Wall

These express codes of behaviour, belief systems, attitudes – often unconscious – you live within, or are protected by; the boundaries of behaviour or thought you keep within, are fearful of extending beyond, or are trapped by – thereby what one feels to be barriers of protection or restrictions.

Ones feelings of confidence which protect against anxiety or social ‘knocks’. So, it could be fear that keeps you limited in your activities.

The feelings or attitudes you keep people away with – the walls we put up between us to maintain privacy, stop being hurt, or to maintain a role or status. Or a special feeling situation which you have created, such as developing a sense of one’s own value.

There are boundaries created by anxiety or a view of life – a nationalistic or tribal attitude might act as a barrier to seeing other viewpoints on history. Your dependence on your physical senses gives a boundary to your awareness, and a wall may also express such a frontier.

The wall might equally be your feelings of confidence which protect you against anxiety or social ‘knocks’; or fears that keep you limited in your activities. The wall can be one you erect through your feelings or attitudes you keep people away from you – the walls we put up between us to maintain privacy, stop being hurt, or to maintain a role or status.

It can be a special feeling situation which you have created, such as developing a sense of your own value, as might happen as you gain rank or status. The ‘reality’ we have accepted as the truth, either given us ready made by our culture, or one we have built personally. This reality is like walls we live within. See: the second example under death in archetypes. The example describes powerfully the breaking open of the ‘walls’ of reality to reveal another sort of reality. Also see The Paradigm

Such as garden wall: Your defensive attitudes or your boundaries that give you feelings of ownership or security. Sometimes we put boundaries on ourselves to undertake or achieve something. The wall can also depict social or personal barriers or psychological blocks to progress. We might feel such a barrier on entering someone’s house that we do not know.

Example: I was standing in the back garden of a house – one of a row of terraced houses. Each garden was fenced with walls and ran down to a large drainage ditch. It seemed to be raining and water was filling the drainage ditch. The water was backing up into the gardens because something was blocking the ditch. I was standing in the ditch and the water started rising up my legs. It was quite hot. I realised this was because hot water was running out of the baths and sinks in the houses. I felt I must get out of the gardens. Not only because of the water, but because of how people might feel if they saw me in their garden. I managed to find a way into a farmyard where I felt relaxed.’ Ted F.

Ted explored his dream and said, “I am going through a lot of changes at the moment – the garden. These are to do with allowing myself to have a warm but non-sexual relationship with women. I have always been too dragged along by my sexuality in the past. But just a few days before the dream I was in a ‘growth’ group. I had made friends with a woman there, Susan, who I had warm feelings for, but not sexually. The group work required some close physical contact, and I and another man worked with Susan. It seemed to me to go without complications. A while afterwards a woman in the group came to me and with evident emotion, said I had made love publicly to my lover, meaning Susan. I had certainly been physically close to her and had felt at ease, but the viewpoint and feelings of the woman’s accusations, coupled with her threat to expose me to the authority figure in the group, bowled me over. This is the hot water in the dream. The fences are the boundaries people erect between their personal life and what is socially acceptable. For some days, up until understanding the dream, I felt really blocked up emotionally – the blocked drainage ditch. I cut off any friendship toward Susan. When I realised that in the Farmyard – the acceptance of natural feelings without neat little boundaries – I could feel at peace, I was able to allow my natural warmth again. 

Wall of house:  This is probably about the codes of behaviour, belief systems, or attitudes – often unconscious – you live within, or are protected by. It is the boundaries of behaviour or thought you keep within, are fearful of extending beyond, or are trapped by – thereby what you feel to be barriers or restrictions. They are probably the codes you were brought up with, or ones you adopted in rebellion.

So called truth can also be a terribly solid wall. It may have been given you ready made by your culture, or you built it personally. This reality is like walls we live within.

Walls of a favourite house: They might be your feelings of security in your marriage or family which give you defence against the ‘storms’ of life.

Sometimes what the wall depicts is obvious as in the example below, where it is shown as the way Cyril maintains his separation from others and thus as a private individual. The fall of the wall shows how ‘exposed’ one might be. The description of private areas of our life in a newspaper might be an example of just such a wall coming down.

‘I realised T. had been in Bill’s room and not respected his need for privacy, so Bill had torn down the wall as a protest and made the room, which now appeared about four times its usual size, into a public sitting room.’ Cyril A.

Repairing wall: Considering that the wall suggests either a protective shield or a separation or boundary of some sort, repairing the wall indicates the strengthening of the way you meet the impacts of life or other people, or strengthening the boundaries between you and others.

Wall of prison or trap: Fear; pain; ignorance; prejudice; anger; sense of being an outsider; family attitudes or responsibilities one feels restrained or trapped by.

In the above example the wall is obviously to do with defending the dreamer against attack. Such a wall might be made out of our aggressive feelings, with religious dogma which might defend us against fears and uncertainty, or from tightly controlled behaviour and emotions. See Control-No Control

(Also see  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U )

Idioms: Drive somebody up the wall; go to the wall; writing on the wall; back to the wall; head against a brick wall; fly on the wall. See: Fence.

Useful questions:

What does the wall contain, protect or limit?

What do I feel confined or restrained by in my life?

Is this wall more of a shelter that might suggest a confident, protective attitude?