Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’
Cinema
Films often portray on the screen elements of our own inner world, with its fantasies, fears, trauma and passions. Looking at the screen is like looking at a mirror in which you see portrayed your own inner life and drama. Therefore the cinema can depict any of these aspects of yourself. A dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear.
Example: I’m watching a film or video taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – it’s night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta
Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life.
Example: When I looked at the film it was a carnival going on in the street, people with gay clothing and crowds watching. Two girls were going to sit in an old model type car, but someone said it would be better if they sat on the back of the car as they could been seen in the parade. Then I was looking into the crowd to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd. H. K.
Here the main feature in the dream is the effort to ‘find me’. So the dreamer is watching the film in order to clarify their own self image, or find out who they are and how they relate to other people – the crowd. She was there, but at the back.
The cinema is sometimes a place of romance, of sexual contact, or fantasies about it.
Films enlarge the area of your experience, just as dreams do, so some dreams might use this image to suggest vicarious experience. Or else the horror films, and these feature in many dreams,having pu the idea of awful fears in people’s mind. But they are a good way to face ones own fears. See Facing Fear and Secrets of Power Dreaming
If we are lonely or depressed, we may read a book, go out with a friend or watch a film, stimulating feelings that displace the loneliness or despair. This ability to produce positive or different feelings is often seen in the dream process. By holding in mind an image connected with hope and love, feelings will be produced that will compensate in some measure for pain or depression we may be feeling. See Depression and Dreams
There are of course documentary films, and films that give you a new perspective on life and the world around young and the universe you live in. This type of film is a way your dream creator brings new experience and new perspectives to your awareness.
The cinema may also be a dream environment in which you can have an objective view of parts of your own personality – as if they were film characters. See: film.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the theme or the feelings in the film and how do they relate to me at the moment?
What is happening in the cinema, and can I find reference to that in my waking life?
Am I learning something from this film, and if so what?
See Plot of the Dream – Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Circle Circles Circling Round
Yourself; personal identity; wholeness. It suggests a good harmony between all the aspects of your being – thus a feeling of pleasure, centeredness and openness, physical, mental and spiritual; may be used to depict the Self. It can also depict eternity; female sexuality; ‘the same dull round’ of routine suggested by Blake, in which one might be trapped if there is no alternative, depending on the content of the dream. If the circle is irregular, suggests imbalance or lack of harmony. See: ring.
Completeness, wholeness, all of the parts of our being, body, soul, spirit. It also represents the universe as a whole, harmony, symmetry. Sometimes symbolises an enclosure or restraining influence, or protection, and stands for the womb, or female sexual organs. May also represent emptiness, receptiveness, or a fertile condition. Or just yourself.
In dreams one often walks in a circle, or ploughs, or is moved in a circle. This means that one is enclosing, protecting or bringing the enclosed under the influence of the power that caused you to circle. Your circle of friends. But it can also mean searching for something or someone. Magic and teaching can occur in the circle in our dreams.
Example: To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.
Example: I dreamt I was sitting in a circle of elders, it was cold and there was a fire. The mountains behind the oldest were purple and I could smell water. An elder to my right with very white hair in two long braids pulled out a pipe and I offered my cigarettes to him. I took one and sprinkled the tobacco in my palm and cupped my other hand underneath it. He turned from me and addressed the circle, speaking in a different language. I asked what language he was speaking and a voice in my head said “Tiwa” – it was a deep, masculine voice, and then I understood it.
“The magic circle of the fairies, the sun, the moon, a phonograph record with its diminishing grooves, a bedspring, or an ascending spiral, all may represent degrees of harmony and wholeness. A halo is an even more graphic illustration of a mandala, for it is automatically associated with saintliness. The triangle within the circle shows the same union with the divine self; for the triangle is representative of man in the earth and the circle symbolizes God. Combined, it shows wholeness of ideals and purposes.
The square indicates a balance in the material.” Quote from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.
Idioms: Go round in circles; come full circle; vicious circle; circle of influence/friends.
See: shapes and symbols.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Does this represent a figure of speech, such as: go round in circles, come full circle, circle of influence or friends, family circle and so on?
Does this suggest an enclosure or protection of some kind?
Is the dream about wholeness, or completeness?
Does it have a more spiritual meaning having to do with universal harmony?
Is there anything frightening about the circle?
Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Key Words
Circumcision
This may associate with feelings either of losing some sexual power, or of cleaning the penis. But of course it may also be associated with being Jewish, or having being parented by those like Moslems or in hot countries.
As circumcision often takes place at a very early age it can link in ones experience or unconscious with enormously complex fantasies. This is because it is a pre-verbal experience and so one tends to illustrate or view such experiences through fantasy or fairy stories – perhaps mythological themes, as Freud pointed out with the Oedipus complex.
Some times the lost part of the penis is shown as a missing petrol cap, or a ‘dead end’. It may be felt as a broken penis, or there may appear a desire to ‘steal’ someone else’s penis as ones own is broken. There can be shame or a sense of inadequacy around this.
Feelings of helplessness can invade a child around such issues, and also fix a determination not to ‘let anything in’. The results are often experienced as unsuccessful sexual growth, or the inability to find peace and fulfilment in sex. But often such issue are found to have many connections with other infant or childhood events and traumas. See
If you dream of circumcision and you are not circumcised then it has the general meaning as explained above, and of cutting off your sexual feelings and drives.
