Devil Demon Lucifer
The devil or demon in our dreams usually represents the parts of our own urges and emotions we have repressed or do not feel in control of. The angers, fears or urges may even feel to us as if they are strong enough to control us, so we represent them as an external force pushing us to some sort of evil. In each of us there is also the potential for creativity or destruction. This is especially noticeable in connection with our fears, such as fear of illness. Such a fear, if based on imagination rather than a real cause, can still cause illness. In this sense our own mind can turn against us. The enemy of our own undirected fear may be pictured as the devil or an evil entity. See: archetype of the devil under ; demons; evil; aboriginal. See also: active/passive.
“The succubus, a female demon who seduced male dreamers. References to seductive demons, such as Lilith, had appeared in the Talmud but had not previously appeared in Christian writings. The Commentary – by Macrobius – became an extremely influential book and thirty-seven printed editions appeared before 1700. It was the most important and well-known dream book in medieval Europe. Its inclusion of the fear-inspiring sexual demons was to play a role in supporting the paranoia about evil spirits that developed during the later centuries.” Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert van de Castle.
Example: I’m 18 and recurrently dream my house is haunted or possessed by the devil. I am not religious, but in the dreams with the devil I try to remember prayers to scare him away. In every dream my family and I have to pack our bags and move back to the old house I lived in as a baby until seven. The dreams really frighten me and I can’t sleep. E. F. Teletext.
The struggle with something that appears exterior can be clearly seen in this dream. The influence of religion in giving ready made symbols to suggest there is an exterior evil that is invisible, but can powerfully influence one, is also clearly shown. And in actually facing the devil in ones dreams it turns out to be ones own emotions and desires that are not allowed or tuned back on themselves – thus devil spelt backwards is lived. It is the unlived or repressed urges that take on the image of a devil. “All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.” EC
Example: I was going mad. I was crawling around on my hands and knees and wailing and behaving in a most peculiar manner. I actually felt mad. But inside my head a tiny voice kept saying, ‘You aren’t completely insane yet – there’s still a chance.’ People around me kept saying to each other, ‘We think she’s possessed by devils.’ My sane voice then said ‘Make the sign of the cross, cast out the evil spirit.’ I kept trying to do that but my hands wouldn’t or couldn’t complete the sign. I woke still feeling disturbed. Margaret F.
The power and sense of being out of control is dramatised here, along with the resulting fear arising from feeling the controlling force as alien. If you take the images away and simply look at the situation, what is apparent is a huge conflict that Margaret is facing. The conflict clothes itself in imagery of the Devil because Margaret is afraid of whatever it is that is trying to express. This is a powerful internal conflict that is simply a struggle between the conscious self and the person’s own unexpressed potential.
Example: I was walking toward a house. It was quite dark, but not night. As I neared the house a number of demons or devils came at me menacingly, trying to stop me getting near the house. Although they made all the ghostly noises I wasn’t at all afraid of them. I felt they were a damned nuisance, and to show them I meant business I grabbed one and with my right hand I gripped its flesh and squeezed. It started to squeak in pain and I squeezed harder. At that point I was woken by my wife. I had hold of her belly and was squeezing madly with my right hand. Ben. C.
In this dream Ben shows a completely different response to the stereotype of fear. He is not afraid of his own anxieties or internal urges, but he hasn’t actually transformed them.
Example: Tell me where was the Devil? I do not understand. Jesus, why have we not been tempted? There is no answer – at least, not from outside. But something within me speaks. It . . – says – – . wait, I begin to hear. It says. . – You . . . were . . . the Devil. It was. . . you – – . who tempted me. Your fear, your loneliness, your dependence on things of the world, on people’s opinion, on wealth as a means of self-respect, on hate as a means to love – all these you tempted me with. Now you have left me for a season, for with God’s wider view given with the descent of the Dove, I showed you the illusion of your gods – the emptiness of your fears, the powerlessness of your determinations. The shadow cast by the knots tied in your heart, your head and your belly, was the Devil. Like children’s hands held between a candle and the wall, your pains, desolation’s, and terrors have cast grotesque shadows upon your consciousness, which you took to be real, and you lived according to their demands. By these shadows men are led to war, murder, theft, terrible ambition, lust, even madness. All mankind is possessed by these shadows – by this absence of the Light, the Life and the Love. I come, not to condemn them but to redeem. For you are your own devil, and your own angel. But my hour is not yet come; when it does I will redeem.
