Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’

Comrade

See: Friend.

Conception

Many women dream of having conceived, and sometimes this is an intuitive sense of what has actually happened. But otherwise it might be dealing with your feelings or insights into your relationship with conception.

However, conception extends far wider than that which leads to the development of a child. The female principle, whether of the earth or in us humans, is extraordinarily creative.

Sex equals living your optimum. Living the greatest good – sex is about acknowledging that life or relationship is a creative act. It might not be creative in the sense of a child developing. It might not be creative in the sense of conception. But it is a creative act between two people. And as a part of the creative act it is about acknowledging what part we each play in it – and what part life itself plays in the creative act. It is about recognising that every conception, whether towards a physical baby, or towards a relationship, towards love, towards developing an idea – needs to be nourished and cared for. It needs an environment that will respect it and help it to develop.

It is innate in women to dream of being creative and giving birth in their dreams. So I believe that such a baby is a very real part of you – though an inner and not always an outer part. But it is a creation of a part of you that is only now becoming real in your life. In other words a dream baby is a new birth of part of you that needs to be cared for. The point for a woman is that she is only incidentally part of the creative act of childbirth. The processes of creation are far deeper than her personality.

If you are a woman, this is your potential. You developed in this way because you are a creature of evolution. If you deny that part of you – the urge to procreate – you deny yourself. Do not cut yourself off from your roots otherwise you will die.To become free of it, it is not necessary to repress that part of you. In fact that basic, primeval drive is your source of power. It is a great river of energy. Out of that your power arises. You do not have to become childbearing to have that creativity. You do not even need to have a functioning womb, because at your core you are the power of creation.

So the dreamt conception, even in a man’s dream, can be about a new part of your potential emerging, a new way of life being made real at a fundamental level, a start to the budding forces of life in you moving toward expression. Whatever it is it is vulnerable and needs your loving care and nourishment. See: immaculate conception.

Example: The dream carried on and I saw that I was carrying a child in pregnancy. This started off very mixed up feelings and images, wondering how I could give birth without female organs. For a long period I felt that given time my body could transform, but in fact I never reached that point, even though the organs had begun to transform. Instead I suddenly realised in my sleep state that this was the child of the dream of the tree and the spirit of the tree, where she took me fully into her to form a child, a synthesis of her, me, my whole life experience. And I realised what an idiot I had been trying to transform my body, struggling with the inbuilt idea of a male body. I saw how ridiculous and lost I had been, remembering that I had previously given birth to a child as a man.

Useful questions are:

What feelings do I have about this conception, and what can I gather from that about what is growing in me?

Do I feel this is the conception of a baby in me – if this proves wrong, what am I going to give birth to?

Can I care for and nurture this new life in me?

See Questions – Background – Processing Dreams

Condom

See: Contraceptive.

Conductor

As a man, similar to admiral. . As electrical conductor, receptive side of self directing energy. Nervous system. See: Admiral

Confess Confessing Confession

Sometimes a confession in a dream comes from a very deep place. It may have a great deal of truth or passionate feelings involved. So it is worth while trying to make contact with the feelings and insights involved. This sort of confession can bring real change, and where necessary needs to be made real in waking life.

Sometimes a dream confession reveals things that have been kept deeply unconscious previously. Such things as murder, where a part of you has been killed at some time, are often difficult and have to be understood as to exactly what you have killed. (For help doing this see Stand in Role. In this case ‘be’ the murdered person.) The release of such confessions can be difficult or emotional, and can remove blockages that have prevented the flow of life within.

Confession can be about love though, and this too can be difficult if you haven’t learned to express your feelings and care for someone.

However, some dreams show a confession as a sort of immaturity, a youthful ‘having to tell mother/father what you have done. This suggests that you perhaps lack the strength to deal with your feelings by yourself, and need to unload them no matter what this does to the person hearing the ‘confession.

Where the confession is the Catholic rite, then it will probably link with beliefs connected with Catholicism. But in either case what you confess to may be the result of your self-judgement, or of a measurement according to other people’s or society’s standards. If so remember, “Judge not and be not judged.”

