River Stream Creek

The images of rivers used in drama help us understand their symbolism. The river can be calm, in flood, or even dried up – representing our state of feeling about our energy, sexuality and emotions – the energy that as anxiety can cause illness, or as pleasure sustain health. Similarly, we can drown in the river – drown in despair – float on it – be carried along by prevailing feelings, or cross over, suggesting change or even death.

Each of us is immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change; and is fought like hell by many as they are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death.

The river is a wonderful message in our dreams, not only does is  it represent constant change for wherever you stand, the flow of the river is constantly bringing the past to you, reminding you that you are the sum total of all you have lived – good or bad.

Example: This was an answer to a dream, where the answer was given in ‘spontaneous voice’.

The river really lives within you; the fish are released from another reality beyond your own personal life. The reason you see living fish and shapes is because they represents long-term benefits. Your present life brings into being factors that will not really live except in other lifetimes. These fish will nevertheless afford prizes in the form of bonus outflows from the one life. Your present life will release much that arises from the future. You are a gateway for the future to pour into the present. The past releases the living fish. Past and future are from the one source.

Example: I am in a landscape and notice that everything is brown; the whole world is brown and lifeless. There is also a feeling of solemnity or dullness. I have enough lucidity to wonder why the world of my dream is so brown and dull. As I ask this I become more aware of what feeling the brownness expresses. It is seriousness – with no room for humour or fun. The feeling deepens, real enough and clear enough to look at and understand. I see it is my father’s attitude to life that I have unconsciously inherited. I realise how anxious he always felt about life, and how I took this in. That is how I became a ‘brown’ person. I see too that I do not need to be either brown or serious anymore.

Then the landscape changes. There are trees, plants and animals in brilliant colour. I wonder what this means, and the landscape begins to spin until the colours blend and shimmer. Suddenly my body seems to open to them, as if they are spinning inside of me, and with a most glorious feeling, a sensation of vibrating energy pours up my trunk to my head. With this comes realisation. I see how stupid I have been in my brown, anxious existence, how much life I have held back. The animals and plants are the different forces in my being that blend into energy and awareness. I feel I am capable of doing almost anything, like loving, writing a song, painting, telepathy, or speaking with the dead. This sparkling vibrating energy is life itself and can, if I learn to work with it, grow into any ability or direction I choose. I wake with a wonderful sense of my possibilities. Jon.

Jon’s dream illustrates both the flow of the river of Life through us, and also how changing one’s feelings and insight changes what one creates.

Being in river: Being influenced by or immersed in one’s internal flow of feelings and energies. For instance, one may have fallen in love and never developed a relationship with that person. Years later in an unsatisfying life situation one might be haunted by memories and longings for the love that might have been. Thus one would be immersed in such feelings.

Brook stream creek: A small flow, perhaps a relaxing feeling, depending upon the condition of the brook. Sometimes dries up, so may suggest you can go through ‘dry’ periods. 

Crossing a river: Making great changes. If you are in the water to cross, it means meeting a lot of emotions in the process of change. So not being able to cross the river shows a barrier in your external or internal life that prevents progress or personal growth – such as the ability to love or be creative in some way.

Crossing a river can also mean the experience of death, especially if you swam across. See death

Diving into a river: It suggest you are ready to face what life brings – the  current, the struggles, other people who may be in the river with you.

Seeing someone cross a river: Feelings about death, or sense that the person is dying or dead, as does falling in the river.

Going against the current: Resisting one’s own feelings; going against prevailing influences or attitudes; going back to the womb.

Going Under the Surface: It suggests bringing internal contents to consciousness; remembering the womb experience; letting our ego surrender a little; looking at death.

Also it shows that we, our conscious self, has entered more deeply into the enormous depths of our consciousness; we have literally dipped below the level of our conscious self. See My Body is a Moving Sea

Directing a river: Channelling one’s emotional or sexual energy. See Energy Sex and Dreams

Roaring torrent of a river: This probably represent the release of an enormous amount of energy that was trapped and has been released. It can happen when a life problem has been healed and the energy locked in it has found a way to express.

The torrent can also be a force that carries on clearing out old debris and trauma in the body and mind. Also it can be a wonderful energy of creation. See A creative relationship with your dreams

Stagnant river: Restrained feelings or sexuality; holding yourself back.

Stream: As it suggests, this is streaming energy, but not with the force of a river.

