Gnaw

Something may be eating away at you inside, such as conscience, worry. What is gnawing represents the source of worry. Gnawing can also mean attacking a problem or situation, or link with hunger for something. See: Eating.

This seemed to have a strong connection with a woman I had fallen in love with. I felt torn, in conflict, lost. I have not felt quite like this for many years. Gnawing away at my innards was just the same anxiety as I had experienced all those years ago with Silvia.

Gnawing images can in fact indicate deep anxieties, as follows:

I remembered the tremendous physical anxiety I had felt when searching for work. It was an actual pain in my lower abdomen, a real burning gnawing deep inside. I went right into the anxiety, and it was the fear any life form feels when exposed to danger. I remembered the film of baby turtles hatching in the warm sand. As they made the perilous journey from dry sand to the sea, seagulls swooped and ate them; alligators snapped them up; fish swallowed them. The anxiety was that of stepping out from underneath our rock into the open sky, and taking ones chance with life. If fear paralysed us we would dodge more slowly. But the seagulls might get us however fast we moved. It was the chance we took. There was no guarantee of success or failure.

My parents had sowed in me the seeds of enormous anxiety about sticking my neck out from the rock of security. Now, as I was exploring fresh pastures, I faced the agony of anxiety of the unknown, unseen seagull.

Negative thoughts that eat, gnaw, and destroy your creative ideas and connections.

Example: Then I was out in the garden. A small rodent type of animal was running around. Apparently it was our pet that we have adopted. It was foraging about, and as I watched it found what looked like a carcass of a dead animal, and began to eat the remains. Still watching I saw that the “dead” creature was still alive, and the rodent was eating its internal organs. Then the creature being devoured turned over onto its back, and opened itself to being eaten. At this point it looked like a large squirrel – not a grey – that had been cut open and gutted. I couldn’t see its heart beating, but it seemed alert and was okay about being eaten. I was pondering this and the animal got up and ran away. Some dogs chased across a road. A car skidded, hitting one of the dogs, but not badly injuring it. I pointed at the dog saying, “You know you shouldn’t have done that.” It looked at me as if it knew.

An interesting view of this is given in the persons exploration of the dream: The main thing I felt was the small rodent and the small creature, squirrel, it was eating. I arrived at the understanding that the squirrel was partly about hibernation. This represents a desire to pull back from activity, to hibernate in the sense of the spending more time with my inner life. It also links with the experience of a readiness to die, and I mean that in the way that one can melt back into the primal source of things. In the dream this is represented by the fact that the squirrel at first is almost invisible because it looks as if it has sunk into the earth, and only a small piece of fur is showing. As the squirrel I felt the rodent was disturbing me from sinking deeper. It was winter and time to become inactive in the world. This was me gnawing away at a process of disintegration that was going on in me.

Useful questions and hints:

Do I feel I am gnawing away at something in my mind?

Or is something eating away at you?

Are you destroying your positive feelings in some way?

See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams