Posts Tagged ‘dream analysis’
Pool
The inner world of your mind and imagination. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. Sometimes if you are in the pool, or remember being in the pool, it might be referring to a time, perhaps in the womb, when you felt connected with all living things through shared awareness. Sometimes such dreams appear to show you the river of your life stretching through time.
Also an ability to grow beyond your fears by actually meeting them and passing beyond them to a fuller life. See You Are a Dual Being
Being under water in the pool: Looking at what is happening deep within your mind and feelings; an aspect of yourself that is submerged in the sense of being unconsciousness. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. See: water; swimming pool.
Our inner world of thoughts, fantasies and feelings; sometimes a sense of unity with living beings – collective consciousness or the influence other people have on us in a social or group interaction – as for instance when public opinion or condemnation influences us.
Being in a pool or with other people around or in it suggests you are sharing a common awareness in some degree. It indicates an opening up of uncharted territories in the unconscious. The depth of the water, and the ability of the person are all factors reflecting one’s feelings concerning the unconscious.
Psychomanteums were ancient Greek oracles of the dead where seekers could consult the spirits of the deceased. After fasting and certain other preparatory rituals, a vision of the departed was evoked by the seeker’s staring into a pool or pan of water (a technique similar to the practice of “crystal gazing”).
Being under water in the pool: Looking at what is happening deep within your mind and feelings; an aspect of yourself that is submerged in the sense of being unconsciousness. Particularly links with looking into yourself and becoming aware of what you are feeling or daydreaming. See: water; swimming pool.
Example: And through all this play, consciousness learned to dive in and out of time and space as a marten plays in a pond. Suddenly there were worlds where no time was. Everything went on forever. There was a laughter which never stopped, and love without an ending. There were vistas that stretched out to encompass Einstein’s curved universe in a nutshell. Then awareness hesitated, looked down at the whirling vertigo of time, and the heart missed a beat in sick wonder.
Later, the forms and colours and lights disappeared and melted into nothingness. Then came one final experience that seemed a culmination of all others. In it came an end to the tortured division of self and other, an end to pain, an end to frustration, and there bloomed that radiant blaze of ecstasy which seemed the end of all desire, yet desire itself, the answer to all questions and the end of questioning—the essential eternal “reality.”
The clamouring awareness cried, “This is it! The ultimate reality of all life!” The dissenting intelligence cried, “This is nothing. It has no name, no form, no colour, no sound, no time, no space. You cannot eat it, you cannot use it, you cannot live it out. It is nothing, nothing.”
Example: She remained very quiet for about 2 hours when she suddenly and violently felt herself as a small girl in bed with her father lying behind her and with his erect penis between her legs. She then felt that her legs and abdomen were covered in “slime”, which she knew was semen; as a child it seemed like a large pool in the bed. The episode was clear to her, came as a great shock and was associated with disgust both with herself and her father. The same episode was repeated even more vividly than before with more feelings of guilt combined with an understanding that her father was really mentally ill when she was a child. This release of feelings led to a sense of inner peace and towards the end of the session she suddenly said: “Now I know why I had the migraine headaches. It was those deep hidden feelings, feelings of a mixture of love and hate about my father”.
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 young and feeling insecure and anxious due to her father being ill.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Have you ever paddled or played near ponds?
Did you ever catch fish, newts or other creatures in a pond?
What was happening with the pond in the dream?
See Being the Person or Thing – Dream Yoga – Roots – Summing Up
Pope
Spiritual values or dogmatic religious authority, depending on your associations. A father figure; code of behaviour arising from religious beliefs; God. See: spiritual life in dreams.
There is a tragedy connected with this figure because it abdicates responsibility and allows other human beings to manipulate, through becoming powerful symbols, for ones own power and insight. Thus we have popes, kings, dictators and presidents.
Many individuals barely recognise their own instinctive drives. Yet these drives are powerful enough when manipulated to gather huge armies of people who then march to their death. They are behind enormous hostility between neighbours and nations. Although irrational, and not in our best interest to be influenced by, millions of us are moved by them as if we had little will of our own. The feelings behind them, although seldom acknowledged directly by our conscious self, are often raised to religious status. The procreative drive, the election of leaders, the parental and child raising urges, are all to be seen in the Christian religion as the bones behind the robes and rituals. Why does Catholicism ban the condom and divorce; make a giant figure out of the Pope; worship a woman with a baby in her arms – if it is not based on these mighty urges and biological drives?
The power of the king or ruler has developed out of thousands of years of social interaction between rulers and subjects throughout the world. To explain this social side of the power I include the following description of how identity of a group and of individuals, is deeply connected with a leader figure such as king, queen or Pope.
The attitudes toward leader figures and royalty seen in modern individuals appear to have developed out of the way humans originally related to each other in small groups. This was added to and refined when people began to live in larger social gatherings. In both circumstances virtually all early human groups looked to leader figures for guidance and protection.
One of the greatest factors influencing this relationship between a group, the individuals in it and a leader is that of identity, both for the individual, and for the group. In a small group, such as the hunter gatherer groups which preceded the larger tribal or national groups, we see that the identity of the individual was largely formed out of the relationships with members of the group, and from their collective beliefs and customs. This was and is very evident with tribal peoples – the history of tribal Africa and the Jewish people gives graphic illustrations of this. Thus the ‘identity’ of the Jewish people is still very much alive today, forming obvious links with people otherwise separated by nationality and national culture. The religious beliefs and customs of such a group form a major part of this personal and group identity.
There are obviously negative and positive sides to such identification. See Individuation
Useful Questions and Hints:
What personal feelings do I have about the pope?
What was the pope doing in the dream?
Did you interact with the pope in any way?
See People from our past – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Pop Star
Similar to what has been said about famous people, but might also carry feelings to do with intense teenage sexuality or need; what you hold as an ideal or idol; a role model; egomania.
Porcupine
The porcupine has immense power to protect itself or even to kill, so might relate to feelings of defensiveness. But it can also suggest independence by keeping others at bay through a ‘keep off’ attitude or even open hostility. Nevertheless the porcupine goes about its business quietly if left alone, so might show that attitude. See: hedgehog.
Useful questions are:
Am I creating a ‘don’t get nearer’ feeling around me?
What is my porcupine doing and what does this suggest? See: themes.
What do I wasn’t to be ‘left alone’ about?
Is there someone else who is being prickly?
Porpoise
See dolphinand porpoise.
Poster
Something the unconscious is trying to show you. Something you want other people to see, know about it or become aware of. See: Newspaper.
A poster can be an attempt to influence you, or even cause uncertainty. A means of attempting to pressurize you to do or buy something. This would suggest pressures you feel from outside. Posters can be ideas expressed as imagery, or words that for some reason you hold within and review in your dreams. Posters confront you with decisions – yes or no – shall I or shall I not?
Then can even be inspiration in time of uncertainty. The example is true description =of a young man who had regressed to the age of a five year old. The description is how it felt to be five and lost.
Example: There was in fact only one seat left on the train. It was in the middle of four other people, facing a row of five other people opposite him. Cules made his whole body tight, trying to control the magic tides that were still flowing through him like changing winds and waters. He felt sure that if he didn’t do this, the magic would overwhelm him and cause him to cry like the frightened young boy he now was. What made it more difficult was that directly opposite him sat a very motherly looking woman with wonderfully ample bosoms who smiled sweetly at Cules. The magic tore at Cules to fall forward on to his knees and sink his face into her lap so that she would hold and protect him. He had to look away from her and fold his arms very hard to keep control.