Example: Devil Snivel Havel – They are just words to describe human fears, fears put into us by a church thousands of years ago speaking of things it only had primitive words to describe what it saw. I have met the devil myself several times, sometimes in great fear, and then slowly in wonder and direct insight. In such meeting I saw and realise that devil was ‘lived’ spelt backwards. In other word it is the Light we are all born with that through fear or ignorance we have turned back on ourselves. In doing so we have created great chunks of stuff blocking the light causing depression, suicidal impulses, and all the many human pains and suffering. But it is not some evil person ‘doing it to us’ it is our own misguided actions that can be undone by understanding them.
Such feelings, such entrance of foreign and destructive forces, is seen by our unconscious as the devil, demons or even a vampire. They suck away the life force and create illness in your body. Recognising them is very important for your health and person wholeness. This is called a dybbuk in Jewish folklore. Remember that devil is lived spelled backwards, and evil is live backwards. They both suggest the turning of your life force back on itself.
Example: The Devil attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was held back sexuality. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available energy, sexual or emotional. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the connection between the Devil and how they were repressed sexual feelings.
Fears of dream devils and demons are completely unfounded. That is because the dream is only a virtual reality that are self created images that can be changed. The following example shows how lack of fear changes the way we relate to our dreams – and of course how fear creates our awful images.
Example: Had a very unusual dream last night. I was in an outdoor environment. It seemed a bit dark, or maybe morbid is the right word. I was with other people but none of them stood out to remain in memory. There was a definite awareness though of being near to a place that was haunted, and that a man was in trouble in the haunted place.
I decided to go and see if I could sort out the problem. I walked down a slope to where the centre of the haunting existed. It was an open space with an old double-decker bus in it. The only person on the bus was a middle-aged man who was sitting on the top deck leaning out of a window on the right hand side of the bus. I stood beneath him and looked up. He was staring in a glazed way and didn’t see me. I could see and feel that he was being hit by fantasies or hallucinations by whatever was the source of the haunting. This invasion of his mind was grabbing his attention so fully that he wasn’t aware of his surrounding or of me. I was sure that if he went any deeper into this mind stuff he wouldn’t be able to pull out. I waved my hand in his line of vision and banged my hand on the bus to make a noise and get his attention. At first it didn’t seem as if I would bring him out of it, but after a while he looked at me.
I shouted at him to pull out. I said that he had a wife and some more years of his life to live, so why lose himself into this entrancement. This didn’t seem to grab him so I shouted again and said that he would eventually slip into this empty mind world anyway – at death – so why not live with his wife the remaining years of his life. I was sure that if he lost awareness he would let himself starve.
I was aware that what he desired was to slip away into the void, into the awareness of the one life in which he lost any awareness of self. But I banged and shouted and he became more ‘present’. I then felt I had to confront whatever was the source of the powerful ‘haunting’ that was pulling him into the inner mind. I turned away from the man and saw just to my right a short distance from the bus an animal that was the ‘haunter’. It was a mammal of no particular type – a bit like a mixture of dog, rat and guinea pig. It seemed very ordinary and tame, and stood looking at me. I walked toward it and stretched out my hand. It was a tan colour with short fur and gave a feeling of being okay to approach, so I touched it to stroke. This was okay and I was thinking there was no problem when the creature leapt at my throat in a flash of movement and ripped my throat out.
This sounds disturbing but I simply observed this and thought to myself that stroking and trying to be friendly was no way of dealing with this thing. It was as if I was in command of the imagery in that I simply formed another body. The only way that felt as if I might deal with the creature was to have the meditative state of holding on to the nothingness that was my centre, and not feeling panic at it’s attacks. In fact apart from the gory imagery, there was nothing to be frightened of, as the creature was only attacking my dream image of myself. As I wasn’t identified with this, it couldn’t hurt me. That was the end of the dream.
