at me and I wrestled it to the ground and stole it’s antlers. Each one was as big as a tree, I paraded the antlers around and for some reason decided I didn’t want them anymore. So I went off into the woods and offered the stag it’s antlers back. I placed them upon his head and he disappeared back into the woods. Then I crossed over a creak as I left and flew away.
I had a vision in a dream of a pair of moose antlers made of light flying like a space ship ascending.
Thoughts?
Dear Jennifer – Because you wrote “I had a vision in a dream” I understand that there is more to this than what you shared with us.
Without knowing the context in which your vision appeared in your dream, your feelings when you saw the antlers and knowing anything about your waking life situation, it is difficult for me to understand this symbol.
To quote from “Ascending” in the Dream Dictionary:
In many past cultural traditions ascent was associated with purification or refinement – as in the ascent to heaven, or a holy mountain. It also suggested becoming more detached, or finding a different perspective. We could see it also as evolution of ourselves to a newer level. Because we often move to a wider view of things, becoming more aware of our situation or surroundings as we get higher, ascending is often linked with change, and perhaps leaving things behind, the dropping away of what occupied you below. It can also be an attempt to remove yourself from the difficulties or experiences of the world – there may be a link with losing touch with reality.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/altered-states-of-consciousness/
To explore your dream(s) and your vision you can use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
Anna 🙂
Please help..dreamed the world was in chaos..then i realized it was because a boy with deer antlers felt unloved..he must have had the powers to create this apocalyptic place..I hugged him and kept saying..sorry for the way they treat u cuz ur different. I didn’t see u,but I love u unconditionally. Then I woke up…today I saw this exact boy on a metro train promoting movie called “the boy”. Freaked out..what does this mean?
Tracy haus – I see a wonderful dream in which you open up to your inner “antler boy”.
First of all I like you to understand that dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships.
You become aware that your natural and powerful masculine feelings or urges can turn against you – create a chaos in your inner world – when you are not aware of them. (“I didn’t see u”)
With awareness and unconditional love for these aspects, you can learn to manage these feelings and urges and create a more harmonious inner life and become more whole.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/integration-meeting-oneself/
Often we walk around in our (inner) world without much awareness and so without much love and appreciation of who and what we are beneath the surface.
“sorry for the way they treat u cuz ur different”. I think it serves a purpose to explore if “they” (which are certain aspects of you) have a problem with looking at those unknown, unconscious parts that are not in accord with “the inner picture” you have of yourself.
The shadow – that what is unconscious and so those aspects we do not see like you did not see you antler boy – develops in us, according to Jolande Jacobi, because as we grow and absorb our culture, we naturally repress parts of our nature as they are not acceptable to parents or society. These grow and mature in just the way our conscious personality does, through experience and further information – except the shadow has a life under the surface like any socially unacceptable organisation, criminal activity or individual. But often it is the functions or instincts in us that date from prehistory, when present day social and sexual restraints did not have survival value, that make up a large part of the shadow.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-archetype-of-the-shadow/
I like to think that you as a person must have seen this picture of the movie “the boy” before, but without truly noticing it. Your unconscious mind did notice it, for it is much more aware than you are and so it is a great help to you, as it is to all of us.
Your awareness was “stretched” through your dream and now you did SEE the antler boy in your waking life as well and I see that as a sign that you moved beyond “I didn’t see u”.
I would not freak out because of that, but merely see the humour in your own approach.
This approach is also called synchronicity and so please also read http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/coincidence-or-synchronicity/
Anna 🙂
It was nighttime but there was orange light coming from the porch of the trailer that stood in front of me. I remember hearing a noise, looked up, and saw a young man on the roof covered in ancient looking tattoos with deer antlers growing out of his head. He jumped down and began to circle me, as if stalking prey. I remember asking him what kind of creature he was, to which he simply smiled. All of his teeth were sharp and pointed, yet I wasn’t afraid. Just intrigued.
I was walking on a strange pathway through the woods, I remember being shown antlers laying on the ground on both sides of pathway. The antlers rested against these trees on the ground,each one placed upright and faced forward. I remember walking past these antlers on either side of path until I was felt drawn off this path. I wondered around for a while, then came across a tree where this enormous antler was resting. I didnt understand what I was seeing at first, someone at my side throughout the dream, talking about this one antler in particular. The only thing I can remember is him saying, “look up”…(he points up). The tree was no longer there but it was as if the antlers became the tree…resembling roots growing upward toward the sky as far as my eyes could see…I playfully reached for the horns to climb up to the top only to wake up….wierd dream.
I had a similar dream. I was walking down a path that a farmer would use for his tractors and it ran through the woods. I knew where i was even though the landscape was different. I was walking along the path and i began to look around. First i saw a skeleton of a doe, then i saw deer skulls. There were a couple of skulls, rib cages, and other bones (like leg bones). I went over to investigate, wondering why there were so many dead deer bodies. Then i saw antlers, BIG antlers. They were scattered all around. I was going to reach for one when my younger sister said “don’t take to many.” Suddenly i thought of a story if a man who died because he was disrespectful to the woods and took to much from it. So i wondered around looking for some big antlers. I decided to take 3 so that my 2 little sisters and i could each have one. I took 2 big antlers and was looking for another one when i thought of that story about the man so i took a small one. So i walked out of the woods with my sisters, 2 (i think that they were) fallow deer antlers, and another antler that looked like a water buffalo horn. I was excited and wanted to show my dad. Before i could make it back to my house the dream ended. I have no idea what it means.
Alexis – The walk into the wood is an entrance into the magic of your own inner life. It is a world deep within you that is all the past experiences of nature and animals we have all passed through in becoming human. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/
It is part of you that is the background an deep feelings underlying your waking life. It is a place of life and death – thus the many bones. But if you respect this important part of you it will honour your life. See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/jesse-watkins-experience-of-enlightenment/
Tony