Castrate Castration
This represents a fear of not coping sexually. Losing sexual confidence or desire. Cutting off deeper feelings, sympathies, ambitions and energies. To cut off the penis or testicles illustrates the action of repressing the feelings, emotions and urges represented by them. This cutting off may be done by a fear, by feelings of guilt about sexuality, conviction of inferiority, dread of pain or being repulsed or thought repulsive.
Trauma and or/ fear regarding sexual drive, possibly leading to ‘cutting off’ full sexual flow. It might also point to fear of the responsibility which develops with sexual maturity, or the many difficulties in facing the pains and adjustments, which come with rejection by the opposite sex, or through competition for work and wealth, standing without parental support, making decisions, discriminating in the world of ideas and exercise of will.
Sometimes there is a powerful link here with the mother/father relationship from childhood. For some reason there may have been a disturbance in regard to the need to possess ones mother sexually, and so a self restraint about expressed sexual feelings. Sometimes it also suggests ones father was not a sexually potent male. In other words unsure of himself in regard to women, and perhaps still emotionally dependent. Castration also means you are no longer a threat to anyone, and do not have to face a woman’s full sexual and emotional needs.
For a woman it can mean a disturbance during childhood caused by parents not supporting or encouraging the child’s inner development. The penis envy that was so strongly supported in Freud’s theory has been seen differently by others. Karen Horney for instance states that, “Penis envy might occur occasionally in neurotic women, but stated that “womb envy” occurs just as much in men: Horney felt that men were envious of a woman’s ability to bear children. The degree to which men are driven to success may be merely a substitute for the fact that they cannot carry, nurture and bear children. Horney also thought that men were envious of women because they fulfill their position in society by simply ‘being’, whereas men achieve their manhood according to their ability to provide and succeed.”
The need for ones father’s or mother’s love or approval can be a factor leading toward homosexuality or lesbianism.
Example: Hear a recording of a well known recording artist (Tom ***) a homosexual who became straight through facing his unconscious tendencies. RECORDING.
Castrating oneself: Denying one’s own sexual drive, or introverting anger because of sexual drive. It might also suggest the conflict of choice between being feminine or masculine.
Being castrated: This suggests a real trauma that deeply influences your sexual relationships. This includes feeling that your innate being has been repressed or brutalised by another person.
Castrating another person: Your own sexual pains or trauma may lead to the unconscious killing out of sexuality in your children or others.
Example: ‘On looking at my son I see his penis has been completely cut off. I feel terribly upset, but notice that on each side of the remaining hole, special pieces of tissue have been implanted. These are budding, just like a plant, and I know, or am told, that a whole penis will grow.’ Edmond U.
Edmond did in fact frequently ‘cut off’ his own sexuality by abstinence. The dream graphically shows that sexual drives are like a living process.
Psychological castration: Peter had grown up in a Christian culture that, at the time, looked upon sex as something not to be spoken about. Underlying that attitude was that restraining sex was somehow a spiritual discipline. Also, while in his early teens, Peter’s mother had pushed a strong fear into him that sex could kill him. She probably did this because tuberculosis was a killer disease at the time, and a strong sex drive was one of the signs of the illness, and she was scared that Peter had caught TB. Consequently Peter avoided sex until overwhelmed by his own desires. In fact it took most of his adult life to find normal loving and sexual feelings.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Can I recognise how I cut off or repress sexual feelings or relationship?
What has led me to the situation of my sexual nature being so injured? (Defining this is important as it helps to recognise the causes and leads to an emergence from the condition.)
If I really am honest about my early feelings about my mother and father, how would describe my relationship with them in terms of my sexuality? Also, dare I imagine sex with my mother – if I do what feelings stand in the way?
Try using Stand in role – Avoid Being Victims – Talking As
Comments
I had a dream about one of my exboyfriends whom I had a toxic relationship with (I don’t know if that means anything) being castrated inhis own apartment and it was day time
I’ve been separated/divorced from my 1st husband for 7-8 years now. The divorce was brutal and took 2+ years and se still have to see each other because of our son. He’s now getting ready to remarry and I’ve been in a relationship with another man since my breakup with my x husband. I just recently dreamed my x came to me with white glowing body, no testicles and a hard penis. He had a look of concern when he showed me he had no testicles.
Dear x-wife – Please read this entry too; http://dreamhawk.com/news/summing-up/
What do you – your dream figure – think/feel when you see your ex-husband like that; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
What arises – thoughts/feelings/images – when you use “Being your ex-husband” to explore his presence in your dream?
Did you ask your ex-husband in your dream to express his “look of concern” http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dialogue-with-a-dream-character-or-object/?