Here a woman comes face to face with the devil –
Recently I sat with a woman, Beth, while she explored her usually unconscious feelings and beliefs. Our unconscious dream action often portrays such inner feelings as an object or person, and in her exploration Beth met the Devil. When we dared to face and closely look at this image of evil, what she discovered was that her ancestors had lived in times of great persecution. Being people who had questioning minds, they wondered whether the persecution was in fact justified. Maybe there was something about them that was inferior and detestable. Those self doubts, and the negative feelings that arose from them, created an open door for what has been called the Devil – destructive emotions and urges, negative comparisons, and feelings of being an outsider. Once this is understood it is easy to see other things that leave a door open for evil to enter. They are childhood trauma or abuse, the attitudes and standards we often pick up – rather like infections – from others around us, and the cultural attitudes we live amidst. When this ‘devil’ enters us it can lead to self criticism, the denial of ones own talents and ‘light’, and in bad cases, crime, murder and the infliction of child abuse and trauma. |
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Knowing this, we can see that much advertising attempts to call these demons into action – Are wrinkles making you look old? – Can you no longer make love like you used to? – Lacking energy, zest, confidence, take this fantastic new formula – What will happen if you die leaving your loved ones uncared for? – What is holding you back – why not completely change your life by signing on to this $2000 guaranteed three day course? Defeat ageing, get rich, have fantastic sex, leave failure behind – you know the story. But what the adverts are reaching are the beliefs, fears or feelings that you are ageing, you no longer or never did have fantastic sex, you are childless or a failure. They are grabbing hold of the imagination already working in us that tells us we are doomed, failures, unloved and lonely. See Integration – Meeting yourself
Useful questions:
What relationship do I have with my own natural urges such as sex or eating?
Have I turned my own urges back on themselves, transforming ‘lived’ into ‘devil’ by a reverse process?
Can I dare to meet this devil and release the repressed energy as living flows of personal life and love?
See – Masters of Nightmares – Dreams are Virtual Realities – Take Everything into You – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – The Secret of Time and Satan
Comments
I had a dream where the world came to an end. My daughter, my husband and a few others had survive the catastrophe. We watched mother nature take over her planet in magical ways which were beautiful. As we traveled on to start a new life we came to a house. We didn’t know the house was home to the devil until we were inside. The Devil took my husband and tried to take another survivor in our group. The survivor managed to break free from the devil’s grasp but remained in his dammed form. The survivor went in to fight the devil for my husband’s life in return.
Dear Megan – Inward and exterior changes can produce the feeling or dream of our world ending.
Your dream suggests that “Mother Nature” – the part of yourself which is not moulded by conscious ambitions or desires – took over and “she” is capable of “miraculous changes” of perception.
See also http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/
If we change our code of conduct, we may meet the devil because we release the previously unlived area of self. Of course it only appears in the image of the Devil or Satan if we are frightened of or disgusted by this emerging aspect of ourselves.
This can usually be met and passed through, although it does require a sort of death, a letting go of old traits and responses built in connection with the old way of life. This can produce anxiety. A new personality, one suited to present needs or situation can gradually emerge – be born – if we can pass through the anxiety and meet the experiences of the new inner world we are living in.
Please also read http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/end-of-world/
and
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-devil/
Anna 🙂
Can you help me interpret this? I had a dream that I was setting up food at an event of some sort and I ran out of olives and I really needed them but couldn’t run out to get them. So I called my Dad …who was the devil…and asked him to please bring me some olives asap. He said ok and that he would bring them right away but I ended up waiting and waiting and he never showed up. So then I said to the person that was with me setting up the event, “I knew he would do this. He always disappoints me and let’s me down”
Nothing about the dream was scary at all, my “dad” was like a normal person…accept for the fact he was a the devil haha but he wasn’t scary at all. I’ve never had a dream about the devil, what do you think this means?
Dear Crystal – There are some important pieces in your dream puzzle.
There is food for the mind; food for thought; food for the body; and spiritual nourishment. There is the devil “that” usually represents the parts of our own urges and emotions we have repressed or do not feel in control of and there are the olives which are needed to solve the issue. Because of the mention in the Bible of live branch and the fruit of the olive, it has the associations of peace and immortality and certainly with healing. So olives in a dream may represent the resolution of conflict in life.
The thing is that you ask “the part you do not feel in control of” to get you what is needed and you know it: “I knew he would do this. He always disappoints me and lets me down.”
So I wonder if this (“lack of action”) is something you absorbed from the relationship with your father and which you have not digested and released yet.
What we absorb/take in from our parents becomes part of our “belief system”; “I really needed them BUT couldn’t run out to get them”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/beliefs/
Many people do not realise that they have an inner father equally as powerful as an external father. You have taken in millions of bit of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your father, and they are what makes you the person you are. This is true even if your father was never there for you – you still have all the memories of him not being there for you filed under ‘Father’. The memories and experience we gather unconsciously change us and are not lost. It is part of you and is symbolised in dreams as a person or event. Such an inner father can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.
See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Integrate
In general we can say the man in a woman’s dreams represents the woman’s mental and social power, her ability to act creatively in ‘the world’. It also holds in it an expression of her complex of feelings about men, gained as experience mostly from her relationship with – or lack of relationship with – her father.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-animus-jungs-view-of-the-male-in-the-female/
Anna 🙂
I Dreamt of devil Dragging me along Floor by my feet, of then Spoke to me in Form of Foot stool, devil told me he Want me and that I’m the main One. I could not Speak Back, words would not come out of my Mouth. What Does this Mean? Can’t stop thinking about it
Rebecca – I trust you have read this feature where it says that:
The devil in our dreams usually represents the parts of our own urges and emotions we have repressed or do not feel in control of. The angers or urges may even feel to us as if they are strong enough to control us; so you represent them in your dream as an external force which is dragging you along. Perhaps it will be helpful to you to read another feature (too) in which what you are doing to yourself is explained in different words:
Many of the characters or elements of our dreams act quite contrary to what we consciously wish. This is why we often find it so difficult to believe all aspects of a dream are part of our own psyche. Some drives or areas of self act or express despite what we would want. These are named autonomous complexes.
The complex may express as something evil, the devil or something or someone possessing one. This can be very frightening to many people because they believe that an actual devil or evil possesses them, rather than a repressed part of them, or the results of a traumatic experience showing itself in frightening images.
Apart from the infant there are many beings we touch in our dreams. This can range from the deeply animal such as the dog in our dreams, or the wolf, to the sadist, the lover, the monk and the business tycoon. If we do not meet these characters and manage them in our life, they will certainly manage us, and lead us into relationship tangles, emotional responses and actions that are not what we ourselves choose to be or feel.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/autonomous-complex/
I think you are unable to speak, because you are unaware yet of this autonomous complex and so you do not know what to express.
So perhaps you can use self-observation as a means to learn to become aware of “your devil”.
See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/self-observation/
Good Luck!
Anna 🙂
I had a dream that I was getting dropped of at my house but when I was about to get off the devil ran out of my house and was starring at me threw the car window . I never saw him in my dream because I covered my eyes . What could this mean ?
Julian – If you never saw him in your dream, how do you know it was the devil?
Anyway, whatever it was, it is always more helpful to face things/people/animal etc. that frighten you in your dream, for then you will become aware that there is nothing to be afraid of.
Anna 🙂
This wasn’t helpful. My dream consist of me literally fucking the devil, while my two boys, their father and my nephew was in the bed next to me. What does that mean???
Crystal – So why do you create such scenes, because there is nobody else in your dreams except you. Whenever we dream its images are not like real life. because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing
Such dreams are, as explained in the entry, are usually about your own repressed feelings. Or you can find out for your self by using http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
Tony
I keep having a reoccurring dream that I’m jumping out of my bed in the middle of the night feeling like something evil is going to get in my house. I always run to the door and push on it as is someone or something is trying to get in. It’s a really strong force but I always wake up before I find out if it got in.The first time I had that dream I got to close and lock the door but something banged on it really hard and then I woke up. When I had the dream again, instead of me closing the door it got it’s head and arm in. In my dream, I had a feeling it was the devil because it had horns. When I saw it scared me so badly that I woke up.
I had a dream of one of mmy step sibilings appearing to me in a dream. He asked if he could use my computer. I told him no. Then out of nowhere…. his eyes burned with fire, and he screamed , “I Am Lucifer!!!” I fell to the ground paralyzed with fear… and his body bent backwards like some sort of fucked up acrobat… then bit me on my neck..
I dreamed I’m trying to punch the devil. I’ve had the dream more than once…he is in my face but I can’t seem to reach him.
I’ve had a dream where I go into a hospital that has been abandoned, the lights are dim and no one is around. I walk into what seems to be a surgery room. In the room the devil is behind an operating table, there’s a blue sheet on the table as if expecting someone. And it’s the typical idea/image of the devil, red, big horns, buff. As I’m walking towards him I am not in fear or experience anxiety. The devil turns into a black moth and As soon as he does I snatch the moth out of the air and I squeeze as hard as I can. When I open my hand there are no guts, but dust and it just falls from my hand. That’s the end of the dream.