Then the train started to move, and this seemed to make things a little easier for him. Even so he wondered with some dread how he was going to make the journey. Then the train entered the long tunnels leading away from the Paddington station toward the outskirts of London. Holding hard on to his own arms, Cules watched the darkness outside the window intersperse occasionally with brilliant light as the train passed through the large open air ducts. Suddenly the train entered another of these ducts, and there in brilliant sunlight was a huge billboard with what felt like a direct message from God to Cules written across it in huge letters. It said, “TAKE COURAGE!” Then Cules knew he would survive the journey.
Postman
Some part of yourself, or a realisation that has brought something to your notice. An experience that has made you realise something. Hopes for contact with or news from someone. See: letter.
This is about receiving communications, expected or unexpected, and also of course you means of connecting and communicating with others. It depicts feelings you have about good news, bad news, and all the feelings in between. The postman/woman can indicate all the hopes, the waiting, the plans that go into the ideas, love, threats and feelings we send out and receive. There can be things arriving or sent in this way to do with change, reward or disappointment.
A postman is also a good guide to finding your way or finding a person.
Example: An unconventional looking postman delivered a registered package. But I didn’t open it.’ This was taken to mean that due to an unconventional experience, the dreamer had realised something. Something had ‘registered’ on his consciousness, but he had not explored the possibilities of it.
Example: I receive these Xmas cards from Noy and Nothy without a street address, no city. I told them that I would be in the States and they sent them here (Bangkok). It is a miracle that they arrived here. I am showing them to T. And some other people here. My name? I’m not sure. There may have been a big clue on the picture on the card that told the postman where to send the cards. “It is a miracle that they got to me, I tell people.
Postman knock: (A game played by children and youths in a party, where one person acts as a person answering the door. The rest of the group wait to see who the person answering the postman’s knock will choose, and person chose has to kiss him or her.) In a dream it can indicate the pleasure or displeasure of the game. It is a form of practise run for adult sexual meeting – or even promiscuous meeting.
Example: This came about because of my connection with Joan, because one of my main memories connected with her is about the game of postman’s knock at a party, in which I made a choice of not kissing anybody but Joan. This placed me at odds with the rest of the children and so I left the party because I refused to kiss a girl I had no feelings for.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Have I recently realised something that was brought to my notice?
Do I have hopes for love, work, or some change in my life?
Am I waiting for news or contact?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Role in the dream
Posture
Posture in dreams is a major way the dream communicates meaning. It expresses things you may never have put into words. Therefore postures and movements in dreams are expressive of how you feel or think beneath the layer of your everyday life. Because there are so many postures and movement you might make in your dream, it is impossible to list them all here. You can arrive at their meaning by taking on the posture, or exploring the movement, to see what it feels like. When you feel the quality of the posture or movement, take time to put it into words. This is important as it makes the subtle feeling more conscious and known. See: Posture movement and body language; Movement.
Pot
See: Hallucinogens; Hash
See: Pot and Pan; Cook, Oven, Food.
Potato
Depends more than usual on the dreamer’s own associations. Do we regard it as fattening, starchy, forbidden, enjoyable, messy, or what? See: Food
Potter
The drives, creativity, you are shaping your life with, or being shaped by; the Self.
The saying, potter around, suggest a time or feeling that you can be free to do what you feel like or be serendipitous – which means finding out things without having searched for them.
“All creation involves destruction: in order to shape the clay into the desired form, the potter must first destroy its existing form. The same applies to personal reconstruction: the old self must die – sometimes painfully – if the new self is to be born.” Quoted from A Dictionary of Dream Symbols by Eric Ackroyd – an excellent book.
Is there a Big Potter that we are all creations of – or maybe are expressions of? I had an experience where I was look at bubbles I notice each one has an eye looking at me. Fascinated I bend lower to look back at these eyes. When I do so I see they are not ‘eyes’ but ‘I’s’. Each is a tiny reflection of myself looking back at me. Amused I ponder this multitude of me. Each tiny being, with its own individual sense of self, its own eyes and legs and fingers, feels it is separate from its fellows – and it is. But what they don’t realise is that their awareness, their consciousness is a reflection of me. I am their god. Out of me all have their being. – Then suddenly I realised I am myself a bubble. I too have a sense of being independent, with my own eyes, fingers and legs. Yet in reality I am only a reflection of one great life – One Self existent in all diversity and multifarious forms.
Useful questions or hints:
What am I shaping or making for my life right now?
Am I being affected or shaped by outside influences?
Am I aware of being in the hands of The Potter?
Have I ever felt part of one great life?
See The Harvester – Questions – Creating a New You – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Poverty Poor
Feelings of being inadequate; negative emotions depriving you of well being; sense of deprivation; being tight emotionally and sexually. Sometimes an expression of insecurity.
In a certain sense, the pain arising from abandonment, and feelings attending it, can arise from other losses, such as termination of employment or loss of status. This can be seen as a confrontation with one’s own internal poverty. If this can be accepted, then the situation becomes an opportunity to gradually transform old pains and dependencies. The roots of these frequently become revealed if we accept the pain as a signpost to its source and understanding. Awareness of the part such pain has played in your life is a tremendous means of transformation. See Avoid Being Victims; Martial Art of the Mind
Parts of our experience become repressed because there is an automatic reaction in us to avoid pain or pull away from anything that frightens us. Therefore painful experience such as experiencing pverty may never be fully felt or understood at the time. Reliving such experience allows us to review and integrate vital information about ourselves. At times of great physical or emotional stress or anguish we unconsciously make decisions that influence the way we behave thereafter. Frequently all the analysis in the world cannot relieve a neurotic pattern or decision until the repressed emotion holding it in place is released to be consciously experienced and therefore understood. In fact being able to meet emotional pain and fear is the way to a wider and more productive life. See Life’s Little Secrets
As Wilda B Tanner writes in her Magical World of Dreams, “All too often, we teach and are taught how to avoid anything which is ugly, painful, distasteful, or upsetting to us. One of the most important things we need to learn is that our problems actually serve as beacons of light or as magnifying glasses, emphasising or pointing out our most crippling fears, our most restrictive attitudes, prejudices, and misconceptions which are holding up our progress-things we really must face up to and overcome if we are to grow.” See Method to Manage Intense Emotion
Do you have fullness or poverty of imagination. Without imagination you are on a desert island of opportunity and creativity. In our life in today’s world the imagination of dreams is still very important. Einstein who was one of the greatest minds of recent years said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Considering that we are only aware of 1% of visible light, and 1% of audible sound we live in constant impoverishment. Our dreams which often show that we live in states of mind that reach far beyong our usual limitations and are often of the timeless, are enriching and take away our poverty.
“It is probably no accident that the society which most consistently encouraged the use of these substances, India, produced one of the sickest social orders ever created by mankind, in which thinking men spent their time lost in the Buddha position under the influence of drugs exploring consciousness, while poverty, disease, social discrimination, and superstition reached their highest and most organized form in all history.”
But it is also true that our own society has a very one sided view. It see the richest and best looking as the most successful; completely ignoring the massive poverty of our own western society in which the enormously wealthy live in a world divided by an enormous gap living below the poverty line.
“Did I mention that one in six children in Texas lacks health insurance, the second-highest rate in the nation? So the freedom to die extends, in practice, to children and the unlucky as well as the improvident. And the right’s embrace of that notion signals an important shift in the nature of American politics.”
A sense of poverty or evidence of it can be seen in your dreams. What clothes are you wearing in your dreams and what are the feelings you have about them. Also what social status does the house in your dream suggest? Do the surroundings of the house suggest wealth, poverty or some level of social status? If so try to define it and how you relate to it now or in the past.
We know how much good the wise use of money can do. Few, in these affluent times, realize, however, that poverty, also, has its compensations. For suffering often releases spiritual powers that aid others. Also it teaches us compassion through understanding and gives us greater patience, accompanied by an appreciation of life in general.
