Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’

Energy

See: Electricity – energy sex and dreams – snake .

Engine

One’s motivating drive or energy; the body’s energy and mechanical or automatic functioning; the sexual or natural urges; sometimes the heart.

For instance a strong anxiety can be a power, an engine, which motivates us to do or avoid certain things, such as taking risks, entering a relationship. So too can love, dependence, desire for wealth, loneliness, and the struggle to survive.

There is far more that goes on in the hidden places of our being than ever goes on in an engine. But dreams perform the same function as the gauges on the dashboard. They illustrate processes that are going on in the depths of our body and mind — and in fact often in the very deepest places of the unconscious. As with the gauges, we are not directly experiencing the processes displayed in images and drama. What we are witnessing is a process that puts into imagery, into emotions and drama, things that in themselves may be quite formless, that may never previously have come near to verbal definition or conscious conceptualisation. The word imagine has its root in the word image. We literally put into images those things that lie beyond our usual senses in the formless and timeless regions of our being.

If the car engine will not work, or is damaged, it doesn’t mean the driver does not exist, or that he or she does not know perfectly well where they want to go or what they want to do.

Car engine: This often represents your heart or your ability to motivate yourself. It therefore links with your personal energy or drive.

Because ones energy, courage and drive are so linked with how confident and expressive we feel, the engine, its size and performance are often indications of this. See: machine.

Train engine: The energy that takes us through life and carries us with other people, but usually to set destinations – unless the rails are missing. Also libido.

Example: I dreamt a dream that was a surprise. I was standing and viewing a massive railway area. I front of me were many tracks going across my view. Then suddenly there was an almighty great train coming toward me, cutting through and destroying all the tracks going crossways. It wasn’t running on any tracks. I wasn’t sure if it would explode and kill me, although I didn’t feel scared, in fact I stood wondering what it was all about.

This shows that the dreamer has broken free of the restrictions – the rails – and with tremendous force can direct his energy where he wants.

Example: In England, it was discovered that a couple of bolts in the engine were loose. An engineer came and tightened them, then discovered that the engine was “red hot” with radiation. This meant Graham and I were also a danger to others. Graham pushed the idea aside, choosing to ignore it, but I did not wish to endanger others

In this dream the man realises that he is giving of harmful emotions and must distance himself.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream saying about my ability to motivate myself and get to where I want to go?

Do I feel adequate as a person, sexually or as a man/woman?

Does the dream suggest anything needs to be done to the engine – if so what is that pointing to?

See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Energy Sex and Dreams

Elephant

Although the elephant is much like any other animal in your dreams, it tends to represent the power and influence of the potent forces active in your body and mind, that if you relate to well bring about health and success, and if badly illness and ruin. For example the elephant can refer to the powerful responses in us such as fear, sex, survival, and the power of imagination to evoke great anxiety or great pleasure. Often our personality evokes these forces in a destructive and disorderly way. A person may have read an article about cancer for instance and develop a great fear they have the disease, causing much stress and actual physical illness in some degree.

So some elephant dreams revolve around how we relate to this power, and the attempt of the elephant to place us on its back to direct it. So in general it is your potential or energy. Also depicts your big self, or the power of the unconscious and your cosmic, eternal nature. The tremendous inner power of the unconscious, with a mahout, or conscious direc­tion or co-operation can achieve wonderful things. Ganesh, the Indian elephant god, represents the remover of all obstacles, the power of life manifesting. He is the god of good fortune.

So it is the totality of yourself rather than awareness of only the conscious ego. It is what is referred to in Christianity as the ‘spirit’, the influence that can heal or instruct, thus power from our unconscious; strength; unforgiveness from association of long memory; patience; fidelity; intelligence or wisdom of the unconscious. In some ways the elephant has similar qualities to the crocodile in its link with the collective unconscious. The difference is that the elephant does not usually in dreams seek to consume you like the crocodile or alligator. It therefore depicts a relationship with one’s incredible potential that can lead to directing or working with the potent forces of the unconscious. See: alligator.

If we run from the elephant: Being afraid of our own strength or inner power. The question is, can we meet this enormous energy in ourselves enough to direct it? Sometimes represents the collective unconscious.

