Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’
Dog
The dog appears more often than any other animal in dreams. It depicts our natural drives that are well socialised, but still have the tendency to revert back to the spontaneous or ‘wild’ state quite easily. For instance our anger might usually be well under control, but if someone teases us we might surprise ourselves by the amount and strength of our anger, or our desire to cower and hide. But the dog is often a sign of enthusiasm, care or warning – as can be observed so often if we have a dog. See animal
Example: I had misinterpreted the meaning of Tramp my dog, who I felt was my inner self. I now see that Tramp is my psychic self, the mixture of instinct, complexes, feelings and closeness to nature. Possibly my intuitive, habitual or instinctive response to events. He is my companion on walks, to run faster, react quicker, smell better, fight more savagely, and face hardship.
Similarly our sexuality may be usually expressed in a socially acceptable way, but if we are in a situation where our sexual pleasure is stimulated or allowed easy expression we might deeply shock other people and ourselves by what we do. It can also represent easy expression of such aspects of ourselves as aggression – maybe because dogs show their teeth easily – as well as their sexuality, especially male sexuality; also their easy expression of love. Also the parts of self we usually keep out of sight, but which may express spontaneously. The dog as an example of intuition is shown in the following dream.
Example: Was crawling through a tunnel underground. I was now in a dreary, dismal, drab Edwardian type room. My mother, father and my dog, Tramp, were also there. It was quite a big room. Tramp went up to the fireplace and put his paw up under the shelf as if pointing. I looked and saw he was indicating a crevice under the shelf. I felt there and found papers in there, but also that there might be fingers in there touching mine. I said this to my father, but he did not reply. The hole was getting bigger all the time, and the room darker.
The dogs can represent this feeling energy, this natural life response to events and ones situation, our easy flowing natural feelings such as devotion, perhaps to a lover or child. The dog is yourself if, the natural you if you let your emotions off the lead. So it can be your uninhibited love or anger, your open sexuality, or even your honest needs.
For some people a dog was the only source of expressive love in their childhood, so may well depict this; fidelity and faithfulness, as the sheep-dog it is also the guardian of our welfare. Like the cat, the dog can be a substitute baby for childless women, or represent affection or caring.Occasionally we depict a person, or what we feel about a person through the character of a dog. See: cat.
Example: Actually seeing a dog in my dream I find not the dumb animal that humans patronizingly assume to be there, but a creature of remarkable complexity and deep emotions, capable of various levels of behavior, of guilt and loyalty, or shame, of identification with people—a creature so like themselves that other distinctions seem negligible. It broke down my assumptions of superiority. It sent me spinning back to the sense of kinship with animals that primitive men, in their rituals and folk myths, so clearly revealed. I found myself becoming snakes, tigers, bears, rabbits with such ease and pleasure that there would seem to be a veritable menagerie in the back of my mind. Moreover, the conviction of animal identity, once accepted, is terribly convincing. Having accepted the limited truth of my animal kinship, I am loath to see the broader areas in which such a communion is untrue. See Animals in your Brain – Temple of the Animals
Example: The role then came to life and spontaneously I as Vince the dog went to Alan and stood up on my hind legs with my paws on his chest, looking into his eyes. I wanted to communicate something to him.
The communication was so strong that I as Alan felt it and will describe it. Vincent reminded me of the many things we had shared in life. As this happened I felt such love – the love I really had felt for that beautiful dog. As I felt this Vincent and I became one being. I remember carrying him in my arms when he was young because, as a runt he was so nervous that at times he couldn’t even walk. I remember going everywhere with him as I walked London. I also knew that Vincent represented for me the ability to see into the invisible worlds – psychic sight and sensing. He had demonstrated it to me at least twice.
As all these memories poured through me I felt deep emotions pouring up and started crying. Crying because Vincent was helping me be aware of things I had not put together before. Lately I have been trying to extend personal awareness again, into lucidity and into the world. The emotions I was feeling were due to a realisation, and as this happened I knew what the previous dream of Vincent meant. I understood because various bits of memory came together to form a whole.
In mythology the dog has symbolised the guardian of the gates of death, or a messenger between the hidden and the visible world. The dog was also thought of as a guide or guardian of the hidden side of life entered in sleep and death. The following example illustrates how love can survive death.
Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!
Dogs can be a wonderful intuitive friend, even life saver. This is because it has been proved that dogs often know when their owner is ill or about to have an attack. But dogs are also very psychic. See Talking with Dead also Cats and dogs know
Example: In a dream, my dog, Gus, told me he had worms and needed to go to the doctor. We went the next morning. Dr. Dennis Umlang looked at Gus, a picture of health, then asked why the visit. I – told him Gus needed to be checked for worms. “Have you seen any evidence of worms?”, he asked. “No.” I answered, “but I still want him checked.” The testing showed negative. I told Dr. Umlang the dream and asked that they try again. That’s when he told me of the heartworm test which is costly but the only way to detect their presence. “Do it,” I said. The test was positive! Ordinarily there is no real warning of heartworms. By the time symptoms appear it is often too late and treatment is dangerous due to the animal’s weakened condition. Because of early detection, Gus survived the treatment with no damage to vital organs.
Barking dog: A warning or a sign of protection. Warning that something or someone is there who is not a friend – or that you should not approach whatever is shown in the dream.
