Bat Bats – Flying

The flying bat is often associated with the devil or vampires, night or death. It is a creature that can see in the dark, lives in caves, and so is an aspect of unconscious inner workings, that go on in the darkness, or the part below our conscious awareness. But it is we who create this fear.

It can therefore represent thoughts or influences emerging from the unconscious, and can be wonderful rather than frightening; being able to see in the dark – i.e. intuition. As such it can be felt as a fear of the unconscious. See Facing Fear.

The Australian aborigines see the bat as the spirit of death.

Example: I had a dream that I was playing tennis with a friend and suddenly a black bat attacked on my neck and bit me and when I look at the ground there are unfamiliar animals that are crawling there and a man is sweeping all of the tiny animals. I ran in the house and a tiny blue bird follows me and I close the door. In my dream my house don’t have a roof and I let the bird fly in the sky and I look at the poor animals being swept outside the gate like a leaves fallen from the tree. They are alive and they can move but it seems like they are afraid of the man. Then I was running outside like I’m playing hide and seek with someone and I enter another house and my relatives are with me and I met a guy inside the house and we went in a room and from window I saw my kids playing outside.

As can be seen from the dream, the bite of the bat can bring about an enlargement of her ability to see and appreciate things.

Being scared of bats emerging can indicate real fears about traumatic events that you have repressed from memory. Films often use bats to suggest evil or feelings about vampires. So if you dream of vampires, it shows that you are dealing with a past event, probably involving a realtionship, which led you to feel terribly weakened.

Example: In the first dream, I was climbing a long flight of horribly rickety stairs in my father’s and mother’s house (that started as a church). I was terrified, and when I got to the top, I knew there was something horrible behind the door that scared me more than I could even say.

In the next one, I opened the door and all sorts of bats, ghosts, debris and STUFF flew at me from above.

The dreamer later discovered by exploring her dreams, that her father had sexually abused her.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel about the dream bat, and what part does that feeling play in my life at present?

Was there something I realised on seeing or dealing with the bat?

If there was fear, what was it about?

Try using Processing Dreams – Being the Person or Thing – Practical Techniques to explore their meaning