Deer
The soul, the gentle harmless self that is often hurt or wounded by our aggressiveness and cynicism, or by other people’s criticism; vulnerability; the unsocialised or wild, but gentle side of our instincts; love-sickness.
In Greek mythology the deer was associated with the virginal huntress Artemis. So the female deer in a dream suggests the qualities of female gentleness and the connection with nature and the hidden world of the unconscious with all its strange wisdom. While the stag often links with bold and powerful masculinity and sexuality in a natural and potent form.
The Core Self often appears as a deer, or woodland creature in dreams. Below is a quote from Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbols.
Example: “I am your child and your mother. They call me the ‘connecting animal’ because I connect people, animals, and even stones with one another if I enter them. I am your fate or the ‘objective I.’ When I appear, I redeem you from the meaningless hazards of life. The fire burning inside me burns in the whole of nature. If a man loses it, he becomes egocentric, lonely, disoriented, and weak.”
Example: As I walked the meadow my dog was running free. I felt I must call him to heal, as there were grazing animals about. I called him and saw him coming, almost wraith like, or like a spirit form, shadowy and powerful looking. He was running behind a wonderful looking beast – a mixture between a sheep a gazelle and a deer. The remarkable thing about it was its colouring. There were bright blues on its hindquarters, and radiant almost transparent colours elsewhere, perhaps on its head. I shouted to stop my dog frightening the creature. It ran towards me and jumped into my arms, very fearful, but relaxing and feeling safe as I held it. I could sense its emotions of terror. I seemed to feel what it was feeling inside. It was a creature without any means of defence except to run. So it was frightened for its life. This sense of its inner condition was impressive as I knew what it was like to be that creature when hunted. I also could feel how it could feel safe in my arms because somehow it was like handing over its defence to a sort of mother, as a baby might.
Then I seemed to look at the creature anew and saw that it had a much bigger body than I had first thought. In fact it must have been different because when in my arms it was small, but now it seemed to be about the size of a fallow deer.
In the above dream the man actually feels the quality of his inner condition represented by the deer.
Deer are sometimes used to indicate a sexual longing for a woman – the hunter and hunted. The sexual implication of the deer hunt is underlined by a medieval English folk song called “The Keeper”: The first doe that he shot at he missed, And the second doe he trimmed he kissed, And the third ran away in a young man’s heart, She’s amongst the leaves of the green O”.
In a man’s dream: The deer may depict a young woman the man is in pursuit of, or a daughter if you have one.
In a woman’s dream: The deer may link with you as a young woman, or to a daughter if you have one.
Killing a deer: It can suggest many things depending upon the rest of the dream – the killing of the feminine, feelings self; a willing sacrifice such as crucifixion; male conquest of the feminine.
Because animals, plants and all creatures are expressions of the One Life, and so have the divine spark of life in them the same a humans, and because animals and deer are seen as examples of the Creator of the one Life’s awareness. the deer often represent the ability to know both the hidden worlds and the world of the known body.
 |
It took Hercules a full year to capture this magical creature alive – the hind of Ceryneia which was the goddess Diana’s pet. This is of course a symbolic story and says that often we have to kill the very thing we seek, and suffer the remorse in order to become sensitive to the wild beauty that we hold within us – the goddess Diana – and through that we find healing and entrance to the union of human life with the life of the creatures of the forest and moorlands. Then love flowers between you. |
|
| The man raised the tiger and had to leave it for a long time, and when he returned the wonderful creature poured out its love for him |
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are the qualities of the deer in your dream?
Does it link in any way with a feeling of entering the magical realm of nature or the unknown?
Are you feeling about it as you would with a female?
If a stag, are there symbols linking it with sexuality, such as its horns or its attraction to you?
See Animal – Animal Children – Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Comments
Just dreamt my husbands friend’s ex wife(never met) died and I was to comfort the friend with a joke, than he somehow became a blonde James Franco who surfed while I stood on the beach. . James then became a female deer in front of me and gave birth to a tiny female fawn. The fawn ran away while the mother said “not yet.” The baby ran crazily along the water but fell in somewhere in the distance. I caught up to the baby still in the water wrestling to get out. I pick her up and both her front legs had broken off. The dream ended while I looking at the amazed shock on the deers face.
