Vermin
The fears or anxieties you have; your sense of horror or repulsion about something, or some aspect of society or human behaviour. Irritations or thoughts that are ‘bugging’ you. Frightening or disturbing instincts or urges.
What you sense as sick or negative, so can depict your fears or anxieties, frightening instincts or urges, physical sickness or anxieties about health. Perhaps also feelings of sexual repulsion or using sex to gain material aims. But the sense that rats bring disease and dirt was caused by the fallacy that rats carried the plague and are unclean, but rats are very clean. It was found out by historical research that it wasn’t the rat that brought the plague to Europe but the gerbil was the culprit.
Sometimes a rat in your dream can remind you of love that was betrayed, or intuitions about a person being a ‘rat’ or ‘ratting on you’ – doing things behind your back or underhandedly – or deserting a relationship when difficulties arise.
The rats can point to threatening things going on that you are not clear about, or a view of the underhanded side of yourself or others – the evil side of human nature, its dirt and squalor, or time gnawing away at your life. The unacceptable parts or oneself.
In some dreams the rat has the character of most rodents, the gnawing inquisitive searching out of things. It can therefore relate to one’s anxieties, self-questioning and worrying mind that disturbs or eats away at things like peace of mind or confidence.
For some people the mouse depicts their feelings of revulsion, filth, horror, an influence that is unconsciously but persistently pervading their life and response to things.
Example: I saw that the place was infested with mice, and was somewhat dismayed. Then I took off, or shook out, my jersey or shirt, into a bathtub full of soapy water. Hundreds of mice fell into the tub. I saw that they all died in there as the bubbles dispersed a little. Then my wife and my mother were with me, and I told my wife she must make an effort to put all the food away and into containers, as if the mice found nothing to eat they would go away. TP.
Example: A mouse darted across the kitchen work surface and I caught it by placing a clear glass cover over it so it couldn’t escape. I was upset because mice are unhygienic but I didn’t know how to keep them out. I was trying to stop somebody from lifting one of the covers off the mouse but they lifted it anyway and the mouse ran out. I turned and moved away quickly so the mouse wouldn’t run up my arm. I turned my back on it and crouched down, hunching my shoulders up. But the mouse ran up the back of my clothing, under several layers, and got trapped at the back of my neck. In the dream the scenario was horrific for me as this little mouse was wriggling around inside my clothes desperate to escape and I wanted it out ASAP but didn’t want to hurt it. I was annoyed that it had run up MY back. It could have run up anybody’s back so why did it have to run up mine? CJ
As these two dreams show, the dream mouse can generate great feelings of revulsion. The last dream also illustrates a feeling that was trapped, but then released and travelled up the trunk of the dreamer. This is typical of released feelings that have been repressed and held in the body. The upwards movement showing the shift toward consciousness.
Example: I could now see that it was a small white mouse that moved. It was walking towards the children’s bedroom. We were all staying in a friend’s seaside holiday cottage at the time. I asked my wife what a white mouse was doing in the house, and thought maybe it had been a pet left by a previous holidaying family. Wanting to catch the mouse I got out of bed and went towards it. As I did so I saw that it was not just white, but shining, very beautifully. It also seemed to grow larger. First to the size of a rat, then to that of a cat. I was now close to it and it looked enormous, shining with an inner light, white and radiant. It was a thing of beauty. Its eyes especially struck me; pink but also shining.
Dreaming of insects can indicate irritations or feeling something is ‘bugging’ one; feeling insignificant – the ant in the mass of other ants.
It can also relate to the automatic unfeeling processes of life; cold unfeeling urges; sexual urges, especially with cock-roaches – insects may also represent the sperm swarming toward the ovum, and therefore may deal with pregnancy.