Black dog: The black dog figures in quite a lot of people’s imagery. Bernard Levin uses it to represent depression. For some people it brings feeling about death. The sense or meaning the dog gives in relationship to depression or death in dreams is that it is a living energy in us that has gone ‘bad’ and thus causes the depression or death. Such depression is usually the result of past painful experiences that are like lumps blocking free flowing positive life energy.
The black dog also show you urges which are largely unconscious, or it is a messenger related to what is unconscious in you. So the black dog can indicate sexual feelings that you are not proud of, or any natural feelings, even feelings of love that you hold back.
Dog attacking: Either being attacked by someone and so representing their anger or snide criticism – or your own anger or aggression. See: What Does my Dream Animal Mean
– Animal phobias at the end of the animal entry.
Dog on lead attacking: If you are holding the lead – restraint of your aggression toward someone. If someone else is holding the lead – feeling attacked by someone. As in Cornelia’s dream in the example below, there may be a sexual connection.
Dog on lead: Restrained or controlled urges; urges we have trained or directed; holding back or restraining or directing parts of oneself.
Puppy: Youth, heedlessness, spontaneous affection and enthusiasm. It often represent a child, or feelings about wanting a child, being pregnant with a child, even one of your own children. Also vulnerability or dependent needs. Like any young animal, it can depict your need to care for or love something, or be loved. What happens to the puppy, if neglected or mistreated, most likely indicates memories of pain from your own childhood, or neglect of vulnerable parts of yourself. See: Baby animal in animal situations; Neglected animal in animal situations.
Woman’s dream – attacked by dog: Could well be feelings about male sexuality or a relationship with a male. Possibly the dreamer is holding back her own female strength and cannot meet the male strength.
Example: ‘I continue on my path, and suddenly the nettles disappear and the path is clear. Ahead the wall has curved round to face me, but there is a gate in it, and I can see my dog waiting for me on the other side.’ Mrs M. G.
In the dream from an elderly woman the dog is leading the way through the experience of meeting death. Mythology has often shown the dog in this light, as an inner sense of knowing how to find transformation through death – or as the ravaging threat of death.
Example: I was with a female friend who is a lesbian. Two dogs attacked us. My friend ran away but I couldn’t. Cornelius.
On exploring her dream Cornelius discovered feelings about her own womanhood and relationship with males. She realised the dogs represented her relationship with male sexuality, and that her friend was afraid of males.
Example: I was aware of the danger of two, or maybe one young child. They had been allowed to carry a small animal which acted as a scent lead for large tracker dogs that were hunting and would attack and kill whatever they were tracking. I found one of the boys trying to hide under a pot or a basin in the spare ground behind the house I lived in London. I pulled him out from his attempts to hide. He had no idea of his danger. Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing. D.G.
There is an obvious reference in this dream to the unconscious urges some people have to hunt and hound others. The dogs especially depict this unleashed aspect of human nature, harmless when not set into motion. It also shows how such actions by others threaten the child in us, or the areas of personal vulnerability.
Example: I come out of my house. Across the street is a nursery. (this is actually true, there is a nursery across the street and the street is well used and busy) I looked up to see my yellow male Labrador dog named Odo. (He is a dog I have now) He was sitting in a truck on the passenger side. He looked like he was smiling. I thought, “What in the world is Odo doing in that truck?” At first I thought he was driving the truck, but then realised that he wasn’t, an ancient old man was. And the truck was weaving from one side of the street to the other. I yelled for Odo to come back and he jumped out of the truck. How I don’t know. But he did. He came running toward me, but there was a chain-linked fence between us. The fence ended at the street, but Odo was attempting to climb over the fence instead of going around it. I shook my head and said to myself that he was going to hurt himself. Sort of laughed, too. Then I woke up. I remembered thinking the day before that I was comparing my husband, A, to Odo. And thinking if I could just accept the silly things he does as well as I do with my dog, our relationship would be so much easier. K.
In this dream K. is probably right that she is using her dog to consider her relationship with her husband. She may even be using the dog as an image of her husband and his character.
Idioms: See a man about a dog; hair off the dog that bit you; call off the dogs; you can’t teach an old dog new tricks; raining cats and dogs; dirty dog; as sick as a dog; dog eat dog; dog in the manger; dog tired; dog’s life; gone to the dogs; let sleeping dogs lie; lucky dog; tail wagging the dog; top dog; die like a dog; dirty dog; gay dog; go to the dogs; hair of the dog; sick as a dog; lucky dog; raining cats and dogs; see a man about a dog; teach an old dog new tricks; tail wagging the dog; thrown to the dogs; etc.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is my dream dog represent someone I know or my own spontaneous feelings?
Is there any indication of relating to this dog as a child or a love object?
What feelings is the dog expressing?
Is the dog helping me meet or understand death or the unconscious?
If so what am I learning?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga
Doll
This frequently represents yourself when you were a baby, or at least, your feelings when young.
Many dreams including a doll show it being savagely beaten or injured. In this case it could show you how hurt you felt in your own childhood, or perhaps it means you are angry and need a target that will not hit back. Occasionally, in a woman’s dream it could mean you want to be cared for like a precious doll.
Many ‘doll’ dreams are, as the example, using the doll as a target for violence. This may refer to how the dreamer felt as a child when smacked or attacked emotionally – like a helpless doll.
It could also be a means of displacement for anger or feelings the dreamer would like to discharge on another. See also: toy; cuddly toy.