I had a dream of which i was walking in the woods with and old shotgun and cam up on a deer suddenly my middle daughter was standing beside me in a white dress and then as i brought up the shotgun to take a shot realized the shotgun was not clicked together all the way so when i snapped the barrel the rest of the way the deer looked at me and i shot in the heart but when i brought down the gun from my eyesites i looked over and my daughter was standing there as the deer turned into her and she was the one that was shot in the chest. She cried and i was terrified and suddenly she is laying on a bed calling someone but still shot i could still see the blood threw the white dress from her back and was so distraught about what happened i woke up and tried to call my daughter. What does this mean ? Sorry if anyting misspelled wrote in a hurry.
Dear Rick – What I see reflected in your dream is the hurtful way you deal with your (core) self and perhaps also with your daughter in your waking life.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/core/
Carrying an old shotgun may reflect that this is a rather old approach (which you may have absorbed when you were a child) that is open to transformation now.
Your willingness to transform is also seen in the way you respond to your deer/inner daughter getting shot in the heart.
It may help to explore what your feeling terrified is about; “She cried and I was terrified.”
To explore the feelings of your dream figure in your dream and any other symbol you can use http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Because a female deer in a dream may suggest the qualities of female gentleness and the connection with nature and the hidden world of the unconscious with all its strange wisdom, you may want to explore your thoughts/feelings/beliefs about that too.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/the-unconscious-2/
Female gentleness and your feeling and caring side are seen as aspects of your inner female;
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-anima-jungs-view-of-the-female-in-the-male/
Does this give you a start with your dream?
Anna 🙂
Twice last night I dreamt that I walked up to what I think was a tree stump. When I looked out I realized that I had been walking on deers. What I saw was hundreds of deer all snuggled up to each other tightly asleep. I then thought how am I going to get out of here w/out stepping on them. But then remembered I stepped on them to get there. Twice.
A field of half-frozen baby deer.
Thanks, Dreamland. :/
First you see one, then another, then another. Already, it strikes you as tragic. Then you look out and see the entire field is littered with frozen, baby deer, curled up like fetuses, dead. Oh the horror! But, no, that’s not even the most disturbing part. How do the words “misguided mercy killing” strike you? Think Monty Python’s Quest For The Holy Grail, “I’m NOT dead!” Only with a baby deer, rearing and charging you, after you tried to crush and cut-off its head, because it was wheezing and (you thought) on the point of death, in “grave” suffering. You finish the job, but suddenly the deer is replaced by a little blond boy (such as I used to be), who was tucked beneath his/her half-frozen body, as a friend or guardian. The boy is furious with you for killing his deer. He won’t listen to your explanations. He doesn’t care that you meant well.
There was a lot more to the dream: I was crossing the field with a crowd, but with my father, on our way to watch a football game. It was around 10:30am and I wanted to go see “The new ‘Back To The Future’ movie”, but the matinee didn’t start until the afternoon, and my mother wanted my father home at 2pm to watch a movie of her own choosing. So we decided to attend this game. My dad loves football, and it has always been, to me, a symbol of shallowness and unnecessary conflict, which exercises a powerful allure for many people, but not for me; kind of like the world.
————————————
rear2
1. bring up and care for (a child) until they are fully grown, especially in a particular manner or place.
“he was born and reared in New York City”
synonyms: bring up, raise, care for, look after, nurture, parent;
2. (of a horse or other animal) raise itself upright on its hind legs
————————————–
Baby animal: A baby – sometimes connected with pregnancy; yourself when young; feelings or memories concerning your experience of babyhood; desire for babies; vulnerability; fundamental survival behaviours such as dependence, crying and bonding.
Killing an animal: This shows you killing urges or needs you have that are natural. Mostly this is injurious to your wholeness, but occasionally has to be done to deal with special life situations… There are often dreams of…frozen, or beaten small animals. They may not be things you have done to yourself but are things done to you by others, even parents. If you explore these dreams it gradually makes clear who perpetrated the damage. You may need help in facing this…
Deer… the connecting animal… In a man’s dream: The deer may depict… a daughter if you have one.
——————————————–
That last part is interesting… “daughter”
My girlfriend had an abortion last year — last winter, actually, right around this time. We were firmly resolved that it was the responsible thing to do, under the circumstances, but both of us harbored secret doubts as the moment came near. We discussed it in the car on the way to the clinic; we toyed with the idea of waiting. Both of us had a mysterious feeling that this was a daughter. At the clinic, my girlfriend wanted to talk with me before taking the first pill, but they objected insistently. They hurried her, and she took it, because it was what we had decided.
(After all, our lives were anything but stable, and I was a passionate antinatalist, determined not to prove myself a hypocrite.)
Meanwhile, in the waiting room, my apprehensions grew more conscious. On the way back, we discussed this. We were angry with ourselves for not waiting and discussing these feelings more. At home, we agonized over whether or not she should take the second pill. I was experiencing fatherly feelings I had never known. A sense that I could really do this; really be a father. And an overwhelming urge to protect this child, who already felt like my daughter.
I did dozens of internet searches, trying to discover the possible complications of going forward, and not taking the second pill, after taking the first pill. I made somewhat frantic phone calls and spoke to various nurses and doctors, none of whom could give me a clear answer. The consensus was that, at this point, the “miscarriage” would most likely occur regardless, but, if the baby was born, he/she would almost certainly be subject to serious birth defects.
I was still unsure but we made the decision to terminate. We both cursed ourselves for not waiting; for not talking more about it and exploring our feelings and doubts beforehand.
Also…
Her name would have been Sophie. (It’s a Greek name and my girlfriend is half-Greek; neither of which points occurred to us when we felt drawn to this name.)
As in “Wisdom”
and, incidentally (?),
“Sophie’s Choice”
Dear Valus – Perhaps you may also decide to read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/father-dad/#InnerFather and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/mother-mum-ma/#InnerMother and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/peer-dream-group/?
Anna 🙂
I dreamed of deer/fawn “hunters”. I felt uneasy about dreaming this topic in my dream. I walked in a small door leading into a huge “enclosure” like a manger where several separate stalls/rooms lie, felt divided yet not. In each stall, one family was in it holding a fawn. Most were mothers and daughters team holding a fawn. I gracefully methodically walked through the corridors glancing at each stalls with no judgement just observing like an outside observer. In each of the mini “mangers” with straw and all the occupants would stare at me as if I was radiating some energy to them captivating them. I felt it was odd to have fawns in captivity. And that was the dream.
I had a dream that I found a fawn in my backyard. She was far away from home. She trusted me quickly and I tried to help her find her mother. A lot of people in my family ignored the fawn and left me to take care of it. After a while of searching I found the fawn’s parents. I remember feeling frustrated and confused because no one helped me and the fawn kept coming back to me.
Hi I had a dream that they were two diamond back
Vipers in my Mother’s house & Garden.
The bigger one was aggressive & trying to bite.
The smaller one was more placid.
My family was there in dream & kids.
It kept trying bite & I kept trying catch it.
It then bit my pals Dad on the Leg ?.
Then at the end of the dream there was a small
Dear or doe standing at the bottom of my Mother’s
garden & a girl I know was shouting at “me look it’s
Dear ” all excited.
I was froze still in dream & this amazing small
Dear was just staring through me as if it was in
The clouds behind it.
A very powerful & realistic dream as in felt real.
Apart from the vipers as I stay in Scotland !!.
I had a dream where my family and I rescued a baby deer, we took it in the basement. When I came in the basement, I was that it was injured, and it gave me a sad and sorrow look. I told it’s going to be ok. While I was that it was miserable, I was about to kill the baby deer out of its pain and misery. But the dream stopped, and it woke me up. I started crying. What does it mean? Please help.
My gf dream that she gave birth to a deer. After which the deer transform into a baby girl. What does this means?
Dear Eo – Since this is your girlfriend’s dream I will write my response to her.
Giving birth in a dream is a wonderful experience and unfortunately you do not reveal if your boyfriend was the dream father of the deer/baby girl in your dream, nor is it clear how you felt about what I see as “Touching your Core Self”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-core-experience-part-1/
If you have given birth without any man involved, it suggests it is a virgin birth – i.e. no male partner was involved at the time.
Many women dream of giving birth without any man involved. Virgin birth is normal part of dreaming. It means that the woman or young girl has conceived as a process of Life. Being a virgin represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and through that being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self.
