Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’

Corset

Self inflicted restrictions, holding yourself back in some way. Or even presenting yourself as you think others want to see you, perhaps by using an external alteration instead of an internal change. The restriction may be connected with your sensual or sexual feelings. See: armour.

Corsets and girdles in a male dream is often linked with a particular type of sexuality, as described in this following piece.

Example: Image after image of women flashed through consciousness. Pictures of women in black brassieres and black corset straps. Women with fags in their mouth with unfeeling hard faces. Women having a period. It was the cultural images I had been handed of women.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What restrictions am I putting on myself?

Am I trying to fit into someone else’s idea of what I should look like?

Are sexual feeling appearing in this dream at all – if so what do they suggest?

See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions

Cosmetic

Desire to attract attention and our urge to show our public traits. It can also be a  cover up; an attempt to improve oneself. A mask you might wear to hide your lack of confidence or to hide your true feelings, thoughts or defects. An attempt to avoid seeing yourself as you are.

Example: I was getting ready to go out with a group of friends, some of them new. I looked in the mirror to make up and saw a hole in my nose. It was deep and I could see the bone showing through. I put some foundation makeup in the hole and covered it up and it didn’t look too bad. I went out to meet my friends. In talking this over it seemed as simple as having a hole in ones nose, and how people would stare, and how one would have a sense of having a personal defect.  Marilyn.

But perhaps in many dreams, it indicates the feminine magic of transforming your appearance to attract attention, or to change your image. In some cases the struggle against ageing or the body form you have.

For a woman, putting on makeup is one of those daily habits like shaving is for most men. So the dream might use it to show something about your way of life, things left undone, or carelessness if forgotten.

There are so many cosmetics on the market now that it is important to understand the relevance of a particular cosmetic if it appears in your dream. What lies behind your use of it, and why is that relevant now?

Not having makeup on: Suggests feeling not at your best, or less likely to create a good impression or being unprepared. Or even a way of showing your natural beauty.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part is the makeup playing in my dream and in my life?

What do I feel about the makeup, and how does that relate to my present situation?

Am I trying to hide or cover up something – if so what?

See Identity and Dreams – Inner World – Associations Working With

Cough Coughing

In many cases this links with emotions that have got trapped and are trying to be expressed. The cough can be quite subtle, a nervous response to something your are allergic to or anxious about, such as hiding and trying not to cough to give yourself away. So this suggests difficult or ‘give away’ responses to a situation your are in.

The cough can be a warning about health or addiction. The dream usually defines what the difficulty is.

A cough can be a signal of some sort, or even a cover up for an embarrassing moment.

Sometimes, if you are coughing up lumps of something, then it is probably linked with past experience, and the feelings attached to it, that are irritating you and seeking release. Talk the dream and the feelings over with a sympathetic friend to see if you can touch what those feelings are more fully. See Life’s Little Secrets

Occasionally the word is used as a suggestion of coffin. This would be indicated by the tone of the dream. See: coffin; sneeze.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I see the cough in the dream is expressing?

Is this an expression of an infection of health problem?

What feelings are behind the cough, and how do they apply to me?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Resistances

Country

See: Abroad; Countryside.

Countryside

Your feelings of relaxation, and what you are without trying. Therefore your natural or spontaneous state. It can also depict natural forces of life active in you.

It depicts how you feel when you are in the country. Often this is about your natural spontaneous feelings, or feeling relaxed. It might also refer to the forces of ‘nature’ in you, your instincts or your moods – a rainy countryside would be a more introverted mood than a lively sunny scene. If the countryside is wild and rugged, or stormy, it could suggest you are meeting a difficult time in your life or growth.

In some dreams the countryside depicts a feeling of safety or the absence of stress. Or it might link with the past – i.e. a past way of living. Many people have a ‘retreat’ in the country, so it could suggest a way of getting away from the everyday demands of your life. This getting away from the demands of life, the countryside, might be shown to be unrefined or more coarse or down to earth than your usual life.

Example: I used to have a recurring dream in which I had to choose between a modern house made almost entirely of glass situated in open country on a hilltop, and a small cosy cottage  by the sea against which the waves beat fiercely in stormy weather. This helped me uncover a conflict between the choice of a ‘public’ career – the glass house – in which I could rise in the academic world – the hilltop; and a cosy home life of domesticity close to the emotional, primitive roots of being – the sea. The stimulus was obviously the fact that at the time my husband was threatening to leave me unless I gave up my career to devote myself to the family. Ann Faraday from her book Dream Power.

