Fence Barrier

A barrier. Difficulty in yourself. It is either something which bars your progress or expression, or is used as a protection from things outside yourself, or from things getting at you. If you are sitting on the fence, it shows you attempting to avoid decision or action.

In many dreams a fence or wall also suggests social barriers, the attitudes and feelings people express to keep others at a distance, to keep a separation between those of different social, religious or economic class. This sort of fence may also depict tension or conflict, as was expressed by the Berlin wall between two opposing powers. It can indicate the natural barrier we have separating our personality, our awake self, and the huge forces that keep us alive and stand behind our existence. See The Tree of Life – The Spine

The fence often depicts our fear, which is an enormous barrier to progress in our life, also our sense of social barriers, class barriers, or the attitudes we use to segregate the sexes, races or classes in work, opportunity or relationship. It can represent the need for privacy; territorial feelings; the social rules we use to give each other respect, or the de-fences we erect to ward off what we fear as danger of hurt.

Also our boundaries or fears in relationship or society which might prevent us daring to express ourselves or be creative.

Stretched wire mesh fence: May represent the tension or stress that is holding one, or trapping one in anxiety – see third example. See: wall.

In the first example the fence depicts the social boundaries we feel in approaching each other, especially if there is a class, wealth or authority difference. In the second dream, Arthur relates to the fence as a protection, in just the same way one might if a feared bull were loose in a field. In this case the fence is used to depict the things we do to avoid what frightens or threatens us.

Example: ‘I saw that we had got into a fenced off area where the gentry landowners parked their cars while they went shooting. I could see the landowner in his car beyond the fence, looking angry that I was in his property. I thought I would break through the fence with the elephant I was riding, but then saw a low area which the elephant easily stepped over.’ Arthur P.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Arthur P.

Example: We have then been caught and are in a sort of prisoner of war camp. At some point I see my sister and her boyfriend -Tony – going in and out of the camp through the wire fence. Tony has cut a slit in the wire and bent it back on either side so that they can slip in and out as they choose. Although they are seen nobody actually seems to be able to stop them. They ignore the words as if they aren’t directed at them (like you can’t go out, or stop). Louise W.

Louise comments on the dream, saying ‘One of the things I found when working on the dream was that when I was the wire fence I was stress itself. An image that went with it was that I was spread and stretched over the fence.’

Example: I dreamt last night that a black Spanish fighting bull charged me. I climbed a high wire mesh fence, like that surrounding tennis courts. There I was safe, as the Bull charged again. It charged people. I came down from the fence trying to help divert the bull’s destructiveness.

Here the dreamer is meeting sexual feelings that he had always avoided in the past and still feels threatened by. As the dream shows, he tries to avoid facing these feelings, but in the end has to deal with them because they had been destructive in his life.

Idioms: Rush one’s fences; wrong side of the fence; sit on the fence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this fence presented in the dream, and how am I relating to it?

Am I ‘sitting on the fence’ about a decision or to avoid something?

Is this fence a barrier or protection against something getting at me, or keeping me away from a situation?

Do I feel offended about something, as in someone ‘crossed the line’?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Associations Working With – Habits