Minotaur
The intellect dominated by sexual desires. It probably represent in today’s dreams, the possession by the untamed sexual impulse we see everywhere today.
This is a theme which appears in many cultures or myths connected with the bull. It is of the Hero confronting and overcoming the bull. Lao Tzu for instance found, struggled with and eventually rode the bull, representing the human struggle and victory over instinctive or reactive habitual forces influencing consciousness. Also Theseus saves Ariadne from the Minotaur, suggesting that the conscious self has to meet and transform the instinctive sexual drive, the entangling forces of emotional dependence upon cultural norms, mother and public opinion, to be capable of a mature heterosexual relationship. Theseus, or our active growing self, frees Ariadne, the feminine or intuitive feeling principle. From this a new life can be born or emerge.
Theseus represented the young patriarchal spirit of Athens who had to brave the terrors of the Cretan labyrinth with its monstrous inmate, the Minotaur, which perhaps symbolised the unhealthy decadence of matriarchal Crete. (In all cultures, the labyrinth has the meaning of an entangling and confusing representation of the world of matriarchal consciousness; it can be traversed only by those who are ready for a special initiation into the mysterious world of the collective unconscious.)
“When Theseus saved Ariadne from the Minotaur, he had to make his way through a labyrinth; Perseus cut off Medusa’s head to rescue Andromeda. Both labyrinth and Medusa may be negatively charged symbols of mother. If such an image appears in a hero-rescuing-damsel dream, it may be taken as indicating that the dreamer needs to free himself from an emotional entanglement with – or all-consuming dependence on – his mother. Only then will he be able to let the feminine in himself express itself. (If he doesn’t let it express itself, it will still do so – but in destructive emotional outbursts.)” Quoted from A Dictionary of Dream Symbols by Eric Ackroyd.
See Ox Herding – Super Heroes and Mythical Creatures
Comments
In my dream I was scared and tried to hide many times from a minotaur that was trying to kill me or hurt me, although I kept on running to get away from him and another creature ( I can’t remember), the minotaur would always catch up to me despite the fact that he was just walking. Its not the first time I have a dream like this but its the first time that I have a dream with a minotaur, I’m really confused and I’ve made a lot of research and I can’t figure out the meaning…
Dear Sapphic – Your dream shows you that you cannot run away from yourself – “the minotaur would always catch up to me despite the fact that he was just walking” – and so it will be more helpful to explore a different approach than running and hiding.
What you are actually running for may be feelings that you perceive as difficult to meet.
It may help to ask yourself why you do not want to deal with what is part of your inner world.
Only when you decide to meet what you are running and hiding for, can you figure out the meaning; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
See also http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/clicking-on/
Anna 🙂
I dreamt I was at a christian temple at dusk and there was a minotaur and a black wolf fighting in a field of shrubbery. As I go to sleep one of the deacons tells me the menotaur wishes to serenade me, but he knows not how. My mind wandered on to the next subject, which was still memorable and relatable to the minotaur, but not nearly as inclusive of the being.
Ever since I can remember when I was a little kid, I would dream about being in my house and in the kitchen trying to go to my parents room and I had to walk through the living room to do so. Everytime I i would step foot out of the kitchen and in the living room the house would shake and a black Minotaur would storm out of their room chasing me but when i got to a certain distance it would stop and run back into their room. I’m 25 now and still to this day I have the same dream, not every night but when I do have it, its the same everytime. My parents divorced when i was about 8 or 9 i don’t know if that has anything to do with it but it scares the hell out of me still.
Dear David – I believe your dream keeps recurring, because it needs to be understood and processed, so you can move on to the next “level”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/relationship-sex/ages-of-love-2/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/
Anything moving toward you in a dream – like a Minotaur – usually signifies that you are becoming more aware of it, feeling it more intensely. So being chased in a dream usually denotes that you are feeling something you fear more intensely and are trying to avoid confronting it. This is not usually a good policy, as you can never get away from yourself.
As a young child you have a deep desire to be one with your mother, and these infant emotions, uncensored by social rules and self-consciousness, are enormously powerful.
If you are to integrate the potential energy locked in these areas, you must meet some of the incestuous desires of the child in you and transform them into adult love. Also from the child’s view it is at one with its mother and father, and has no sense of separation from them. This changes as it begins to become independent from its mothers influence. Then there is a longing to be one with her again, a longing for its lost world.
I read a quote once that says; “”What we don’t understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot control…we attack.”
I trust that with some more understanding of what the Minotaur can symbolise, you are ready to meet it while awake without judging or controlling it in any way, because non-judgmental awareness and letting go of control are powerful transformation tools.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
I first struggled with the minotaur in the dream. Then I won over, and he decided to submit. Then we were kind of making off, I kissed his nipple, touched him etc. But I knew that his first intention was to rape me and then kill me. After I won, I knew his intention was to seduce me, make love with me and kill me afterwards. I wasn’t against making love. I’m attracted to men, so the homosexual part is not a problem. A friend, a magician herself, said that this may mean that my body reminds me of my own animal instincts, and that it even asks for meat (I’m vegetarian)… Any ideas?
Thanks a lot,
Sevak
Sevak – You left out a rather important part of the dream, for you wrote “I wasn’t against making love. I’m attracted to men, so the homosexual part is not a problem”.
Is being killed after you have made love not a problem either?