But in recent times I feel the reason circumcision was used in the past has been revealed, for in Africa it was made necessary to stop the passing on of AIDs. The foreskin is in fact a natural harborer of bacteria.
Female circumcision is usually about feelings of guilt, shame, or suppression of healthy sexual urges.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I facing difficulties or struggles regarding sexual feelings or performance at the moment – and if so what are those struggles about?
Do I repress my sexual feelings, or feel shame about them?
Are there strange fantasies I have about sex and sexual organs – if so what is their underlying theme?
Try looking at Children’s Traumatic Fears – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Background
Circus
The arena or circle of consciousness in which we can watch the instinctive drives and see how well they are socialised or brought under control. All the instinctive, physical, passionate sides of one’s nature.
But there are so many aspects to the circus, and so it depends upon what your dream focuses. If it is the animals, then it may be showing you how you relate to your instinctive and natural impulses. The following example illustrates this.
For ages there was only quietness. Then slowly there arose a stifled feeling. I was struggling for breath. Not desperately, but almost a gentle struggle. So slightly it was almost unnoticeable. It was like a slow murder – and so little at a time it didn’t look like murder. Then up burst words and realisation. The body – the beast or animal – was like a circus animal (we had been to the circus last week). The poor beast/body will do anything you train it to do. Or at least it will try its hardest, like a willing beast, to do what we ask of it. I felt the loving willingness of my beast, trying to breathe slowly as I asked it to do. And the words and insights and feelings came that by training my beast in that way, a part of it was being suffocated very slowly. Part of it was being killed degree by degree. Why?
If it is about the acts, then it is often about your own skills, abilities or fears, and problems – such as fear of heights.
The circus can also be about experiencing alternatives to the way you live and see the world at the moment, and about the variety and perhaps exotic opportunities life offers. Circus people might depict these alternative ways of life, or of being street wise and widely experienced in the ways of life.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it I am feeling or experiencing in connection with the circus, and how does that relate to me?
Am I dealing with the animals – my physical urges and hungers – or am I involved with the people – unusual ways of life?
Are there fears I am meeting in the dream, and if so in what way can I change the dream to meet them?
See: carry the dream forward – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Easy Dream Understanding
City Town
One’s relationship and interaction with other people, society, and all the opportunities and diversions city life offers. Therefore the dream may show something of the many choices you make or can make about your direction, relationships or activities. It may also be about your sense of community, or the mental and emotional environment in which you live. For instance if it is a dark rainy city, then it suggests you are living within that sort of dismal inner life. If bright, sunny, with opportunities, then that is most likely how you feel about things. See Inner World; capital
A town may be a place you seek a partner or someone to have sex with.
Example: Then we each talk about our sexual fantasies – some of us, at least. How we are going to get them satisfied. I seem to be an observer while the girl orders up hers on a phone. “How do you like to have your sexual fantasies known/discussed in public?” I ask. She gives me a wry smile. There are bar girls tottering around on high heels and one of my friends gets into a fight with a native man who accosts his girl. I help him by helping to beat up this guy. Later I am in town where it is raining heavily and at least two of my glasses (spectacles) are destroyed or broken. A policewoman blames me for this – my carelessness..
The dreamer comments on this dream by saying, “I have no vision of the moral consequences of my actions or of the sadness I cause sexually speaking.”
Example: I dream Su, a woman I am in love with, is shown paddling a dingy to a local town, where I am going to meet her. But there were difficulties about getting there.
Su in this dream shows that I still haven’t ‘met’ or integrated the ability to love without grasping or wanting to posses. The difficulty in the dream suggests that I find it difficult to express this more open love.
Example: The city was very beautiful and busy, as I passed through an arch a woman circus act stared at me. I felt slightly embarrassed again, and then I passed another woman who also showed great interest. It made me feel good about myself I was still unsure yet I felt I was a man. KK
Here is another possibility shown in the dream – how we meet so many people in a town and so are exposed to view. In the case of KK he struggled with his feelings of being a man when in a relationship with women. So we may meet our own opinion of how we look to other people.
The city may be like a mandala, a circle with many extensions, a symbol of your inner state, the structure of your personality and what it is built upon. In this case the beauty or despair of the city will be saying a lot about your present inner condition. See: mandala.
Alone in a town: Feeling isolated and out of touch.
An ancient or historical city: It can indicate many things, such as an old or outmoded way of life you have left behind. It can sometimes represent a part of history you are fascinated by and so are about the way of life then and how it affects our present life. Rarely to can also show a past life and even relationships with others and the influence and relevance the past life has on the present one.
Home town or town of birth: The familiar way of life; the way you usually go about things. If it is a past home, then it shows your feelings or state of life at that time.
In a deserted town: Outmoded social attitudes or way of life.
In some dreams: Work and opportunity.
Seeing a whole city from a higher viewpoint: This shows you have expanded your awareness of yourself and the environment in which you live. these further reaches of consciousness certain qualities were necessary. A certain amount of confidence and fearlessness were needed to meet the further reaches of mind. See Dimensions of Human Experience – Exploring Inner Space
Strange town: The new; different attitudes or way of life, new choices or opportunities.
Idioms: Go to town; ghost town; man about town; paint the town.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the mood or atmosphere of the city, and does that reflect the inner state within myself I have created?
What am I doing in the town, and metaphorically what does that say about me? (i.e. if I am lost in the town am I lost in my life at the moment? If I am looking for love or business opportunity in the city is that true now in my life?)
What are my interactions with others in the dream suggesting about me?
