Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’
Bad
Our view of what is bad or good changes with each generation. It was thought so bad in the past to be born out of wedlock that people lived a life of shame. One woman who came to me could not even say the word ‘illegitimate’, it held too much emotion for her.
Here are some examples of its use in dreams.
Example: A man in the class said that he felt bad because he had few clothes on. There was an atmosphere of shame because of sex or the body, so I told him to put his shirt on.
Example: I had slept with the woman’s daughter and now she was going to have a baby. I didn’t seem to mind, and accepted the responsibility, and despite being married with a newborn baby, was going to bring up this baby, and maybe even have the mother living in. I realised that I had always thought/felt intercourse with animals was sinful and awful, but now saw nothing bad as I loved the cat.
Example: I was in a cinema with the children. We were sitting near the front on the right. The children were on my left. Beside me on my right was a man, a sort of incarnation of evil – lecherous – filth – devilishness. He leered at me and I believe I stared back. Next the man was on the stage. He was hanged by the neck, without, it seemed, any body, only his leering awful face at the end of the rope. I felt it was bad for the children and was going to get them out.
Bad used in a dream description will probably depend upon your own upbringing. So think carefully were the bad feeling comes from. Even killing someone although it is judge as universally bad, is legalised in warfare – whether national or business.
Something bad such as eggs or food refers to something that might be upsetting you, or that you are taking in rotten information or feelings. But as usual it depends on the context in the dream. See Context; evil; rotten.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the feeling or thought of badness about?
Is it something that is often troubling you?
Why did you see it as bad?
Why not try exploring your dream by using Processing Dreams.
Badge
A feeling of identifying with a particular group if the badge is connected with a group or organisation; memories, experiences, things learned with a group or organisation. The badge might suggested an attitude, depending what the badge is. It might suggest courage, authority (such as police badge) or social recognition, or a role; a sense of achievement; a reminder of values held or feelings that strengthen beliefs. This is meant in the way a person will wear a Christian cross or St. Christopher to remind them of their moral decisions or help bring confidence in the face of anxiety. But a badge worn in this way also means you readily show to others what you feel or believe. So it could be the revealing of love, beliefs or decisions made, depending on the badge.
The badge might also link with potential strength and feelings of authority, as one might have with a police badge; acknowledgement of attainment; if it is a name badge it most likely suggests your own sense of identity, or the identity you display to others – or who you feel yourself to be in the circumstance of the dream.
In some dreams the badge shows that you have now achieved a new status, as when you have passed a test or achieved a higher rank. The badge therefore lets others know what qualities you have, what skills you have, or what remarkable deeds you have done. The feathers of an American Indian brave would have a similar significance. See: feather.
Useful questions are:
Does the badge have words – if so what do they connect with in your life or thought?
What does this badge mean to me?
Does this represent an important quality or skill – if so what? Is it related to an organisation – if so what do I feel or associate about it?
What rank or achievement does the badge denote.
Bag Baggage
In some dreams it represents the vagina, and female sexuality in general. More often, as in example below, depicts the dreamer’s identity. Our sense of identity is often dependent largely on social contacts and recognition. The bag, especially handbag, with all one’s personal belongings and money, credit cards, represents our social ability to get places and cope.
The bag can also link with the ‘luggage’ of attitudes, chip on the shoulder, beliefs or fears we carry about in life. Or it can be the things we put away or hide from ourselves and others, therefore secrets, perhaps danger.
The dream bag might contain the personal skills or tools one has, or is carrying with you, such as a laptop, mobile/cell phone. Or it could connect with a holiday or getting away from work or home; freedom or the ability to move.
Another possibility is the association with protective attitudes, as when one might carry something precious in a bag – such as a baby, small animal or objects; secrets or what is hidden, so unpacking it may bring revelations or the unexpected; ones hopes or dreams.
Example: ‘I am in a strange town – usually where there are shops and lots of people. I don’t know where I am or how I got there, but I suddenly realise I have lost my handbag. I know no one and do not know what to do. When I panic I wake.’ Mrs R.
Mrs R. has obviously lost her feeling of who she is and her identity and confidence. So her bag link with all those things.
Bag of refuse: Desire, emotions, ideas you have discarded, or need to discard; rubbish being dumped on you by someone else.
Bag over ones head: Trying to hide, or feelings of fear or inadequacy; a cover up.
Body bag: Death or near death; loss of someone.
Emptying bag: Getting rid of attitudes or feelings one has been carrying about; unloading or looking at the thoughts and memories one has been ‘carrying’. Sometimes refers to leaving or dumping a lover.
Loss of bag: Loss of feelings of confidence, of the means to survive in the world; loss of something valuable; occasionally loss of child bearing function.
