Decay Decayed Decaying

This suggest a sense of something in your life not being alive and expressive. Possibly it is something you are not proud of, or you feel ‘rotten’ about. Occasionally this could indicate something not working well in your body or feelings.

Rotten might mean ‘bad’ emotions felt in a relationship; a hunch or feelings about something, such as memories.

Example: I look at the trunk of the thistle examining it. At this point it seems like a giant hardwood tree. I snap a twig and it smells very nice – a perfumed wood. Other branches are going rotten. Walking around to the back of the tree to see if the bark is rotten I notice a hole where bees or wasps have a colony. I put my left hand up to touch the bark and as I do so notice there is also a hole in the back of my hand, in and out of which wasps are flying. With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.

In exploring the dreamer the man in looking at his hand and realises there was a hole in his life. He took note of what he felt. Just prior to the dream he had experienced a lot of anxiety about whether his marriage was breaking up. The dream made him realise that niggling thoughts and emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps.

This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life. He could see that as a person he only entertained thoughts and emotions. They were simply what he thought and felt about reality, not reality itself. It was up to him as to what he wanted reality to be. Did he want to entertain the reality of the tired ageing man who could no longer satisfy his wife’s need for love and companionship, having nothing worthwhile to contribute to others? That could certainly become reality if he allowed such feelings to dominate him. He had thought that his life was like a giant thistle, but on closer inspection he saw it was a giant hardwood. It did have branches which needed pruning, but the rest of the tree was good and perfumed – giving off good feelings to others. So he decided to put love and care into his life and marriage instead of self doubt and a sense of defeat.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I feel is decaying of rotten in my life?

How do I meet these feelings of something decaying?

Is it about ageing?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets – Transfiguration