If you see your ex-husband as an expression of your inner male – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/ – then what do you think/feel of “him” having no testicles?
If you choose to see your inner and outer Life as an “act of creation” in the broadest sense possible, then how can you create something new?
See also http://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/the-baby-in-your-dream/
Anna 🙂
I dreamt last night that I cut off my husband’s penis at the base. Then I took it to the shower and had sex with it. While I was pleasuring myself, I noticed how much more I was able to please myself without my husband attached to the penis.
In reality our relationship has become strained and I find myself wondering if I should leave him. I have not been attracted to him or felt “in love” with him for a while, and our sex life has suffered because of it.
Is this dream some kind of subconscious approval to move on, or a reminder that I still care for him and need to try to make our marriage work?
Sara – A very interesting dream, and the central point of it seems to me to be your statement that, “I noticed how much more I was able to please myself without my husband attached to the penis.”
To quote from the feature ‘Interview with a Sex Worker’, “Well, he would fuck me, until he was satisfied. He had no regard for what gave me pleasure sexually. He just wanted to fuck.”
That is a very straight to the point statement, but it can seen seen differently. I have found that many men feel that they have to be in command and ‘do it all’ to give their partner pleasure. But I feel it can be a wonderful change if the man says to his partner, “Here I am with a wonderful erection, and give you permission to do whatever will give you pleasure.”
As an example of this, “I was involved with a married woman, a beautiful full figured female. She told me she had never experienced an orgasm. Then one evening she made it plain she wanted sex. It started slowly and then I told her she should get on top of me and use me in whatever she wanted. Well she stayed in the top position and worked away backwards and forwards in full throttle. Somehow it wasn’t doing anything for me but neither did it make me ejaculate, so I just let her get on with it. It took quite a while but eventually I could see she was arriving and fell onto me. I held her and stayed like that.
The next day she told me that she experienced blowing up like a balloon, and then suddenly she burst and disappeared into a wonderful feeling. I thought afterwards that this lady had needed a LOT of physical action to achieve her orgasm.”
There a couple of important things here. First the woman was able to take control of the action – as you did Sara by doing it all by yourself. Secondly the woman was on top and had raised her trunk upwards quite high. This bends the man’s penis backwards (downwards) making it harder to ejaculate so the woman could really work away. But also bending the man’s penis backwards means it presses against the woman’s clitoris, which probably meant she could have an orgasm for the first time.
So maybe your marriage could be made more satisfying by both of you learning how to actually talk to each other and really explain how you each need to reach your own pleasure. So please see http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/listening-skills/ and learn to explore with each other.
Tony
My dream was that my boyfriends penis was cut off (no idea how, it just was from the start) and it was up to me to sew it back on and there was a certain way to do it. Any ideas?
Dear Allison – Because your dream suggests that it is up to you to sew the penis back on, I believe this dream is about you and not about your boyfriend; you are not responsible for healing him.
The way I see your dream is that the relationship you have with your male characteristics –like ambition, work capability, aggression and intellect – was damaged at some point in your life.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/forums/index.php?topic=3901.0
“Sewing it back on” I see as a symbol of healing this hurt and thereby creating new attitudes and changing old habits.
“…….and there was a certain way to do it” suggests that there is a way which will work for you and it is up to you to explore which way that is.
Perhaps you can ask your unconscious mind to assist you in finding the right approach for you?
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/dream-incubation/
Anna 🙂
I had a very strange dream this morning that I went to this theme park type place with my youngest son who is almost two. It was not a stroller friendly place and was quite scary. There were a few of my friends from the past I ran into and there was a long encounter with them. I think there was a surprise party or something. There were also people I didn’t know. After I decided to leave it was hard to find a ramp because the way to get out from that place the party was at was from a rickety bridge/stairs. I was able to get down to the rest of the park and there were pools where people were swimming and some lady that I ran into I knew threw my son in the water and I screamed and jumped in after him telling her he couldn’t swim. She giggled and said sorry that she didn’t know. We went to another pool area where there was an arch way to the left that would lead a riverbed type passage shallow enough to walk thru and it was blocked by a huge line of African tribal boys who were supposed to be getting circumcised but were getting castrated instead. My son started running towards the boys so I ran after him afraid they would take him from me and hurt him. I took my son and ran out of the park to a jeep/suv type vehicle where I was going to change his diaper and when I looked he had been castrated and in his pocket I had found a transparent plastic case that had his cut off penis in it. But there wasn’t any blood and in fact his area now looked more like a woman’s vagina. But all I could think of was how scared he was and if I would ever be able to get his penis reattached to him and I screamed and cried and hugged my baby. Then I woke up feeling strange, and for some reason towards my husband.
Dear Raven8693 – This is An interesting dream, and not easy to be sure about without having your associations – especially those with your son. This means there are various ways of seeing your dream. See – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/
One way I see your dream is that you are exploring exposing your son to “the outside world” – a sort of survival test – and then you are exploring his “initiation into manhood”.
This “dress rehearsal for the future” enables you to meet your own fears and beliefs; and being willing to meet your fears and beliefs is a courageous decision and a way to transform them.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/beliefs/
Dreams often stand in place of actual experience. So through dreams we may experiment with new experience or practice things we have not yet done externally. For instance many young women dream in detail of giving birth. This function of what might be called ‘imagination’ is tremendously undervalued, but is a foundation upon which human survival is built.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/imagination-and-dreaming-2/
I take it you are familiar with the traditional circumcision and initiation into manhood, which is an ancient initiation rite practiced by the amaXhosa, a tribe in Africa. The ritual is traditionally intended as a teaching institution, to prepare young males for the responsibilities of manhood.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/initiation/
I need your help exploring your dream, for I do not fully get the story it tells.
The way to do that is to ask you questions which you can explore for yourself.
Could it be that the African youths represent a more primitive initiation – that parents can do by not supporting their son with sympathetic relating to how to become a man?
Because you wrote “Then I woke up feeling strange and for some reason towards my husband” I wonder if your son in your dream is (also) a reflection of your husband’s wounded inner child and/or your inner child.
In a mother’s dream a son can be a symbol of your ambitions; potential; hopes. It can also represent your marriage. The child is the fruit of the relationship, so can represent the state of the relationship.
See http://dreamhawk.com/health-and-healing/inner-baby-and-child/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/child/
Could it be that the dream (also) expresses that every boy/man has a female part too?
There are many layers in a dream and sometimes the symbols can have so called positive and negative meanings simultaneously.
Physically a man is predominantly male, but also has nipples and produces some female hormones. Psychologically, we may only express part of our potential in everyday life. In a man, the more feeling and caring side may be given less expression. Apart from this some functions, such as intuition and unconscious creativity may also be held in latency.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-anima-jungs-view-of-the-female-in-the-male/
Another view of your dream is to ask if you were a tomboy when young? The reason I ask this is because in dreams we often use our children to represent oneself at that age, or else to mean our vulnerable feelings. If that is the case then the trials might be about the enormous impacts you met as you grew. For instance the throwing into the water could also be a challenge by Christian beliefs – originally Christian initiation was by going under the water, which it still is in dreams.
Then the meeting with the black youths could be seen as touching your more authentic feelings – which felt like losing the masculine you and emerging more fully into your female self.
I trust have given you a start to get a bit closer to the core of your dream. Please feel free to respond to anything I wrote.
Anna
I’ve had a dream of castrating myself and showing my testicles and these veins inside the ballssack (i don’t know the name) to my mother. I was holding my testicles with my left hand and she just stood there and collapsed in a way that was intensively sad and sorrowful, depressing, closing her eyes and having her hands covering her whole face, and just crying.
What could this mean? It looked so deep. It’s like in real life i regret that my parents actually circumsized me (they did, I am circumsized), which I don’t. Does that have to do something with it?
Cherey – I do feel you managed to sense that this dream comes from deep within you and usually it will take some linear time to explore and digest, release and/or integrate what arose from your unconscious mind.
So please be patient with yourself.
I also feel that all I can do is give you some hints to start to explore this dream and so the content of your unconscious mind.
Helpful approaches for your own explorations are found in this feature http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/processing-dreams/
In general we can say the woman represents the man’s emotions, his nurturing and caring quality, forgiveness, his sense of what is natural and his connection with nature, its cycles and drives. Through such feelings a man would recognise in people and animals the urges that link one to a mate, the strength to protect and nurture children, and the natural within himself. The anima also holds in it an expression of a man’s complex of feelings about women, gained as experience mostly from his mother – or lack of mother – but also from a synthesis of all his female contacts. So the whole realm of his personal experience of the female, along with the whole racial experience of woman can be represented by the woman in his dream, and is accessible through the image.
In our relationship with our parents we unconsciously absorb an enormous amount of ethical and social ways of responding to life and people. So the dream explanation might be a way of trying to move beyond one of the conditioned influences.
It will be helpful to explore why you want to “commnicate/explain” to your inner mother http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/mother/#InnerMother that you are repressing the feelings, emotions and urges represented by your testicles. This cutting off may be done by a fear, by feelings of guilt about sexuality, conviction of inferiority, dread of pain or being repulsed or thought repulsive.