 Example: In Genesis it says that a great river ran from Eden which split into four. The suggestion is that from our primal being, four formative urges arise. The urge to exist, to be. The urge to create a form, the body. The urge to survive in that form. The urge to reproduce that form. There is a suggestion also in Genesis that within the last – reproduction – there is imbedded the urge to reflect or express or know the primal source of the urge to exist.

If I am troubled by purposelessness, then I can bathe in one of the streams which give purpose. If I take a sexual partner, if I maintain a sexual relationship, if I become a caring parent, then I bathe in one of the streams of purpose. If I become ambitious to achieve, to succeed over others; if I desire to become famous or dominant, then I bathe in a river of purpose. If I put myself in any situation that has some risk in it, such as being without income and food, being in a social upheaval, being in a relationship with society in which something is expected of me, then I bathe in one of the streams. In this case the stream of drive for personal survival.

I notice that if I have a job of work in which I am even slightly involved with other humans, I have a sense of motivation and purpose. If I have a lover, I have a sense of purpose. If I am wanted because of my ability or skill as a person, then I have a sense of purpose.  

On the other hand, if I am purely self-motivated as in writing when the thing written is not commissioned; or in studying for my own satisfaction; or if I avoid sexual relationship, if I stop eating, then I stand out of the rivers. I have, or are achieving, a greater sense of freedom, but I lose the motivations arising from beyond self.

In the Buddhist view we are all bound to the wheel of birth and death. It rolls on endlessly carrying us with it. On the wheel we do have a sense of purpose though – even if illusory. To break free of the wheel – which means to stand outside of the basic drives of sex, hunger, aggression, domination, personal survival – means we lose the illusion of going somewhere or achieving anything. There is no past or future. Being and becoming are one.

It does strike me that once one has stepped out of the streams that give purpose, it doesn’t stop one bathing in them again. One can go in and out as one chooses. If one is in them and never stepped out however, then one might not know the freedom of not being carried along by the current, such as sexual mating, or ambition.

I realise I am an explorer of human experience. I realise also that when I accept the emptiness of drive, the absence of motivation as a powerful place in itself, and not just the loss of drives, which I was immersed in for so long, then I can tolerate the situation and move around in it a lot more freely.

Useful questions are and hints:

What condition was the river in (calm and peaceful, fast and rushing, flooding, dried up and so on)?

Does the condition of the river depict how my current energies are working in life?

Is this simply an illustration of the passing of life in general, as in ‘the river of life’?

See Animals in your Brain Open to LifeCore SelfPractical Techniques  for Exploring your Dreams

Comments

-Donna 2017-05-05 11:00:33

My dream last night. I was with my mother. She was going to drive me to school (I was younger in my dream) but we were delayed. I fell asleep for 15 minutes, then woke up and now we were running late. I asked why she let me sleep. My mother told me she wanted to give me more time and that we wouldn’t be late. We hopped in her van/suv and she backed out the driveway. The road we were on was a two lane highway in a wooded area. As she backed out, she basically was blocked by a tree from moving forward once out of the driveway. As she tried to adjust, the van started rolling down a steep hill backwards. My mom tried to hit the gas to pull us up, but no luck. We finally landed in a fast moving stream/river. It was early spring, so parts we’re still frozen. For a moment we were not moving, and in a panic I called 911, they put me on hold. Our wheels became loose in the current and we began to float dowstream in the rushing water. I told my mom to.roll the window down since if the vehicle started to sink, that’d be our best option.of.getting out alive. The river came to an end in a large lake. We floated to the right, and into a ice layer that had two other cars on it. Before we started to sink, I woke up.

    -Tony Crisp 2017-05-07 9:38:20

    Hi – I am stopping from answering your posts fully – but will try to give hints; sometimes long ones because I quote from masses I have already put online. Also, I need to take time to update the site – dreamhawk.

    It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.

    Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/

    Tony

    Donna – The dream starts with you at a younger age – suggesting this is describing you feelings or problems at that age.

    The next part is about a relationship withy our mother – many people do not realise that they have an inner mother equally as powerful as an external mother. You have taken in millions of bits of memory, lessons learnt, life experiences along with all the feelings or problems met by loving and living with your mother, and they are a major influence in your early life, and in a few cases the child never becomes independent from its mother at any age. This is true even if your mother was never there for you – you still have all the memories of her not being there for you filed under ‘Mother’. 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 mother can appear in dreams because you are still deeply influenced by what you hold within you.

