Adam and Eve

Depending upon situations in the dream it can suggest you are touching the feeling of wonderful simplicity and harmony; or there is a temptation or guilt regarding a relationship with the opposite sex. Basically boy-girl stuff.

Adam can represent your father. He can depict innocent unconscious drives. So in this sense Adam and Eve represent childhood, prior to self awareness and self-will. Because of associations we may have with the story of temptation, the image of Adam and Eve could also refer to sexual desire and your way of dealing it.

Adam Unconscious and therefore innocent drives and responses to the world. The basic level of personal development or consciousness. Some dreams may express a more archetypal aspect of Adam, in which he represents the fundamental formative forces in nature and in ourselves, that have led to human existence, and therefore to our personal life. In this sense Adam would represent the formative forces within that lead to the development of your self awareness and sense of identity. Looking at this in terms of your personal experience and growth, you started life as a baby. As such your state of being was not as complex as it became as an adult. This simpler level of being was the basic stage of your growth of personal awareness or personality, and still underlies it. This condition of awareness, one without guilt or a sense of time, or even any awareness of independent existence, is represented by the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. We emerged by the development of self awareness and all that goes with it.

Eve Because of the particular way Genesis has been translated, Eve is often associated with innocence, but also the offering of temptation. In our dreams she may depict the basic human urges and state of being, largely unconscious, such as we mean when we use the phrase the innocence of childhood.

Eve’s more archetypal meaning is independent will and sexuality. Even within the simplistic view of the story in Genesis, Adam came first, and simply went along with the way things were. Eve expressed initiative, and therefore became the first human individual with separated identity.

So Eve can depict the power of sensual seduction. She can also represent a man’s wife; or in another sense his emotional sexual relationships with her. For a woman she can represent the wonderful innocent but potent longing for sexual contact, and its expression as signals of desire to a man.

Eve originally depicted independent will power, or having individual existence within the group or a relationship, which through the ability to choose or make a personal decision, brought about self-con­sciousness, or individuality. Before Eve, or will power, humans lived in harmony with their instinctive drives, but did so because they had no will of their own. This is why Eve can represent temptation, and through will you can make a decision. So she also represents decision. See: individuation; snakes

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling conflict or temptation about a relationship?

As a woman – am I becoming aware of deeper issues regarding womanhood?

As a man – am I becoming aware of deeper issues regarding manhood?

Do I feel I have lost something – the wonder of innocence and childhood for instance?

It would be good to explore your own associations with Adam or Eve using Talking As or Processing Dreams.

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