Horse Horses

There is not so much difference between the horse and the dog. They are both domesticated animals, and so represent urges and drives in ourselves we have learned to harness or direct. The big difference is that the horse can carry us and serve us in our labours much more powerfully than a dog.

For myself I feel the horse is the most beautiful and loved herbivore.

The dream horse also depicts or expresses our pleasurable energy and exuberance, the sort of enthusiasm or feelings of well-being that can ‘carry’ one through the day easily; dynamic sexual drive; the physical energy and life processes that ‘carry’ us around. As such it may also link with the life processe. Horses like other animals are quick to respond to love and danger. So they can be panicked and you can feel the effect of this part of you. See Mammal Brain

The energy that carry – or pull – us through growth and ageing, as happens when we dream of a horse drawn carriage or cart. Therefore in old age the unbidden processes which move us toward death may be depicted as the horse in a threatening or helpful role. The horse depicts human instincts that have been harnessed or socialised for generations, but have perhaps been let slide into non-use or crushed. It is also survival drive, sexuality, love, all yearning toward service, toward metamorphosis, all that has powerful energy to move us.

A horse or a man on a horse can sometimes signify a messenger or a message.

In his book Dreams and Dreaming, Norman MacKenzie says the horse ‘… is dynamic power and a means of locomotion; it carries one away like a surge or instinct. It is subject to panics like all instinctive creatures which lack higher consciousness. Also it has to do with sorcery and magic spells, especially the black, night horse, which heralds death.’ In a woman’s dream the horse can sometimes represent her relationship with a man and the power and strength she gets from that, as in the following dream.

Example: As I talked to the pale golden horse it felt more and more as if I was talking to a male companion who was in union with me. As I talked about my mother, she was standing before me in full anger and blaming me for bringing out the witch in her. H.

Example: A rather shadowy man in a building opposite to where I used to live as a teenager was introducing me to a new job. I seemed to understand that I was to do a milk-round. He led a small horse from out of the building. It was to draw a cart. When the horse saw me it ran to me and become very excited and loving, rubbing against me and licking me with a very long tongue. I was both pleased and slightly threatened. Threatened because it was so intense. At one point though we rubbed against each other with a degree of sexual pleasure.

I believe many young girls feel totally as if they are fully connected and loved as the photo illustrates.

But our dream horse can be a wonderful guide and mirror for us.

Example: I love horses too and they are great teachers, for they mirror what goes on inside us. I used to ride horses for many years and when I was not convinced about what I asked the horse to do, it would not consider me as its leader and was more likely to refuse to do what I had asked. Their sensing is perfectly developed. Anna, A few weeks ago I saw a documentation about Buck Brannaman. He says –

“Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.” So says Buck Brannaman, a true American cowboy and sage on horseback who travels the country for nine grueling months a year helping horses with people problems.

Black or dark horse: Unaccepted passions; threat of death. The unknown parts of your tremendous energy arising out of unconscious processes. The dream horse represents the very long history we have had with horses, through peace and terrible wars there are very long associations we have with them. It shares all that with us and so can be realisations emerging from our long past. Or it can represent threatening changes. Riding a black horse can represent the amazing energy used to bring awareness of things that had been unconscious into consciousness.

Blinkered horse: Not allowing oneself to see what is happening around you; anxiety about life, or an attempt to control ones natural anxiety or panics.

Controlling the horse or fear of it: Trying to control, or fear of, feelings of love and sexuality, of our own natural drives and emotions that are powerful enough either to give us motivation in our activities, or drag us along unwillingly.

Dead horse: Serious loss of energy or motivation which could lead to illness or depression; an old and dying set of habits and motivations or way of life.

Falling off horse: Relating badly to ones urges and needs. This could result in tension, breakdown or illness.

Grooming a horse: Taking care of ones basic needs such as food, shelter, sex.

Horse and carriage: The natural processes of life that move us through youth to old age; forces that can move us, either from within or as natural events, but which, if we are relating well to the horse, we can guide in some measure. It can also indicate the inner power which brings thoughts to awareness, things you might be blocking to think about. The horses represent the power which draws the mind.

Horse dragging the dreamer along: Impetuosity of feelings; feelings dragged along by natural urges.

Horse loving you or expressing sexual feelings: The flow of positive and natural sexuality and warmth from within.

Horse race: The events of everyday life, and your relationship with people; everyday competition and where you rate yourself in it; what happens in the race shows how you are relating to opportunity, or how you feel about your accomplishments and being part of the ‘human race’.

Horse running freely: Allowing ones emotions or sexuality free reign; love of life.

Horse unwilling to move or carry: Your inner natural reaction is against the action or direction you are trying to go. Sometimes this is a warning that you should not go in that direction.

Horseshoe: Good luck, receptivity if prongs upwards; bad luck or lack of receptiveness if prongs downwards.

Large horse: Enormous energy.

New born horse: Emerging energy or new motivations.

Old or worn out horse: State of your feelings, perhaps worn out from overwork; may refer to a member of the family.

Riderless horse: Sometimes represents the death of someone, as in the following example.

Example: “I dreamed that I was awakened by the sound of a horse’s hooves in the street. I saw a white horse, with no rider, stopping at midnight in front of our house. I knew it came for my younger sister. I went to the door and opened it to call her, when suddenly I saw her coming down the stairs, all dressed in white. She did not say a word to me, but walked with stately steps down the stairs, through the hall, and out of the door. She mounted the horse and rode away. I woke up crying.” The woman’s sister died a month later.