What does it mean to dream about being friends with the devil? In my dream I was carrying a duffle bag and my purse in which they had my belongings. There was a guy I met while walking down a road that had few shops . He took me inside one of the shops that had scary mask at the front and when I entered it looked like an ordinary house. There was another man in their who introduced himself as the devil and said that I could take shelter their for as long as I needed to. He looked like an ordinary man and was very nice to me I was not scared at all and in fact felt very safe in the presence of both men. We became friends and when it was time for me to leave I felt scared. I walked out of the house/shop and walked over to another shop that looked like a bar, with my bags still in hand. I tried callin my dad to pick me up but he wouldn’t. Then I tried my mom and when she arrived all she did was laugh at me and gave me the impression that she had no intention of taking me home.
The other night i had dreamt of a big Black house curiosity struck and i decided to check it out the door opens and i am greeted by a man in a black suit and red tie inside the house it is pink you can tell from outside because there is this big window there in front of the house and so i continue the host then tells me welcome home an that were glad your home and he says why dont you come with me into this room over here i then proceed to say no and he tells me its alright and so these two women take me by the arms gently and take me into this dark room where i stand there thinking this is a joke one of the woman says this wont hurt at all and i jokingly say sure as i turn around the whole room goes black and i wake up.
What does it mean if i had a dream about this: i dreamt that sumone died because of the devil n i was with that person n later i was in the car with sumone n they said i could of died too but the devil kept me alive. I was so scared
Victoria – Wow, you need to know some information about dreams. For instance whenever we dream its images are not like real life. because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
So the devil is simply a scary idea you have and it means that you have been holding back your full and wonderful life by having such an idea. Literally it killed you – but at the same time the fear kept you alive. Death is dreams is usually not about dying physically, but about parts of your nature dying because they are hurt, or through fear or by not allowing them to grow. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing
Tony
I’m 18 going to be nineteen what does it meant to dream about the devil when pregnant
Jesse – There are several possible reasons you might have such a dream.
Firstly you may have taken in the feelings that getting pregnant is bad. It might also be that you have repressed a part of your sexual drives or feel there is something wrong with it.
But if you are actually pregnant it is because during pregnancy most women have awful dreams. In fact they dream about all their fears and worries, but in doing so they get rid of a lot of their tensions and have an easier birth.
Tony
I’ve been having this dream, and I only have it once a year. But I’m skipping and humming to myself,I find my mothers dead body and I pick it up, start to dance with her body, and talk to her as if she was a live, I suddenly drop her body and continue to skip around and hum to myself. Suddenly the ground caves in, and I fall deeper and deeper into the earth, and when I stop, I’m floating in the air in the shape of the cross, then the devil comes to me, leans forward when he reach my body and whispers into my ear, “Now you’re mine” places his hand over my heart, and rips it out. Then i’m back above ground. I stand there for a bit, then I start to skip and hum to myself.
I had a dream in which I was the son of Satan and I was down on Earth with my ‘friends’, when they were being sacrificed, I asked my father to sacrifice me instead of them.
Kind of like the God/Jesus situation, in which Jesus sacrificed himself so that no one would be hurt by God. Except it was the Devil and his son.
It was creepy. Very, very creepy.
I’m not sure how relative this is, but I had a dream that disturbed me a lot yesterday. I saw that a man (who looked like a once famous singer– he was tall and very attractive and dressed in very flamboyant attire) appeared before me and introduced himself as the King of Demons (and at other times he called himself, or I called him, or my environment, simply, Devil) and told me that he had been watching me ever since I was a little girl and watched over me and that he had fallen in love with me; he said he was found to die soon from some kind of disease and that he wanted me to be his companion until the day he’d die– because throughout the dream I had this strange feeling of affection for the ‘man’ I gladly accepted. We were together a lot, talking and holding hands and embracing, and sometimes talking on the phone, but everytime, my older brother appeared and came between us, shouting at me or leaving snide comments. In the end, me and my brother were dining out together, until the ‘man’ appeared out of nowhere and told me he had come to pick me up; as I was about to rise, my brother started shouting again but I turned to him and told him to stay out of my life and then I took the ‘man’s’ hand and we went out to the street together.
This troubled me a lot. Plus, I’ve never seen my brother in my dreams before–everytime I see ‘family dreams’, he is always out of the picture, not even accepted by my subconscious as part of our family. We don’t have a good relationship either. And the presence of the ‘King of Demons’ in this context made me a little apprehensive (not because of what he was, but mostly because of the various things I read on the internet about this character…they really got me worried).
Could you interpret this please?