Example: ‘She continues to attack him and to my horror and feeling of helplessness, his head comes off. But the neck is made of some sort of material with a string hanging off it, and I realise it is a doll’s head.’ Mr R. H.
Many dolls are used to express a desire to have a baby.
Dolls can also express the way we feel about the past, or represent different people – Mum and Dad, brother or sister. We use them to act out or experience things we might not be able to do in daily life. Using a doll in the dream frees us from any guilt we might feel if we really expressed our real feelings.
Example: And then last night, I dreamt that I had really long hair, which I have had, but now it is shoulder length; and then I went to put it in a braid because it was all in the way, and easily tangled. Instead I cut it all off, unevenly… I looked like a bald Barbie doll, varying lengths of pieces sticking every which way, and a shiny bald spot on the front. But I wasn’t upset, just a bit confused why I cut it off, because I liked it long.
In the above dream the person had recently gone through a massive transformation and the dream shows her uncertainty of how she sees or feels about herself.
Sometime a desire to return to wonderful days of childhood or a part of you that needs to be brought to life.
Example: In answer to this rather truculent question the patient flared up. “You fool, how do you think I can give it to myself? Can I go back and make my parents rich? Can I take back the doll my sister stole; can I go to school without those awful holes in my dresses—ashamed, ashamed of everything I had and was? Oh, God, oh, God, it’s frozen in time, like a fly buried in amber, and nothing can ever change it. As long as I live that little girl will go on wearing her coat to hide her dresses. As long as I live that hateful woman will always be turning away, cold and disapproving. Nothing can save that girl, nothing!”—and now she ‘was sobbing quietly for the past she could not change.
The rupture between the patient’s ideal of herself and the facts that shattered it was eventually healed, but her dilemma points up a fact that all of us face. Reality can seldom be bent to our dreams for ourselves, either the reasonable ones or the unreasonable ones that could never possibly be achieved. Our hopes are too big for it. Every life bears its residue of unfulfilled dreams, and every parent looks to his children to satisfy them. See Opening to Life
Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep longing for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of ones skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.
Useful questions and hints:
In my dream what feelings are there connected with the doll?
In what way is the doll being handled or used.
What does the condition of the doll express?
See Every 7 Years You Change – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex
Dolphin Porpoise
Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things. See: Fish.
The dolphin can also indicate powerful inner energies, or conscious awareness of your link with all life and contact with the one life within all things. In some dreams a dolphin can be alink for you with your core self, your spirit, and so it may communicate or teach you.
Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.
I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.
Useful questions and hints:
What do I feel in connection with the dolphin?
What is emerging from with and influencing me?
Am I aware of knowing my connection with the one life?
Does the dolphin communicate anything to me?
See Inner World – Associations Working With – Life’s Little Secrets
Donkey
As with the animal: The hard working and long suffering processes of the body, such as the automatic or instinctive processes. The ass or donkey may also represent your body as a beast of burden, or that you are living as if you are only a dumb working animal.
If the ass or donkey is being ridden by or pulling someone else: You may be feeling you are doing all the hard work in a relationship, or working like a beast of burden.
Riding a donkey or ass or donkey: This may represent humility or feeling in a lowly position. But this may also simply relate to your relationship with your body’s needs and responses. For ass as part of the body, See: Anus.
See: Ass.
Door Doors
Freud felt that a door, a keyhole, a handle, a knocker, all depicted sex and sexual organs. The first example shows this clearly. Knocking refers to the sex act, the cul-de-sac is the woman’s legs.
But the image of a door has so many other ways of being expressed in dreams and is used very frequently. In the first example it represents the experience of discovering a new feeling state. For instance if one had always been apologetic and now became affirmative, ‘new doors’ of experience could well open.
Example: Dreamt I run away from police into a cul-de-sac. It is night and I cannot see a thing. I feel my way to a door, and knocked. An old woman of about 60 comes to the door. Although old she is healthy and well preserved. Without a word I grab her in my arms and embrace her sexually. Then she is naked and I feel her cold flesh against mine and I have intercourse with her. As I do so, she moans in apprehension and pleasure. I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good. When she’s back upstairs, she notices the window is open, and a strong wind blows the curtains apart. This terrifies her into feelings of guilt and shame, and she makes me hide behind the bed while she tries to close the window. She leans out of the window to push her neighbour’s curtains back also, and falls to her death. I then wander in gardens outside.
This is a description of the whole Oedipus complex as stated by Freud.
General meanings depending on dream: Remember that context is everything in understanding your dream. So depending on context it can indicate a boundary; the difference between one feeling state and another, such as depression and feeling motivated. A barrier to change or growth or the passing from inside oneself to exterior life. The feelings or attitudes, such as aloofness, we use to shut others out of our life to remain independent or private and being open or inviting. See Context Theme
A sense of leaving an environment or relationship – or escape. A door can be an entering into a new work or relationship situation; entrance to a new life style, or a new phase of one’s life. Or conversely, an exit from one situation into another. The door can also show how you are open or inviting, or how you leave or enter an environment or relationship a life style, or a phase of your life. This is usually shown by the place, room or environment the door leads to or from.
In each of our lives there are initiations into new experiences or maturity. These are often shown as doors. So at puberty we are initiated into sexual development and a wider sympathy. At marriage we may face a door to parenthood and an initiation into motherhood. Do you enter those doors, and if so with what feelings? Why not walk beyond the door and see who, what, is on the other side.