The relationship with your anima – and so in a way with your inner mother as well – is an erotic relationship. With that in mind you can ask yourself if you have sex in your dreams and how you relate to these dreams?
Although sex is symbolised in many dreams, where it appears directly, it shows that the dreamer is able to more easily accept their sexual urges and hurts. What is then important is to attempt an understanding of what setting or drama the sexual element occur in. Our psychological and sexual nature, like our physical, never stand still in development unless a pain or problem freeze them at a particular level of maturity. Therefore, our sexual dreams, even if our sex life is satisfactory, show us what growth, what new challenge, is being met.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/sex-in-your-dreams/
And in order to get a broader view and understanding of your sexual energy, I think it will be helpful to read this feature too http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/energy-sex-and-dreams/
I hope this gives you a start.
Anna 🙂
Can you give me any guidance on this:
I am pinned down by 3 or more men and my testicles are removed eith a knife but my penis isnt. the pain is horrific but instantly stops once they have been removed and the wound heals in a instant aswell. But this happened very quickly at the start fof the dream and the rest of the (quite long) dream is me having to explain how i have had my testicles removed and people either being shocked or ridiculing me.
Dracobane – I reckon you have read this feature and came across this part of the text:
“Being castrated: This suggests a real trauma that deeply influences your sexual relationships. This includes feeling that your innate being has been repressed or brutalised by another person”.
I feel there are some questions you can ask yourself at this stage of your inner journey: “what did YOU feel in the quite long part of the dream were people were shocked or ridiculing you”? Did you feel understood?
Did you feel that this approach of explaining how you have had your testicles removed was helpful in any way?
Here is mans comments on his own feelings as he explored a similar dream: “One was my feelings of anger and mistrust toward people because, as I felt, I had been publicly tied to a post, and been castrated. Then I had been preserved and set lose to wander cock-less through life. I hated people who could carelessly crush a child’s sexual being. There was no way I could find to feel better toward “people” in general, and not mistrust them. Also I discovered a part of me – an identity – who hid from other people’s ways because of a sense of failure as a human being. It was the other side of being without a cock – of having my sexual growth shattered by circumcision, by my mother’s terror that I would die if I masturbated, and my father’s lack of support.”
I think these questions are important for as I see it in your dream you are merely exploring how you want to heal your past.
Perhaps these features are helpful to continue exploring: http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/healing-and-therapeutic-action-of-dreams/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/news/lifes-little-secrets-2/
I hope this gives you a start.
Anna 🙂
Thankyou, it is indeed a start. as i was reading your reply, i sensed some memory that i maybe have been repressing, i only sensed it for a second and i still dont know what the memory is (if that makes sense). but i know it was something extremely bad.
I need to spend some time on this thanks again
Quinn Dracobane.
Dear Quinn – Thank you for your response and for sharing your experience. It does make sense what you experienced.
You wrote “I need to spend some time on this”.
Please be patient with yourself and your inner process and trust that it will continue to arise in its own time and at your own pace.
Perhaps it will be helpful as well to read some more about your unconscious mind, where memories are “stored”? See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-unconscious/
Anna 🙂
I am a paramedic and dreamt that I went to a young man who had cut off his own penis. Does this mean anything significant to my life?
Rachel – Every dream means something significant to your INNER life, otherwise you would not dream it.
It will be helpful to read this for it will give you a better understanding of dreams and the symbols in dreams:
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Project
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/penis/
QUOTE
_______________________________________
In a woman’s dream: Your relationship with, desire for a mate and therefore your relationship with your own desires and male characteristics, such as ambition, work capability, aggression, intellect.
For a woman, the penis may represent your feelings or fears about meeting a man’s full sexuality, as well as the deep experience of the relationship with your father, and all the issues of dependence, fear, love or anger that still exist in your from your childhood. It connects with your experience of growing from childhood, and how your father met your emerging female sexuality. The penis is also the holy grail of your desire for sexual expression. The reality underlying the symbols of temples and churches, embodying as they do the sacredness of the creative sexual drive and the mystery of life.
The penis might also depict the details of the sexual relationship with your partner. As with the example of Sally’s dream below, the events in the dream define the problem or relationship.
_______________________________________
Perhaps you can explore what you associate with the young man? Do you know him?
Can you “be him”; can you talk “as him”, for it will help you understand why he cut off his penis?