    I am not sure, but the dream links the difficulty with your going to school. It also suggests that this led to you going backwards and down hill in your education – or at least in the flowering of your potential. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/potential/

    This led to your being frozen in your developing self and to the feeling of sinking. But they are simply emotions and can only claim you if you believe they are true – but you are the surviving member of ancient line if people who survived hunger, death, defeat, loneliness and all the troubles that humans are heir to – yet you survived , so live with hope.

-Pragya 2017-04-09 3:54:24

Reading this page resonated so well especially the descriptive paragraphs on formative urges ‘Genesis example’ and the last para about ‘us being explorer of human experience’. Personally , I am yet to realise ‘ the absence of motivation as a powerful place in itself’ and being able to tolerate and move around it freely.
I had a dream where I was with my relations at a beautiful area with a river flowing in the midst. The atmosphere was fresh, bright and the water clear. My relations start having fun in the river and on the banks, river was not deep, you could see the pebbles in the water. However, I seem to keep walking, searching for deeper part of the river so I can immerse myself completely in the water. I get to a part where one of my relative shows me how the ground underneath the river is muddy even though the water is clear. I keep walking and finally find the deep part of the river. However, I am now scared I might drown in the deep. I see a guy I don’t know swimming in the deep. It is starting to get dark as I had been walking all day. So, I get a phone call from my brother saying we need to leave. I don’t want to leave as it is beautiful and I do want to immerse myself in the water so I ask him can we spend one more night here. He says no we can’t , we need to get back as one of the relatives we brought with us has to be back ‘ seems like at city ‘ next day. Dream ends here, where I don’t know what to do.

    -Tony Crisp 2017-04-09 8:36:55

    Hi – I am stopping from answering your posts fully – but will try to give hints; sometimes long ones because I quote from masses I have already put online. Also, I need to take time to update the site – dreamhawk.

    It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/ which has so much information in.

    Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practising what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/

    Tony

    Pragya – A fascinating dream.

    There is so much I would like you to read that I can only give links to, because your dream is about one of the great themes of human life. It is the search for Self – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/archetype-of-the-night-journey-the-search-for-self/

    You have reached a level of peace in you which allowed the dream of being in a beautiful area. This also allowed you to see a little more deeply into yourself – the shallow water. But going into the deeps of your own nature is still scary. The frighten part – drowning – is about our fear that our personality will be wiped out and we will die. Yet facing the feeling of dying and going beyond it is to experience the Naked Beauty of Life. In the end nothing is taken away but a huge amount is added. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/mountain-path/

    Going back to the city is a return to the everyday view and experience of life. But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does.

    Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

    When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. But otherwise it will continue to haunt us as something that will get you; or you feel uncertain even lost in facing it! But it is only our small self image, our ego that reacts because it feels powerless, even though in reality the Hugeness is part of our totality. It is the enormous potential you have within you, it is Life you are frightened of or have been ignoring. It often frightens us. We fear that our ego or personality as it is, will be lost, destroyed or overcome by the Hugeness. My experience is that nothing is ever lost, instead we are added to.

    Suzanne Segal, speaking from her continuous experience of wider awareness says, “The vastness carries a non-personal desire to experience itself. This appears to be the purpose of human life—for the vastness to meet itself everywhere it turns. The notion of personal growth or inner development is contrary in every respect to the way the vastness exists. The quest to awaken implies a sense of futurity that precludes basking in what actually is right now.” (From her book Collision with the Infinite) See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Reaction and especially http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

    And even http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

-iyah 2017-02-16 2:19:11

hello sir..
i want to know what’s the meaning of my dream last night.. I dream’t that my cousin riding a flat float bumped into the island where I stand, because of the strong impact the island moved and I was splashed with a muddy water and fell in the water (the body of water is so muddy). after that i am in the flat float crossing the water and I noticed that two dogs owned by my previous employer were with me in the float. I stopped the float in the boarder to let the dogs leave but they chose to stay with me, so I carry them back to near to their house…

hope you can help me to interpret this confusing dream.. thank you 🙂

    -iyah 2017-02-16 2:22:55

    PS…

    the current of the water was so strong…

    -Tony Crisp 2017-02-16 10:17:42

    Hi – I am stopping from answering your posts fully – but will try to give hints; sometimes long ones because I quote from masses I have already put online. Also I need to take time to update the site – dreamhawk.