See – Introduction to Dreams – Associations Working With – Being the Person or Thing
Clam
Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Are there any signs that I am sometimes emotionally withdrawn?
Do I clam up sometimes if offended or scared?
Are you very sensitive and so try to protect your feelings?
See Easy Dream Understanding – Settings in Dreams – meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream
Classroom
The learning process; what we learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc. Also it can be habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts us with many new feelings, choices and drives.
People have told me that criticism aimed at them by a teacher had changed them right into adulthood. Someone told me a teacher told them they couldn’t sing, and they have never sung since. They were in their forties and were then helped to sing. Another person, Tom, was listened to while his classroom was singing. The headmaster went to each person and then stopped at Tom and was told he was ruining the whole class and couldn’t sing. Tom’s response was, “What the hell does he know. Of course I can sing!” He carried on singing and was told by a musical voice trainer that he was actually like a musician with his voice. See Avoid Being Victims
The classroom itself can indicate study; relationship with authority; whatever sense of oneself engendered by school. Maybe you need to ask yourself what you actually learned at school.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Did what you learned at school have a negative or positive influence on you?
What do you feel overall about school?
Did you rebel or learn from authority figures.
See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Clay
The body; material affairs. Or yourself, shaped by events and impressions. Physical life, materialistic attitudes. The parts of yourself that can be shaped, or have been shaped, and perhaps hardened. This can refer to many things, such as part of ones nature that have been shaped by other people or circumstances and have hardened. This could be a shape that is either quite without art, or an expression of great skill. See: Earth.
In some belief systems a being of clay can depict an elemental force. At its simplest level this represents the mineral forces active in your being. Sometimes such influences tend to deeply influence the personality, and may therefore be felt as invasive beings or forces. In essence this would mean ones response to life would be largely materialistic and incapable of sensing the subtler side of nature and people.
The clay for some people represents the possibility of artistic or self expression. But this probably links back again to how you express or shape yourself. But it could be an expression of some part of you or a gift you are making.
If it is a part of your body, or a body, it suggests life or responsiveness is lacking in that part or that person.
If it is simply clay earth, it depends what you associate with clay, or if you are a keen gardener and see clay as a poor soil to grow things in. The clay can also suggest difficult terrain.
Example: “I dreamed that a man was creating a clay model of me. When it was completed he placed it on the desert. I was surprised to see that the upper half of the torso was alive. It did not, however, resemble me at all. Rather it looked like an exotic, dark, foreign girl. To my complete consternation I observed that the figure from the waist down resembled a toilet bowl, moist, and earth colored!”
An interpretation of the dream was give as, “A warning to the girl that she was becoming a “sex-pot.” This was symbolized by the toilet bowl, the use of which relates to the sexual organs. The newly molded sculpture indicated recent experiences. The foreign looking woman indicated that this was not her true self. The desert in which the man placed his creation symbolized the spiritual aridity to which this activity was reducing her.”
Idioms: feet of clay; modeling clay.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that is clay in my dream? (Look this up in the rest of the dictionary.)
What have I shaped or been shaped by, and what is the quality of this?
Is this something I can be proud of or can change?
See – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
See: Earth.
Cliff
If on top of cliff, fear of, or possibility of, falling in the eyes of others or yourself. Fall from power or achievement. Fear of not being able to achieve.
Other meaning can be that you are faced with the feeling of being on edge; facing danger; making a difficult decision; taking a risk; encountering a barrier; or the unknown, depending on dream content.
On edge of change, danger, or a decision. It can also indicate taking a risk or a barrier, and so being confronted by fear and how you deal with your fears.
Example: I am falling down a cliff. In the dream, I know if I hit the bottom I will die. (I’ve been told by dream ‘experts’ that this is so.) I hit the bottom – my body is splattered on the ground, but ‘I’ am floating through the air thinking ‘How strange! I’m supposed to be dead! But I’m alive and free.’ Ingmar Bergman. See SummaryQ1
In many cases if you are at the top of the cliff it shows great space beyond where you stand. Some dreamers find this threatening, and for others it is an opportunity to fly or in some way relate to the vastness of the universe – their inner life. In this sense it represents the unknown, the possibilities of your life and how you relate to them. So it shows how you respond to or relate to the hugeness of your unconscious inner life.
The example shows the cliff as a wider view of life, an overview, one which includes death. It is shown as the uphill struggle in life, looking back or down from which one has wisdom. It is also the test of self trust, and the facing of ones fear.
Example: ‘I was standing on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. By my side was a man. He had short cropped silver hair, gleaming, and piercing blue eyes. He seemed old, but was broad, muscular and gave me the impression of having lived many lifetimes, or being very wise. He indicated the sea and I understood I should plunge into it. I did so, leaving my body behind, and became a part of the ocean. At the same time it seemed I could at any time stand beside the man on the cliff again.’ Debbie.
In Debbie’s dream the cliff is also the edge between life and death; between fear of death and exuberance of life; between being trapped in the concept of oneself as simply a physical form, and the freedom of realising oneself as naked consciousness.
Being at foot of cliff: If trying to climb it – the immense difficulties we face in growing and facing all the fears and traumas in the way of our progress. Between sea and cliff, it suggests that you are becoming aware of the enormous consciousness your personality is only a small part of, and the cliff is the also enormous heritage of the past you have. See The Unconscious
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is my relationship with the cliff and what does that suggest?
If I am high up and can see expanses of land or sea, what am I understanding?
Am I meeting the challenge of the cliff, or am I trapped by fear or feelings of impassable barriers?
See – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Methods of Awakening
Climb Climbed Climbing
Trying to, or rising above, difficulties. Trying to achieve a new viewpoint, or to learn or develop a new understanding.
Sometimes we climb in a dream to avoid something; to get away; to climb out of some mess we are in. We also climb to reach something, and in doing so make take a risk.
Climbing has risks, whether you are climbing a tree or trying to climb the social ladder. Attaining new heights in work or relationship we reach the new and face anxiety, so may have a fear of failing/falling. In such dreams it is necessary to have the right support or foundation to climb from. So if the thing you are climbing over are insecure, it might be pointing to earlier phases of your life not helping you to develop confidence and a secure sense of yourself. See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Facing Fear
We climb: Often this is to avoid something, to get away, to climb out of some mess or difficulty we are in – in which case it expresses effort on our part.
If we climb to get something or somewhere, to reach it, this can express ambition or motivation.
Climbing may also depict the first half of life, and going downhill middle or old age. If you are approaching middle age, climbing a hill can represent the first half of your life, and going downhill middle or old age.
Example: I recently reached my fortieth birthday and dreamt I was walking uphill. It was quite tough going. When I got to the top I saw the road on the other side was very steep. I felt frightened of going down it. I looked around and saw that the top of the hill stretched away on each side, so there was plenty of space, like a plateau. I realised that I could walk around and there is no hurry to go down the hill.
The next example illustrates a common use of climb – to see what is there, beyond, above, out of sight. This aspect of climbing also often includes the process of personal growth or positive change. The higher viewpoint is also one that includes a vaster or more inclusive understanding of life. In the dream the child is exploring growth in this way, to see what maturity and death have in store.
Example: ‘We climbed this tree, the baby as well, to see what was at the top. The baby fell out of the tree. We climbed down and took the baby to a room and lay it on a bed. It seemed to be asleep and didn’t wake up. Later we went back to the room to see the baby but it had gone. In its place was a bluebird. As we looked the bluebird flew away.’ Dream of a nine year old girl.
Idioms: Climb down; climb the walls; social climber. See: hill; mountain.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Why am I climbing – is it to escape something or to get somewhere or something – and what does this point to in my life?
What do I see, achieve or understand when I have climbed?
If it is difficult to climb, what is stopping me or acting as a barrier?
Try using Being the Person or Thing – Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Avoid Being Victims
Clock
This may refer to your sense of connection with other people, duties, or the restrictions or disciplines you place upon yourself. The clock can sometimes represent your span of life, and the ticking, your heart – how much time have you left? What time of your life is it?
Clock or watch: The boundaries or restrictions we create for ourselves through our awareness of time. It can also relate to a sense of duty and timing, a realisation of urgency or having ‘lots of time’.
The clock is also an indication of duration, of how much experience you have passed through, and of course your passing life. The watch or clock also connect powerfully with arriving, meeting and leaving; with departing work, or the pressure of being on time.
Ticking clock: Might be the heart; life ticking away.
Big clock: One’s life – how much time has passed or one has left.
Clock watching: Tension, a desire to be somewhere else or with someone else. Wanting to escape from either a situation or from the demands of time and responsibility. Being bored or lacking satisfaction. Feelings about ageing.
Clock with hands still: The end of something, timelessness, or a death.
Expensive watch: Quality; boastfulness; accuracy; wealth.
With hands racing: Time running out or a frenetic stressful feelings of events pressurising you. Sense of urgency.
Alarm clock ringing: Message to wake up to something happening in your life, or to remember something you had set yourself to do. Sometimes a warning. See: time – of day.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the dream situation about – parting, waiting, rightness, impatience – whatever it is how does it relate to me?
Is this about timing, and if so in regard to what?
What time of my life is it?
See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Close Closed Closing
To shut out, divide, not wish to know, feel or experience. Fear of being entered, fear of sex. But also protection and privacy, or even decision making if you close a door against someone or something.
You can close a business deal, close your heart to someone, close your mind to any suggestions or anything new, or you can have someone or something close to your heart.
Closing ones eyes will probably have much the same meanings, though it might also be to switch attention from outward experience to inward and the infinite possibilities of memory and imagination and beyond.
Example: But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.
To close a door etc.: To be closed emotionally, or to end or shut something out. Often this requires a decision or strong feeling. Or it might be a response to protect oneself or someone/something else. It can mean you want privacy or you do not want someone in your life and are trying to find ‘space’ for oneself. It can mean a dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact or it can be repressing memories or feelings and decisively ending something.
For close as in near: Intimacy; being made aware of or having a fuller awareness of something or someone; what one feels connected with or has ties with; near to, in the sense of making a decision – near to leaving home; close to, as ‘close to finding the solution’; a situation that is near at hand or being confronted or realised now. Idioms: At close quarters; close fisted; close on; close to home; that was close.
Idioms: a close call; bring to a close; a close shave; close a deal/sale; close to the vest; close to my heart.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is this closed on me or am I closing something – and what is that in my life?
Am I opening to or shutting out something – ending or beginning?
What is it, a person, situation or thing that is involved in the closing?
Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Acting on your dream – Associations Working With
Closet
See: Wardrobe.
Clothes
clothes – The first part of this entry is a general description of the meaning of clothes. Then there is the Clothes situations. For separate items like shirt, dress, socks etc please click on: Clothes Items
Clothes can mean many things depending upon dream context, their colour, style, what period of time they depict, and their condition – i.e. clean or dirty, ragged or smart, etc.