If the countryside doesn’t have roads or paths it often means you are in a phase of your life where you are exploring a new or unknown direction. This frequently show you entering more deeply into your own ‘nature’ and discovering more of yourself. It could of course simply say you are very uncertain of your direction at the moment.

Country lanes: Meeting what is natural in us – this may disturb the dreamer, perhaps being in the form of a wolf or animal. Sometimes it is shown as an escape route from something or someone. See: lane; landscapes; farmer; settings.

Driving in the country: This might suggest either that the going is slower or the way harder, or that you are more relaxed. The atmosphere of the dream should clarify which.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sort of countryside is it, and what does that suggest as a mood, feeling or attitude?

Is this countryside I know, and if so what are my memories and associations with it?

What am I doing here – searching, relaxing, making love – and what does this suggest about my natural or relaxed feelings and inner self?

See Associations Working With – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions

Couple

Depending on the context of the couple in the dream, they can represent the dreamers parents and the family situation and environment at the age of the couple portrayed; if the dreamer has been married, can depict the dreamer’s marriage situation at the age of the couple; hopes for a relationship; possible outcomes of a relationship; friendship; partnership; some sort of relationship. See – Characters and People in Dreams

Dead people: The influence those people still have in your life – i.e. you are still influenced by them, or your relationship with them, even though they are dead. Feelings about death.

Group of people: A group of people, as in Ivor’s dream below, can depict how one meets the pressure of social norms; public opinion. See: Dead Husband or Ex; crowd.

Large crowds: Enormous involvement of self in issue; ones relationship or feelings about the social environment one lives in. In groups we often have a feeling of being looked at or on view – how we relate to that may be depicted by what we are doing in the dream group. See: – Settings in Dreams; party; roles.

Old person: See old age

People from our past: Considering that the major part of our learning and experience occur in relationship to other people, such learning and experience can be represented by characters from the past. For instance a first boyfriend in a dream would depict all the emotions and struggles we met in that relationship, and what we learned from it or took away from it in terms of fears. Therefore dreaming often of people we knew in the past would suggest the past experiences or lessons are very active at the moment, or we are reviewing those areas of our life. A woman who had emigrated to Britain from a very different cultural background frequently dreamt, even twenty years afterwards, of people she knew in her native country. This shows her still very much in contact with her own cultural values and experiences.

Several people in a dream suggest: Not feeling lonely; involvement of many aspects of oneself in what is being dreamt about; social ability.

As social relationship is one of the most important factors outside of personal survival – and survival depends upon it – such dreams help us to clarify our individual contact with society. Human beings have an unconscious but highly developed sense of the psychological social environment. Ivor’s dream shows something we are all involved in – how we are relating to humans collectively. Are we in conflict with group behaviour and direction; do we conform, but perhaps have conflict with our individual drives; do we find a way between the opposites? Much of our response is laid down in childhood and remains unconscious unless we review it.

Example: ‘Walking alone through a small town. I was heading for a place that a group of people, in a street parallel to mine, were also heading for. A person from the group tried to persuade me that the RIGHT way to get to the place was along the street the group was walking. I knew the street did not matter, only the general direction. The person was quite disturbed by my independence. It made him or her feel uncertain to have their leader apparently questioned. I felt uncertain too for a moment.’ Ivor S.

In some dreams, a group of people represent what is meant by the word God. This may sound unlikely, but the unconscious, because it is highly capable of synthesis, often looks at humanity as a whole. Collectively humanity has vast creative and destructive powers that intimately affect us as individuals. Collectively it has performed miracles that looked at as an individual, appear impossible. How could a little human being build the great pyramid, or a space shuttle? The Bible echoes this concept in such phrases as ‘Whatever you do to the least of one of these, you do to me.’

Example: ‘I was outdoors with a group of people acting as leader. We were in the middle of a war situation with bullets playing around us. Maybe aeroplanes were also attacking. I was leading the group from cover to cover, avoiding the bullets. Paul W.

Despite feeling attacked, either by external events, or from inner conflicts, Paul is using leadership skills to deal with his own fears and tendencies. If a friend told us he had just had an argument with his wife and was going to leave her, we might sit down and counsel them by listening and helping them to sort out the hurt feelings from their long term wishes. We might point out they had felt this way before but it passed – in other words give feedback they had missed. In a similar way, our various emotions and drives often need this sort of skill employed by ourselves. This unifies us, leading to coping skills as in Paul’s dream.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a couple I know?

What are they doing in the dream? See Dream Action

What is the background to your dream – the backdrop? See Background

See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Simple Truths

Cousin

Probably represents your opinions or feelings about that person. See Characters and People in Dreams

Cousins are often an easy way to try out sex or love with, as in the examples. This is because we have often shared a lot of time with them, they are family and we feel easy with them.