An actual example of this is of a woman who wrote telling of a recurring dream in which she discovered a door in her house she had never seen before. Beyond it was a whole apartment she has never known or used. It was obviously an area of her life she had never lived in, but she had no idea what it was. So, the technique of exploring the dream while awake was explained, and she imagined walking into the new apartment and observing what she felt and what memories arose. A soon as she entered the apartment she began to remember and feel again things that had happened in her childhood. Her mother and father had separated when she was very young and her mother had constantly presented her father as weak and of no value. 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. An important point here is that the woman did this working alone on her dream, not with professional help or supervision. See Dreams – Practical Techniques – Potential
I see that we have created a great screen of our mind onto which we have projected all these images. Out of our own need, out of our own hopes, out of our own fear we have played all these images onto the screen. What grabs us beyond the door is the power of the suppressed desires and fantasies, our fears, our hopes for love, a longing for beautiful sex. They seem to have a life of their own – which they have – because they have been denied so long that when one allows them they are full of suppressed energy. The more one has suppressed oneself the more power that image has – the more power it has in ones life.
Back door: Our private, family life; our more secret activities; the anus.
Black door: The barrier that ones fears or apprehensions set up; the unknown, but perhaps imagined in a way that does not relate to reality. Going through the black door may therefore lead to a freedom from the limiting fears.
To close a door: 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 yourself or someone/something else.
Door to strange landscape of world: Finding entrance into unconscious, a way into wonderland – in other words the infinite world of our mind or consciousness.
Doorknob – See: knob.
Front door: Public self; confidence; our relationship with people in general; a vagina.
Leaving door open: this can suggest that you remain ready and sympathetic to new ideas, a relationship, or to move in and out of a situation. It can also mean you are leaving the door open to a new relationship or sexual activity.
Glass doors: Invisible barriers in the way of your goals or possibilities; being able to see through to the possibility of change.
Opening a door: Is a very powerful thing in a dream and it depends what you are opening the door to – is it the unknown; is it a lover; a business opportunity; something frightening; a new experience and a new room; or is it an old room full of memories, associations, things long forgotten that you can reclaim? Is it someone else’s dwelling and you are unsure of a welcome. Whatever it is look it up in the rest of the dictionary, or explore for yourself using Techniques for Working your Dreams
Opening a door for me: If someone opens a door for you in a positive way, it suggests the person has, through meeting you, helped you to find or develop a very new experience, skill or method that is helpful to you.
Room with no doors: This can represent a feeling of being trapped with no way out of a situation. Or if you are outside the room a feeling of being excluded.
Shutting a door: Privacy; trying to find ‘space’ for oneself; the dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact; repressing memories or feelings; decisively ending something.
Side door: Escaping from a situation or being indirect.
Someone at a door: Opportunity; the unexpected; new experience or relationship.
Waiting outside a door: Waiting outside the door – what a wonderful symbol that is. What a beautiful symbol. It represents all that we have as humanity placed behind the door. All of the gods, all of the images, all of the dreams, all opportunity, all of our fears, the devil, the angels. All that we place behind the door within ourselves. And they are only available to us if we walk through the door.
Car doors: Your way of letting other people share you life. The passenger door in particular refers to the people you let near you or push away if you do not let them in your car.
The car door can also suggest allowing something to be seen or as access to things you have ‘within you’. The door is a barrier, a protective shield against people trying to harm you, or against other influences. The lock on the door links with how confident you feel about your own strength. Not being able to open your car doors shows you feeling a loss, or at a loss. It is a loss of power to be able to go where you want, or to access what you have in the car. This is like being pushed right back onto your very personal resources.
Example: ‘I am being strangled from behind by a faceless man! I had gone down to lock my flat door for the night when I noticed the door was open. I hastily bolted it and ran upstairs, but unknown to me the intruder was already in the flat.’ Miss H.
Here the door represents the censorship the dreamer places between her conscious self and her sexual drives. In ‘strangling’ our own life drive, we ourselves feel cut off from life.
Door never seen before or hidden: Or it can be an unknown or newly discovered door, and is a common theme. It can mean the recognition or discovery of previously unnoticed aspects, abilities, fears, or traits in oneself. If the discovery is distressing, this may reflect a feeling of a change in ones status quo which is disturbing.
Often it is about the discovery of a huge new area of your mind, or the possibility of a new dimension of your being. See Dimensions of Human Experience
Example: I had no sensation of it other than space, hugeness. Then I lost my left arm, and – my whole body. It was like falling through a trap-door into the stars. I had been taken through the magic doors of sleep into a universe it seldom ever sees – deep dreamless sleep.
Example: I own a house. Its a big old I guess Victorian place and I love it. But there is a place “in” the house that I try to forget exists. You get to it through a hidden door and go down a corridor which takes you under the road outside into another house and a sort of separate studio room, which is light and bright and its a kind of arty place where people (me?) work. I feel I’ve been there before in reality, and I don’t know why I’m frightened of it.
In this dream the person is constantly forgetting that she has a part of her that is light and bright where she could work at art and creativity.
Wrong door: . This shows you wish to do things in the wrong way – the wrong door.
Example: I own a house. Its a big old I guess Victorian place and I love it. But there is a place “in” the house that I try to forget exists. You get to it through a hidden door and go down a corridor which takes you under the road outside into another house and a sort of separate studio room, which is light and bright and its a kind of arty place where people (me?) work. I feel I’ve been there before in reality, and I don’t know why I’m frightened of it.