They can depict the stance or attitudes we use to meet other people or special situations such as work or danger; protection, such as might be given by our feelings of reserve, shyness, anxiety or aggressiveness in fending off sexual or other advances. They can also indicate a period or phase of ones life when you wore those clothes, and so associate with the activities, problems, or things you were experiencing at that time. But also the triumphs and realisations you have achieved. See Associations Working With
Clothes depict self respect and how we see ourselves in society – the difference between what we want and what we feel others want of us. Our clothes, especially when we consider their colour, can also express our emotional condition and moods, or even our health. Constance Newland in her book Myself and I, gives the example of dressing in violet symbolising being inviolate sexually. As colours may be a vital clue to understanding our dream clothes, it is always helpful to look at the possible meaning of the colour. See: colours.
Clothes, clean or dirty, can also show the habits or habitual attitudes we are involved in and express through day after day.
In the following example the clothes are feelings of pleasure and confidence, and also discomfort and lack of confidence.
Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.
Buying clothes
Changing Clothes – Children’s or teenage clothes in adult’s dream – Clothing inappropriate to dream surroundings – Clothes for a particular role – policeman, judge, etc
Dirty or untidy clothes – if the dreamer’s – Dirty underclothes – Discarded clothes –
Eating clothes
Helped to get or buy clothes
Layers of clothes
Man in woman’s clothes
New clothes
Old clothes – Old but comfortable clothes – Other people’s clothes worn by dreamer
Packing clothes:
Ragged or inappropriate clothes
School clothes – Someone else’s clothes – Stealing clothes
Taking off clothes – Tight clothes –
Undressing
Woman in male clothes – Worn out or old clothes
Clothes can mean many things depending upon dream context, their colour, style, what period of time they depict, and their condition – i.e. clean or dirty, ragged or smart, etc.
They can depict the stance or attitudes we use to meet other people or special situations such as work or danger; protection, such as might be given by our feelings of reserve, shyness, anxiety or aggressiveness in fending off sexual or other advances. They can also indicate a period or phase of ones life when you wore those clothes, and so associate with the activities, problems, or things you were experiencing at that time. See Associations Working With
Clothes depict self respect and how we see ourselves in society – the difference between what we want and what we feel others want of us. Our clothes, especially when we consider their colour, can also express our emotional condition and moods, or even our health. Constance Newland in her book Myself and I, gives the example of dressing in violet symbolising being inviolate sexually. As colours may be a vital clue to understanding our dream clothes, it is always helpful to look at the possible meaning of the colour. See: colours.
Clothes, clean or dirty, can also show the habits or habitual attitudes we are involved in and express through day after day. See: example under washing machine.
In the following example the clothes are feelings of pleasure and confidence, and also discomfort and lack of confidence.
Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.
Idioms: Dressed to kill; dress up; dressed to the nines; overdressed; dressing down; dress rehearsal; a stitch of clothes; dress clothes; Sunday best clothes; a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Clothes types and situations:
Buying clothes: This requires choice, either your own or someone else’s, and is about considering how you want to or do appear to other people – what public image you want to have; who and what you feel comfortable as. But it is often more than just public image, it is also about the choices you make in life, the way you choose to be, how you relate or respond to others, or what you believe yourself to be. Dreams suggest we can be almost anything, but usually we ‘clothe’ ourselves in particular feelings, beliefs or roles often identify with them so thoroughly we can’t see beyond them.
For instance many people cannot choose their own clothes without other people’s opionion of how they look. This may be a carry over from childhood.
So dreams about clothes and appearance are important in helping you to move beyond or grow beyond what you have ‘clothed’ yourself in.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What am I choosing – or what is being chosen – in this dream, and what does that suggest about the direction I am taking?
Am I making changes here in the way I present myself – if so what are they?
Do I totally identify with the choices I am making, or can I see them as ‘clothing’?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Changing clothes: This can be about altering your mode of behaviour, your role or mood, or even seeking a different self image. We are all capable of changing who we are, and changing clothes suggests changing the way you present yourself to other people, or how you feel about yourself. Also you change clothes as you move from one role, or one social environment to another – work to being with friends, or school to home, etc. So the dream might be indicating the shifts you make in the attitudes or ways you feel about yourself in different environments.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What clothes are you changing from and to, and what does that suggest?
Is this a change of role or a change in appearance?
Am I changing because I want to or because circumstances or environment demand it?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Children’s or teenage clothes in adult’s dream: Youthful or immature attitudes or behaviour. Sometimes particular clothes carry memories and the clothes might hold information from your past.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do these clothes remind me of past people or events?
What am I feeling in connection with these clothes, and what message is there in that?
Is this telling me I am behaving as if I were a youngster?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Clothing inappropriate to dream surroundings: Attitudes or behaviour inappropriate to one’s
situation.
Useful Questions and Hints:
In what way are the clothes wrong for the situation?
Am I acting inappropriately in my life in some way?
Do I need to change my clothes or my surroundings?
Clothes for a particular role – policeman, judge, etc: An issue regarding, or shift toward, influence from what the role suggests. See different subjects under roles.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What role do the clothes suggest, and what memories or associations have I got with that role?
Do I feel easy or awkward in the role?
What is being done in the clothes, and what can I see about this that applies to myself?
Dirty or untidy clothes – if the dreamer’s: Difficult or grubby feelings; one’s inner condition, such as an untidy mind, or grubby feeling values. Or simply that you do not care about what people think of you.