Example: It came to me how badly I had wanted my cousin Sylvia sexually when I was a teenager. Yet I could not but feel guilty about my desire, for being a cousin. But the guilt was easily relinquished, and I saw myself as I had so badly wanted, going in that little patch of hair. I got a lot of sexual pleasure out of the experience , and it passed. Something interesting I learned from it, was that the taboos in regard to the family are built into us, even to the point of me not even allowing a fantasy for all those years.

Example: Down a steep hill. In a house. I had to give man (cousin Abner or Nate) a shot. A two-pronged needle with red liquid. I know it will hurt him. I didn’t want to but I had to. He yelled in pain. He turned on the bed, writhed around, and threw himself around. I snuck up and finished the dosage. He yelled in mock anger. He grabbed me. We tumbled to the floor. He started to make love, wildly, lovingly. Later at the table, an ugly woman with horrible eyes, glazed, hazy, and blue, came in. Said to him, “So there’s the louse.” I gave her a straight look. I said, “Just leave him alone!” Anger. She steadily looked at me. Another woman, possibly my mother watched the tense scene.

Of course it could go the other way of feeling hatred, not love.

Example: I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin’s hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenceless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Charles Kingsley – from Alton Locke, 1850.

Being with or following a cousin can mean you identify with the way they are and are copying or learning their style. We all are actually all the time learning from or absorbing things form other people or even animals – that is how we learn and grow.

Dreaming of a dead cousin can be an actual communication with them. In which case see Dreaming of Death. But it can be a way of showing an aspect of you, symbolised by your cousin. As already mentioned see Characters and People in Dreams.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was my last interaction with my cousin, and what feelings or attitudes do I have about that?

Do I have sexual feelings about this cousin, and if so how do I handle them?

What is the character, strengths and weaknesses of this cousin, and how do they apply to me?

See The Dream as a Code – Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Cover

This has many possibilities, but the most frequent are to do with protection, concealment or inclusiveness – i.e. including something, as when two people cover themselves with a sheet, suggesting togetherness. It can also mean keeping something secret – ‘a cover-up’.

It might also be used to mean a creation of an atmosphere as in the example below.

Example: I was in a small sailing boat, about twelve foot long. It was covered with some sort of canopy, which made me feel I was in my home – as if I were living on the boat. A.T.C.

Another possibility is that it means some sort of situation, when someone is covered by flies or mice, suggesting an impressive and perhaps unnerving situation. In such cases what you feel in the dream is the clue to its meaning.

Idioms: Cover your arse; blow my cover; can’t tell a book by its cover; cover for me; cover up.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is something being hidden or protected – and if so what are you hiding or protecting?

What quality or function does the cover have, and how can I understand that to apply to my situation?

Am I wrapped up in something – if so what in life am I deeply involved in?

See The Dream as a Code – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Role

Cow

Similar to the bull, but representing the female side of one’s nature, especially the easy self-giving of oneself and one’s body to others, or to ones baby. The cow might also link with one’s mother, motherliness or the mother role. It also often stands for a woman; the forces of nature or life in oneself, especially as they relate to receptiveness or nurturing and the feminine which can lead or direct the masculine positive energy in oneself. Occasionally the cow suggests being taken advantage of.

In ancient cultures the cow represented fecundity of the earth, and therefore the universal mother earth the provider and nourisher. In India it is treated as sacred because it provides so much nourishment for them.

Cow being milked: Giving of oneself; taking support or nourishment from someone else; taking, or being taken, advantage of.

Example: The sexual drive cannot be dragged, it will be led, and it must be treated as intelligent, as a living creature or process. In the dream the bull, depicting my sexual drive, is following, is willing to be led. And it is being led by the woman. This means that the cow, the woman, the earth, always leads the sexual drive in the male animal. All things are born by the great cow, the earth. The earth holds all the seeds in it. I am kneeling and honouring the Great Cow. The woman was leading me because she represents this power. In youth I, the bull, fed at the teats of the cow. Even now I suck the teats of the Great Cow, mother earth, as I eat the grass. The mother can also destroy. Anthony.

Example: I saw myself & my daughter riding on top of the cow and I were sitting in front steering. At one point the cow stopped & we had to get off. The cow was calm, gentle & beautiful.

Idioms: Sacred cow; milch cow; till the cows come home; silly old cow; being milked – meaning being taken advantage of; to be cowed – meaning beaten or conquered.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do the feelings in the dream link in any way to how I feel about my mother?

