Helicopter

Like any aircraft it is about the adventure and uncertainty of flight. See airplane.

But a helicopter is a particular type of experience, and can represent many things depending on the rest of the dream. It can be a way of escaping from difficult feelings, or saving people, or an attack vehicle, or, most important, a way of having a much wider awareness of your life and situation. It can be an eye in the sky and hover and land where no airplane could, so it is about manoeuvrability. The following example show some of these different meanings.

I would stand at the top of the stairs and instead of walking down the stairs I used to fly. This dream lasted for a numbe

r of years and as I got older I sometimes dreamed that boys or men were chasing me. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.

Example: ‘ I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.’ M.C

Example: I’m watching a film or tape taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – it’s night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta

Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life.

I am walking out of a house which sits embedded in a huge mountain. I see a helicopter coming and know that it is going to pick me up and swoop me away into the air. I hurriedly place some old lawn chairs and some fake trees on the lawn to prevent it from landing. I know that my preparations are fruitless and that it will land one way or another. It will fly me through the air and dump me in a Girl Scout camp away over the water. I despair as fighting it is totally useless.

In exploring her dream she said: I am a helicopter owned by the armed forces, and I am large, strong and powerful, totally made of steel. Nothing can shoot me down as I manipulate quickly in the air. I never break down. There is no way to stop me once I am on purpose and have the mission computed into my mechanical system. Enjoy the ride, lady! I will dump you in a Girl Scout camp, and you will get to play with the little girls.

Dream Ego: But I am a grown woman, and I don’t want to go to a little girls’ camp. I am not a little girl.

Masculine in this dream is represented by the helicopter, a powerful war machine owned by the armed forces, and it seems inexorable in its purposes. The abduction, it seems, cannot be avoided, although the result is to isolate the dream ego in a camp for little girls. Abduction by the Ghostly Lover does in fact keep women young, girlish, and unknowing in the ways of existing in a realistic adult relationship. Although dream ego despairs of her fate, she feels totally helpless to escape the abduction. Women often feel they must fight the combined armed forces of the patriarchy in defining their womanhood in other than child-like ways, and often it does seem hopeless. Women are relegated to Girl Scout camps, earning merit badges, and being schooled in the ways of traditional womanhood. And, although the terrain may be lovely and close to nature, we essentially get closed out of the training culturally agreed upon as forms of power deemed important by the society. Quoted from The Sundance  Magazine.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I in a helicopter or watching  it?

What do I feel about what I see?

Am I trying to escape from something or saving something?

See Active Passive – Being in Control – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Edgar Cayce