Cockerel

Warning, aggressiveness, masculinity, male sex organ. See: Birds.

A male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence. This can signify feelings of being a strutting proud male. It is often used in dreams to indicate maleness, as opposed to the hen as the female. Cockerels fighting can point to feelings about two men fighting, or family conflicts. Hen and cockerel fighting is about a male and female fight, or power struggle.

Observation or cockerels in their natural surroundings show them to be very protective of the hens and the chicks.

Example: I am in a big crowd of people when I see a large cockerel and a bright yellow canary, but the canary is the same size as the cockerel. The birds start to fight but almost immediately the cockerel overpowers the canary by forcing his head into the canary’s and tries to rip his tongue out. The canary is suffocating and helpless. I become hysterical and start shouting ‘It’s humiliating, somebody stop it.’ My panic becomes worse because nobody else seems at all concerned by what is going on. At this point I always wake.

The dreamer is in the passive role. She feels humiliated and helpless and wishes for somebody else to change the conflict she is experiencing. In this dream there are many options open to her. She could imagine herself stepping forward and parting the birds. She could imagine the canary fighting back. She could imagine the contest stopping, the canary being equal to the cockerel, and seeing the birds mate. She could have a cat come in and kill them -both. But the question is – what would most satisfy her? See – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.

When I explored the dream I realised that of course I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I am the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female. Brian’s series of dreams and his work on them graphically depict what has already been said, that sex is not simply an isolated part of our being.

Sex is intimately connected in the dreamers life, with his self image whether he is a hen or a cockerel; with his relationships, with his mother and father and with his philosophy of life, in which he needs to see sex not as a goal in itself but as a basic pleasure enjoyed for its own sake.

Example: Lying in the road in front of me was a dead chicken, eaten to its bones by maggots and ants. There were sinews and some feathers left. I noticed that as I moved, the head of the dead chicken appeared to look in the direction of my movement. At this point I had the impression the chicken was now gradually taking on flesh again – coming alive once more. Andrew – Southampton

Useful Questions and Hints:

What attitude is the cockerel expressing?

What is the cockerel doing that relate to me?

What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?

See Being the Person or Thing – Talking As – Reptilian Brain