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am revealing or being told, and where does that connect with my waking experiences?

Am I holding back on love or other feelings – and if so how can I express them in a meaningful way?

Is this something that I am barely aware of and needing to allow to be felt and heard?

See – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Inner World – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Conform Conforming Conformity

One of the most powerful, and largely unconscious urges we have, is to conform to the way of life, beliefs, clothing and styles lived by the people around us. Even if we are an non-conformist there are still huge areas of our mind, beliefs and view of the world that conform to well established patterns. So if there are elements of your dream in which you do not conform, or you are aware of yourself conforming, it marks great change. This is because you are becoming aware of your conformity, and might thus change it if you wished. See Archetype of the Paradigm

Conformity has influence way beyond clothing or the way you speak. Abraham was told by God to kill his son. In the end this was not required, but this theme of conformity to authority was obviously a factor in people’s lives throughout the millennia.  The following statement by Arthur explains something of this.

In my twenties I found that quite irrationally I was beating my son and feeling at odds with him. This so disturbed me that I started seeking the cause of it and undertook radical psychotherapy. Gradually I uncovered deeper layers of myself that I had been totally unaware of. I came to understand that I had been raised in a punitive society. At school we were punished even as infants with heavy caning. Although it was never explained to us, the lesson I learned was that unless you did as authority told you to you would be severely punished. My mother had also lived this out in the way she had treated me.

These life lessons go in deep, and because they were never properly conscious, cannot be re-evaluated. But through the therapy I gradually brought these things to light. I saw that I had been brought up at the tail end of a period of history during which people who did not obey were shot down, imprisoned, or worse. So having learned this I was unwittingly training my eldest son to learn this terrible lesson – obey or be punished. In doing so I was crushing his emerging sexuality and rebellious spirit, all in the name of conformity.

The turning point of this in Arthur’s life can be seen in the following dream.

I was attending an adult class with about 20/30 people, mostly men, in it. The teacher came in. He said something and a man asked a question, or spoke back. The teacher got really angry and hit him with a walking stick. Someone else in the class remarked on the beating and was attacked also. A man sitting next to me on my left said that if the teacher hit him he wouldn’t sit and take it. But as the second man was being hit my companion said something like – Bloody hell. The teacher landed two mighty blows on his arse, but he didn’t move. I said in horror, “Good God,” whereupon the teacher moved to hit me. I stood up and said, “If you hit me with that thing I will whack you in the fucking ear.” I felt fired up ready to fight. He backed off and threatened to get the headmaster in. I told him to try it. He said if I could do better, do it. So I took over the class and it went really well.

Then I seemed to be witnessing a young man making love to a girl in a room. A teacher burst into the room and got angry with the couple. The young man was not at all cowed. He said, “You burst into a private room without knocking. We happen to be young adults. I want an apology.”

The teacher was silent for a time then apologised. The young man then said, “Thank you Sir. I am proud to acknowledge you as my teacher.”

Arthur was himself hit with sticks the thickness of walking sticks, and witnessed it happening to other boys. The dream shows him changing his relationship with this, from cowed acceptance to standing up for himself and his human sexual feelings.

The pressure to conform is evident in most cultures. It is seen in police action, governmental oppression and religious intolerance.

Useful Questions and Hints:

In what way is my dream showing me bowing to authority?

In what ways do I conform with peers or other pressures?

In my dream what am I learning about conformity?

See – Avoid Being Victims – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Congress

See: parliament.

Conjurer

Depending on dream, might be the ability to easily change our moods or attitudes, that is a commonplace yet at the same time magical ability humans have – in this way we might pull out of a deep depression and suddenly become creative; or perhaps the youthful side of self that forever wants magical or idealistic answers to life situations and relationships; trickery.

This may be referring to self-deceptions, or deception of others. But it might also point to the magical abilities your unconscious has. The mind too can shift and change amazingly. It can create apparent realities out of thin air, as it does in imagination or dreams. See: Roles; The Conjuring Trick

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Constipation

Inner tension, withholding of feelings or flow of life and creativity. So this could be depicting a lack of self-expression or self-esteem.