If underclothes: usually refers to difficult feelings about sex or ones own personal self. See: dirty; example under beggar archetype.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Are these my clothes or someone else’s – if someone else’s do I have difficult feelings about them or do they represent an aspect of myself?
What clothes are dirty, and what part of my life or myself do they link with?
If there is need can I imagine cleaning or changing these clothes. (For help with this see carry the dream forward.)
Discarded clothes: Things you have left behind, or purposely tried to remove from your life. Sometimes this is a way of life, or a period of your life that your ‘wore’ in the past. But occasionally it refers to things from the long past, prior to this present birth, that you are coming across that are relevant to your present.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it I am aware of at the moment that I left behind, discarded or forgot at some time?
Am I experiencing influences or situations that do not appear to be from this lifetime – if so can I define what they are?
If this refers to something from my past, is it still something I want to discard?
Eating clothes: Trying to digest feeling about your social image – how you appear to others, or how you feel you appear to others. There is a big difference between the two. It might also suggest having a hard time enjoying your life situation or even your own self-image. It mightrelate to the saying, “I’ll eat my hat”.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What do I feel about the clothes being eaten, and where do those feelings appear in my waking life?
What clothes are these – or whose clothes are these – and does this give any clues to what I am trying to digest or integrate?
What do the other parts of the dream suggest in context with the eating?
Helped to get or buy clothes: This suggests you need or are getting the support from someone else to feel confident and socially acceptable, or to change your image. It can also mean you feel impoverished in some way; or that you are unsure of yourself, who you are or what direction to take in life.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is the help supportive or appreciated, or is there unwillingness – and where do these feelings appear in my life?
Am I looking to someone else to help me in choices or directions?
What clothes are being chosen, and what does this suggest?
Layers of clothes: This refers to wearing something like jeans over a more formal or different type of clothing, and suggests that the top layer is how you present yourself to others, but underneath you feel quite differently about yourself, or are hiding qualities or failings.
If you discover the layer underneath and realise you were not aware of it before, it shows you just realising what was hidden about yourself.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the difference between the top and bottom layer, and what different qualities do they suggest?
Am I aware of hiding something about myself, or presenting myself as different to what I really feel?
Am I discovering qualities that I kept covered up?
Man in woman’s clothes: It might point to not accepting the male role, with its connection with bread winning, aggression, being cannon fodder in war, etc.
Sometimes a man takes on the female role without realising it in certain situations – perhaps to care for children, or in nursing – and so the dream might show this. Being a full male in relationship with a woman’s full flow of feminine needs is not something some biological males manage. See: Am I a man or a woman?
There are many other reasons for this type of dream. Males may try to deflect the aggression of other males by posing as a woman. They may wish to attract another male – their father – if there has been a difficult and unfulfilled relationship with their father, thus living as a homosexual. An identification with ones mother may have been extreme, and so this might prompt the desire to take the female role. See: Archetype of the anima; Archetype of the animus.
It could also be that you are accepting you female half.
Helpful Questions and Hints:
What am I experiencing or feeling about this, and can I relate those feelings to the way I live my life or hide myself?
Does this remind me of any particular female?
Am I a latent homosexual?
What is gained for me by the female role?
New clothes: This may come about because of the need for a new life, a new direction, such as occurs after losing a loved partner. It can also show a change in attitudes, new feeling about yourself, or even a change such as in work or relationship.
Example: My parents told us we were running out of money, and that we had to cut our expenses down to the minimum. So we sold everything we had, and started all over. I got some new clothes.
In this dream the change in lifestyle is made more real by the new clothes. New clothes may also link with pleasure and allowing oneself to play or be relaxed, getting what you want.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Are these mine – and if so what is the need or feeling leading to getting them?
If these are someone else’s’ what are the surrounding circumstances and does that link with my present situation?
Have I lost someone, or in need of a change – if so what is that change?
Old clothes: This can depict feelings that you are old, tired, or that something is outworn – such as a relationship or attitudes that do not suit your present life situation or events. It can also link with feelings about your life situation being shabby or worn out, as the example dream of a middle aged woman.
Example: I am getting married but I am at a dentist’s office first and it is getting late. A woman who is ahead of me passes out. Then the dentist takes several inmates in ahead of me. When he gets to me it is 4 p.m. and we decided on a 7 p.m. wedding. (The male dentist is also the minister). I decide to go with a minister whom I had already asked. I call my mother and my daughter to get my dress and to buy me one white carnation. Then I decide to use my artificial bouquet. Then I decide I am too tired and cancel the wedding. The dress is old and yellowed. I didn’t get the dental work finished either.
But old can also relate to tradition, such as a family wedding dress, or period clothes. As such it can indicate past ways of feeling or relating to things and people.
If the clothes are made out of old clothes, then it shows an adapting of old attitudes, or other peoples attitudes or lifestyle to something usable or practical today.
If the clothes are from a past period of time they indicate what you believe it felt like to live in those times, or the attitudes or way of life you associate with them. It might be the period represented sexual repression or struggle for you. If so then it shows you meeting those feelings or that life situation in some way. See: Associations Working With; historic; roles.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If the clothes are something I am not feeling good about, what are the difficult feelings involved?
If I feel fine with these clothes, what attitudes or feelings bring this pleasure?
What role or situation do these clothes suggest?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Old but comfortable clothes: This indicates attitudes regarding the way you relate to others or yourself that you may not express in public, but depict who you are when relaxed. See: historic; roles.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it about these clothes that enables me to feel comfortable?
Do the clothes link with a way of life – if so what is that way of life?
Are these clothes I own – if so when do I wear them, or when did I last wear them?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Other people’s clothes worn by dreamer: The social attitudes, responses and perhaps way of life we have adopted from others. They might indicate that you are either being influenced by that person, or you admire who they are and are changing.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Whose clothes are being worn, and how would I describe that person to understand what it is that is being ‘put on’? See: people for help defining characters.
What is felt about these clothes, and what does this indicate about my relationship with them?
Am I feeling at ease about the clothes or at odds – if at odds what is it that is irritating or not liked?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Overdressed or unable to get clothes off: Too cautious in relationships, and in some dreams avoidance of sex. It can also show a difficulty in changing your attitudes or self image. Clothes can be protectiveness, so inability to take them off could suggest avoidance of showing your vulnerabilities. Also avoiding intimacy, or being stuck in old patterns of behaviour or self image.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do the clothes I am stuck in suggest particular attitudes or a way of life – if so how does that apply to me?
If I am overdressed what in waking life am I doing that suggests this?
Do I avoid intimacy or being vulnerable in a relationship?
Packing clothes: This may suggest that you are wanting to go away for a while, or leave home or have a break from your everyday life, even wanting to move. If you think about it you will most likely recognise which one it is.
Ragged or inappropriate clothes: This might indicate feelings of inadequacy, depression, or even rebellion against authority or society. It can show you feeling marginalised in some way, or made to feel inferior or of no account.
A ragged wedding dress for instance could show feelings of anxiety about your ability to go through with the relationship, or uncertainty about the wedding or yourself.
Ragged or torn clothes can also show you having survived a difficult or powerful experience of some kind – as would be the case if you had survived a plane crash, travelled across difficult terrain or been in a war.
Other people dressed raggedly probably suggest suspicion on your part about relating to them – i.e. difficult feelings about something or someone you are dealing with at the moment. Or it could show you feel they have lived or are living a difficult life and may even be injured or in danger.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What does the overall situation of the dream suggest – ease, threat, danger, suspicion – and can I see that in my life?
What situation do the ragged or torn clothes appear in, and does that relate to what I am meeting?
Am I feeling inadequate, anxious or as if I have come through a difficult situation?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
School clothes: Attitudes or moral rules learned at school. What we learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc.; habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts us with many new feelings, choices and drives.
Someone else’s clothes: See: other people’s clothes.
Stealing clothes: This might suggest that you do not feel that you have what it takes to succeed in life, or that you have the right or personal quality to be admired or seen as a worthy member of society – so it could point to a loss of self respect.
If your clothes are stolen – it might be you are feeling undermined or cheated in some way, or that you feel you have lost confidence, or the feelings that usually support you in a situation such as work or public relations.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If you are stealing, what is it you are wanting or seeking in taking the clothes, and how does that relate to your life at the moment?
What clothes are taken, and what does that link with? (See entries on particular garments.)
If your clothes are stolen what are you feeling and is that a feeling you recognise in waking life?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Taking off clothes: Removing the attitudes or ‘front’ you use to deal with people and social life; becoming more relaxed or intimate if undressing with someone; exposing your real self or moving toward sexual intimacy.
It can also mean you are getting rid of the layers of social behaviour you have been hiding behind, or the attitudes you have defended yourself with – even the parts of your personality that arose from past trauma or difficult life situations.
In some dreams you take off clothes to get at something underneath. This is either to see/understand something that your everyday attitudes or situation keep hidden, or to deal with something, maybe depicted as an injury, lice, or creatures crawling on you. See: naked: wound: insects.
Useful Questions and Hints:
In what situation are the clothes being removed, and what aspect of my life does this point to?
What clothes are being removed – suggesting what attitudes or feelings I am dealing with?
Am I with someone, suggesting intimacy, or alone suggesting isolation?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Tight clothes: Being too restricted in attitude or being tight emotionally. It can also suggest you feel restrained or held back in some way; or else you want to show your body curves..
If it refers to tight female clothes it can mean a desire to reveal your body in a sexually attractive way.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it I am feeling restrained by, or what am I restraining?
Am I trying to be sexually attractive with someone?
Are there attitudes or decisions I am living by that are too tight and controlling?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Undressing: See: Taking off clothes.
Woman in male clothes: Not accepting female role, motherhood, or being a housewife. Possibly lesbian tendencies, or a desire for father figure. See: Am I a man or a woman?
It could also be that you are accepting you male half. See soul mate
Useful Questions and Hints:
Why is this happening in the dream – i.e. what motivation or pressure?
What is being done and what does this point to – i.e. am I seeking a woman, working at something, exploring being a male?
What are my feelings about this in the dream?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Worn out or old clothes: Attitudes that you are ready to leave behind, or old habits no longer useful.
It could also point to you feeling worn out, old or tired. See: Old clothes.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do the clothes link with or typify a period of my life – if so what was my way of thinking and living at that time?
What am I doing with these clothes, and what does that tell me about what I am doing with old attitudes or lifestyle?
Do my present feelings echo the clothes, in that I am feeling old or worn out?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Cloud Clouds
Clouds are in dreams often happen where feelings of upliftment or religious feelings occur. If the clouds are dull, then it suggests worry or depression of some kind that is obscuring your best feelings.
Sometimes clouds are about obscuring something, or blocking a possible view or realisation of something, especially if they are dark clouds.