Packing bags: Planning to leave or make a change; wanting to get away; making changes; a journey; putting things in order; sorting out ones needs or priorities.
Sleeping bag: Powerful sexual symbol – i.e. sexual intercourse or a sexual partner – especially if linked with a partner; could also represent the feelings of being in the womb, or wanting to sleep alone; may occasionally have the same significance as a body bag.
Vacuum cleaner bag: The contents would suggest the rubbish you have picked up in your attempts to tidy up your life. It might also show stuff you have lost or been unaware of. Your attempts to improve yourself or your living situation.
Idioms: Bag and baggage; wind-bag; in the bag; pack one’s bag; punching bag.
See: Example in clothes; luggage; knapsack; suitcase.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What type of bag is it and what would you generally use it for?
Am I ‘carrying’ old attitudes or grudges?
Does the bag link with feelings about my identity or security – if so in what way?
What does the action in the dream add to my understanding of the bag?
Try Being the Object or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Avoid Being Victims
Badger
May refer to badgering people, or feeling badgered; the quiet unobtrusive or even secluded life – so may refer to urges to get away from other people’s influence or company; define what you associate with the badger, as there are very mixed general associations with this animal, far more so than with the fox for instance.
Useful questions are:
If I imagine myself as the badger in my dream what does it feel like and what am I doing? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)
How would I describe a badger, and how does that apply to me?
Baker
Creative ability; ability to alter one’s approach to make experience more acceptable – such as when comments, instead of being taken as criticism, are taken as information. Also the creator of bread, so the provider of basic needs.
It may be connected with money because of the term bread or dough being used for money. See bread.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I the baker or the baker is just a character in the dream?
What food is there or is being offered?
What am I doing in relationship with the baker?
See Characters in Dreams and Talking As.
Balance
Your ability to judge and discriminate, to measure one thing against another. It may also suggest conscience, that weighs outer acts against the innermost feelings.
Bald
See: Hair.
Ball
If it is a ball game, the ball may depict something about a personal or group relationship and what is going on, the back and forward or interactions shown in the dream. Or it might represent competition and ways to win or play the game or life, love or business, with skill. The ball can also stand for wholeness.
A ball represent wholeness, an ‘all round’ view or a rounded character.
Ball: Interaction between two people, sexual and otherwise – the ‘ball’ is in your court – in that throwing the ball may show someone trying to get ones attention and response.
Ball games or being thrown a ball: Challenges, prowess, competition in the game of life; having and letting go; sex play; masturbation; a man’s ‘balls’; a way of moving toward personal wholeness.
Balls: As in men’s testicles
Idioms: Have a ball; ball at ones feet; ones eye on the ball; start the ball rolling; new ball game; play ball with someone; he has/hasn’t the balls. See: the self under archetypes; games.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are you doiong with the ball?
Is there interaction with it of another person?
Do you feel any feelings or competition?
Use Talking As to help define what the ball is about.
Ballet
See: Dance.
Banana
Male penis; disguised sexual desire; enjoyment of sweet food, pleasure.
It is often also used as a sign of love and caring in dreams. In some dreams it is a recommendation for your diet.
Taking one or handing one to someone: Desire to receive or have sexual relation. Or a caring action.
Man eating one: May be homosexual tendency. Or perhaps a dietary suggestion
Idioms: Fingers the size of bananas; go bananas; tough bananas.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What do I feel about bananas – do I enjoy or dislike them?
Is there any hint of sex or sexual feelings in this dream – if so what do they point to?
What am I doing, or how am I relating to the banana and what does this suggest?
See Processing Dreams.
Balloon
Party mood and maybe linking with feelings about something to celebrate. Breasts and perhaps connection with sex through similarity to condom; the womb.
Something that can appear large, colourful and growing, but is only full of air we blow into it – life we give it with our imagination and emotions – and can be burst and disappear suddenly like a bubble. In other words a big deal about nothing – a lot of hot air. But imagination eat creator.
If the balloon is mysterious and perhaps white or glowing, it can represent feelings about a dead person who has ‘floated away’ from physical life.
In some dreams it might show a feeling of being fat and blown up. Also the balloon might be linked with gaining attention, as with advertising balloons.
Balloons are much like bubbles, so see bubbles.
Deflated balloon: The power or emotion gone out of something; a lost dream or hope; feeling deflated.
Feeling you are blowing up like a balloon: This might link with an experience of being anaesthetised. Also it could suggest increasing tension and feeling you might be heading for a crisis, or even of pregnancy.
Hot air balloon: Escape; getting away from the everyday difficulties or routine; wonderful fantasy; a birds-eye view of life on the world; a lot of ‘hot air’ as in empty or boastful talk; floating away from being practical or grounded. The ascent in a balloon may show going up in the world or achievement; feeling light headed or ‘floaty’. Descent in the balloon may show coming ‘down to earth’ or a feeling of setback.
