Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’
Dig Digging Excavation
Digging usually depicts delving into hidden or buried areas of ourselves. We may uncover feelings from our childhood – creative realisations – features of the unconscious – even dead bodies or ancient creatures. If it is dead bodies, these need to be understood, as they are parts of your life that were buried under forgetfulness. As one dreamer said, “I was digging and found some potatoes, but they were too hot to handle.” In that case what was being uncovered was difficult to face. See: Delve
Any dead bodies we uncover depicts a whole set of personality traits or attitudes, very often potentials, that have been denied life or expression. For some reason we have not allowed them expression. A person hurt in love might kill out any feelings towards the opposite sex. This ‘dead’ part of them can be shown as a body. For more information see dead body
Example: I was in a land something like America. People were digging an area with care, like archaeologists. They were uncovering body after body, one under the other. All the people had been murdered, and I was implicated. I watched, amazed at the amount of bodies – bones really. I felt no guilt, just amazement.
We can also dig as with our garden, to clean out weeds and to replan or plant. But it also if it is a garden being dug or new land, it usually indicates your work on yourelf, the work to help your growth as a person and not a body. Sometimes the change is one of achieving new realisations. There appears to be a drive from the unconscious to gather and integrate experience to thereby expand the sense of self. A means of renovating our attitudes, personality structure or habits.
We can be digging for a new building, so here digging represents effort to change your life or circumstances. This suggest that you are or are thinking of creating something new, a new idea or project. Our imagination and mind are constantly building things which show in our dreams as images. Our ideas and beliefs are the main builders in our dreams, and it is a world we then live in. We build an inner world that few people realise they have. See Inner World
If it is a well you are digging, then you are searching purposefully for the source of life, or for something you have a thirst for. Also access to ones deepest resources of life – therefore personal spiritual wisdom or information from the unconscious; the source of ones ‘well-being’.
If you are digging up treasure or ancient things, this is an uncovering of your past, or your ancestral past. This can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage. See ancestors.
If you area digging your own grave, then it is an obviously statement about the life you are leading. This might be a warning that your habits or thoughts are a source of negative energy that can cause illness.
Example: ‘I entered a neglected garden adjoining a house I had formerly lived in. I was astonished that I had never noticed this garden before. I took a spade and hoe and began to vigorously work in order to put things right, digging like a navy. But wherever I put my spade I turned up live shells and hand grenades – highly explosive and very dangerous. I was terrified I would be blown to pieces and hurried away.’ From Organism of The Mind, G. R. Heyer, Kegan Paul, 1933.
The dreamer was a man in his forties who had taken up meditation on the suggestion of a friend. It shows him discovering and uncovering a part of himself he had not known before. In doing so he meets explosive emotions and conflicts he is not used to dealing with. See: garden; fork.
Idioms: dig a little deeper; dig deep; dig in; dig in their heels; dig it up; dig me; dig it; dig your own grave; dig yourself in; digs
Useful Questions and Hints:
Why is the digging being undertaken and how does that relate to me?
Is anything uncovered and what does it suggest?
Is this cultivating the land, and if so what results are shown?
See Associations Working With – Martial Art of the Mind – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Digest
To absorb, to make use of, to understand and incorporate into your way of life. To accept. See: Food.
Digestion is a very important function not just for our body but also for our mind and spirit. I have seen people become very ill in mind because they have not digested their experience or what they have learnt at school or the lessons and experience of a relationship long gone. And digestion is a Life function. Life in us is often greatly overlooked and our dreams are one way of showing us how we have not surrendered our life experience to that function. See Life’s Little Secrets and Dreaming of an ex.
There is a double signification. It is to “consume” and to “consummate.” It means – both in a literal and a figurative sense – to take something into ourselves and make it part of ourselves, either for our substance or satisfaction, or for our completion or perfecting in some way.
When we digest, whether it is an idea, something we have read or learned, it has to be first surrendered to the life process. We can see this in our body – it is first chewed and swallowed, then broken down into parts and the useful stuff, the building stuff, can be taken into us and the rest is passed out. The important thing is that even if it is dead or living food, it is transformed into our own living being – in other words our living understanding. If it has not been transformed through digestion it is like something dead inside us. But to be capable of such digestion we must swallow the experience and allow our unknown self to do its work, as described in Life’s Little Secrets. See: absorb; eating; food.