In this dream the person is constantly forgetting that she has a part of her that is light and bright where she could work at art and creativity.
Useful questions:
What does this door stand between – indoors outdoors – me and someone else – a bedroom?
Am I in control of how I let people into my life or let go of them?
What way am I relating to the door?
See Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Dot
An end or a beginning. A point or centre of consciousness. As a collection of activities may centre around one desire, or thought, one aim. Also, the central core of yourself.
Example: I am eighteen, and ever since I was eight I have had the same dream. A small black dot which rotates in a spiral. As it goes around it gets bigger and faster until in the end it laughs or glares at me and then it blows up. I used to have this dream about twice a week. I don’t know why it keeps coming back.
If you look at the imagery of this dream it seems to be saying you are at times a worrier. A small issue, remark or thought – the dot – goes around and around in your mind and feelings until it becomes a major anxiety. A lot of our personality is built on habits. Even negative ones replay over and over each time we face a similar situation – unless we change them.
Example: I looked on my thighs and saw there were several red tattoos on them. This was her mark, an unconnected circle with a dot at one end. It made me feel it depicted a sperm. This meant I was her male. The women in the ruling class could claim a male from the lower class in this way.
Idioms: on the dot.
Useful questions and hints:
Does the situation of the dot and the feelings surrounding it suggest its meaning?
In what way is the dot being used?
Is this there and end or beginning of something in my life?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Dough
Money. The possibilities in us.
Dove
The dove is often used to depict peace or the lack of aggression. It might in some dreams point to the awareness of your potential. It can be awareness of one’s potential often felt as a religious experience. Also relatedness. See: religion and dreams
Rising and falling are used a great deal by dreams to indicate how your feelings and awareness can shift and enter expanded or contracted modes. The dove is used in this way. The descending dove can indicate a new and expanded awareness touching you. The rising dove show you reaching up with love or wonder to touch something beyond what you are at the moment.
The flow upward is the unfolding of personal awareness from the basic levels of physical sensation up through the levels of awareness such as mutual attraction in sex; absorption of something other than self as in digestion; sympathy and empathy in emotions; communication of self in speech; understanding in mental activity; transcendence in going beyond the limitations of identity with your body. The down flow is the entrance of an influence beyond the physical into your experience. The New Testament describes this in the image of the flame or light touching the head at Pentecost, of the dove descending. This touches, cleanses and enlivens the levels mentioned in the up flow.
Matthew 3:16: “And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him; and lo a voice from heaven saying: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
Useful questions and hints:
What am I feeling about the dove?
Is there any obvious influence the dove has in the dream?
Is the dove rising or falling – and do I feel either the striving upwards or the descent of grace?
See You Are a Dual Being – Using Your Intuition – Techniques for Exploring your DreamsTechniques for Exploring your Dreams
Down
Down, in the sense of lying on the floor, or squatting, suggests several things depending on the context. It can be feeling without power or a loss of power. It can suggest dropping activity, resting, becoming passive and open to inner feelings and intuitions. Of course it can show rest, recuperation, an interlude from activity. See: Descent.
As can be seen from the enormous number of ways we use down in our speech (see idioms) it depends on the way the dream present it.
But things like going down in water, a cave or the earth or even your house is usually depicting getting deeper into your own nature. This may at times be felt as threatening or scary. See The Life Will
By using such things as suggested in – Secrets of Power Dreaming can help. Also use Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
If you are feeling down, see Avoid Being Victims and depression.
Idioms: turned down; slowed down; lay down your arms; look down your nose at; back down; bear down; bed down; blow me down; what it boils down to; get down to brass tacks; break down; breathe down my neck; come down on like a ton of bricks; bring the house down; buckle down; get down to business; calm down; caught with his pants down; chips are down; come down hard; down for the count; a dressing down; come down off your high horse; come down to earth; come down with; cut you down to size die down; down a peg; down and dirty; down and out; down home; down in the dumps; down in the mouth; down my throat; down on his luck; down the drain; down the garden path; down the hatch; down the road; down the tubes; down to a T; down to brass tacks; down under; down with; get me down; go down for the third time; go down on; guard is down; gun down; hand me down; hands down; hold down; hose it down/ hose it off; keep it down; knuckle down; lay down your life for; let you down; lie down on the job; look down on; nail it down; put down roots; put my foot down; run down; settle down; shut down; simmer down; slow down; step down; tone down; wash it down; wash it down; wear down.
Useful questions and hints:
Are you feeling put down run down or down and out?
Is it a new feeling or an old condition?
Does the dream show any way out or through?
Dragon
Because the part of our mind we name ‘the unconscious’ is so ancient and huge, we sometimes depict contact with it as a dragon or monster. In myths the hero is often shown doing battle with a dragon, serpent or some other monster, to get a treasure. This is probably because the dragon depicts the massive and irrational forces of the unconscious, the life urges and untamed fears and sexuality that one must face and deal with in order to gain the treasure of potential locked in sexual, mental and emotional energy. See Reaction to the unconscious; Potential
It is also the untamed or unsocialised sexual drive which can overpower or trap a girl emerging into womanhood, or threatens a youth facing manhood. The integrating it means facing one’s fears of the vast power of such natural drives, and finding satisfying expression. See Meeting yourself; Reaction on Meeting Our Hugeness
Example: In the dream I entered a cave and I saw a dragon resting inside, it woke up, saw me and we stared at one another for a moment and then it moved and I saw a sack of diamonds and diamonds overflowing/ coming out from the cave wall, it looks like the dragon was guarding it.