Is there any link here with motherhood or giving of myself or being nourished by others?

What is the action here and how does it relate to me? (i.e. is there conflict, abuse, good feelings, fear?)

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – What Economic – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Coyote

In general similar to dog or fox. It is sometimes used to represent the ‘trickster’ or tricky and unexpected unplanned for element of life, as is the fox. The coyote is one of the few large animals that has increased its numbers in areas colonised by humans. The fox in the UK has done the same, suggesting their adaptability and survival instincts and their street wise nature.

Coyote is usually seen as a trickster and delights in all sorts of pranks, mischief and jokes. James Lewis, in his book The Dream Encyclopaedia, says that Trickster/Coyote is not by nature evil, even though the results of his activities are often unpleasant. These activities centre around bringing attention to our own often hidden stupidity or shams or lies. He is also the unexpected spontaneous ‘idiot’ aspect of life which for no reason at all emerges into our carefully arranged life to upset it. Trickster is a shape shifter and so has the possibility of transformation. The undeveloped, idiot, side of this symbol may have a type of clear-sightedness due to lacking the complications and contradictions of thinking and values. It also may be creative in a serendipitous sort of way. Because it doesn’t seriously hold onto a purpose or idea, this side of our nature may lead us to something new, a change of direction. In some dreams the fool is a figure who is sacrificed.

One writer describes coyote as, “The wily, tricky, sneaky, pesky, cheaty God of the Wild West. He’s the ubiquitous Trickster God and Cultural Hero of Native American mythology, the original Marx Brother..” And Encyclopedia Mythica online says, “Coyote is a ubiquitous being and can be categorized in many types. In creation myths, Coyote appears as the Creator himself; but he may at the same time be the messenger, the culture hero, the trickster, the fool. He has also the ability of the transformer: in some stories he is a handsome young man; in others he is an animal; yet others present him as just a power, a sacred one.” See: archetype of the trickster.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What sense do you arrive at of your dream coyote – is he/she sneaky, divine, wise or a messenger? Whatever it is can you sum up what you get from coyote in the dream?

What do you experience if you imagine yourself and talk as your dream coyote?

What are the key words used in describing the interaction between yourself and coyote? See: key words for help with this.

See – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – The Dream as a Code – Inner World

Crab

This is about either a shell you have to protect your vulnerability, or that you have lost your protective shell and so are very vulnerable. Crabs can also sometimes indicate fear or strong emotion causing tension within, especially abdominally. This may be due to fear or guilt of sensual pleasure. It may also represent outer hardness or cynicism covering inner softness; or outer hardness and graspingness in life. If the crab is threatening someone it points to a desire to cause pain to others.

The shell of brittle emotions we guard ourselves with grasping or hurtful attitudes. Fear or strong emotion causing tension within, especially abdominally. Or a desire to cause pain to others; or a tendency to hold onto things, especially too long or in a manner that is painful to one’s self or others.

Claws are tenacious and clinging, which can indicate something about the relationships the dreamer is in, especially with the opposite sex.

Hadfield (1954) in his book Dreams and Nightmares suggests that crab, spider and vampire images represent the visceral objectifications of the bodily feelings associated with orgasm. The crab portrays the changes in visceral and abdominal muscles which produce a gripping sensation; the relaxed feelings following orgasm are represented by the sprawling legs and soft underbelly of the spider image; the washed-out feeling of fatigue, as though the blood had been sucked dry, is externalized by a vampire figure.

Lacking shell: Our naked vulnerability.

Being nipped by crab: Physical or psychosomatic pain or even illness caused by being too tight or self protective. See: shell fish under fish.

Example: I say to her, I don’t want fireworks. She continues to express with enthusiasm how wonderful fireworks are. I say if you want this, you buy it. I then ask her if she wants to hold the crab as it is trying to snip me. She says no thanks. I carry it looking for a place to get rid of it or put it down.

Example: I went upstairs, felt the need to undress completely, and stood looking at myself in the mirror for a minute or so. I looked as if I had been working hard – which I had in my sexual life of late, with such a lot of release. Looking at my arms I saw what huge appendages they are. I was reminded of the fiddler crab with its great claw. My right arm reminded me of a great powerful piece of equipment or tool I carried about. It looked pretty heavy.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream about the crab describing? See – Dream Action

Am I aware of feeling either vulnerable or of protecting myself against hurt?

What is the crab doing or being in my dream?

See Learning to Allow Yourself – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Associations Working With

Crack Cracking

The word and image are used to depict so many things, as can be seen in the idioms. It can refer to a flaw in one’s thinking, a weakness in the attitudes, protections or defences we use in meeting life. This might be shown as a crack in a wall, or even in the body or face. Such cracks need to be dealt with as they can widen, as in the following description.

Example: I had felt something of a past incident arising, and had phoned my wife saying to her that I felt something strange going on and deeply needed to know when she might be coming back. She said she would let me know. So I waited for a telephone call, a letter, some indication, having pleaded with her for this support. Nothing came. No call. No letter. No support. Then the crack widened and all hell broke loose from within me. CP.

Occasionally we dream of trying to use the crack to break something up, or get through something. Then it indicates that you are finding your way to a breakthrough, to emerging from something or breaking through something such as a problem, an obstacle, or a personal difficulty. Sometimes the crack can be widened to allow you to get through, and so it is the suggestion of something beyond. A crack in the ground is similar to this, revealing what lies in your far past, a sort of unearthing of things.

Less frequently it shows a personal  condition that allows the unexpected to emerge in your life. As such it might be the irrational breaking through into consciousness.

The vagina is often shown as a crack, as in this dream.

Example: “All three of us became close physically and started to get involved sexually. The woman put my hand on her vagina. It was shaved and I could feel the crack.”

A cracked windscreen on a car could suggest either that you need to stop because you are not clearly understanding what is ahead of you, or that what usually protects you from stress is beginning to weaken.

Sometimes we look through a crack to see something or someone, and this is a form of concealment or secrecy to try to learn what someone is doing; or that you are only partially understanding a situation. Or we can hear a crack, and this might either be a signal, an awareness of something, or a sign of weakness.

Cracks appear in old things, so if this is the sort of cracks in your dream, it shows something that is either old and valuable because it carries the experience of age, and brings something to you from the long past, or it shows weakness and ageing.

Idioms: All its cracked up to be; at the crack of dawn; first crack at; fall between the cracks, living between the cracks; crack this case; crack a joke; crack of doom; crack down on; crack me up; crack shot/salesman etc; crack under the strain; paper over the cracks; crack in the ice; cracks in his defence; crackpot.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is this crack appearing in and what does that represent? (Look it up).

Is the crack to do with weakness, age or opportunity?

Is this a sign of something breaking, and what does that refer to in me?

See – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crane

bird crane: Inner feelings about wholeness; good luck, the soul. The ability to deal harmoniously with the libido or energy within.

Example: Then I get a bit worried and fear that this may be a swarm of bugs, like locusts, but before that thought goes too far, the flock has come closer and  the birds have changed to beautiful, large white cranes flying in boldly geometric patterns flipping one way then another like a giant card section at a football game. They look like giant pure white orgami sculptures making amazing synchronized patterns upon the backdrop of rich blue sky. It is simply breath taking.

Mechanical crane: You might be undergoing powerful changes, or making major decisions. The crane usually appears in dreams in which past structures are being torn down, or new ones built, so suggests much inner change and movement toward new attitudes or viewpoints.

The other use is ‘craning’ one head or neck to view something, suggesting looking at something not easily seen, or realising something your usual view of life doesn’t include.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is breaking up in my life, what relationship or way of life is changing?

Am I driving the crane – if so what decisions am I making, or actions taking to make changes?

What am I now building/creating in my life and environment?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – – Being the Person or Thing

Crap

Sometimes refers to the rubbish that some people speak – what comes out of their mouth. See: Faeces.

See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Crater

Memory and result of an old hurt, old emotion or pain, or frightening situation. If it is volcanic, a crack in the outer self through which inner repressed emotions or passions might pour out. You usually dream of a crater at times of personal upheaval, or when dealing with difficult emotions and influences.

If it is a bomb crater it show an explosive and painful experience that has left its marks in you and your behaviour.

A crater filled with water indicates that you are in touch with deep intuitions or your inner life – or you can be if you interact with the water in some way. This is because a past hurt has opened the way not just to old pains, but to intuitions or wisdom arising from the unconscious.

Animals or prehistoric creatures emerging from the crater or pit show that you are beginning to meet really basic instinctive drives you had previously kept buried. This is a positive thing if you do not run in fear from them.

A meteor crater might be indicating very ancient influences that you are in some way aware of at the moment.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do events and feelings in my life show any sense of old traumas – if so can I identify them?

What feelings were experienced in the dream, and what part do those feelings play in my waking life?

Is anything emerging from the crater – and if so how do I relate to it and what does it represent?

See Stand in Role – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – The Dream as a Code

Crazy

See: Crazy As a Jaybird – Sane Reasons for Some Crazy Behaviour; Idiot.