I advise you to explore this dream and there are several ways to do so. Helpful approaches are “being the Minotaur or talking as the Minotaur“, which techniques are – among others -, described in this article:
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
To explore the first idea of your friend you can read
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/instinct/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/
I do not see any connection between this dream and your body asking for meat.
Anna 🙂
Thanks Anna.
Tony,
I really appreciate your response. Your story resonates deeply. I think after thinking about the dream, my waking life and your response, that it has to do with the larger themes of resolving the competing tensions within. Denial, or repression is perhaps what is closest to real evil. I feared the strength of the bull, the untamed virility. But I also am drawn to the life force of the bull. I must be able to use the bull, not be used by it? I must use it to draw out the “better angles of our nature.” Also, have been enjoying your book on lucid dreaming.
cheers, cj
tony,
lately i have been reading about jung’s idea of the shadow. is your parable and your words meant to say that the bull is my shadow? also you stated that sex should not be a game, or repressed, but should be “an opening to the highest in you”. i find this idea to be true and i see it as an important step in the development of my own as well as our collective consciousness. the problem for me is how do you work with the bull, and use it to open deeper energies when the forces seem too strong to control or direct. is this the challenging task ahead?
CJ – Thanks. I put a lot of new ideas in Lucid Dreaming, so glad you enjoy it.
The Shadow is any part of ourselves that we reject, and so do not allow expression in our life. We may so dislike aspects of our nature we fail to see them altogether and instead see them in other people and criticise them. But I wouldn’t think of the Bull as a part of your shadow, but a living part of you that you are learning to relate to.
Something that Jung says and I know is true is that we cannot cure or fight ourselves, but we can grow beyond what we were. A child might have a hell of a struggle trying not to mess its pants when it is a baby, but when it has grown to a certain point it is easy and second nature.
Carl Jung clearly writes about this approach. In describing what some of his patients did to outgrow what appeared to be insoluble problems, he writes, ‘What then did these people do in order to achieve the progress which freed them? As far as I could see they did nothing but let things happen… The art of letting things happen, action in non action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Master Eckhart, became a key for me… The key is this: we must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this becomes a real art of which few people know anything. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, and never leaving the simple growth of the psychic processes in peace. It would be a simple enough thing to do if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things. It consists solely in watching objectively the development of any fragment of fantasy. Quoted from Jung’s commentary in the book Secret Of The Golden Flower, by Richard Wilhelm, published by Routledge and Kegan Paul.
My own experience with many people suggests there is an inbuilt process in us which attempts to move toward a form of self realisation beyond the boundaries of the ego and the sense impressions. As this pushes ones inner content to the surface, and as such content may include very painful infantile experience, most of us persist in ‘interfering’ – or as Jung says, ‘helping, correcting, and negating’. This is explained more fully in http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/
As for the beast in us, I feel we need to give it some leeway and understanding; and that means recognising your roots, that you are still and ancient creature with a modern face. This following experience explains it.
I feel LifeStream has a lot in it that can be useful. The process of growth goes through stages, one cannot walk before one can crawl. At first we are a bundle of sensory needs. If those needs of feeding and feeling supported are met, we can move on to developing sexual feelings, and if those are allowed to develop then we have an emergence of empathy, and so on up the chain to higher awareness. It is all a process of growth, but we need to help of Life itself – for that is were we came from.
Tony – I thought afterwards that you might find the following interesting http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
tony –
you have left me with much to consider. thank you for the gift of your perspective and experience. the time and energy you put into this site is inspiring. thank you.
CJ – Thank you for your encouragement. It helps me to keep focussed.
Tony
I dreamt that I was high up in an apartment building looking down upon people in a park. There was a giant quilt that read in very large and beautiful letters “Toro del Rey”. I speak only minimal spanish and had no idea what it meant when i awoke, and was surprised to find the translation means “bull king” or perhaps more precisecly “bull of kings”. On the quilt a huge woman, not an obese woman, but a giant woman five times the size of a normal woman was lazing on the quilt, while other normal sized people played games around the quilt. Then, it began to rain and everyone scurried for cover. Your interpretation makes a lot of sense to me, as the dream provoked a feeling of physical and sexual potency, and frightfully evoke a feeling of the body and the animal drive. My question is: should I fear that my intellectual, and spiritual spheres are being dominated by sexual desire and thus perhaps compromised, or could it be a realization of the more potent aspects these parts of being, an archetype to lead boldly or of a totalizing potency of consciousness?
CJ – Thank your for your interesting dream and what you have written about it.
My birth sign is Taurus, and I have had a very long struggle with the bull, and have come to terms with it in a beautiful way.
I feel strongly that you should never fear being dominated by sexual desire while you are open to ’spiritual spheres’. Obviously you may struggle sometimes, but a way to deal with it is to offer it, alive and kicking, to what is highest in you.
Having explored many such dreams, I found that to see the sexual impulse as anything other that the flood of life that leads to higher awareness is a crime. Having grew up in times when sexual feelings were seen as anti spiritual, and had to be restrained, I suffered the consequences of such repression.
I see that restraint or having sex as if it is a game are both counter productive. But releasing the sexual feelings with an opening to the highest in you is another matter. The sexual centre is the second in the climb up the ladder of consciousness.
To quote from Meetings with Christ:
Come back to me if I have not been clear.
Tony
CJ – I have read your other post, and am eager to answer it, but have to give time to many others.
I enjoyed our communication – that was why I jumped queue.
Tony