Only a ‘virgin birth’ can bring forth the birth of an intuition, a new response to oneself and one’s environment that transforms one’s life. This is a living relationship with the mystery which underlies our life. If we generate a child in this way, we are not held prisoner by habits of thought, stereotypes of behaviour, then we can begin to allow into our waking life what was previously impossible to know. This open state of mind and feelings, acts as a link between the identity or personality, and the deep unconscious life processes. This link allows a birth of realisations and inner change that brings healing and a possibility of experiencing the aspect of oneself that is our core self.
See http://dreamhawk.com/pregnancy-childbirth/the-baby-in-your-dream/
Anna 🙂
I dreamed of walking in a backyard, and seeing something in the grass. As I walked closer, there were two deer resting in the foliage, almost concealed from the naked eye. One was a baby deer, the other – a very young deer. At first I became nervous that they might run away as they normally do, but they stayed there, relaxed, allowing the touch of a human hand, and reciprocating with warm, pulsating, loving vibrations. A very pleasant and surprising dream.
Dear Kristina – A touching dream indeed and I very much like the way you described this part “almost concealed from the naked eye”.
I feel that it expresses very well how this loving, vibrating Life is Alive underneath the layers we tend to build around ourselves and it is good to know that even without always being aware of this Love and Vibration, IT is always present.
And yes, Life does respond to our “touching it with love”; to touching our Core Self and “It” is always surprising for Life is so creative it is different for everybody and every time.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-core-experience-part-1/
There are ways to approach and allow Life and explore what our Naked Beauty feels like while awake too.
See http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/water-wonderland/
Anna 🙂
Hi. In my dream a man whose face i don’t remember but whom i knew to be someone close, was killing a female deer by drawning her in a big glass container. He was inside with the deer to keep its head under the water. I was watching with my mom the deer’s struggle and its realization that she’s going to die. I could see the fear and the desperation in its eyes and i was feeling pitty for her but in the same time i was thinking that its dead was necessary. I was worried for the man also, because the deer might have hurt him in its struggle. Finally, the man let go and i thought the deer was dead, but she got her breath back and run away. I foolowed her with my mom and i’ve seen the deer in some bushes. It wasn’t scared anymore. there was no sign that the deer suffered any trauma. Only its color seemed to have changed in something discolored, almost white. She was playfull but she was trying to keep herself hidden. She start crawling on the ground toward me and gave me something that looked like a big piece of chocolate in the shape of a bear. She didn’t seem upset with me because i didn’t do anything to freed her from that man’s hands, she seamed friendly and happy.
I dreamt that I was at the overflow service at a busy church In am sometimes a guest at. I chose not to attend the main service. There was a doe and a fawn hiding under the pew in front of me. I decided to attend the main service after all, and the doe and fawn his elsewhere.
I had a dream I was walking along a riverbank exploring with my husband who was some distance away from me along the bank. Suddenly a wild animal came charging towards me and stopped right next to me. Once it stopped I realized it was a doe. It acted like it wanted my attention, and I started to pet her about the head. My husband who saw this from afar warned me that the animal might bite me. This made me a little more cautious when petting the doe, but I continued to show her affection even though she could possibly bite me at anytime.
Farrah – The dream shows that you have taken a distance from an (unconscious?) inner conflict with your partner and it means that you are able to explore on your own how you want to approach the doe.
Your (inner) partner is afraid the doe might hurt you, probably because of his own fear for what the doe symbolises.
It often takes some perseverance to explore in life those aspects of our inner world that a partner is cautious about, because exploring it will not only change your inner life, but also the relationship with your partner.
It will be helpful to understand what it is you are giving attention to, for with awareness you are more capable of directing the change.
So try “being the deer” http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or “talking as the deer” http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/#TalkingAs
Anna 🙂
I had a dream that brought me to tears. I was the female deer. Someone shot me with a dart and told me everything was going to be OK. The dart made me feel drowsy and in the dream I struggled to stay awake. The struggle was most of my dream and it made me feel so exhausted. I felt feelings of being lied to when they kept telling me it was going to be OK. The person was holding me up and dragging me to some location. I woke up from the dream full of tears and actually sobbing. This was so strange.
Andrea 🙂
I trust that if you read through the other entries in the dream dictionary, that you will be able to put the pieces of your dream together.