    It would help you to understand your dreams, if you would read – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/questions-2/#Summing and also http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/features-found-on-site/

    Nothing can replace your own ability to understand your dream. With a little effort you can do this by practicing what is described in – http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPersonOrThing or http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/getting-at-your-dreams-meaning/

    Tony

    It depends what you feel about your cousin. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/

    The island you were on suggests you often felt as if you were not in connection with others – or at least at the time of the dream. Take time to recognise that as a personality you are almost totally unaware of what is taking place in your body right now. You are not aware as personal experience of the huge history of evolutionary changes your being has gone through in order to become you. You perhaps have little conscious insight into the massive background of social, religious and family influences that go together to enable you to function as an individual and a social entity. Your self consciousness may not include awareness of how your present personality was shaped out of those influences. Maybe you do not know what the major life lessons are that confront you, or what your innate genius and passions are.

    If you can accept that you are barely aware of your body and all you carry within you, that is still only part of it. You also exist in the midst of an incredible universe, a universe that we know most intimately in the processes of nature in and on our planet Earth. And how much of the interrelationship that you have with this planet and the universe are you aware of?

    But it seems your cousin moved you in some way. This led to you making a good contact with the natural impulses in you — the dogs. So you are growing in opening up to more of what you are.
    The river is something we all experience but usually fail to understand. Each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. It is the current if Life. This current then carries us on through old and through gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this force of growth and change. and is fought like hell by many as we are afraid of such changes, especially getting old and facing death. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/growth-of-something/

-Snowy 2016-10-06 16:35:09

I love your insightful dream interpretations, your site is my go-to. I dream every night, and feel that I learn much about myself from my dreams. I have a strong relationship with my dreams and the messages they hold. Last night I dreamed of a huge black bear standing in a strongly flowing river. I was on the rocks with friends, feeling peaceful and happy and watching this enormous bear play in the water. We were wary of the bear, knowing its strength, but also overjoyed that we were close to it and it was content to be near us. At one point my oldest childhood friend and I got into an inner tube and floated down the river. The current was incredibly strong snd it started to pull us along ferociously. She became scared, but I said very confidently that you just needed to steer toward the middle of the river and you’d be fine. I did so, taking charge, and we entered calmer water. Thoughts on the bear, the river, the friend?

    -Tony Crisp 2016-10-07 13:21:59

    Snowy – Thanks for your comments on dreamhawk.

    Good friends are a wonderful aid in your life, aids that can see you through the difficult times, and show you a new side of yourself, especially if you explore them. They are aspects of you that you have developed, and should not be thought as your outer friends. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/characters-or-people-in-dreams/

    The bear is a very powerful natural force in you that you are still wary of but are learning about. It is a huge and powerful ally once you learn how to understand and accept it. That it is in the full flow of the river is telling you what one of its powers is. To understand it better, see http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrain

    The river is something we all experience but usually fail to understand. Each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. You, if you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this force of growth and change is fought like hell by many as they are afraid of getting old facing death – the river you dared to get on in a rubber float and let the current take you, and by keeping in the middle you entered a calmer experience of yourself.

    A very wonderful dream with much information about how to Live. The middle also suggests a balancing point between opposites. This is about being aware and not going to extremes. The way of the razors edge depicts any behaviour or attitudes that are one-sidedness and would lead to imbalance within the individual. But at the same time it is not about being perfect or a saint, but a balanced and whole human being with very wide choices. Walking it we balance between the opposites facing us. It might be something that you are ready for – http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/opening-to-life/

    Tony

-Patty 2016-06-30 4:24:00

Hello. I had a dream last night the my husband and I were on a river bank and all of a sudden there was a snake wrapped around his leg. He stomped on the snake and killed it and kicked it into the river. All of a sudden we seen that our canoe was floating away so he jumped in to go after it and at that moment the current changed in the river to almost a white water rapid. He was being swept away. I could hear him yelling for me to help him so I jumped in to go after him to try and help and the day turned into night. But pitch black night. I couldn’t see any thing. I was swimming hard to get to him. I could hear him but I could not see at all and the water was trying to over take me. Then another snake appeared and wrapped around my arm to try and slow me from catching up to him. I heard him wimper something and then he disappeared. This dream has me terrified. Please help me understand

-tracy 2016-02-23 6:41:03

I am standing on a bridge in my closest town with the river below in torrential flood. The water is raging but I feel safe. A small boy is swept away into the water through a gap in the railings and people jump in to save him. I shout at them to stop but they are swept away. I also notice that the river is flowing in the wrong direction. It should flow right to the left, but the flood waters are coming from the left. I have a (deja vu) feeling that I have also experienced this dream continually as a small child.