We transform it by giving it to the fire within us that burns as our life process. So if you are troubled by dreams of your ex or a past experience, the best way to deal with them is to work on integrating the influence left in you from it. You can do this by thinking about the dreams about your experience and drawing on all you got from him or her or it. So I would suggest you integrate all the good and bad things.
Try doing this by taking the dream images of your experience or person and pulling them back into your body. Yes, literally making them one with you. Do this slowly and allow any feelings that arise. I know you may feel, why should I merge with something or someone who gave me so much trouble. Well, I have found that we take into our memory everyone and everything we experience. So merging with it makes it conscious again, and if any feelings are allowed expression you have a chance to really understand and sort out what is useful and what has to be let go of – exactly as our digestion does. This may sound strange but all the images in our dreams are projections from you inner world onto the screen of our sleeping mind; so taking them back into you is like owning them and integrating them. It is called honouring what we learned, bad or good, from the relationship. Think of it like digesting something. In a relationship, whether a feeling relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person or event. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in.’
Example: It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery. Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naive, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle.
Here the person is meeting and digesting a part of him he had never met before. It was done by allowing spontaneous movement and feelings. See Methods of Awakening – Arm Circling Meditation
Useful Questions and Hints:
What was the experience or person you need to absorb?
What stops you from meeting it – is it because you believe your dream images are separate from you and not a part of you?
Can you own that a dream is a projection of your own memories and experience?
See What we Need to Remember About Us – Dreams are a reflection of your inner world – What do You bring to Your Dreams?
Dinner
Taking in life; absorbing something of life and the world and being enriched. If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to others. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others.
Sharing a meal: Sharing sustenance with others. In the ritual of the mass, it shows the recognition of sharing life with all others – being sustained by the flow of life as substance and energy. See: meals under food.
Example: I’m cooking hamburgers at my mother’s house. I come in with 4 little ones. She sneers and says that there should be more. I feel hurt and angry and then I go out. I look and there are lots more but they’ve fallen on the floor, the messy greasy floor. I’m crying as I pick them up because I know if she sees, I’m in trouble. I have a hard time picking them up. Finally I get them into the house, and she comes up to me and growls, “Hurry up. They’re in there, hungry, tired and fighting,” (My father and the rest of the family). I say, “I have to cook the potatoes first,” and she says, “No! Do something about the hamburgers first. Feed them the hamburgers and then come cook the potatoes.” She walks out. I’m crying and angry and I get stubborn. I look for the potato peeler in the sink of dirty dish water. All I keep coming up with are sharp knives. I’m careful with them. I peel the potatoes and get them into a pan and take them to the stove, move another pot off the burner to make room for the potatoes and see that a cooked steak is there. There are lots of them, 3. She comes back in. I say, “Look! You had a good dinner already cooked and you had me out there working and crying and you weren’t even going to let me have a good dinner.” She yells at me about finding some other place to live. I say, “Yes, sure, I’ll get out.” She storms out. My father says to me (he’s standing behind me), “7-6-5-4 yeah, you could be packed and out by 5.” I know he means a.m. and I don’t get up early, and I get furious at him and I turn and yell, “You little short runt!” D. is standing nearby. My father is about 4 feet tall. I yell, “You always take her side!” I am angry and hurt.
Example: We are sitting at TABLE. Table is very important you understand – for a family that is. Table has all the right knives and forks. It has all the correct glasses. Table has manners. Into this ‘table’ comes a little kid. He is about three. Mother is on the left. Next to her is her eldest son. He is a shattered person. Daughter is successful. She is like Mum – Who is ’successful’. The daughter is an attractive girl. Mum has ‘made it’ – So everything Mum says goes.
Husband, across the way, Is shut out. HE is not even at the table. But is standing by the outside door, not allowed at table, And barely existing. His task was to fuck her
for her to have a baby. This is the woman.
As can be seen from the two examples dinner and the family gathering it sometimes is can be far from harmonious. Bit what follows is a ver different scene involving dinner.
Example: I dreamt that my mom cut her left hand off and cooked it as dinner for us because she doesn’t want us to starve and there was nothing else to eat. I didn’t see my mom cuting her hand off but just her hand in a dinner dish on the dinner table right next to a whole steamed corn. I asked my mom why would she do that and she said because she doesn’t want us to starved.
If alone, it suggests independence; loss of family ties; lack of social relationships or outside stimulus.