Example: One day on exploring a dream I realised that all my life I had worked for money, and in all those years I was no better off financially. In fact I was always in the red. With the realisation came the insight that I could get money to work for me. I started by my wife and I saving as much as possible. I saw people in super markets piling botles of alcohol and other unnecessary expenses – one we couldn’t afford. So gradually we saved a £1000 – enough to enter an investment fund. Gradually I learned how to make money work for me. I learned gradually to keep my expectations simple, and not invest in chancy things. Today I am earning enough to live on. I made money work for me.
Useful questions or hints:
Am I living in the midst of finacial or emotional poverty?
Can I see what directions I have taken or missed that have led me here?
What does my dream say about poverty?
See Funding – Creativity – Creating a New You – Using symbols to change life problems – Self Observation – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Pray
Expressive of an inner desire, fear or need. Also an alignment of self with your wholeness. May present information about the inner self of which we are unaware. See: Meditation.
Precipice
Fear of falling, therefore feelings of insecurity or anxiety. Fear of failure, or if you are at the foot of the cliff or precipice, you are facing a difficulty in attaining your goal. But the precipice is also an opportunity to leap into the unknown or make a great change. Remember that in dreams you can fly, and never get hurt. So all you are facing is your fears, and they are holding you back from a new experience of yourself. So while awake, imagine jumping over the edge and flying, or seeing what is beyond. See: Cliff; Fall.
Example: I dreamt that I was at the top of a smooth top cliff, there were metal rails, that had a gap you could walk around, I had moved to the outside where I could look down at the sea, a really long drop, where I knew many people jump into the sea.
My niece Emma and Shane her husband were there, Emma pushed at the back of my head not to push me off but to encourage me to move. I decided to jump I experienced the jump, but then I realised that I had not got wet, saying to Emma my hairs not wet. How did that happen? Brenda B
In exploring her dream Brenda said: When working with Tony, he asked me to become Emma, to speak as her. I started by saying that as a child I had to stand on my own feet because of my parents. Also I had to find my own way in the world. That made me quite tough and I wouldn’t let anyone – especially men – get near me. I felt this made me different from a lot of other kids, and sometimes a bit pushy. I have a habit of jumping into things, which is why I nudged Brenda to take the jump.
I instantly felt as I spoke as her that she was a part of me, having to be independent at a young age, a tough armour, ready to react to anything, no support.
Dropping into the sea was me dropping into my unconscious which felt that I was in my element, a place that I could move freely.
In becoming Shane, there is a feeling of an ex military man, who has a sense of loss, who is putting on a brave front, keeping it all together on the outside, with a loss of family. For him family being army mates. I understood this refers to me, I feel the loss of what I thought my family role would be. It is good to be faced with that feeling as it has been around but not shown to me for a long time.
If at the top: Fear of failure; on the edge of losing confidence; loss of all security; choice of direction – toward safety or into extreme stress or fear; near to a leap into the unknown or great change.
Being at the top or edge of a precipice can also represent having the courage to look into the vastness, to realise the enormity of space. It can confront you with your own littleness, your own small beliefs because it is a confrontation with reality. Because of that it might be leading you to enlightenment.
If precipice drops into a void: Death; the unconscious or unknown. See void
If at bottom: Sense of insurmountable obstacle in life.
Useful questions and hints:
Where are you in relationship with the precipice?
Are you scared of it or is it enlightenment?
Have you jumped off it or ready to?
See Enlightenment – There Is A Huge Change Happening – Summing Up – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Pregnant Pregnancy
A new area of your potential or personality developing; a deepening relationship with your potential is producing a new area of experience, talent or facet of your personality. It is still unexpressed but is developing; a new scheme or creative idea ‘hatching’.
This can point to the development of a new approach to life, a new project you are creating, a new outlet of expression, or new faculty.