Without knowing anything about you, it is difficult for me to tell.
So please read
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/dart/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/dizzy/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/uncategorized/lie-lies-lying/
Also it is helpful to remember dreams are a reflection of your inner world
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Reflect
I trust that these links will offer you a start to help you look at what bothers you.
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
A while ago, I had a dream that there was a doe, standing at the edge of the woods, at the boundary between the woods and the field, and she was looking at me…just calmly standing there and regarding me. I was standing in the field. I was concerned that she was trying to impress something on me, trying to tell me something, but that I couldn’t figure out what it was. I can’t remember if that dream went anywhere else or if was interrupted in the middle of it (alarm or whatever)….any ideas?
Cindi – I too feel that this doe was trying to communicate something to you and it will need your help to explore what her message is.
She is certainly a part of your inner nature – the self you are underneath what you may express in your daily life – and you can uncover what she means to your inner world by using different techniques as
“being the doe” and “talking as the doe”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/#TalkingAs
I trust she will enrich your inner world Cindi.
Anna 🙂
I had a dream that I was a doe. I was by myself for awhile just walking and eating flowers. Then I came across a buck and we became friends. It was a very long dream and we walked and made conversation in a warm sunny forest together. But then a hunter was after us and we ran into the dense dark area of the forest. It was lined with bamboo. We ran and he told me he knew where to go. We kept go deeper into the forest and it began to get steeper. Once we reach the top, the forest cleared, and we were on top of a mountian with some snow patches on the ground. There was a cabin built into the side of the mountian. We ran up to the porch and an elderly couple let us in to hide. The hunter eventually made his way to their doorstep. He ponded on the door and screamed to let him in.I was scared. The buck kicked the back door open and we ran faster up the mountian. We hide behind a big boulder and watched the hunter get into his truck and Make his way down the mountian.
Katbug – The impression I get from your dream is gradual change in the way you feel about relationships. As a person you have a very female quality about you inwardly – and maybe outwardly also.
You seek or sought a mate who is similar to you, but you have slightly the feeling of being a victim and see some men as aggressive and self seeking – as the saying goes, “Just after one thing.”
I believe you have developed an inner male who compensates you for what you have met outwardly. This has led you to hide who you are and climb the mountain of consciousness. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/
The climb was achieved by running from much that everyday life offers, yet has a lot to offer in becoming aware of more of who and what you are. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-outsider/
You find shelter within the attitudes and care you learned from your parents, but that wasn’t enough to get rid of the victim threat. You finally managed it by a process of transformation which was hard won. You rose above your old self and are finding a new way of seeing things.
Tony
I had a dream the other night with a deer like thing , it had the head of a deer body of a horse and feet of a raccoon, in my dream it showed kindness and was gentle, scared … on a rear it was white with black spots rest of body was a chocolate brown with big blue eyes… it’s been on my mind i don’t if it means anything or if it was just a dream
LazzzyGurl – Dreams are always open to giving us meaning, though not always easy to understand because we tend to think about them instead of exploring our feelings about them. You said the gentle scared animal showed kindness.
So there are lots of clues. The first is one we usually forget – you/we are animals. We often forget this and do not take care of our animal needs. If we had a pet we would take care of it and give it the best food that would not lead to overweight.
Your dream animal is a lovely image of the animal part of you that is usually forgotten. It is a mixture of several mammals, gentle, yet like a horse something within you that can carry and serve you; and of course wild as well like the raccoon.
Please read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/animals/
Tony
Hi, I had a dream with an injured deer coming to me for assistance. It was in an apartment complex, I went to find help, came back and a young girl had found a man from India that was a vet to care for the frightened animal. When she saw me, she thanked me with her eyes. It was like when I went to look, I got detained by feeding my senses and when I returned, the little girl had found help. The deer’s two front legs had long gashes. I have broken both my feet at different times the last three years, and this year both hands at same time, really held me back with my work. IWhen my feet were inured, I got lost with numbing techniques. yesterday I met some other artists and see how different our approaches are, I am so not technological, I go by word of mouth, they are so “business” ….was the deer showing me my wounded spirit, and to trust cause she trusted me and sought me out from the wild? Was Divine seeking me out? Like in real life when my Hawk follows me?