Airship or blimps: It may suggest a huge presence hovering over you. Unlike an airplane that has to keep moving the airship can stay in one place, and because of its immense size might be felt as uplifting or threatening.
Releasing a balloon: Hope; testing an idea or ideal to see where it takes you; letting go of something or someone; letting events decide the situation.
Something suspended by a balloon: Feelings of rising in the world or being in a good place, but lack of security.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the feeling surrounding the balloon, and how do you relate to those feelings?
What is the balloon being used for and what do you associate with that?
Is the balloon rising or descending, and does that relate to events in your life?
Try Being the Person or Thing to define the dream meaning.
Ballroom
Place of romance or courting, therefore memories, the past, hopes and dreams. It could also relate to feelings of competition; relationship with other people; social position, such as feelings of class. Sometimes it suggests times past, historical scenes and the atmosphere they created. This probably relates to deep seated feelings you have about the parts of yourself you still haven’t brought to awareness. See: dancing.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are you doing in relationship with the ballroom, and what does that suggest?
Is this a place you have been in the past – if so what memories do you have of it?
What is the theme here and what action in your life does it portray? See: themes.
See also Talking as a Dream Character and Characters in Dreams.
Band
If it is a particular band or group, it may link with how you see the group, and what you feel about them. Otherwise it could depict feelings you have at the moment about working in harmony with others, expressing your won creativity. Sometimes this refers to teenage feelings and emerging sexuality. Team work; sense of different parts of self working harmoniously; or work for a musician; teenage emotions and feelings, perhaps to do with sexuality; comradeship.
Band of metal, material or colour around something: See colours or for metal see the type of metal or ring. The band in general suggests a binding quality, a wholeness, a form of connection or unity. It can also be a limitation or restraint. In some dreams it points to an influence, quality or power, the nature of which will be seen in the events and feelings of the dream.
Elastic band: Sometimes used as a way of drawing one back when they get too far away, or as a tight band to restrict the flow of blood, and therefore the function of what is restricted.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What part am I playing in the group, and does this help me understand the way I relate to the people I am involved with?
Are we creating something as a group – if so what does it suggest?
If this is a metal or other band, what quality or restraining influence does it have?
Explore your dream using Processing Dreams
Bandage
Feeling hurt, or fear of injury. The bandage also connects with healing and sometimes death.
Bandit
A bandit in your dream may represent an attitude that takes but does not give. Or it can be a warning against others who might take advantage of you and what you own.
Or it could be male sexuality in its adolescent, aggressive stage.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do you recognise these attitudes in yourself or others?
Is there anything you can do that overcomes them?
Do you feel threatened by the bandit in the dream – or are you the bandit?
Try carrying the dream forward and Talking As.
Bank
Money worries or decisions about or events to do with money and the whole lifestyle that goes with it. Therefore it may indicate dreams or hopes about the future; resources – financial, mental and spiritual such as suggested by savings. It could relate to your internal sense of security – if threatened then feelings of insecurity and fear – again savings. It can indicate emotional resources such as confidence and sexual certainty; social power; feeling of pressure about debts or social money situation; something you depend upon.
The bank might depict the ways, the attitudes, skills or otherwise, with which you deal with your resources or energies. In other words what you do with the energy you stored up/banked. See: Money
Bank raid: Threat to security; feelings of anxiety. Or if you are a bank robber, feelings of desperation about money. Perhaps not feeling socially connected in the way to get money flowing to you, so suggesting that you access resources by force instead of understanding.
Bankruptcy: Feelings of despair or failure; the end of a scheme or relationship; the realisation or feelings that the direction has not worked and must be abandoned, whether a marriage, business or direction in life. Or it could be doing too much and exhausting your reserves, materially or emotionally.
Difficulty drawing money out: Frustration about earning power and thus ability to find security or esteem; lack of confidence or negative feelings about personal value. Perhaps there is a need to be personally affirmed, or a sense that you do not feel valued.
Talking with the bank manager: Thinking about, or trying to deal with issues of finance, personal resources or self esteem. If the bank manager is serious, then you need to look closely at your finances. If he is amiable, you are probably doing well despite worries. The bank manager also represents the wisdom or attitudes you can use as a resource to deal with the economics of your life. See Talking As.
Vaults of a bank: Deep unconscious resources; your potential or reserves.
Working at a bank: Dealing with money issues, security, personal values.
Idioms: Bank on; burst/break the bank.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What worries or concerns do I have about money?
Is my dream showing me new insights or understanding about how to deal with my life?
If there are difficulties in the dream, what are they and how does that connect with my waking life?
See A useful way to understand your dream – Dream Understanding.