“In Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech. In some traditions dragons are said to have taught humans to talk.” Quoted from Wikipedia.
Narratives about dragons often involve them being killed by a hero. This is typical of the Christian view which is to kill anything – such a devils, sex, demons, serpents and dragons. But to kill the very basic and powerful within us is pointless, for in doing so we have lost our real source of power and creativity. The Chinese Dragon is a mixture of a serpent and dragon. See Serpent Power
Example: I dreamed of a dragon that flew through my house at night watching over me and my family. It was only 3 feet tall or so and I only saw its silhouette in the darkened house and thought of him only as “the dragon” with no other name. I felt with him there I had nothing to worry about and felt safe and at peace. It was a very pleasant dream.
This is a very special dream. It shows the dreamer at ease and protected by the forces of life in her. She must have a very wonderful family for the dragon to protect her family. If she could at sometime imagine herself as the Dragon and be quiet and watch what changes occur in her body and feelings, she might know exactly what the dragon is in her life. It is also something that can warn you and guide you when you are faced by dangers, or lead you in the years ahead; that is why I suggest becoming closely connected to this wonderful power.
Joseph Campbell felt that the frog is another example of the dragon and other frightening monsters whose role in mythology is to guard treasure. The dragon represents the dark and frightening aspects of ones own nature; the huge instinctive feelings we usually resist or repress. We often call someone a dragon if they are fiery and aggressive, so we might use it in that way too.
Love Your Dragon
The treasure guarded by the dragon is your Core Self, which enables one to attain real womanhood or manhood. To love the dragon is to open to the great treasures we hold within us and to know for certain that we are far more than simply a body.
Useful questions and hints:
In what way am I relating to the dragon – with fear – with strength – or cooperatively?
Did I gain any understanding or information from the dragon?
Is there any treasure or reward involved in this – if so what?
See
Energy Sex and Dreams – Kundalini – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Individuation – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Drama
Dramatic events in your dream signify something you feel strongly or passionately about. Such feelings can be positive or negative, joy or anxiety. You will need to define what the subject of the drama is about to understand what it is referring to.
Drama Class: Learning to express what you really feel, or to mobilise your abilities to express yourself in a variety of situations. It might refer to attempts on the part of your dream process, to lead you out of a narrow range of feelings and responses to opportunity and events. Obviously, if you have been in a drama class, it would link with what you feel about being in such a class.
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Dreaming
To dream that you are dreaming can mean a lack of attention to everyday affairs. Can symbolise a contact with innermost contents of your being.
Dress
The dream dress is often a statement of how you feel about yourself at the time of the dream – attractive, clumsy, depressed, etc. It can also be a statement about what you are thinking about or desiring at the time – a wedding dress, an evening dress, etc. So the dress is often a statement of s situation you are in, an emotional age – I was wearing a child’s dress – or a problem you are facing. A dress is of course about the enormity of your femininity, and an exteriorisation of feelings, and how you want to appear. See: Clothes.
The Red Dress – A Unification Of All Women – https://reddressembroidery.com/
A dress can be an invitation, as in the example below. The male dreamer feels it is an invitation to intimacy, and most dresses are easily lifted making sex quickly available. See: skirt.
Example: She had on a low-cut dress. I stood behind her and reached over her shoulders, putting my hands under her dress onto her bare breasts. I caress them with pleasure, but came to a point of hesitation and questioned what I was doing. Then I seemed to see that her present response was one purely of sexual gratification, slight tension, and this in a rather “rub my tits” sort of way. But I also saw that if I carried on, it would open her out beyond this stage, to one of affection, and warm loveliness. I went on.
If you are dressing: This shows you assuming a particular way of life, role, or appearance. See dressing
If in a male dream: Usually represents a woman, your own desires for a woman, or if you are wearing it, perhaps confusion about your role.
Wedding dress: See: marriage and wedding.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What type of dress is it and what role or situation does it suggest?
What do you feel about the dress, and why are you meeting those feelings at the moment in your life?
Does this express how you are feeling or how you want to feel or appear?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Drink Drinking
This connects with your feelings of thirsting or longing. It denotes satisfaction of longings, either emotionally, physically or spiritually. It also shows you absorbing something, taking something into yourself. Most things have some effect on how you feel, so it points to a change in some way.
To absorb or take something subtle into oneself. This may be taking in feelings such as pleasure; absorbing a mood; ‘drinking in’ our surroundings.
Drinking alcohol is like poisoning and punishing yourself, and is not helpful if you wish to meditate successfully.
When connected with thirst: Suggests needs or longings being met. The dream will probably show you how successfully or otherwise you are managing to satisfy your thirst. And what are you thirsting for?
If in company with someone of the opposite sex, or a group: Taking in the pleasure or otherwise of the relationship or group. Sometimes connects with childhood emotional need. See: Alcohol.
If a ritual: Drink, being one of the fundamental physical needs, is often used in rituals. This is often about a shift in the way you feel about yourself, or a new stage of social or personal recognition.