Clouds are also the crystal ball of the mind, and in their many shapes and shades depict the intuitions, hopes, fears and wonders of our inner self. So we may ‘see’ things in our dream clouds that are visionary, intuitive or expressive of what we hold within. The clouds may represent or in some way illustrate these inner intuitions and motivations.
Because clouds are so high and often obscure or give a sense of depth to what is even higher, we sometimes use them in dreams to suggest dimensions of experience that are presently either beyond us or only vaguely glimpsed. In such dimensions of our mind we may see beings who live at that level of existence. In a practical way these beings are potentials we have that are not yet manifest in our daily physical life. If advice or communication emerges from such clouds it usually arises from our best intuitions, our highest perceptions. This is why in the past the clouds were seen as the home of the gods. It can also be the place of the ancestors. See Dimensions of Human Experience
Clouds move as they are stirred by the forces of nature, expressing cosmic forces such as the sun’s heat. This movement in our dreams sometimes depicts the force of spontaneous life as it influences us or as we respond to it. Clouds also bring life giving rain, and so can indicate a life giving influence in your life. Sometimes an influence from beyond the clouds appears in dreams, occasionally as beings. This is usually a sign that you are receiving communications from either your ancestors, those who are evolutionarily higher than us, or even the gods.
Example: Next I/we came to a town, high up on the mountain, near the peak. I was very impressed by how interesting, gay, and full of character the town was, quite opposite to the town at the foot of the mountain. I saw the peak of the mountain above the town, and decided to climb on. I went on with my companion and a boy child. It was cloudy at first, and there was no view from such a tremendous height, but the clouds cleared, and wonderful vistas were revealed. I believe I was singing in the dream – singing loud and strong and wonderfully clear and. Then we reached the top, and stood there together, looking out upon the clouds and the world.
The dream obviously shows the dreamer reaching beyond his usual awareness into a wider life.
Example: In both dreams it was shown that a powerful influence was flowing from above the clouds into my life. In the first dream I was marrying Dakota, and in the second a column of something was flowing from the sky above the clouds from these sky beings. So I wonder what that depicts – what that influence is about.
I begin to feel as if I am opening to something of immense power. I have an image of myself seated and almost glowing with this power, and oriental people are backing away from me. They are not doing this with fear, but with something of the attitude or feeling one might have when you stand near to a big fire and it is too hot to be close to.
The dream is an example of reaching beyond the known world into immense forces that can enter ones life.
Clouds clearing to reveal sun: The clearing of feelings and beliefs, or pains, that have clouded your awareness of your innate being and the wisdom innate in your existence.
Clouds obscuring the sun: Attitudes, fears and inner conflicts that obscure your real self, your source of energy and creativity. Imagine yourself as the clouds to feel what these blockages to your core self are. For help doing this see Stand in Role.
Coloured clouds: See: colours.
Flying in the clouds: This can either be about a sense of yourself free from the usual limitations of body, of concepts learned in a materialistic culture – or losing touch with your everyday life and escaping into imagination and longings. If it is the first it usually involves recognising that your essential self is not the body or the thoughts and emotions.
Formed clouds – square, round, etc: An unseen influence is shaping the way you see things and react. It is important to note what feelings you have about such clouds, as this gives a clue to what you are understanding of their message. Clouds usually constantly shift, so something important is entering your life and thoughts.
If bright: Usually feelings of upliftment or religious feelings. They can also indicate the way you have kept a higher ideal or purpose amidst difficult circumstances.
If dull or dark: Depression, feeling overshadowed by something. Such dark clouds are sometimes a warning about things we plan or are undertaking. They show we are not feeling good or confident about it, perhaps even an indication of things emerging. But often suggest things, pains or trauma you haven’t dealt with that are blocking your creativity or well-being.
Storm clouds: Strong emotions; the build up of anger or some sort of energy. See: tornado.
Swirling clouds: These can either depict being lost in a whirl of feelings and thoughts without a clear direction, or the brewing of a strong change or emotions.
Idioms: clouds on the horizon; every cloud has a silver lining; get your head out of the clouds; head in the clouds; on cloud nine
Useful Questions and Hints:
What feeling arises in me from my dream clouds, and what does that suggest to me?
If I imagine myself as the clouds what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role.
Was there any message from the clouds – if so can I clarify what it was?
If I climbed above the clouds on a mountain or flying, what sense of myself and the world did I arrive at?
Try using Acting on your dream – Associations Working With – Being the Person or Thing
Clown
This can suggest anything from feelings of foolishness and playfulness, to feeling stupid or idiotic, perhaps even treated as inadequate. The clown tends to take the most ridiculous or tragic course of actions, so at times can remind us of our own misdirected path.
Sometimes the clowns face or clothes are a disguise for pain or sadness, or that you feel you have been made a fool of, or paraded in front of others in a way to be ridiculed. Sometimes this relates to childhood memories.
Sometimes the clown is a person with great wisdom to share – wisdom gathered through very full and varied life experience. See: archetype of the fool-clown-trickster.
The clown may also appear in dreams of men and women who are meeting and working with their unredeemed self, their animal that needs transforming. In this form the clown ridicules our pretensions, ridiculous pride, and reveals the ways we delude ourselves, so leading the way to becoming a whole person. See: ape-man.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the essential message or feeling in this dream – sad, foolish, wise?
If I am the clown what am I communicating by my actions or words?
Is the clown pointing out something to me – if so what is it?
See Characters and People in Dreams – Being the Person or Thing