Elephant’s trunk: Sometimes a sexual symbol, the penis. As such it is usually referring to how your sexual feelings are being influenced by the great spirit of Life acting on you – the cosmic power of the spirit. Also the trunk illustrates the ability to get or reach out for ones own needs – see example below.

Example: During an experience arising from the use of psilocybin, I had a very clear mental image of a baby elephant. It was like a bas-relief made out of clay, but mobile. I could see that the baby elephant had some problem with its trunk, and I wondered why my unconscious had produced this image so clearly and what it meant. Immediately the image disappeared and a series of associations arose unbidden. It was that the elephant actually ate with its mouth, but it had to reach out for everything with its trunk. As a baby the elephant would suckle, but as it matured it would have to learn to get its own needs with its trunk, therefore the problem was about me reaching out for my own needs. Danny.

Example: The I experienced the elephant as a powerful force which I intuitively sense and feel some anxiety about. I felt the elephant as a powerful influence which works below the level of normal consciousness, which acts upon masses, although it obviously influences individuals. But it influences individuals unconsciously, so they are inclined in a direction along with many others. As it enters my life I sense it seems to be an influence which might direct me into a communion with this deeper, more inclusive or integrative influence. Thus my personal activities might have added to them this influence which co-ordinates the processes of life, and adds to ones small endeavours the stamp or power of a grander life – the spirit. The life of the spirit I sensed here as the ‘company’ where I was accepted as a worker in this wider organisation behind life.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it. AT.

Example: I looked out of a window and noticed a wild elephant in full charge. It ran past the end of the building and I went to the opposite window, seeing it charge another elephant. After the impact it seemed to be a strange mixture, in my mind, of elephant and rhinoceros. It then stood shaking with sexual motions, until a great deal of sperm came out and its tension was released. AT.

The above two examples illustrate firstly the enormous power of the elephant and how it is not usually an attacking or destructive power, and in the second example it shows the link between that power and the sexual drive.

 

Idioms: White elephant; pink elephants; rogue elephant. See: the self under archetypes.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I imagine myself as the elephant what do I experience?

What powerful influence am I meeting or directing at the moment?

Am I aware in any way of the enormous impact the collective power of society and my own unconscious has on me?

What is my relationship with the elephant and what does this depict in my life?

See Do you imagine that is a real creature – Avoid Being Victims – You are the Projector

 

Elk Moose

Like horse but wilder, less tamed – so the force of drives or emotions that carry us along or trample us. The moose or elk sometimes appears as a magical animal that brings a feeling of loving connection with the world. Generally a natural and instinctive urge you are meeting in yourself or others.

 Example: The horse stopped and I put my face close to its muzzle. In some way I felt connected, and as I looked up I saw it was a female moose not a horse. It lifted its head and because of my connection lifted me too. It felt very pleasant.  

Example: I see a bunch of these high school kids teasing a moose. The moose is laying down in a corner like it is hiding, or sick. I yell and run across the road to save the moose. I get it up, by petting and pulling at its rack. I begin to walk away from the field to the woods fuming about the stupidity of people and how dangerous these animals can be. A second larger moose comes from the woods to ask me what I was doing, and I explained it to her. That he was not a thing to be picked at and how dangerous his rack is, he bumped me in the back with his rack. Not to hurt me, but to show he was listening. I reached up and petted his cheek like you would a horse. I walked him to a bridge, still standing next to his head, petting his cheek, speaking to him like I was soothing him. Just as I was going to cross the bridge I woke up.  

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I learn anything about what urges or feelings I am meeting from my interaction with the moose?

Is there conflict or harmony shown in my dream?

In my description of the dream what key words do I use. See: key words.

See Levels of the brain – Animals– Being the Person or Thing

 

 

Enter Entering Entrance

New experience or new area of experience.

Some disciplines of mind, and the use of certain drugs, enables people to explore areas of experience that do not occur “naturally”. Through these it enables the practitioner to enter the condition of sleep while maintaining a certain amount of critical awareness.