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2016-02-25 16:51:56

    Dear Tracy – The bridge often has the significance of crossing or moving from one phase of life, activity or emphasis to another. So it can be used to represent leaving youth behind.
    What do you feel when you let go of the “small boy”; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
    and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/
    What arises when you explore “Being the people who want to save the small boy”?
    What does your dream figure feel when he/she shouts at the people “to stop” and when they are swept away?
    What does it feel like when the flow goes “in the wrong direction” and what does it feel like if you imagine channelling the flow “in the right direction”?
    Lao-Tzu wrote that “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
    Do you give yourself enough room to express your emotions, or are they turned inward?
    Can you also feel safe when you express your emotions?
    See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/#Open
    Anna 🙂

-Molly 2015-12-07 5:57:06

Yesterday I dream that one handicap rich doctor Yong boy making friendship with me. Suddenly one stranger coming and shoots me and the Yong boy. The yong boy died and i m alive the stranger burried the Yong boys body I saw that. Then the strangers bodyguards started me to follow . and when they are chasing me I saw a clean lake its full of big fishes. I went to jump but I ran from there.again he gave wrong complain to the police and police started me to chase. The boys maid supported me and gave me bus ticket I ran from there. Again the strangers followed with the gun point same time my husband came and saved me.

-Kinga Dabrowska 2015-07-12 22:31:21

Hi Tony,
I have just woken up from an amazing dream. I was on a river. But it wasn’t a regular river-it was a huge water with a very strong stream, water which seemed to be a flood, it was everywhere. Smooth and running very fast. I was with my colleague from work and we were taken by the current. I remember that it was extremely strong, the water was smooth, deep, wide-there was actuually only water. Somehow i was navigating in it. We were “swimmimg” in a “fish position”-with our heads at the front and arms along our bodies, with the stream. I was saying that “for now we are good, but we have to be careful in a moment when the river turns into an irregulated stream with a lot of differents currents, waves and rocks”.
And all if a sudden I remember i was sitting in a camp. With other people who were saved or escaped the flood/the river. There were families, fires. The water was running around us. I was looking for my friend but someone told me he had gone to help his family. I as sitting in a blanket, remember rests of someone’s truck.
There was no panic or fear in this dream but there was crazy speed of the stream. That speed is the feeling that I remember the most. What would you think of such a dream? Thank you for your interpretation. Kinga

    -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-07-15 14:10:36

    Dear Kinga Dabrowska – The way I see it is that your dream reflects how you are dealing with a situation in life that is very demanding, symbolised by the speed of the river and also by “we have to be careful in a moment when the river turns into an unregulated stream with a lot of different currents, waves and rocks”.
    The presence of your colleague could mean that this is about a work situation, but it could also reflect something else you have been working on or being supportive towards.
    The position you took in your dream – “We were “swimming” in a “fish position” – reflects how you intuitively adjusted to what this situation asked from you.
    The last part of your dream shows that you did come through, but not without some damage, symbolised by the “rests of someone’s truck” and the (inner) family who is in need of some help too.
    See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/family/
    and
    http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/lorry-truck-van/
    As you can read in this last entry “A van – or a truck – can also be connected with work, but sometimes can indicate a family or group”.
    Can you relate to any of this as far as your waking life is concerned?
    Anna 🙂

      -Patricia 2015-09-30 1:17:01

      I had a vivid dream last night. I dreamt I was with my younger siblings washing their clothes in a brook/stream. The water flow was limited so we tried to find the right spot where I could wash the clothes properly. On our way home, there were a couple of dark big horses on the road which we tried to avoid as I was scared. Another scene of my dream where my little brother and I found an old gold coins on the ground and we found more and more when we tried digging it a bit from the ground. I’m from Asia. I wonder what my dream means. Pat. Thanks 🙂

        -Anna - Tony's Assistant 2015-10-16 12:40:21

        Dear Patricia – Thank you for sharing such a wonderful dream with us. As you are the creator of your dream, it will be helpful to explore it for yourself as well, so that you can get a deeper feeling understanding of your own creation; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/practical-techniques-for-understanding-your-dreams/
        Please also read this so that you can understand that everything in a dream is a projection from your own mind; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/what-we-need-to-remember-about-us-3/#Virtual
        The way I see your dream is that you start with clearing negative feelings; you are actively dealing and letting go of habits and beliefs that no longer serve you.
        Your dream suggests that the flow of water is still blocked by what you believe to be true about yourself and Life; yet you have found a “perfect spot” to start this inner process.
        See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/
        When you have released some of your memories/feelings/beliefs you become aware of your fear for what the dark horses symbolise.
        To quote from the Dream Dictionary:
        “Black or dark horse: Unaccepted passions; threat of death. It can depict 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 the very long associations we have with them. It has shares all that with us and so can be realisations emerging from our long past. Or it can represent threatening changes.”
        To lose your fear and to get a deeper feeling understanding of this part of your dream you could use “Being the person or thing” for the horses; http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/#BeingPerson
        As a result of this inner work that you did, you find the golden coins, which I feel symbolise
        that you find and continue to uncover parts of you that were denied first; talents and abilities.
        See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/potential/
        So your dream shows that your inner work is certainly worth the effort.
        Anna 🙂

