Afraid

As humans we tend to be afraid in our dreams, and often in our life, of almost anything. We dream of the dark, of a hole into which we might fall, a shadowy figure, animals attacking us, other humans, ghosts and spirits, devils and demons, sexual feelings, and so on – but especially of death and our children dying. Often it is not just fear, but terror.

Here sure some examples:

Example: Can someone help me with this dream last night I had a dream that someone walked into our house and my boyfriend wasn’t there he left to work and someone came to my bedroom and stabbed my son I tried to fight with him and then he stabbed me several times. My son was lying in the bed the way we sleep and he was dead and I was lying next to him bleeding. The man left the house in a hurry I grabbed my phone to call 911 and he comes back in the house so I hide my phone. I pretend to be died and then he leaves then I woke up. what does this dream mean?

Example: I had a disturbing dream last night. I apparently murdered a friend from school, who I have not seen for more than 20 years in real life. In the dream, I had to hide her head with no body in a box of washing powder. My husband was instructing me to pour some washing power over the head to hide it and as I did so, the power turned into liquid. I could just about see the head trough the washing liquid and I was very fearful that some one would find it.

Example: Last night I had a dream where I was bitten on my left hand by an evil/ ghostly dog.

Example: I had a dream the other night that my brothers and I was at my mother’s house and there was a raving bear inside a fenced area. But anyway we were all afraid to go into the fenced area. My one brother said that he could calm it down, it was standing at the other end of the fenced area looking kinda down, he walked over to it and it swiped at him 2 times slicing his head and neck.

Example: I had a dream about two purple snakes, coming from different directions, one from the left and the other from the right. These started going after me, however I kept running and running from the centre, at times they would seem like they want to come together in the middle and attack me and I kept running.

Example: I dreamt that my wife and I were in bed. She was asleep on my left against a wall. I was lying awake wondering whether there were any ghosts in the house. Deciding to test this, I said aloud, “If there are any ghosts, show yourselves.” Nothing happened, and feeling a bit smug, I close my eyes in readiness to go to sleep. As I did this, the door to my right creaked open, and two black men entered. They looked as if they had risen out of a grave, almost as if the flesh was hanging of them. I was very frightened as they came towards me with their arms reaching to me. At the time of this dream I was a member of the Rosicrucians, and one of the things I had learned was about the said power of the sign of the cross. So I made the sign of the cross, and said one of the words of power used by the Rosicrucians.  At this the two black men disappeared. I felt, not only great relief, but also as if my knowledge had given me some power. I suppose, once more, there was some smugness, as if I was strong enough to meet anything.

So I lay back in bed ready to sleep. As I did so, once more the door creaked open, and in came the black men. This time none of my waving of hands in the sign of the cross, and all my magic words stopped them. They reached me and their hands went around my throat to strangle me. I woke up screaming and terrified. (See link to Rosicrucian Order).

Despite all of such dreams there is nothing to be afraid of in your dreams. 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. Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us. But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts or fears that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiment’s of our fears and ideas presented to us as truths; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are.

Most of the things we are afraid of in dreams are things that we carry into the dream from our childhood. We are so programmed by what our parent fear or believe that we carry them into us and are haunted by them in our dreams. Obviously there are things to be afraid of in the outer life, but not in the world of our dreams where we are alone with ourselves. So running from the bear, tiger or dog that attacks you in your dreams is running away from your fears. Nothing can hurt you or kill you in your dreams except your own fear and anxiety. See The Magical Dream Machine.

An example of this is given below:

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways. He pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

Example: The mobile home was so large the edge of it was over the ridge I was walking. There was no space to duck down to avoid it. I looked to my left and there was a sheer drop for about 200 feet. This was like the face of a massive dam in shape. I jumped down and as I was falling and falling I wondered how I was going to land. Would I smash to bits on the obviously hard ground below? I didn’t have any great fear about this. So it wasn’t a nightmare or anxiety dream. I never seemed to resolve this question because suddenly I was on the ground without any sign of hurt or even a bump.

As I hope you can see it is only the fear you carry into the dream that causes people to wake in terror. The example of the two walking dead is a dream that the person worked on and gradually saw was his tremendous fear of his losing control over his sexual feelings, which he constantly held back. As it was resolved the fear disappeared.

Useful Questions and Hints:

You could alter the dream by visualising it differently. See How to Face Fear to help with that.

Try seeing what you take into your dream. See What do I Bring to my Dreams.

It helps to understand your dream, so use Processing Dreams to do it.

Also always remember that you are much bigger than you realise – so look at You are More than you Presently Know.

See: Anxiety; emotions and mood.