People can enter into all manner of things such as – fantasies, sexual longing, illusions, insight, psositve experience, a new stage of growth, we can enter a dream and explore it, entering a hole or cave, we might avoid entering into contact with someone, or find entrance into the house of the ancestors.

You can enter into anything in this way, whether it is an animal, a tree, the sea, a house, or even conditions or dimensions of mind and emotion. As you explore your dream in this way you can ask questions and your intuition will play its responses on the monitor of your body and emotions. It is important not to get lost in the symbols, but explore your associations.

A secret entrance: An attitude or psychological ‘stance’ which opens a new experience of self, or allows access to parts of oneself usually inaccessible. See: door.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What new or strange experience is entering my life or trying to claim my attention?

Have I been led into a shifted awareness – an entrance into my unconscious?

Does love, caring or affection enter my dream?

Is something entering my life from an ocean of possibilities.

What is happening with the entrance – am I going into something or someone else coming in?

Where does the entrance lead to and from?

What is the issue connected with the entrance?

See Associations Working With – Inner World – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Envelope

The body, surroundings, protection or a means of hiding something.

If you have not yet opened the envelope, then it holds a message you are not yet aware of, except perhaps intuitively. The envelope could also suggest contact with someone, or news of something. If envelope remain unopened, it may indicate that you have missed or are missing an opportunity.

Envelopes usually are about feelings of anticipation or opportunity in your dream. If you are eagerly anticipating an envelope’s contents, it could mean that the dream is telling you that you are expecting something wonderful.

Envelopes are great signifiers of information. For instance the handwriting, whether it is from abroad, from a loved person, or even a business envelope.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What did I feel when I saw the envelope?

Did I recognise it as from someone I knew?

What part did the envelope plau in the dream?

See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions

Environment

See: place.

Volcano Eruption

A breaking into awareness of urges, fears, terrors, or even insights that may have been repressed and in releasing are seeking to be dealt with and healed. Basically a healing process, but it can be disturbing.

Your being, as when you eat something poisonous, tries to get rid of irritating or harmful past experiences or feelings. It does this by pushing them to the surface, and for a while, as when we vomit, we feel ill at ease. But if we can allow it the sense of being healed is enormous. Dreams express this action with images such as boils, eruptions as with a volcano, or sometimes an explosion. See: Conflict; Emotions.

If sex is linked with difficult or painful emotions the eruption might depict the release of sexual pressure or ejaculation.

An eruption is something that comes from a deep level and usually forces through to consciousness. Eruption can be in dreams such as a nightmare, or movements or emotions or even speech that we feel do not come from us. Even so this is usually because we are so out of touch with the life process in us that we feel scared of it. Sometimes the eruption is in the form of what is usually called hallucinations. This usually is taken as scary or false images we see while awake, but in fact is the breaking through of the dream process. It is often because we are – as already said – so out of touch with the life process in us, that our inner process takes this extraordinary way of trying to get out attention. See Nightmares – Reaction to the unconscious – Hallucinations

Example: A number of us, soldiers, were moving up to the battlefront. We had to climb over a pile of rubble, like a wall, and ran across open ground. There was a great fear of being shot down as we came into the open. This did not happen, and once passed the obstacle I felt it was actually a sort of training circuit getting us used to battle conditions. We moved on into the fighting. A volcanic type of eruption from the bowels of the earth spewed up a prehistoric monster. There was a lot more, but cannot clearly remember.

The dream came just before the man was able to allow a deeply buried childhood trauma to emerge. The prehistoric creature was a release of a power that was the means of releasing such ancient and trapped emotions.

A volcano is a symbol of great importance, for it portrays the immense power of natural forces in the world and in our own body. Dreaming of being near one is about being near to this tremendous energy you have within you. If you are scared it shows you are too scared to handle it well; if you are treating it as a great and even magical power, then you are in touch with its wonder.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was erupting, a volcano, emotions or words?

Did any strong feelings emerge – if so what were they?

Was there fear of what was happening?

What is pressing for release or expression in me at the moment?

Is there something that is bursting through my usually reserves or inhibitions?

What do I feel I am ready to erupt about?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Life’s Little Secrets

Escape

If you escaped in the dream, then you know of some way to emerge from the restrictions of fears, attitudes, ignorance or beliefs, that have been holding you back in some way. There is a negative aspect of this however, as sometimes we escape from something to run from difficulties or avoid growing.

Fear is a natural instinct to warn us of actual danger or of old memories of past fears. Some people say you should either trample ones fear underfoot, or face them. But in doing either you are dealing with you own mind and feelings, trampling them does not get rid of something that is a part of you, it simply pushes them into your own dark self ready to haunt in other ways. Facing them can work but in doing so you need to be able to meet your own fearful emotions.

Have you got hold of your fear – or has it got you? Firstly, we cannot let go of something and offer it to our action if it has hold of us. Nearly all of us are addicts, addictions we cannot let go of. But addictions are not just for drugs or alcohol, we have addictions to sex, to eating, to fighting, to loneliness, to depression – yes, we are trapped by many things. I was addicted to depression. Such addictions are like having a hungry tiger running around your house, and if you had such a beast in your home you would avoid it at all costs; unless you had a way of immediately being in control of it. Being in control is a huge step to being at ease with the many urges and emotions we all face. So it is with your own fears and pains. Unless you can stop their attack, you avoid them, run from them, and in fact let them unconsciously control your decisions and actions.

Fear is fundamental to life, but for humans, because of our ability to think and hold images of things we are not actually meeting at the moment, fear can become a constant threat. Therefore the facing of fear, the meeting and dealing with the many images of fear we meet, is extraordinarily transformative. The Ox Herding Pictures describes a way of gaining strength to meet yourself.

Finding a way of moving beyond restrictions, perhaps caused by anxiety or past pain. We often use ‘escape’, as in the example below ‘to avoid difficult feelings’. This is like reading an exciting novel because it distracts our attention. The problems remain.

Example: ‘ I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away. Sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer.’ M.C

Example: ‘I dreamt I was a prisoner with many others. Myself and other men were outside the prison working. Then a tremendous explosion blew a hole in the prison wall. I knew prisoners were trying to escape. I saw some wardens and shouted or signalled to the prisoners to be careful.’ Terry D.

Terry worked as a therapist without scholastic qualification. He represents his attitudes to authority as the prison, because he had felt second rate due to his lack of scholarship. The escapees are his potential that had been trapped by those attitudes.

The images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of deny any fear or repressing anything that threatens you. See Martial Art of the Mind

Example; A young man dreamed that he was about five or six years old and was faced by a river he must cross. He looked for a bridge but found none. He thought of swimming but then realized he could not swim. (In the waking state he actually could swim). He then sees a tall, dark man who indicates he will carry him across the river in his arms. He is greatly relieved and allows the stranger to pick him up and begin. But then he is seized with panic. He suddenly realizes that if he does not escape from this man he will die!

They are already in the river, he in the man’s arms, but he gathers his courage and makes a desperate leap into the river. He is sure he will drown but suddenly finds that he can swim and soon reaches the other side. The frightening man disappears.

Crossing the river is seen as the need, and the difficulty, of moving from childhood toward adult independence. The young man was an only child, who had been cosseted by overprotective parents, and was finding it difficult to face life without their support.The man is all the support he gets from parents and other people such as teachers and friends – excellent while he was a child, but something he must learn to do without if he is to develop his own innate strengths. If he doesn’t escape from their support then he will die – i.e. not carry on growing in an alive way. When the dreamer takes the risk of daring the river, he finds he has the ability to survive.

Something escaping from us: A realisation, emotion or opportunity eluding awareness. See: enclosed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I escaping from or to in the dream?

Are the details of the dream informative about the ways I try to escape?

What is it that escapes from me and what does that suggest?

See Facing Fear – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Associations Working With

 

 

Eunuch

Without sexual feelings. Sexuality has been cut off.

Eve

The power of sensual seduction. Eve stands for the soul or personality. Also feelings, femininity, or the receptiveness of your feelings to sensations and thus to temptations. She can also represent a man’s wife; or in another sense his emotional sexual relationships with her.

But they are our usual associations, and Aisha/Eve actual means ‘individual will’. The first thought or will that was outside the impulse of instincts/God; that impulse was the first start of a human soul with its free will. See: Creation of Aisha/Eve;  Adam and Eve

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do you associate with Eve?

Does the dream show Eve in any particular way?

Do you relate to her in any way?

See The Secret Bible – Associations Working With – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Evening

Relaxation; quiet peace; time for oneself; nearness to the ‘shadows’ of the unconscious, the parts of self we do not usually have awreness of. Sometimes: The last years of life; old age.

It can also link with feelings of the need of a days work ending and time for pleasure.

The theme of ascent is an important part of many ancient religious rituals and beliefs. In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however, whereas the ancient belies saw it as a continuing cycle. So the evening can indicate the sinking life force leading to death and new life.

Many dreams show this as depicting relaxation, of quiet peacefulness. It may also suggest your choices made when you give yourself personal space for self chosen events.

In the evening we get near to the time of shadows, the parts of your nature and exterior life that are less noticed or lived. Dreams show this as an indication of ageing, the evening of ones life. See: Autumn.

Example: Dreamt I was a monk or clergy with a small group of other monks. We lived in a large church or cathedral. Each evening there was a ritual we had to do which consisted of ‘blessing the doors’. This meant that we all went to each external door and blessed it. I was a little sceptical of this procedure, feeling that it was purely ritual, but another monk assured me it was necessary. In fact as we went around the doors I witnessed invisible forces or spirits closing the doors after we blessed the door. At one door there was a negative or ‘contrary’ force or spirit. I felt at this point that my blessing was a real force which had power. I went to the door and blessed it and this counteracted the powerful counter force.

The feelings displayed in this dream are about making our ‘house’ secure, indicating our self. It is a way of guarding against negative influences and keeping them out. See

Useful questions and hints:

What am I doing in the dream, and does it suggest a winding down or a personal time of leisure?

If I am middle aged, does the dream suggest this is about this period of my life?

What feelings does the dream deal with?

See Every 7 Years You Change – Martial Art of the Mind – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Evergreen

Symbolises the eternal as it expresses through matter with its quality of constant change.

Evil

Evil is ‘live’ spelt backwards. In dreams the sense or presence of evil is often depicting those things you have so repressed that they are no longer properly alive and healthy. Repression has turned them back upon you making them an internal evil. They therefore need meeting and being brought into proper recognition and expression. Usually refers to some of our own urges which we have judged as wrong because of moral or social values, and thus denied expression. Charles in the example below, probably feels that what he identifies with as himself – his established values and beliefs – is threatened by what he senses beyond the door. Whatever threatens our ‘I’ or ego, is often felt to be evil, even if it is natural urges. The unbalanced and real evils in the world, such as terrorising of individuals and minority groups, can of course be shown as the feeling of evil.

“All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.” EC

Example: ‘At the top of the stairs is a small door, half opened as if inviting me to go up. I get an overpowering sense of something evil beyond the door just waiting for me.’ Charles M.

Example: ‘I am lying on the floor in my bedroom with a towel over me. I am trying to hide and protect myself because I am terrified. There are four devils trying to get into my body and take over. My bedroom is going like a whirlpool around me, like evil all around me. I wake in a hot sweat and am terrified to go back to sleep.’ Joanna. LBC.

Joanna is most likely in conflict with her sexuality – the bedroom. When we fight with our own urges they often feel like external agencies – evil forces – attacking us. See:  archetype of the devil; black magic; active/passive. While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we sleep our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will.

The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive. When we meet the inner urge to grow as it expresses from our Life Will, it feels like a hugeness which they are usually unaware if. It feels like something alien or attacking, it is a shock. The Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic or as something evil. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. The Hugeness is part of our totality. It is the enormous potential you have within you, it is Life you are frightened of.

Example: I was destroyed a long time ago, and now I go about destroying my own. So full of hate for ourselves are we, that we hate our own children.

But I was destroyed a long time ago. Yet somehow I am not quite dead, and must needs go on destroying my own until I destroy myself. I must snatch my children from supposed harm and hurt them, and then blame the buggered life not onto myself, but upon the supposed. I must take him out of my neighbour’s house because their boy is dirty, and swears, because he calls me a silly sod, and because my wife says so. I choose to believe that there is evil in dirt, in swearing, in loud voices and talk. It is easier to believe that than to see the evil as the lack of interest and of my own absence of love. So I shut him in his room, not wanting to accept that it was too many shut doors, averted lips, closed hearts, that opened the neighbour’s soul to their own sorrow.

Example: It developed into an idiot like babbling. There were no formed words, and the chattering on and shouting in a mindless way, with saliva dripping from the mouth. I thought at first this was expressing madness or idiocy, but it went on from there. The body posture was slightly crouched, the babbling and grunting developing.

After a long time it became more intense. My left hand covered my face, and my eyes looked through my fingers at the group. With idiot and leering laughs, the quality of a mindless and evil desire was manifested in. It was the desire for power over people and things. The right-hand pointed at the group, expressing manipulation. Now the spirit began to feel threatened and callout, “Oh. Oh. Oh.” Its crouching leering postures slowly changed into one of being bent double, hands touching the floor. It called out a number of things – Satan, Durga, and other words I cannot recall.

It seemed to be calling for help, but was gradually being “cast out”. As this happened my body crumpled up and eventually fell on the floor. There was more crying out and a little thrashing about. The words, “Over. Over. Over” was said a number of times. Then the body relaxed.

The man who experienced this went on to say, “I lay there for quite some time, then was led to stand up. As I stood, inner realisations came to me. What had been cast out was a creature I had myself brought into being by my own desire for power expressed in my life. It was a hidden or unconscious thought, or desire, which was created out of my own energies, and then fed on them. It also, in subtle and hidden ways, manipulated my actions to fulfil its own mindless and base impulses. I realised there was no external evil or devil. It is what we create with our own fears, our own desires and plans to grab money or sex that have awful effects within us. 

Evil spirit or spirits: The idea of evil spirits started early in human experience, for anything that caused people to experience any awful thing was was seen as evil – i.e a hidden or invisible influence that could cause harm or fear. So what we now call germs or viruses was called evil spirits. But today we tend to see anything that we cannot understand or account for can be represented in dreams as an evil spirit as in above example.

Useful questions and hints:

What of my own urges do I struggle with most?

Do any part of the dream suggest what the evil feelings emerge from – bedroom/sex; bank/money – food/gluttony?

What do I try to avoid or pull back from?

See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Avoid Being Victims

Exams Examined Examining

If your dream relates to exams or being examined, it usually points to some uncertainty in yourself, or perhaps some sort of search for deeper understanding if it is a positive experience. If there is anxiety in the dream it may relate to a way of feeling about yourself that you learned at school, due to exams and their results.

Being examined can also show you examining yourself to see who you are.

Self criticism or attempts to live up to moral or intellectual standards or habits of concern over accomplishments. Also worry about some coming test of self value, such as a new job or new sexual partner.

Exams can also be about feelings of competition, or even fear of failure. Exams can mean so much because of all the hopes and the future you hang on passing. Do you regard exams as a kill-or-be-killed competition: if you are slow you go under?

Example: I gave birth to a healthy, happy, and smiling baby boy (even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream and gave birth at home with no pain). I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal. Then I was led away by a strange nurse through a sea of people (apparently in a shopping mall) for some sort of bogus medical exam. When I returned to my room, my baby was gone and no one would tell me where he had been taken. My mother had been in the room and other people I trusted. I woke up feeling very sad with a sinking feeling in my chest /stomach.

I believe this dream is about love that you gave birth to easily. Then you trusted others to care for it as you did yourself – but they were not, and probably are not to be trusted.  As the dream says, the examination was bogus. Love, like a new born baby, is such a precious gift you need to protect it with all you can. Your inner baby is not lost forever, so reclaim it.