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/association-of-ideas-with-dreams/#Working
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/man/
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
I had a similar dream where I had cut off the entire length of my penis. There was no blood or pain. Then I gave it to a person in a lab to dissect and analyse. For some reason they needed to analyse penises. In my dream my penis was huge, like the width and length of my arm from my elbow to my hand. The reasercher cut it open as I watched, and found many incredible things inside (like precious jewels and ornaments). The researcher said it was a very good example of a penis. I wasn’t concerned because I knew that it would grow back. In fact I looked in my pants while at the lab and a new penis had already grown back. The feeling I got from the dream was one of being proud of what I had. Was a very strange dream!
David 🙂
I see this dream as a wonderful example of what you can meet when you allow yourself to be opened up to the beauty that is inside you.
Please see
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/buildings-laboratory/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/jewels-jewelery/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/meetings-with-the-christ/
QUOTE
_______________________________________
In this meeting with Christ there was also the message that sex is not confined simply to genital contact. Any form of giving or receiving is also a form of sex, if something in the giving or receiving enters a person and bears fruit. Parents give themselves in this way when they feed their children, or work to support them. Teachers can enrich and be enriched in the same way. Because of this, each of us are an integration, or partial integration, of thousands of people, and the cultural or personal gifts (the precious jewels and ornaments) they gave us. Also implicit in this message was the view that because what we give to others lives on in them after our death, and is even passed on to others, this forms the basis for our spiritual life, that continues after our own death.
_______________________________________
Anna 🙂
My boyfriend and I had the same dream last night, that the tip of his penis came off. Having the same dream was freaky enough, but now I am starting to become more concerned by the content and what it might symbolise. Any thoughts?
Ali – I have never come across this dream before. Plenty of no penis or even a vagina instead of a penis. So I have to guess as it is like a semi castration or even a full circumcision. Also from the point of view of dream symbolism he has lost his point. Has he lost his feeling about what is the point of sex?
The tip is the most sensitive part of the penis – so again has he lost some of that – or what actually has he lost as far as his serial feelings are concerned?
But they are just guesses, and maybe he can find out for himself by using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
i had a dream my son was completely castrated by a family member (cousin), but everybody either laughed or didn’t see it as a problem. even my son didn’t seem to mind. i was the only one angered by it.
Had a dream that a woman brought a check to my door for over $109,000. It seemed like a federal government check that was made out to my name, but it already had markings on it as if it was presented to the bank. I was surprised by the check. I was not expecting it. I definitely was not expecting a check for that amount. As I was holding the check, it was a severed penis that I was holding that was like a check. I was not alarmed that I was holding a severed penis, but wad confused about the check.
The young lady went to the bathroom and seemed to want a reward for the check. I told her that I did not think it was my check and it was probably not mine. Then she left.
Then I met my husband, who showed the check to as we where walking and talking. He also held the severed penis as the check, but was surprised by the check, not astounded by holding a penis
I had a dream that tons of men and women were being lined up. It was very holocaustic looking. All the men were lined up, and they specifically asked for me to join the men. I knew they wanted to cut me up “down there.” I his and watched while men were having their parts cut off. I knew the one who was doing it was still searching for me. Just me out of all the women was chosen to be mutilated.
What does this mean?
what does it mean when you dream that you have already been castrated, but the process of it was not a part of the dream, (maybe it was, but not remembered after waking up).
so it happened, and i was holding my cut off, but erect penis in my hand. i could feel it was still alive. no blood or pain was felt. but weirdly trying to fix it back, it doesnt work.
wtf? psychologist here?
Dangerous Dave – I have had the dream myself several times. In my case it was obvious what the dream was about – sex for me was a terrible thing, and so I stopped all forms of sex for 7 years. So obviously from the dreaming point of view I had castrated myself – but not physically.
It sounds as if you had a conflict with sex at some point and cut off the sexual flow in mid action.
Sex can be stopped or started easily by your feeling reactions to it. My sexual life and ability to get an erection has died and been reborn several times in my life – depending on circumstances and my feelings. So you will be okay again.
Tony
what could it mean if i am castrating myself, but i only cut off the tip of the penis and there is not blood or pain… and after a few seconds my penis starts to heal itself, like it starts to regenerate the missing part like when a star fish losses a limb?
Daze & Confuse – You have had trouble being a fully active sexual male. That is not unusual, as many men choose to psychologically castrate themselves. But obviously this is only something you do occasionally – stopping your sensitivity and sexual urges – for you are naturally a sexual male so you re-generate what was missing.
Tony
I had same dream as you daze and confuse. I also saw a brothel and I was digusted by what I saw so I think tony is right. besides I haven’t been sexual, so I have castrated myself in a way.