Getting someone a drink: What is it you are giving the person and why? Is this an act of friendship or a desire to manipulate? Is it companionship or a need to be with someone? See: alcohol.
Example: It takes us sometime to find the officer and when we do he is curled up into a small ball. I pick him up and ask: “Do you want to go to the hospital?”
He nods.
“Ask him which hospital he wants to go to,” I tell T. as the dream ends. She is having trouble thinking of the names of hospitals.)
(My body also feels battered from several days of drinking. While I don’t think I need to go to the hospital, it’s as though I have been beaten internally.)
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’.
Example: These returns to the womb of fantasy, unrealistic as they are, nevertheless are necessary and nourishing to the mind. All of us are aware of the refreshment of body and soul that satisfying sex, or a great work of art, or deep love can bestow. In these comforts the divided mind is made whole again. It drinks deep of the spring of life and, refreshed and invigorated, returns to fight the battle of reality with greater courage and strength. Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W. V. Caldwell
Idioms: don’t drive and drink; drink like a fish; drink up; drink you under the table; drive you to drink; hold your drinks; in the drink; spike a drink; you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
Useful questions and hints:
Am I taking something in, absorbing something?
Do I long or thirst for something – if so what?
Is this alcohol, and if so what is it doing to me in the dream?
See Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Driving
There are two major conditions in life. One is being in charge of your life in a reasonable degree and making your own decisions. The other is being directed by your fears, lack of confidence or other people’s pressure or manipulation. Being in charge and directing your life is being in the driving seat. Being influenced by other people is being a passenger.
Being in the driving seat is a state of mind. It is nothing else. IT IS NOTHING ELSE! See Avoid Being Victims
Dreamer driving: Being independent and confident. It also suggests making your own decisions and being responsible for your own life direction. See The Driving Seat
Car driving carelessly: Lack of responsibility socially or sexually and need for more awareness. It also suggests you are not really in charge of your life in any positively aware way. There may be an over-riding feeling such as anger or frustration that is eating away at you and causing the carelessness – or are you exhausted?
Car driving without license: Feeling guilty about your way of life or social conduct. Or perhaps you do not dare to test out your quality against social standards, therefore may hide your sense of inadequacy. This might also point to a conflict with social rules and regulations – the social norm. See: Conflicts.
Car drunk driving: Not in control of your life; occasionally refers to spiritual influence leading you to do things that are not rational; or perhaps alcohol is dominating you.
Basically this is about losing real awareness and control of a situation or relationship – and especially your ability to direct your life well.
Useful questions:
If I am not the drunk driver, what or who is irrationally influencing me?
Have I been acting out of careless or irrational feelings or ideas lately?
Am I losing my hold on what is happening in my life?
Car not in control of: This often relates to strong feelings or impulses that you find difficult to deal with. Or if there is a mechanical problem with the car it could suggest that your usual physical and/or psychological checks and balances are not working properly, and so, as with a woman experiencing mood swings during menopause, perhaps you need to find ways of helping this. See Being in Control
The dream might also depict that in some way you are either not watching what you are doing, or are feeling anxiety about not being in control of things.
Car with one other person in: Relationship with that person. What is happening between you and the other person gives a clue to what this is about. So if you are driving somewhere it suggests you are in a relationship with the aspect of yourself depicted by the person, or with the actual person, in which you have a common direction and are linked in some way – emotionally, sexually or because of common aims.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How well was I driving in this dream?
Am I in control of the car?
Where am I going or what am I doing?
What are my feelings as I use the pedal, and what are they showing about how I drive myself? Try using Secrets of Power Dreaming – Plot of the Dream
Drivers seat: Perhaps more than anything else this suggests responsibility and personal decision making. It can also point to the attitudes that direct how you live your life.
Whoever is in the seat is influencing your life, either through your permission, through dependence or dominance, perhaps even fear.
Being in the driving seat is a very special situation, whether it is a car, a plane or a rocket. Every tiny shift or thought, of motivation or doubt redirects where the vehicle – you – are going. So it is very important to clarify your feelings and state, as with the example below.
Example: Dreamt about being in a large removal van with a woman sat on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure. Don.
In exploring his dream Don found that holding the woman’s breasts showed how he was holding onto and held by sexual pleasure. Holding the woman made him a passenger, and not directing his life. But when he let go he could be the driver. This led him to realise that he was tied to his sexual need like a dependency – a dependency that directed his life.
Being in the driving seat also means you can see all the instruments on the driving panel. This means being in an observing situation with yourself. You can if you wish, observe all the instruments of your being. You can watch and acknowledge what is happening to you sexually, what is happening with your fantasies, what is going on in your physical body – am I tired, am I relaxed, am I stressed, am I confident? You can observe all this in the driving seat and you can make changes. From the observations you can slightly shift, change, make adjustments, and so keep balance and direct the process of interaction and where you are aiming to go in life. This self observation also means you can more easily observe others and understand their needs.
Driving from another seat: This is about being able to ‘stand up to the plate’.
It is an American term and it is about whether you are ready to take command, to show your skill, to be in charge. See https://dreamhawk.com/poems/the-plate/
Are you in fact facing a situation which needs you to be responsible for the directions you are going in life, the decisions you make and take responsibility for who you are and are capable of being?
Try using https://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/secrets-power-dreaming/ and imagine placing yourself in the driving seat in one of the dreams.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If I am in the driving seat what are the attitudes and feelings hat are directing me?
Where is it I am actually taking this vehicle or my life?
If I am not in the seat, what are the skills or failings that are influencing my direction?
Try using Being the Person or Thing – Easy Dream Understanding
Another person driving: This might suggest you are being passive or are in a learning situation with the other person. Perhaps you are being influenced by the opinions or emotions or desires of someone else, or are ready to allow someone else to make decisions for you. The other driver might show you are dependent on someone.
It could also show another aspect of you driving your decision making, so make sure the direction is to your liking. For instance anxiety or emotional pain may lead you to make many decisions, so they are then the driving force in your life, rather than what might be more satisfying.
See car.
Idioms: bottle drive; drive a hard bargain; drive around; drive it home; drive me batty; drive me crazy; drive me to the edge; drive me up the wall; drive standard; drive you; drive you nuts; drive you to distraction; drive you to drink; test drive; in the driver’s seat; take a drive/trip.
Useful questions:
Is this about being caught or avoiding notice?
What feelings are evident in the dream and where do you meet them in waking life?
If it is difficult to get a license, what are the barriers or difficulties?
See Control; Avoid Being Victims; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Drowning
This is such a common dream and has been answered hundreds of times, we first ask you to look through the many answers given in Drowning – Many Replies Hopefully you will find an answer to your own drowning dream
Because of the water, drowning depicts fear of being overwhelmed by difficult emotions or anxieties, so it often points to struggles – conflicts – or fighting for survival you may have in your life. But this might apply not to dangerous emotions or urges, but to natural urges such as eating, loving or sex, that some people have enormous conflicts with. Drowning in a dream is also about struggling to survive as a person, so it applies to your identity as it is dealing with relationship with other people, but also with your own internal world of instincts, body activities and needs.
But the feelings of being overwhelmed can be caused by fear or anxiety. But if we can, we can meet and dissolve these. For whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because 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. So all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
So in dreams you cannot drown, but fear takes away your confidence, so then you go through the agonised emotions of drowning.
This is about being or feeling overwhelmed by something. One can ‘drown’ in sorrow for instance. So you need to look at your waking life to see what you are feeling threatened or burdened by and see if there are ways you can deal with it. If someone else actually drowns in the dream it may mean some of your feelings, your creativity and responsiveness are no longer ‘alive’. But they can be brought back to life if you care for that side of yourself. Sometimes it is simply anxiety we drown in, and much of anxiety is about situations we imagine. Separating what is imagined from what is real can help this. See Characters and People in Dreams
But such fear can be caused because if un-dealt with traumas from childhood are not faced, or by being exposed to awful film images that you believe are real. Read and Martial Art of the Mind
If you feel you are struggling to you ‘keep your head above water’ in a dream, do not give in for it is only emotions you are facing, not reality.
Water and drowning often indicates you are facing the unknown changes and so are afraid. But in dreams we can never die or even be hurt, for we wake without real hurt except for our feelings.
Going under water in a dream depicts you are going deeper into your awareness, so you are beginning to explore your unconscious. That is a major step in your development and is an evolutionary advance. It can lead to many major new abilities such as a wider awareness of life around you. A person describes one of the possible changes, “Unexpectedly everything changed and my fundamental self was something that existed throughout all time. It didn’t have a beginning or end. There was no goal to achieve. I am.”
Dreamt about someone else: May occasionally show Your apprehension about their health or well being, having the suggestion of death or breakdown.
Example: ‘I fell into a pond. My brother was frightened to be by himself so he jumped in. We were both drowning in the water and we shouted out for Mum. My brother drowned.’ Poppy S.
Poppy dreamt this while feeling insecure and anxious due to her father being seriously ill.
Example: I had been dreaming about sitting on a sofa with my friends – well watching horror movies, when suddenly everything comes to live. I was afraid of the ghost that had been drowning with her husband in the movie, and it comes to haunt me. I asked the ghost’s sister to help and she passes me a necklace with can protect me. And suddenly the ghost appears and tells my friend she was pretty. What does this means?
It means that you need to understand how your mind works. It means that you have nothing to fear about ghosts. As the ghost that appeared showed you, there was no harm in it. Dream images are like images on cinema screens – harmless unless you are haunted by your own fears. But the dream also shows you that whatever you believe in becomes a fact and alive in our dreams. It mean that the necklace gave you confidence, and in fact the necklace is only a crutch for your confidence. But we need such things until we can deal with our own emotions. See Facing Fear
Idioms: drown your sorrow; if you’re born to hang, you won’t drown.
Useful questions:
What powerful emotions or changes am I dealing with?
Am I feeling overwhelmed by something?
Can I define the strengths and ways I use to deal with threatening feelings?
Do I feel as if I am ‘drowning’ in a situation or relationship?
What is it I am feeling overwhelmed by recently?
Is this someone else drowning – if so what facet of me do they represent?
What resource or person could help me survive in this situation?
Another person or animal drowning still suggests it is an aspect of your own personality you need to care for.
Whoever or whatever it is, imagine yourself back in the dream and save them. If necessary imagine rescue services coming to your aid. In doing this you are using imagery to shift your feelings and anxieties.
All water in some way signifies your own inner world of feelings, but the sea often suggests meeting urges and wisdom lying beyond the boundary of your conscious mind. What is it you feel in the sea or river? Try putting it into words.
See Associations Working With; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams; Avoid Being Victims; Secrets of Power Dreaming