Riding or leading horse easily: Good relationship with inner drives and emotions; the harmony between instinctive drives and personality.

Running away from a horse or horsemen: Fear of sexuality, which includes responsibility for parenthood and relationship. Fear of ones own strong desires or urges; avoiding the responsibility of directing ones own feelings and desires.

Sick or dying horse: Loss of health, energy, enthusiasm. Have a physical check.

Speaking horse: Realisation of what you are feeling but have not been aware of; expression of levels of feeling or body processes usually unconscious.

Strange or unknown horseman/woman: Message from the unconscious; a new opportunity or event.

Struggling to control the horse: Fighting with ones urges and natural drives; difficulty in controlling ones emotions or sexuality.

The mare: femininity, receptiveness, fertility or a woman.

The stallion: masculinity, power and virility or a man.

The winged horse: In folklore and religion we also find mention of the winged horse. This symbolises the sexual or instinctive drives that have not been repressed, but allowed, in conjunction with consciousness and reason, to develop the higher possibilities latent in them. Put in plain language this suggests that the sexual drive rises like a wave that carries our conscious desires with it.

This energy wave rises, but in fulfilling itself in genital sex the wave falls again, self-awareness with it. However, if the energy is released, and yet not allowed to spill out in the full sexual release, the energy keeps on rising – flying in fact – lifting awareness with it, until it becomes a vast awareness of life and death. The white horse can have a similar meaning. For instance a woman turning her love of her children into social caring suggests a way of expression that goes beyond personal drives or the instinctive urges toward personal survival. She ‘flies up’ into a wider social context. See: Cayce, Edgar.

In mythology Pegasus was born from the blood when Perseus cut off Medusa’s head. Pegasus then lived roaming freely until Bellerophon caught him with a golden bridle given him by Athena. Bellerophon went through adventures such as the slaying of chimera with the help of Pegasus. But Bellerophon tried to ride Pegasus to Mount Olympus (Heaven) but Zeus caused Pegasus to throw him off and fall back to Earth.

However Pegasus arrived at Mount Olympus where he served Zeus. The symbolic meaning of this is that when the uncontrolled and undirected processes of thought and intellect are stilled a new level of experience or energy is released. This new way of relating to sexuality or life energy can uplift or expand consciousness to the point where we arrive at cosmic consciousness. But the old human personality cannot manage this and falls away as a new being emerges. Chimera, the destructive and illusory view of life arising from a purely sensory view of life is killed in the process. See: cosmic consciousness.

Thrown from horse: It depends on who is thrown from the horse and why. In general though it suggests that the instinctive or spontaneous life force has cast off an attitude that is restraining it, or not dealing with it well. One dreamer who saw a man thrown from a white horse realised that it showed how, “The forces of restraint, moral, sexual, worldly active that I have been imposing on myself have been thrown off.”

Tied up horse: Inhibition; need for release of feelings and allowing freedom of expression to feelings and creativity.

Training a horse: Developing new habits; directing your energies in a socially acceptable way; learning to direct sexual and emotional energy.

Uneasy on ride: being taken for a ride; feeling ones emotions or natural urges are dominating.

White horse: Changing sexual drive into love and wider awareness; a meeting with expanded awareness of yourself.

Wild horse: Undirected energy; sexuality which might not take care of personal or interpersonal needs.

Working horse: The energy or motivation needed to work; how you feel about yourself, that you are only a work-horse, or perhaps treated as such.

In this sign the animal nature is ruled and directed by the human spiritual nature. The symbol of Sagittarius – half beast and half man represents this new emergence. The emergence of the human out of the animal, and the different sense that human beings have of themselves. It suggests a new type of human being in fact. If we look at the Zodiac from there on – Capricorn, we have the half goat half man figure – until we arrive at Aquarius, a fully fledged human figure. The human faculty is to transcend, to make that change. To switch across seasons, physiological changes, to actually attain consciousness. This allows us to look at the seasons, to adjust to them in a completely new way than the animal.

Example: ‘As I talked to the pale golden horse it felt more and more as if I were talking to a male companion who was in union with me.’ Alison B.

Alison’s horse is obviously portraying her feelings for a man, but also that motivating and active power in herself. The dream shows how easy and integrated she is with this.

Example: I was driving along Tottenham Court Road with my wife and my youngest son. As we neared Euston Road I saw the magnificent sight of hundreds of horses coming full gallop toward me. I knew it was a great horse race – something like the Grand National. There was every sort of horse – many riderless, all surging in a mass so thick there seemed no space between them. Then we were walking in the Covent Garden area, and it was still a market. I was crying openly at the wonder of what I had seen. Edward.

Edward’s tears are because his dream brought him a glimpse of something much bigger than his own small life. He touched the amazing flow of the energy behind the human race in its infinity of forms. Perhaps just lightly he experienced cosmic consciousness, the state of awareness that transcends ones own limitations of body and mind. But the dream also has elements of the competitive drive we feel as humans, and the struggle to know where we stand in relationship with others and the mass of other people we exist within.

Idioms: Back the wrong horse; from the horse’s mouth; don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; horse sense; you can lead a horse to water; wild horses; workhorse; horsing about; getting on your high horse; eat like a horse; back the wrong horse; beating a dead horse. See: spiritual life in dreams .

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is your relationship with the horse and what does this say about how you relate to your own motivating and energising drives?

Where is the horse taking you, or where are you directing the horse – this gives you clues to your direction in life?

Is the horse decidedly male or female – if so is there a connection with how you are relating to someone or yourself?

See Talking to Inner Self – Summing Up – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Martial Art of the Mind