-Aden 2015-07-10 21:47:42

I dreamt I was crossing a calm river whilst an America Indian fellow chanted. I had to walk over a branch submerged in the water,I did so with grace,whilst playing some type of whistle. When completed the gentleman came into the river and embraced me. We were both naked,calm, I woke feeling relaxed.

-S 2014-12-22 23:31:45

Thank you for your interpretations.

Recently I had a dream that I was a river flowing down a mountain. The mountain was someone I care for deeply but am not in contact with because of conflict in the relationship. I saw this vision of me as the river and he as the mountain. Then I could see the two of us as people standing side by side and holding hands.

It was a very intense dream and during a time that I was in intense emotional turmoil. I would love to hear your thoughts and thank you so much for your time and efforts.

    -Tony Crisp 2014-12-23 11:00:33

    S – In our dreams we experience a very different environment than when waking. We have the possibility of seeing or experiencing the real situation of people and their feelings. Some years ago a man told me that when his family sat at a table for meals together there were also arguments and conflicts. Then one evening he dreamt he saw that the conflicts were simply surface problems that none of them had confronted, and then he saw them as they really were, people with deep bonds and care for each other.

    Your dream is an example of this deeper insight. But unfortunately the conflicts you experience together have not been dealt with, yet you have seen how things could be between you. See http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

    Tony

      -S 2014-12-23 21:10:25

      Thank you so much for your insight and for the link to your entry on life’s little secrets. It was actually exactly what I needed to read and was a bit like the universe speaking to me. This past year, my mind and spirit broke open to spontaneously feel and experience the pain and fears of a lifetime. I agree with you completely that though meditation, yoga and positive thoughts all have their place, they can be harmful if what they end up doing is suppressing pain and fear even further. I believe this happened with me when I went on a very intensive vipassana meditation retreat. At the same time, I believe it was the sum of my experiences that have brought forth these suppressed emotions and experiences spontaneously while also having the tools and insight to be able to make sense and process the experience in a way that helps me now.
      I’m grateful to have passed through, felt and experienced all the pain because as you explained in your entry, it is the gateway to experience fullest expression of love and joy.
      I am getting lost reading all the entries on your site and thank you deeply for sharing your experiences, life and wisdom. I send you many blessings and thank you for your generosity.
      Namaste.

-Anna Marie Andersen 2014-05-25 9:55:49

I had a very vivid dream last night. I was alone with my green rucksack on my back walking on a bridge, which was in the middle of a river lengthwise, not from bank to bank. The river was wide. The bridge became more and more narrow and I ended up walking on a single plank. Fortunately, the plank was close to a wall which I could use a support to keep my balance. In front of me was a very high wooden wall. I managed to jump onto land where a large dog was watching me. The land belonged to strangers. The were not very friendly, but one of them a youger man offered to drive me to the train station. I believe it happened somewhere in France. I live in the south of England. I am puzzled

    -Tony Crisp 2014-05-27 9:04:37

    Anna Marie – Well, a strange dream indeed. A bridge that doesn’t ‘bridge’ anything.

    You start with a rucksack, a sign you are either carrying your past on your back, your karma, kismet or fate. These represent your present created by you past actions and attitudes. So did you have an intention of making a change – crossing a big river – that you couldn’t or didn’t want to go through with?

    The welcome you got wasn’t friendly. Was a relationship involved that was not what you wanted?

    I suggest changing you karma by changing you dream. We create the situations of our dream through our attitudes and anxieties, so changing your dream would change your attitudes and karma.

    Do it by imagining yourself back in the dream – still awake – and see if you can get the bridge to cross the river. It may take a few attempts. Also if it doesn’t feel good experiment.

    See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/example-15-life-changes/ and http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/

    Tony

Copyright © 1999-2010 Tony Crisp | All rights reserved