There may also be a link with the need to learn how to let go of control in certain areas of your life, or even a change of diet from lifeless foods to whole foods with natural roughage.

In some dreams it is connected with  being tense sexually and not really having feelings/emotions while love making.

But more than anything else it is about the ‘shitty’ feelings and past experiences we have not released, as in the following dream.

Example: I am having a bowel movement, after being constipated for a while. I squat over a hibachi thing next to the toilet and push. A hard piece comes out. It falls and gets on the carpet. Some more follow and now I have to pick them up and put them in the toilet. C…. comes by, eating a roll, and she thinks this will be fun and picks up some of the round balls of shit to help me. I say, “Oh no! put that down. Don’t touch the roll now. Go wash your hands and don’t put them in your mouth.” I get up to walk her to a place she can wash her hands when the toilet starts acting strange like it’s going to overflow. We back away. It disgorges lots of shit and water noisily like an agitated washing machine gone mad. BS.

BS’s constipation is psychological. She is holding on to emotions too long, and the washing machine in the dream suggests the need for a clean up that is not being handled well. See: toilet.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is I am holding on to – in other words what am I feeling in the dream, or what events portray it?

Is there an attitude I am nursing in myself that I don’t want to let go of?

If I imagine letting go of control, what fears or feelings arise?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams –  Life’s Little Secrets – Arm Circling Meditation

Contest

See Competition.

Contortion Contortionist

Mental and emotional fluidity, wide compass. If the dream has some darker feelings in it however, the contortionist might be saying that you are twisting yourself in knots to solve a problem. Are you succeeding?

Contraceptive Condom Rubber

There could be a number of possible associated feelings with this. In recent times the condom has been seen as a means of preventing AIDs, so if the contraceptive is a condom it could reflect worries about sexual contacts. It might also represent feelings or attitudes regarding responsibility. Certainly it connects in some way with sexual decisions and feelings. With the pill, there might be a connection with decisions about motherhood.

Control Controlled Not Controlling

There is a huge area of ones conscious skills given over to various sorts of control. This starts from a very young age when we gradually learn not to mess our pants, and later to ride a bike and drive a car. Being out of control can open us to a great deal of fear, or even terror. Yet being able to let go of control is also tremendously important. Many of the things we meet in life we are unable to control – even our own heartbeat and life processes; for many their own emotions that make them victims to great pain. But many external things such as a relationship, sex, opportunity, losses, accidents and other people’s decisions confront us with areas that we cannot control.

Therefore it is important to define what your dream is describing if questions of control or lack of control are portrayed. See if you can discover what you are meeting, and what a wise stance to it might be.

Example: I was swimming in the sea and a huge breaker swept me up and started bowling me over and over and to start with I tried to keep myself upright and fight my way to the surface for breath, but then I just relaxed into the wave and let myself be thrown all over the place, waiting for it to pass and trusting that I could hold my breath for that long. Susan.

This dream illustrates both the attempt to stay in control, and then the letting go and being out of control.

Control and letting go of control also relate very fully to what we know about ourselves. This is because with too tight a control on what we allow ourselves to feel or experience we build a barrier against the re-experiencing and healing of old painful events, and also for the arising of new aspects of our potential to emerge. See: prison; Life’s Little Secrets

However, as a child we have so little control over people and the world around us that we sometimes become overwhelmed and feel helpless. In response our only control might be either to shut down our feelings so nothing can touch us; a flight into mysticism and magical thinking; or the defence of anger and violence, or the extreme of self destruction. If these feelings are powerful it is difficult to trust or love people you can’t control.

An example of a child’s reaction who had been left alone for too long, “‘I don’t want anybody near me. I’m dangerous. Keep away. ‘I’m three. I’m only little. But I’m dangerous. I will KILL YOU if you get near me. I’ll bite you or something.”

Controlling our urges is a necessary part of growing up, but if we do not also have times where we drop the control, we can become unhealthy.

There is a philosophy being promoted that you are fully in control of your life, and can get anything you set your heart on. While there is some truth in that, but it is also as unbalanced as saying that to have full control is the way to be. Letting go of control is equally necessary. There is a middle way. We certainly cannot control the Universe, but we can learn to work in greater harmony with the forces of nature and intelligences we are interwoven with. For example you have no control of your digestive process, the process that pushes you through the ageing process as you pass through childhood, adolescence, and into mature years and on to old age.

Carl Jung says that, “An ability to control one’s emotions that may be very desirable from one point of view would be a questionable accomplishment from another, for it would deprive social intercourse of variety, colour, and warmth.”

Example: I witnessed a conversation between a man and a woman, and the man says, “Religion; that’s surely a direction for failures and people who can’t really cope with facing reality.”

 

And the woman he is accusing of this inability to face reality says, “You poor person! Is your mind or awareness so tiny that you have never realised the forces and processes of your own body are beyond anything you understand? Can’t you see that your very existence is brought about by things so far beyond your knowledge that it is only a statement of your impoverishment to suggest religion is an expression of some sort of smallness and failure. Have you never understood that? Have you not seen that religion is not only an acknowledgement of what we fail to understand and yet depend upon, but it is also an opening to it, a willingness to relate to it? It can also be something far more even than that. It is can be an active loving relationship. And such love is an exchange, a sharing, a way of merging one with another. It is an exchange – a sharing of bodily fluids – the very substance of life. Is that something you are afraid of?”

Controlling objects: A dam is an obvious symbol of control, as are handcuffs, chains or a rope. A prison, authority figure, police person, steering wheel, and lock or key. These are just a few things to give you an idea of what to look for.

Emotional control: In many dreams, and in life, we are often so connected with another person emotionally, so deep in dependence or fears, that in a real way many of our responses are controlled by the person we are dependent upon. See Ages of Love

Threats of violence are another way we might attempt to control of be controlled.

Example: With M, sleeping on a construction site near a sidewalk, like street people. She wakes me up in the middle of the night chanting some voodoo curses. It is very frightening to me. I think she plans to kill me. As I am  trying to get control of her – trying to reason with her – she tells me all the bad things I have done to her in the past, to women. PGW.

Personal Control: While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream 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. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will. As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Edgar Cayce and the Cosmic Mind; ESP in Dreams.

So, we have another powerful will that moves us. 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 or we are restricted by being tied down.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.

Vehicle control: Many dreams about control involve driving or being in a car or public transport. In general the control or lack of it are about being able to stop or navigate easily. They indicate you life skills in dealing with people, social situations and opportunities; or more importantly beingin control of your own urges such as anger or sex. Being in control of your life does not mean being uptight and scared of letting go, it means you can express in any way that is suitable – control/letting go of control.

Some such dreams are also about sexual relationships and how much control you have. This statement from a dream illustrates this perfectly. “I’m out of control and I can only hope that as I merge into oncoming traffic, I don’t hit anybody. I do manage by luck, not skill, to merge successfully. BS” See: car.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am trying to control or is out of control, and what can I gather from that?

Am I controlled or controlling in this dream, ad can I see evidence of that in my life?

How do I, or can I, deal with this, and is there any suggestion in my dream?

See Opening to Life – Arm Circling Meditation – Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga

Convent

This might suggest introspection, or some measure of retirement or withdrawal from external activities. It is important to see if such withdrawal arises from anxiety or decisiveness. The convent may of course relate to your past experience and feelings connected with it, or your religious beliefs. But convents link with the feminine principle in you, especially the receptive female principle opened to the highest in you.

The convent can depict a particular state of mind, an empty or virginal receptive condition in which a wider life than that of your own personality can express or be known. See: virgin birth; Church.

So in this sense the convent can be an area in which you explore or define your relationship with your wider possibilities or potential.

Entering a convent can suggest either that you seek deeper acquaintance with the wider life mentioned above, or that you want respite from everyday life and its demands. For a man entering a convent it suggests he is gaining a fuller awareness of his female receptivity as it is opening to the wider possibilities within – or that he seeks non-sexual relationships.

If you were educated in a convent it could have very different meanings. You may have been trained to impose restrictions on yourself that put you at odds with your natural feelings and intuitions. A woman brought up in a convent describes this influence as follows.

Example:  It complicates things because it means that I have had to seek outside indicators to guide my choices in life instead of being guided by what feels right to me. As a child I got the message that what made me feel good was bad, and what I felt excited about tended to be forbidden. The confusion comes from being brought up in a convent.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is there a sense of discovering something deeper or fuller, or  a sense of restriction and confusion in the dream?

Am I seeking to discover the wider awareness and opening to Life?

Am I looking for quietness and time to be myself at the moment?

See Religion and Dreams – Identity and Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Convict

This may be depicting anti-social urges, or feelings of being trapped, perhaps by your own undirected emotions and reactions to events. It may also show how you are holding back some of your own feelings and urges. See: Prison prisoner.

Being an observer in a prison is probably about being aware of parts of your nature that have been repressed or constrained in some way. But there is also the element of social judgement here, perhaps suggesting that your own or other people’s judgements have led to the controlling or denial of things you would otherwise feel free to express. This situation might include strong desire to be free, or resentment about what has ‘imprisoned’ you.

The things that imprison us in life might be old behaviours unconsciously learned from parents or imprinted by events. These might be things like a rigid moral code; terrible feelings of inadequacy or lack of confidence; guilt or feelings of worthlessness or pointlessness. Seek in your dreams for ways of being free from such restraints.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I feel I have restrained, or is being held back?

Dows my dream suggest what it is in terms of my needs or feelings that has been controlled?

Is the dream suggesting any way freedom can be arrived at?

See Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

See: Prison.

Cook Cooking

The cook might be illustrating practical life skills to make your life experience palatable, such as the means of dealing with life. Or caring for yourself, in the sense of adjusting life situations. This might also link with motherhood or responsibility – of feeding ones family. It can also portray reproduction.

The active and practical side of our nature that can transform inedible aspects of a relationship or situation into something that satisfies us; the sense of responsibility that ‘feeds the family’; female reproductive ability – puts one thing in the oven – sperm and ovum – and out comes something else – baby; need for, or ability to nourish oneself and provide for physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs.#

Cooking: As in the example, ways we transform ‘inedible’ or ‘unpalatable’ aspects of our life. This also might suggest you are working with ideas, possibilities, to create something, a project perhaps, that will satisfy you in some way.

Cooking is also about nourishing oneself by your own efforts. It links with satisfying a hunger, creativity, your ability to make something new out of the varied opportunities or experiences you have.

If you are cooking for others it shows you giving of yourself, but particularly giving something that you have put together, created, realised or learned to manifest in your life.

If you are being cooked for, then it shows you absorbing and being nourished by what someone else is providing you, or giving you in a relationship.

In some dreams cooking reflects how you feel about yourself in a relationship or in life. Do you do well or is it a burnt mess? Such dreams might reflect how people important to you criticise you, leaving you with a sense of failure.

Example: My eldest son looks at the sweet – a soufflé  which has wine in and is really special. He says he is not eating that – in such a tone of disgust and goes away. I burst into tears and look at it all, such a failure. I wake crying so much it’s quite a while before I can stop. MCM.

If your cooking is good but not appreciated it suggests you give the best of yourself but do not feel appreciated.

Example: ‘I saw piles of French loaves. On picking one up I saw that although the crust was crisp, the inside was runny wet dough. I wondered if cooking would make them usable.’ Derek L.

If you are cooking for someone: This may show you giving some form of nourishment or yourself to someone. See: Oven.

Pots and pans: What enables you to prepare and change food to something that is attractive and edible – your cooking skill or otherwise.

Idioms: chief cook and bottle washer; Cook the books; cook someone’s goose; cook up; what’s cooking; too many cooks spoil the broth; cook your goose; cooking up new ideas.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am taking and transforming that will provide my needs or nourish me?

Am I here in a caring and giving role with others, or am I being provided for by someone – if so who?

Am I appreciated or appreciating in the dream?

See: food; kitchen under house and buildings; pot or pan; Techniques for Exploring your Dreams