Well Tina from Sweden, it is good to hear from you. But there are some things I want to explain about dreams.
In dreams you cannot control everything, but you can realise there is no harm for you and others if you give the dream characters and animals freedom. There is nothing in any dream that can hurt you, unless you run away from something. Running away is leaving yourself open to being a victim of whatever frightens you.
Every image and person in your dreams is an expression of your own life process. As such it is alive and intelligent and is something sent to help you. A dream is like a projection from a movie projector, except that you are the projector. Everything you see as outside you is coming from you, your emotions, your fears, your beliefs, your joys and explorations are all you, clothed in the dream images and drama.
So Tina the Lions and Tigers are actually your enormous animal strength, your instinctive nature. Many people are frightened of this enormous strength, its fierceness and directness. That is why you see the animals kept in cages because you haven’t yet found a way of being with them. I believe that we have to find a similar strength to meet them – an ego strength. This is a strength that comes from realising that you are more than a body.
But you have some of that strength when you ‘had help from a big guy’. That is your strength to control the massive energy that the animals are. But you need to take it on yourself, take it into you and feel it.
I know this sounds mad, but there is no harm in letting the tiger bite you. All you will feel are emotions, and if you can feel them and feel okay, then you are the master of dreams.
The animals were in the cellar because that represent the unconscious, the place where we keep things shut away from really knowing them. It is okay to let yourself know them. That is what your dream is actually about, the struggle to hold them back. If you watch your feelings you will already know they want to be released.
Tony