If you are pregnant when you dream this, don’t be too worried by anxiety dreams about the baby. Virtually all women have them. Only get worried if they persist. A scan can quickly see if you are anxious or intuitive. See: pregnancy and dreams, and your dream baby for a longer description.
Example: ‘Last week I suddenly started having a recurring dream. In it I woke, walked downstairs, went into the kitchen and looked in the kettle. It was full of little fish.’ Karen LBC.
The fact that Karen goes ‘downstairs’, suggests the lower part of her body, and the shape of the kettle, which is a round container, make it likely this dream is about pregnancy. The little fish also points to her having conceived.
In a woman’s dream: May refer to desire for a child; fear of being pregnant – i.e. in a relationship but not wanting to be pregnant. For a woman being pregnant may depict what is resulting from a relationship with a man she has become deeply involved with. The following example illustrates this.
Example: I dreamt I was pregnant and was certain the father was a man I feel a lot of love for. However as I was dreaming I realised he had a vasectomy so couldn’t be the father. This caused me to feel great uncertainty and I was questioning who the father could be as I hadn’t been with anyone else. Also I realised the pregnancy lasted 11 months and the baby was due. Angela.
Angela felt a great connection with a man who had told her he could never be her partner, and although good friends, had pulled away from any sexual contact. This caused great confusion in Angela because she had got a lot from the relationship, shown by the pregnancy. The confusion as to who the father was probably depicts her search for a man who could help her ‘give birth’ to the new and positive direction in life that had arisen from the current but platonic relationship. See Women’s creative power
If pregnant at time of dream: Anxieties regarding pregnancy and birth – Carolyn Winget and Frederic Kapp researched on the dreams of 70 pregnant women. Those women whose dreams included a high percentage of anxiety themes were the ones who delivered their babies in the shortest time – less than ten hours. The conclusion was that by allowing feelings of anxiety in our dreams we are less influenced by anxiety in waking, and we can deal with situations more confidently.
In a man’s dream: A man who cares for his partner and children will often dream about his partners pregnancy – or even dream about himself being pregnant.
Example: Was in a basement. Brenda/Sonia was giving birth to a Baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it, without a doctor being there. I remember Sonia chewed through the cord. I looked at the baby, it was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious. Then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!”
Here the man gave birth to a new special part of himself, aided by the love he had developed for two women – Brenda and Sonia. A man’s love develops out of his feelings for women in his life, and this was what enabled him to birth a new and special part of his potential.
Example: I went into the house. My wife screamed due to some trouble of her period. She was pregnant, and the troubles she was having were the traditional signs that she was pregnant and bearing a special child. I felt that the whole pregnancy would be difficult due to these signs of the special child, but the delivery would be easier. I didn’t feel too pleased about her having a baby, but soon adjusted to the idea.
This dream occurred about eight days after he had sex with his wife because he had dreamt a powerful spirit had spoke asking him to help form a body for it.
Pregnant without a man involved: See No Man
Someone else pregnant in dream: An aspect of oneself about to bring forth new characteristics; an intuition about that person. See: Example under girl; cave; third example under penis in body; second example under baby; birth dreams during pregnancy. See also: birth.
Useful questions and hints:
If you sum up, what are your dreams saying about being pregnant?
Are you feeling okay now about scary dreams?
Do your dreams give you insight into what is happening with your unborn baby?
See African Babies Don’t Cry – The Limbic Imprint – My Needs As a Premature Baby – Influencing Your Unborn Child
Premonition
When we have a premonition in a dream, it may not necessarily materialise. Sometimes it must be taken symbolically. To dream of a fall down a ladder may easily symbolise apprehension with regard to the loss of your job, failure in marriage, or losing the esteem of others. A premonition of a drowning son may symbolise the feeling that hopes in life are being drowned by anxiety. But of course, a few such dreams do predict actual events. There is usually a particular tone about such dreams that one can learn to notice. It is usually very clear and direct.