If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to others. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others. Sharing a meal shows you sharing sustenance, what you have, with others; or taking in what others offer you. See: Food; Meal.
Sharing a meal can also be about making a link with someone in a romantic or business way – or about trying to find out more about them. Many women dream of a romantic meal with aloving and caring partner.
Preparing a meal expresses the care or otherwise with which you ‘feed’ your needs, physical, emotional and spiritual. But it might also show how you relate to supporting other people, such as your family.
Useful questions and Hints::
What situation is shown in this dream in regard to being alone or with others, and the quality of the meal?
What difficulties if any are shown and what can I gather from that?
Am I relating easily or uneasily to the meal and the people?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Simple Truths
Dinosaur
Your present personality and body has arisen from processes and experiences that are millions of years old. The dinosaur or a prehistoric animal often represents your sense of this primordial past out of which your present self has grown. The dinosaur can also depict deeply instinctive urges, or your feelings about being a devouring monster.
Life on the planet is also only an extension of processes active in the cosmos. So in dreams we often sense this primordial past out of which our present self has grown, and frequently depict this meeting as a prehistoric animal.
The dinosaur might also suggest something you are dealing with that is no longer alive or functioning in your life. Perhaps it is outmoded, clumsy or instinctive.
Exploring dreams is like uncovering different strata of human psychological history – history we all share. The dinosaur often depicts one of these deeply buried strata, linking with our very basic urges of survival such as fear, reproduction, and survival reactions to situations. This does not make these brutal. They are fundamental and necessary in today’s life. Because these aspects of ourselves are so old, and have survived so long, there is often great wisdom in them if we can bring it to consciousness. Such urges as fighting over our territory or mate – grabbing what is available for ourselves – striving aggressively to provide for family, also need to be integrated in a way that socialises them, otherwise they exist in a primitive form still, perhaps in conflict with our present needs. This is similar to most animal symbols, but the difference is that the dinosaur portrays them at their most basic or unsocialised. They can also depict something that has not survived or the will to survive; something, or some element of your attitudes or feelings that is outdated or has no survival value.
Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.
Don explored his dream and says – I realised that through my internal digging into myself I had uncovered some feelings I had never met consciously before. This was about anxiety, which I had suffered from a lot, and about the anger I felt toward my step children for not appreciating the work I was putting into building them a home and working to provide. Seeing these things helped me understand what was behind my difficult feelings and fears. For instance I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience, and I needed to meet it and help it to enter into the modern world instead of be repressed and remain primitive.
Example: It was darkening and the street was very appealing to me. I could just discern a house at the end of the street, facing me, and I walked toward it. I was not far advanced along the street when I saw, coming from the direction of the house at the end, in my direction, a very large dinosaur – as high as the house itself. It was walking upright on its large hind feet and the front feet were quite small and held in front. I was very nervous and frightened, but thought, If I walked very slowly, it might not notice me and pass by me But as I was just past it passing me on my right I quickened my steps in fear. It turned and caught up with me, and I thought, If I talk to it in a gentle voice, it might know I was a friend. I talked to it in a soothing voice, saying Good evening, and what are you doing with your little feet in the air? It turned its head down to me and said something in a very sweet voice, and I knew at once it was a friend, but I couldn’t understand what it said. I asked again what it did with its small feet, and it repeated what it had said before, softly, while we were walking toward the house at the end of the street. But I could not understand, though I knew it was something nice. Mrs. G.A.
Here there is an obvious meeting with fear, but this is transformed through communication. As with the previous dream, fear is part of this primeval level of us, along with flight or fight, reproduction and ritualistic behaviour. This means behaviour that is deeply instinctive and not learned. Like the dancing mating rituals of birds, it is behaviour that arises through an external stimulus. For instance some lizards will nod their head and expand their size if something red is flashed in front of them. They cannot help but respond in this way as it is hardwired behaviour.
Example: I meet a beautiful female from Jupiter, she is wearing a white cheesecloth dress and is almost divine in nature, and I am very attracted to her. We walk towards an entrance to her world (Jupiter), through the entrance I can see strange other worldly creatures, some look like dinosaurs, I am in awe of what I am seeing, as we step into her world, she tells me to look up, which I do, the reason for this was, she was telling me not to be distracted by what I am seeing around me, as a great raptor/eagle was coming out of the sky to pick me up.
From what you say of your dream it seems to me you are moving into a new awareness of yourself and what you life is – and its possibilities.
Example: My sister gets through the gate and we are being chased by dinosaurs, they are everywhere. We are running through an office building where I work but we cant find a way out. I distinctly remember reaching back to hold my sisters hand to keep her with me. Eventually we hide in an office and hope the dinosaurs don’t find us. My boss appears and we start to calm down but we are still in danger. As though the responsibility to keep us alive has switched from me to my boss.
Perhaps you have been digging into yourself to let them loose. If not that, then you are meeting a very primal level of anxiety. But remember the images of the dinosaur are an aspect of yourself, as is the boss. I will try to explain.
When you were conceived you were at the very beginning of life forms. In fact we have to go to the very primal to reproduce. That may not mean much to most people, but in the dream world it means an enormous amount. Because from there we go through the whole process of evolution as we are in our mother’s womb. Again, most people say, “So what. I don’t remember!” You remember not in ordinary memories, but in ancient feelings of fear, or religious wonder or even intuitions of life’s meaning. But of course we do remember and such memories are seen in our dreams. So when you learned language you forgot all the past. A new program was running that aided you to have the waking, self conscious awareness you have today. And that awareness is often at odds with what are the foundations of consciousness your present self is built upon. That is what is happening in the dream. You need to meet and be at ease with what is actually a part of your experience.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How am I relating to the dinosaur – am I at ease or scared of it – and what does that show me about myself?
Is the dinosaur communicating anything to me, and if so what?
Am I caring for or injuring the dinosaur?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Being Person or thing – Facing Fear – Dreams are Like a Computer Game
Dirt
A sense of what is unclean, or of being unclean in mind or body. We have to realise however that dirt is only misplaced earth, which can form the material for growing vital things. See: Earth.
Actions or feelings that we feel are grubby or immoral. The unconscious has a natural morality based on its sense of connection with the universal principles of mating, birth, growth and death. Where our social or sexual life does not align with this or our own consciously accepted principles, we may dream of being dirty. But we also live within the moral pressure to conform to the morals and expectations of the people we share life with and the society we were raised or live in. So a sense of ‘dirtyness’ can be a reflection of that rather than any real transgression against ones own sense of rightness.
Or it can link with mental and emotional housekeeping you need to do – clear up the rubbish in your head or heart. Dirt can also suggest influences from the past, something still in our life that can be got rid of. So dirt or trash can depict past problems that have not yet been dealt with. See: Example under archetype of the beggar; corruption.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that is dirty and what does that suggest?
Is the dirt on my, and if so where – look up the part of the body?
Do I need to ‘clean up my act’ in some way?
Is the dirt life giving, or vital for growth in some way?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Mammal Brain – The power of Habits
Disappear Disappearance Disappearing
To forget, to lose sight of something. Or it may express a hope to be rid of that thing or person. Occasionally it can symbolise spiritual power and the magical world of the mind, where thoughts, feelings and memories constantly appear and disappear. In this case it suggests something that is manipulated or emerges from the unconscious.
Depicts the way our conscious self relates to the unconscious. Memories, emotions, abilities, or ideas suddenly appear in awareness, but can disappear just as rapidly, sometimes never to be seen again. See: vanish.
Being with a certain person or in a particular situation can bring about difficulties, problems, or positive feelings and creativity that disappear when you are not in that situation or with that person. So the dream might be showing you what attitudes or situations bring about inner changes. If you learn what ‘buttons’ people or environments press, you can work your own controls. See Avoid Being Victims
People often make things disappear by using a prayer or magic words, even holding a religious symbol. This is basically using one symbol to deny another. It is a way to change your feeling of confidence, and so changes the dream. Better to realise that all dream images are self created from what we have experienced; even the images of God and the devil are images we create. See – Dreams are a reflection of your inner world
Dr. Jung also realised that the strange and mysterious phenomenon of the death of God is a psychic fact of our time. In 1937 he wrote: “I know – and here I am expressing what countless other people know – that the present time is the time of God’s disappearance and death.” For years he had observed the Christian God-image fading in his patients’ dreams-that is, in the unconscious of modern men. The loss of that image is the loss of the supreme factor that gives life a meaning.
This is probably to do with a maturing process that as a first step is at war with the old conception of God, and from there finally meets God in him/her self. In a poem, a man who searches his unconscious ends by saying, “At last I see the face of God – it is my own face”.
Example: I know I have killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar. The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. The various dreams I have based on these circumstances all involve various people visiting my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of the dreams the police were actually investigating the disappearance of “the person” and went into the cellar. You can imagine how I was feeling. When I wake from this dream I always have the most terrible guilty feeling and it takes some time to remember it is a hang over from the dream.
Example: Another definite change is the disappearance of the very dark depressions which existed a year ago, causing desire to die. It seems so far away, yet it was only a year, when I wept because life felt so unbearable due to the dizziness in the head, lack of energy, and darkness in me. The death desire, the dizziness and darkness have gone.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that disappeared, and what does that associate with in my life?
If I disappeared do I wish to get away from a situation or relationship?
Is there something that was important that I have let slip away?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex – Martial Art of the Mind
Disinfectant
This has been used in dreams to represent the power of healing, of cleansing fear, or feelings of guilt and being dirty. It is sometimes linked with pain, or burning as a cleansing power. That is, the painful experiences of life have a healing power in themselves, due to the way in which they force attention to the cause of pain, and make us adjust, or let go of emotions, desires and attitudes that have caused trouble, but which we would never have let go of otherwise.
Disinfectant often appears in dreams where there is dirt or infection that creates feelings of concern.
Example: I was in my childhood house in London, about the age I am now. I wanted to go to the toilet badly and was walking from the kitchen to the back door where the toilet was. As I was nearing the toilet I could hold back no longer and shit started dropping down my legs. But as this happened I realised I had worms, and it was these worms dropping down my legs. I dashed into the garden to empty my bowels of these worms, squatting on the grass. As I did so I could see they were not tape worms but short ones like maggots. I was worried they would spread and multiply, and saw some crawl away into the grass. Then I was squatting over a drain hole in the grass and could see the worms/maggots dropping into the drain. I thought I could put disinfectant down the drain to kill them.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that is being cleansed or healed in the dream?
Do I feel the need to release or cleanse difficult feelings at the moment?
Am I getting to the root of where the disinfectant needs to be used?
See – Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – – Inner World
Disc
See: Circle.
Dissection
Intellectual enquiry that lacks feeling and sympathy. But it can also show a deep self analysis that might be painful, a sort of tearing oneself apart to discover why or what is happening. This can happen in relationships where people tear themselves apart because of the pain they feel. They are attempting to either find the cause of the pain or trying to understand it.
The dissected body is frequently seen in myths and is particularly related to death and rebirth, to suffering and new beginnings.
Example: I was walking along a road and recognised a house. I had known a man who had lived there. He had killed his wife and I had disposed of her body. The body, cut and broken into many pieces, was buried in the front garden. I realised I felt guilty about my part in the murder, and had purposely pushed the memory of it out of my awareness to avoid feeling guilt and fear of the body being found.
Andrew, whose dream this was, when he explored it met feelings about how he had messed up the opportunities for love in his life through living out his hurts and angers with his wife. He had thereby killed the love between them and had tried to bury his awareness of this.
Example: I had a dream in which I was walking along on the flat roof of a university building, and in my right hand I was carrying the head of a man stripped of flesh, and in my left hand a bag containing the dissected body of that man. As I looked from the roof I saw a man draw up in a car park below and I threw the head to fall near him. He picked it up thinking it was plastic, but then dropped it in horror.
As I explored the dream I felt the depth of it. The man was myself. I had torn myself apart trying to deal with the constant pain. I had even put before other people the awful situation I was in, and they had pulled back.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is being dissected and what does that suggest is being enquired into or torn apart?
Am I being over logical about the way I am looking at myself or my situation?
Am I arriving at any understanding or insight through the dissection?
See Avoid Being Victims – – Life’s Little Secrets – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Ditch
Obstacles; things you might get caught or trapped in, therefore a hazard. A drainage or release for your feelings. A way of getting rid of something or someone – ‘ditching’. Feeling discarded or thrown away. So you cen be ditched, or ditch someone, or even ditch a car. They all mean an ending of something that was important to you.
Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of past events coming to light.
Jumping a ditch can mean – if you succeed – that you have the ability to overcome or cross barriers and to stretch himself.
Someone in a ditch can mean you are in a place of little hope, maybe because you have fallen through neglecting lifes lessons, maybe an addiction or through emotions. See Life’s Little Secrets – Avoid Being Victims
Irrigation ditches suggest ways you have worked on to direct you emotions and energy toward growth.
A ditch can sometimes be a hiding place when danger threatens, as in the example.
Example: A woman who was a radio researcher was offered the job of presenter. She was thrilled but dreamt she was in a road walking and planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting. She had to dive into a ditch to avoid being killed. When she explored the dream she realised she was afraid of facing the public directly, and this fear if left unconscious would have caused her to refuse the job. She accepted the fear and managed to press forward with the job.
Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of pat events coming to light.
Example: I am searching/looking for a lost baby bird, I’m not sure why or where it came from. But I am searching for it in some long grass and along a ditch. I remember seeing a large truck(like a cube van) parked off the road a few hundred feet away. I never found the baby bird, I did see it a couple of times, but by the time I got to where I had seen it, it was gone. Jennifer
An interpretation given to Jennifer: Baby birds often link in some way with feelings about childhood, a child or a baby. The rest of the dream is about there being a suggestion of loss, or not finding something in connection with your own childhood, a child or a baby. The ditch might mean this has been ditched, cast away, lost. In some dreams it might even suggest attempting to have a baby. The truck brings in a suggestion of a commercial influence, but it seems quite inert. When this was pointed out to Jennifer she said, “My husband and I have been talking about starting to try and get pregnant, but he is out of work at the moment, so we’d rather wait until he finds another job. So it does make sense.”
Idioms: ditch him/her; last ditch.
Useful questions:
Is the ditch an obstacle or to drain water/my feelings?
Is there something I might fall into at the moment?
Is anything found in the ditch – is so what does it suggest?
See Martial Art of the Mind – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Characters and People in Dreams
Dive Diving
If you are not showing off or challenging yourself in your dream, then it is probably indicating that you are taking a chance, or entering something new and unknown, perhaps facing fears in doing so. Or trying to get away from something. The second example shows how we can learn confidence when learning to take chances.
Diving underwater: Delving into one’s mind or unconscious. Exploring the meaning of a dream, or an eventful meditation, might be depicted as swimming underwater in dreams. See: Swimming.
We can fly and dive in dreams, and this too is a way of developing confidence – mental and emotional confidence. If we do not have that confidence then we will feel fear or wake up. But you cannot be hurt or die in dreams. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams
Diving from a great height suggests a sudden descent, which you may not have much control over, but it is a chance to learn to fly or to control your descent. See Secrets of Power Dreaming
Example: Last week I dreamt a teenage (or early 20s) boy rushed down to a riverbank where he had discovered the skeletal remains of a young child. The clothes were still there. He wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to this child. He ushered an authoritative figure down there and told him of his plans to investigate. The key aspect of this investigation involved him diving into the river to get to the bottom of things. I watched as he relayed his plans. I had no idea how deep the river was. No idea where the bottom was.
Example: I was looking around the school, and came to a very large gymnasium. Near the end I stood was a diving board, about 20 feet off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling while standing up.
Example: Tonight I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.
Useful questions and hints:
Was I watching or was I involved in the dive?
What emotions did I feel in the dream?
Did I lose control or did I gain it?
See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – Martial Art of the Mind
Divining Rod
Intuitive realisation. Or intuitive directions.
Divorce
This might be either that you are angry at your partner, or that you fear for the continuance of your marriage. It can also mean difficulty with your inner partner feelings/intellect. Occasionally this is a dream that looks ahead to the future, because one senses a parting of the ways.
Also fear of or hope for break up of marriage. Occasionally such dreams do define the problems in your relationship that will eventually lead to divorce.
A partner often depicts your male or female characteristics, and so the dream might show you cutting them out of the way you live your life. But it also shows the struggles we might go through with our feelings in an otherwise good relationship. So wherever possibly it is worth trying to repair the partnership. Remember that we have to MAKE love.
Example: A man dreamt he was holding divorce papers and saying ‘Next time I will marry someone more mature’. Some time later he dreamt he was in process of getting divorced and marrying an old flame. In yet another dream he was trying to telephone an old girlfriend but being impeded by his wife.
At the time of these dreams he was married and thought the marriage was happy and secure. He did not feel himself tempted to have an affair. However divorce did follow the series of dreams, and looking back from a remarriage he felt both he and his first wife were unsuited to each other, and should never have been together. His first wife also happily remarried. Taken from Dream Power by Ann Faraday.
Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I was at the beach with a lot of strangers. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.
In A’s dreams the beach and sea depict the barriers to achieving a meeting with her own simplicity – herself without all the clothing and trappings of social life and anxieties.
Example: I am divorced from my husband. Before it became final I had this dream. I was running along a deserted beach towards my husband. As I ran I could see the tide was far out. When I reached my husband I put my arms around his waist. Instead of holding me close he dumped his arm around my shoulder and looked in the opposite direction.
One of the difficulties we face as humans is the difference between our emotions and our reasoning. At the time of the dream you probably knew in your head that the marriage was finished, but your heart still held a hope for togetherness.
The beach represents the urge to be together and intimate. It is at this point where your husband looks away that your heart realises there is a separation between you. In this way the dream opens your heart to feel the emotions of loss and the grieving for the lost relationship. So it helps heal the wound. The beach also depicts your ongoing life. The tide is out – showing a low ebb in your life – but it will come in again and bring new fortune. See – Learning to Love
Divorce single male dream: Difficulty with your feelings.
Divorce single female dream: Difficulty with social extroversion and intellect.
Divorce married male and female: Possible difficult feelings about present marriage. This doesn’t mean there is a real problem, so carefully watch future dreams.
Divorce woman going through divorce: A survey of the dreams of American women going through a divorce showed that those who best navigated the problems had dreams about the past, the present and the future. Those who dreamed only about the past were apt to be trapped in old feelings and unable to adapt as quickly.
Useful questions:
What difficulties are shown in the dream, and can I see them and deal with them?
Am I cutting off the expression of my male or female qualities?
Deep down do I hope for a separation from my partner, and if so do I need to own that feeling and its consequences?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Avoid Being Victims
Dizzy Giddy Vertigo
Losing your sense of balance, of relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.
This might indicate a feeling that you are bombarded by new impression or changes. The sense of balance in relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.
The sense of strain causing us to feel dizzy in dreams is shown in the following example.
Example: It was at our coming convention (I am running for president of our organization). I could see the crowded convention room, dimmed with smoke. I had been furiously taking minutes (I’m secretary) and had got up to speak on a topic that concerned me–I don’t know what it was, but I was passionately sure they were all wrong–I got up to talk, feeling dizzy and tired, but made my point and went out for air, feeling utterly exhausted and beyond caring if the convention took my advice or not. One of the boys was outside–someone I’d met before–I was almost in hysterics by then and shaking–he took me in his arms and held me, then we sat down and I leaned on his shoulder and after awhile he kissed me gently. By then, feeling very tranquil.
Being unready to face a new experience can also cause dizzyness in dreams. A woman who dreamt of a dizzying flight on a spaceship describes it as, “The “very advanced spaceship” is my body/mind. The flight represents sex, and also on a larger level my whole life, creativity, etc. I don’t want to “go all the way” to the moon on the first flight, and they tell me I won’t, but then we do. This feels like the way I jumped into sex, intercourse, with no preparation, no years of slow making out or extended foreplay. In my recollection of the dream I am not clear whether it is on the space-ship (some part of myself) who is responsible for this decision. Similarly, in waking life, it was both of us who were responsible for it. The flight could be exciting and beautiful-the stars spin by the window-but it makes me dizzy and nauseous because I am not ready for it.
Dizzyness can also be about losing control or feeling control slipping away. At a very practical level it might be indicating that you have an ear infection, or that wax in your ears is interfering with your organs of balance.
But if it is a waking experience, it is best to try the Epley manoeuvre.
Useful questions:
Do I need to have my ears checked to see if wax or infection is leading to dizziness?
Am I feeling in a whirl of impressions and experiences?
Is the solid ground of my experience being disturbed?
Am I reacting to meeting unconscious material. See Reaction to unconscious
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Avoid Being Victims
Doctor
Our dependence upon authority figure for a sense of wholeness, or to deal with anxiety. The dream doctor can be the healing process within us – or the unconscious wisdom we have concerning our needs and well being. The doctor might give us advice for instance, or help us with anxiety about health.
The doctor can be a figure you look to when feeling desire for intimacy or to be looked at and touched. Occasionally the figure of the doctor presages or is a supportive agent in the process of dying. There might also be fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure involved in the dream.
In some dreams the doctor appears to represent intellectual curiosity or rational thought, but perhaps with an open mind.
Seeing a doctor can also suggest fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure.
Dreams of collapse and destruction are more prevalent before a woman’s menstrual periods. Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”
Women with negative attitudes toward their menstruation (“the curse,” “falling off the roof,” “on the rag”) showed 15 percent of their dreams during the first two days had concerns about their body health. While those with positive feelings toward menstruation (“my secret friend,” “my monthly visitor,” “Mother Nature calling”) had less than 2 percent of dreams showing concerns.
Example: When I was working hard renovating a great big dance hall to turn it into our house, I developed a pain in my right arm so bad I went to the doctor. He told me I had tennis elbow and it could never be cured. He added that I should avoid exertion.
I thought what a load of b*******s he was saying. I know my body has the ability to heal itself, but I didn’t know how. As I was working to renovate our house and it was difficult, and the pain had continued for six months without any change, so I surrendered to the process of Life active in me and I asked what I could do. The answer was quite detailed. Holding in mind the pain in the arm I waited for the responses to arise from within. Soon, spontaneous fantasies and ideas bubbled into awareness, almost as if someone were explaining the situation to me. I was led to understand that during the past year I had not only been working hard physically to renovate the building, but because of divorce, family conflict within my new relationship, plus the change of home, I had experienced much stress and anger. During my sawing, plastering and hammering, I had discharged much of this anger and stress. As with any hard work, the cells in my right arm had broken down, but the anger and tension had prevented the cells from regenerating adequately.
As this insight emerged I could see what a shrewd summary of my recent unconscious attitudes it was. The emerging explanation went on to say that each cell is a tiny individual life, and in the body, they each take on a particular task. Some live as workers in the muscles; some are thinking beings in the brain, and some act as transformers, as in the liver. Each cell depends upon the others to co-operatively share food, oxygen and pleasure. The cells in my arm didn’t mind the hard work, but they also needed to share the pleasures of eating, music and love making. I had been unconsciously deluging them with anger and tension, and denying them laughter and relaxation.
So when I ate I would consciously allow the pleasure I felt in my mouth to be felt by the rest of my body, particularly the right arm. When I made love, I attempted to relax and let my whole body feel the pleasure, not keep it in the genitals. I frequently concentrated on my right arm, relaxing it and allowing pleasure felt elsewhere to flow to it. Within a week it was completely free of the pain, and the problem has never returned.
Example: While visiting Amsterdam in the summer of 1966, my husband and I returned to our hotel rather early one afternoon because he had suddenly become very ill. No specific symptoms appeared and he lay down. He soon fell asleep and dreamed that he was visited by the best doctor in the world, who told him to take a massive dose of Phillips milk of magnesia.
He awakened and ordered a taxi to drive me to the nearest apothecary. I went to five before I found a shop which had one dusty bottle of Phillips milk of magnesia. He took a massive dose and by the next morning he had completely recovered.
Idioms: Doctor something; have an animal doctored; doctor the accounts; doctor in the house.
Useful questions and hints:
Do I suffer from worries about my health, and does this dream reflect them?
What is happening in my relationship with the doctor?
Am I in a healing situation, and if so in what way?
See Life’s Little Secrets – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Document
Usually an important idea, or important information about yourself.
It can also a symbol of your right to continue or to enter into a new phase of your life – such a passport or ticket is. Or it can be a proof or sign of your identity such a birth certificate.
Documents can be evidence in a claim or in a trial of your worthiness, or even to give power – as in power of attorney. Also a chance of inheritance.
Example: At one point I confronted a tree stump which spoke. It had a large lower lip of bark which could protrude. I gave it something to eat which it spat out. It said it wanted something ‘connective’ I believe. I dropped some knitting wool in its mouth. This satisfied it. It had a huge amount of wool in its mouth, and I was concerned whether it could chew the stuff. Then the tree wrote out my report. The document was very grand and it was written out with an air of great solemnity and legality. I had passed the test, but not with very high marks – maybe because I put the wrong stuff in its mouth first.
Whether written by yourself or someone else, this is usually about an important idea, or important information regarding you or what you are doing. While asleep we have access to a much greater range of memories and connective links with information than while awake, and so can be more creative in what we realise or what we call out of our inner world.
If the document is old it is probably expressing intuitions you have about what you have inherited from the past.
Useful questions and hints:
What impression do I have of what the document was about or what it contained?
Was this my document or did it connect with someone else – if so who?
Does this contain information about the past, about family or inheritance, and can I define what?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Plot of the Dream – Life Changes