Example: I am back at the college at which I took my degree in English in 1942. 1 wander between the four floors and along the lengthy corridors, searching for my old room. I feel panicky when I can’t find it. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m about to take an exam and I’m terrified of failing. I’m a retired teacher, still doing private coaching. I am a childless divorcee. I live alone with my cat but have a devoted male friend who is an artist. My hobby is writing. I’ve had some success but desperately want more before it’s too late. At present nothing has been accepted, I suffer writer’s block and am losing heart.

I have come across similar dreams so many times. What happens is that the years in University or school and the taking of exams sets up a pattern of feeling. It can be a feeling of uncertainty, of fear of not succeeding, or failure – or other responses to facing the course. Once this pattern is set up it will be repeated every time you feel stressed – or whatever you felt during exams. So you dream it to remind you that you are feeling the same response. It is an instinctive way of warning you, but it is only a reminder.

What you can do that might be helpful is to sit quietly and remember as clearly as you can the feelings that occurred at university. Then talk to your self and the instincts within you saying something like, “Okay, you and I met some difficult situations back then, and we have developed a conditioned response. Now I know it was made a habit by repeated exposure, but understanding it we can change it. So we do not need to feel the feelings we felt then every time we meet them. That only makes us worse and feel at a low. So every time those feelings emerge we will change it to feeling good about ourselves.” See Conditioned Reflexes

It is also worthwhile to sit and visualise yourself back in the dream and change the ending so you get out of the building. You may need to repeat it for it to establish a new way. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

Examined by doctor: Concern over health; desire for attention. See: Test.

Useful questions and hints:

What is the exam about, and how do I feel about it?

Is this about a coming situation in which I feel I will be judged?

Am I examining my own ability in some way?

See Associations Working With – Inner World – Life’s Little Secrets – The Slow Breath

Excrement

Very often expresses feelings of repulsion or distaste, or emotions or parts of experience that need to be released or let go of. Like digested food, faeces can represent experience that was relevant and enjoyable at the time of consumption, but needs to be let go of to release tension or internal discomfort.

But very often it shows the shit we carry around in us – our emotional attitudes and views that are so much rubbish that we need to clear up and admit.

Example: As I write this an inner realisation has come to me which I cannot yet explain intellectually. It is that holding onto my faeces in this way is a holding on to one’s creativeness or outgoingness. It would block one’s ability to express oneself in the world. I didn’t see why or how, but the idea certainly links with some of the dreams and then gives an interpretation later. The dream of looking for the toilet; the block of capable outer expression, etc, due to a problem in connection with the abdomen.

Also in connection with the above meaning, some dreams about faeces link with the body being clogged with toxins. This might show in dreams where faeces are everywhere and interfering with normal activities. Toxins might arise in the body through poor food, or through an allergy to something like wheat. So these dreams might be suggesting the physical need to have a healthy bowel. See: kasatkin.

Because babies often play with their faeces, and have a feeling connection with this to do with their self expression and self-giving, in dreams that show this it could refer to an infant level of exploration or self expression.

From infancy we gradually learn to consciously control our bowel movements, and so excrement can depict either how we are controlling what we hold within us, or the need to release it. Control, flowing, or lack of control are therefore very linked with excrement dreams, and often with the way we deal with money or how we give of ourselves. The Incan description of gold was ‘excrement of the gods’! See: toilet.

Sometimes: Personal creativity; being able to let go of what you don’t need – so can link with money and generosity; the primal level of our being; sensuality, intense pleasure and infant sexuality. Shit can of course produce wonderfully rich fertiliser.

If shitting on someone or something: Expressing desire to belittle them or to feel one’s superiority; heaping unjust accusations on someone; bringing something which appeared powerful into perspective.

Idioms: In the shit; feeling shitty; talking a lot of shit/crap; being shat on; being a shit; sometimes life is a bucket of shit and the handle is inside; a pinch of coon shit; up shit creek; that’s a crock (of shit); in deep shit; dump on; take a dump; the shit hit the fan; wouldn’t say shit if her mouth was full of it; get your shit together; shit or get off the pot; happy as a pig in shit; shitting bricks; shit list.

Useful questions and hints:

Are there feelings I need to let go of?

Am I living in a way suggestive of being in a pig pen?

Does the dream suggest I am over controlling what comes out of me?

See Learning to Allow Yourself – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions