Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’
Dirt
A sense of what is unclean, or of being unclean in mind or body. We have to realise however that dirt is only misplaced earth, which can form the material for growing vital things. See: Earth.
Actions or feelings that we feel are grubby or immoral. The unconscious has a natural morality based on its sense of connection with the universal principles of mating, birth, growth and death. Where our social or sexual life does not align with this or our own consciously accepted principles, we may dream of being dirty. But we also live within the moral pressure to conform to the morals and expectations of the people we share life with and the society we were raised or live in. So a sense of ‘dirtyness’ can be a reflection of that rather than any real transgression against ones own sense of rightness.
Or it can link with mental and emotional housekeeping you need to do – clear up the rubbish in your head or heart. Dirt can also suggest influences from the past, something still in our life that can be got rid of. So dirt or trash can depict past problems that have not yet been dealt with. See: Example under archetype of the beggar; corruption.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that is dirty and what does that suggest?
Is the dirt on my, and if so where – look up the part of the body?
Do I need to ‘clean up my act’ in some way?
Is the dirt life giving, or vital for growth in some way?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Mammal Brain – The power of Habits
Disappear Disappearance Disappearing
To forget, to lose sight of something. Or it may express a hope to be rid of that thing or person. Occasionally it can symbolise spiritual power and the magical world of the mind, where thoughts, feelings and memories constantly appear and disappear. In this case it suggests something that is manipulated or emerges from the unconscious.
Depicts the way our conscious self relates to the unconscious. Memories, emotions, abilities, or ideas suddenly appear in awareness, but can disappear just as rapidly, sometimes never to be seen again. See: vanish.
Being with a certain person or in a particular situation can bring about difficulties, problems, or positive feelings and creativity that disappear when you are not in that situation or with that person. So the dream might be showing you what attitudes or situations bring about inner changes. If you learn what ‘buttons’ people or environments press, you can work your own controls. See Avoid Being Victims
People often make things disappear by using a prayer or magic words, even holding a religious symbol. This is basically using one symbol to deny another. It is a way to change your feeling of confidence, and so changes the dream. Better to realise that all dream images are self created from what we have experienced; even the images of God and the devil are images we create. See – Dreams are a reflection of your inner world
Dr. Jung also realised that the strange and mysterious phenomenon of the death of God is a psychic fact of our time. In 1937 he wrote: “I know – and here I am expressing what countless other people know – that the present time is the time of God’s disappearance and death.” For years he had observed the Christian God-image fading in his patients’ dreams-that is, in the unconscious of modern men. The loss of that image is the loss of the supreme factor that gives life a meaning.
This is probably to do with a maturing process that as a first step is at war with the old conception of God, and from there finally meets God in him/her self. In a poem, a man who searches his unconscious ends by saying, “At last I see the face of God – it is my own face”.
Example: I know I have killed somebody and their body is walled up in the cellar. The strange thing is I haven’t a clue who this person is. The various dreams I have based on these circumstances all involve various people visiting my home and I am terrified the body will be discovered. In one of the dreams the police were actually investigating the disappearance of “the person” and went into the cellar. You can imagine how I was feeling. When I wake from this dream I always have the most terrible guilty feeling and it takes some time to remember it is a hang over from the dream.
Example: Another definite change is the disappearance of the very dark depressions which existed a year ago, causing desire to die. It seems so far away, yet it was only a year, when I wept because life felt so unbearable due to the dizziness in the head, lack of energy, and darkness in me. The death desire, the dizziness and darkness have gone.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that disappeared, and what does that associate with in my life?
If I disappeared do I wish to get away from a situation or relationship?
Is there something that was important that I have let slip away?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex – Martial Art of the Mind
Disinfectant
This has been used in dreams to represent the power of healing, of cleansing fear, or feelings of guilt and being dirty. It is sometimes linked with pain, or burning as a cleansing power. That is, the painful experiences of life have a healing power in themselves, due to the way in which they force attention to the cause of pain, and make us adjust, or let go of emotions, desires and attitudes that have caused trouble, but which we would never have let go of otherwise.
Disinfectant often appears in dreams where there is dirt or infection that creates feelings of concern.
Example: I was in my childhood house in London, about the age I am now. I wanted to go to the toilet badly and was walking from the kitchen to the back door where the toilet was. As I was nearing the toilet I could hold back no longer and shit started dropping down my legs. But as this happened I realised I had worms, and it was these worms dropping down my legs. I dashed into the garden to empty my bowels of these worms, squatting on the grass. As I did so I could see they were not tape worms but short ones like maggots. I was worried they would spread and multiply, and saw some crawl away into the grass. Then I was squatting over a drain hole in the grass and could see the worms/maggots dropping into the drain. I thought I could put disinfectant down the drain to kill them.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it that is being cleansed or healed in the dream?
Do I feel the need to release or cleanse difficult feelings at the moment?
Am I getting to the root of where the disinfectant needs to be used?
See – Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – – Inner World
Disc
See: Circle.
Dissection
Intellectual enquiry that lacks feeling and sympathy. But it can also show a deep self analysis that might be painful, a sort of tearing oneself apart to discover why or what is happening. This can happen in relationships where people tear themselves apart because of the pain they feel. They are attempting to either find the cause of the pain or trying to understand it.
The dissected body is frequently seen in myths and is particularly related to death and rebirth, to suffering and new beginnings.
Example: I was walking along a road and recognised a house. I had known a man who had lived there. He had killed his wife and I had disposed of her body. The body, cut and broken into many pieces, was buried in the front garden. I realised I felt guilty about my part in the murder, and had purposely pushed the memory of it out of my awareness to avoid feeling guilt and fear of the body being found.
Andrew, whose dream this was, when he explored it met feelings about how he had messed up the opportunities for love in his life through living out his hurts and angers with his wife. He had thereby killed the love between them and had tried to bury his awareness of this.
Example: I had a dream in which I was walking along on the flat roof of a university building, and in my right hand I was carrying the head of a man stripped of flesh, and in my left hand a bag containing the dissected body of that man. As I looked from the roof I saw a man draw up in a car park below and I threw the head to fall near him. He picked it up thinking it was plastic, but then dropped it in horror.
As I explored the dream I felt the depth of it. The man was myself. I had torn myself apart trying to deal with the constant pain. I had even put before other people the awful situation I was in, and they had pulled back.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is being dissected and what does that suggest is being enquired into or torn apart?
Am I being over logical about the way I am looking at myself or my situation?
Am I arriving at any understanding or insight through the dissection?
See Avoid Being Victims – – Life’s Little Secrets – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Ditch
Obstacles; things you might get caught or trapped in, therefore a hazard. A drainage or release for your feelings. A way of getting rid of something or someone – ‘ditching’. Feeling discarded or thrown away. So you cen be ditched, or ditch someone, or even ditch a car. They all mean an ending of something that was important to you.
Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of past events coming to light.
Jumping a ditch can mean – if you succeed – that you have the ability to overcome or cross barriers and to stretch himself.
Someone in a ditch can mean you are in a place of little hope, maybe because you have fallen through neglecting lifes lessons, maybe an addiction or through emotions. See Life’s Little Secrets – Avoid Being Victims
Irrigation ditches suggest ways you have worked on to direct you emotions and energy toward growth.
A ditch can sometimes be a hiding place when danger threatens, as in the example.
Example: A woman who was a radio researcher was offered the job of presenter. She was thrilled but dreamt she was in a road walking and planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting. She had to dive into a ditch to avoid being killed. When she explored the dream she realised she was afraid of facing the public directly, and this fear if left unconscious would have caused her to refuse the job. She accepted the fear and managed to press forward with the job.
Ditches sometimes hold things that have fallen or been washed into them, representing the results of pat events coming to light.
Example: I am searching/looking for a lost baby bird, I’m not sure why or where it came from. But I am searching for it in some long grass and along a ditch. I remember seeing a large truck(like a cube van) parked off the road a few hundred feet away. I never found the baby bird, I did see it a couple of times, but by the time I got to where I had seen it, it was gone. Jennifer
An interpretation given to Jennifer: Baby birds often link in some way with feelings about childhood, a child or a baby. The rest of the dream is about there being a suggestion of loss, or not finding something in connection with your own childhood, a child or a baby. The ditch might mean this has been ditched, cast away, lost. In some dreams it might even suggest attempting to have a baby. The truck brings in a suggestion of a commercial influence, but it seems quite inert. When this was pointed out to Jennifer she said, “My husband and I have been talking about starting to try and get pregnant, but he is out of work at the moment, so we’d rather wait until he finds another job. So it does make sense.”
Idioms: ditch him/her; last ditch.
Useful questions:
Is the ditch an obstacle or to drain water/my feelings?
Is there something I might fall into at the moment?
Is anything found in the ditch – is so what does it suggest?
See Martial Art of the Mind – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Characters and People in Dreams
Dive Diving
If you are not showing off or challenging yourself in your dream, then it is probably indicating that you are taking a chance, or entering something new and unknown, perhaps facing fears in doing so. Or trying to get away from something. The second example shows how we can learn confidence when learning to take chances.
Diving underwater: Delving into one’s mind or unconscious. Exploring the meaning of a dream, or an eventful meditation, might be depicted as swimming underwater in dreams. See: Swimming.
We can fly and dive in dreams, and this too is a way of developing confidence – mental and emotional confidence. If we do not have that confidence then we will feel fear or wake up. But you cannot be hurt or die in dreams. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams
Diving from a great height suggests a sudden descent, which you may not have much control over, but it is a chance to learn to fly or to control your descent. See Secrets of Power Dreaming
Example: Last week I dreamt a teenage (or early 20s) boy rushed down to a riverbank where he had discovered the skeletal remains of a young child. The clothes were still there. He wanted to solve the mystery of what happened to this child. He ushered an authoritative figure down there and told him of his plans to investigate. The key aspect of this investigation involved him diving into the river to get to the bottom of things. I watched as he relayed his plans. I had no idea how deep the river was. No idea where the bottom was.
Example: I was looking around the school, and came to a very large gymnasium. Near the end I stood was a diving board, about 20 feet off the ground. Girls were learning to dive off the board and land flat on their back on the floor. If they landed flat they didn’t hurt themselves – like falling while standing up.
Example: Tonight I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.
Useful questions and hints:
Was I watching or was I involved in the dive?
What emotions did I feel in the dream?
Did I lose control or did I gain it?
See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Associations Working With – Martial Art of the Mind
Divining Rod
Intuitive realisation. Or intuitive directions.
Divorce
This might be either that you are angry at your partner, or that you fear for the continuance of your marriage. It can also mean difficulty with your inner partner feelings/intellect. Occasionally this is a dream that looks ahead to the future, because one senses a parting of the ways.
Also fear of or hope for break up of marriage. Occasionally such dreams do define the problems in your relationship that will eventually lead to divorce.
A partner often depicts your male or female characteristics, and so the dream might show you cutting them out of the way you live your life. But it also shows the struggles we might go through with our feelings in an otherwise good relationship. So wherever possibly it is worth trying to repair the partnership. Remember that we have to MAKE love.
Example: A man dreamt he was holding divorce papers and saying ‘Next time I will marry someone more mature’. Some time later he dreamt he was in process of getting divorced and marrying an old flame. In yet another dream he was trying to telephone an old girlfriend but being impeded by his wife.
At the time of these dreams he was married and thought the marriage was happy and secure. He did not feel himself tempted to have an affair. However divorce did follow the series of dreams, and looking back from a remarriage he felt both he and his first wife were unsuited to each other, and should never have been together. His first wife also happily remarried. Taken from Dream Power by Ann Faraday.
Example: My dreams have the recurring image of water, which for me usually means the ultimate spiritual place. Around the time of my divorce, I tried my hardest to get to the ocean, but in a series of dreams that went on for months, all my efforts were thwarted: in one, a storm came up, and we had to turn back; in another, I got lost. In the last dream I had before I quit drinking, I was at the beach with a lot of strangers. To get onto this particular beach, you had to leave everything behind and go down to the water’s edge with nothing–not your towels or radios or coolers or even your suit. Once in the water, you could swim just as far as you wanted and you were completely unmonitored. ‘A’.
In A’s dreams the beach and sea depict the barriers to achieving a meeting with her own simplicity – herself without all the clothing and trappings of social life and anxieties.
Example: I am divorced from my husband. Before it became final I had this dream. I was running along a deserted beach towards my husband. As I ran I could see the tide was far out. When I reached my husband I put my arms around his waist. Instead of holding me close he dumped his arm around my shoulder and looked in the opposite direction.
One of the difficulties we face as humans is the difference between our emotions and our reasoning. At the time of the dream you probably knew in your head that the marriage was finished, but your heart still held a hope for togetherness.
The beach represents the urge to be together and intimate. It is at this point where your husband looks away that your heart realises there is a separation between you. In this way the dream opens your heart to feel the emotions of loss and the grieving for the lost relationship. So it helps heal the wound. The beach also depicts your ongoing life. The tide is out – showing a low ebb in your life – but it will come in again and bring new fortune. See – Learning to Love
Divorce single male dream: Difficulty with your feelings.
Divorce single female dream: Difficulty with social extroversion and intellect.
Divorce married male and female: Possible difficult feelings about present marriage. This doesn’t mean there is a real problem, so carefully watch future dreams.
Divorce woman going through divorce: A survey of the dreams of American women going through a divorce showed that those who best navigated the problems had dreams about the past, the present and the future. Those who dreamed only about the past were apt to be trapped in old feelings and unable to adapt as quickly.
Useful questions:
What difficulties are shown in the dream, and can I see them and deal with them?
Am I cutting off the expression of my male or female qualities?
Deep down do I hope for a separation from my partner, and if so do I need to own that feeling and its consequences?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Avoid Being Victims
Dizzy Giddy Vertigo
Losing your sense of balance, of relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.
This might indicate a feeling that you are bombarded by new impression or changes. The sense of balance in relationship with others, and the world. Fear of falling, sense of strain, or being on the edge of falling in love, out of love, or into inner consciousness.
The sense of strain causing us to feel dizzy in dreams is shown in the following example.
Example: It was at our coming convention (I am running for president of our organization). I could see the crowded convention room, dimmed with smoke. I had been furiously taking minutes (I’m secretary) and had got up to speak on a topic that concerned me–I don’t know what it was, but I was passionately sure they were all wrong–I got up to talk, feeling dizzy and tired, but made my point and went out for air, feeling utterly exhausted and beyond caring if the convention took my advice or not. One of the boys was outside–someone I’d met before–I was almost in hysterics by then and shaking–he took me in his arms and held me, then we sat down and I leaned on his shoulder and after awhile he kissed me gently. By then, feeling very tranquil.
Being unready to face a new experience can also cause dizzyness in dreams. A woman who dreamt of a dizzying flight on a spaceship describes it as, “The “very advanced spaceship” is my body/mind. The flight represents sex, and also on a larger level my whole life, creativity, etc. I don’t want to “go all the way” to the moon on the first flight, and they tell me I won’t, but then we do. This feels like the way I jumped into sex, intercourse, with no preparation, no years of slow making out or extended foreplay. In my recollection of the dream I am not clear whether it is on the space-ship (some part of myself) who is responsible for this decision. Similarly, in waking life, it was both of us who were responsible for it. The flight could be exciting and beautiful-the stars spin by the window-but it makes me dizzy and nauseous because I am not ready for it.
Dizzyness can also be about losing control or feeling control slipping away. At a very practical level it might be indicating that you have an ear infection, or that wax in your ears is interfering with your organs of balance.
But if it is a waking experience, it is best to try the Epley manoeuvre.
Useful questions:
Do I need to have my ears checked to see if wax or infection is leading to dizziness?
Am I feeling in a whirl of impressions and experiences?
Is the solid ground of my experience being disturbed?
Am I reacting to meeting unconscious material. See Reaction to unconscious
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Avoid Being Victims
Doctor
Our dependence upon authority figure for a sense of wholeness, or to deal with anxiety. The dream doctor can be the healing process within us – or the unconscious wisdom we have concerning our needs and well being. The doctor might give us advice for instance, or help us with anxiety about health.
The doctor can be a figure you look to when feeling desire for intimacy or to be looked at and touched. Occasionally the figure of the doctor presages or is a supportive agent in the process of dying. There might also be fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure involved in the dream.
In some dreams the doctor appears to represent intellectual curiosity or rational thought, but perhaps with an open mind.
Seeing a doctor can also suggest fear of illness or of being hurt/damaged by an operation or medical procedure.
Dreams of collapse and destruction are more prevalent before a woman’s menstrual periods. Just before menstrual bleeding the endometrium is thicker and its surface more spongy or “wrinkled” before it sloughs off and menstrual bleeding starts. At this time several women report dreams where they need to iron wrinkled clothing. One woman reported, “I was in the bathroom ironing.”
Women with negative attitudes toward their menstruation (“the curse,” “falling off the roof,” “on the rag”) showed 15 percent of their dreams during the first two days had concerns about their body health. While those with positive feelings toward menstruation (“my secret friend,” “my monthly visitor,” “Mother Nature calling”) had less than 2 percent of dreams showing concerns.
Example: When I was working hard renovating a great big dance hall to turn it into our house, I developed a pain in my right arm so bad I went to the doctor. He told me I had tennis elbow and it could never be cured. He added that I should avoid exertion.
I thought what a load of b*******s he was saying. I know my body has the ability to heal itself, but I didn’t know how. As I was working to renovate our house and it was difficult, and the pain had continued for six months without any change, so I surrendered to the process of Life active in me and I asked what I could do. The answer was quite detailed. Holding in mind the pain in the arm I waited for the responses to arise from within. Soon, spontaneous fantasies and ideas bubbled into awareness, almost as if someone were explaining the situation to me. I was led to understand that during the past year I had not only been working hard physically to renovate the building, but because of divorce, family conflict within my new relationship, plus the change of home, I had experienced much stress and anger. During my sawing, plastering and hammering, I had discharged much of this anger and stress. As with any hard work, the cells in my right arm had broken down, but the anger and tension had prevented the cells from regenerating adequately.
As this insight emerged I could see what a shrewd summary of my recent unconscious attitudes it was. The emerging explanation went on to say that each cell is a tiny individual life, and in the body, they each take on a particular task. Some live as workers in the muscles; some are thinking beings in the brain, and some act as transformers, as in the liver. Each cell depends upon the others to co-operatively share food, oxygen and pleasure. The cells in my arm didn’t mind the hard work, but they also needed to share the pleasures of eating, music and love making. I had been unconsciously deluging them with anger and tension, and denying them laughter and relaxation.
So when I ate I would consciously allow the pleasure I felt in my mouth to be felt by the rest of my body, particularly the right arm. When I made love, I attempted to relax and let my whole body feel the pleasure, not keep it in the genitals. I frequently concentrated on my right arm, relaxing it and allowing pleasure felt elsewhere to flow to it. Within a week it was completely free of the pain, and the problem has never returned.
Example: While visiting Amsterdam in the summer of 1966, my husband and I returned to our hotel rather early one afternoon because he had suddenly become very ill. No specific symptoms appeared and he lay down. He soon fell asleep and dreamed that he was visited by the best doctor in the world, who told him to take a massive dose of Phillips milk of magnesia.
He awakened and ordered a taxi to drive me to the nearest apothecary. I went to five before I found a shop which had one dusty bottle of Phillips milk of magnesia. He took a massive dose and by the next morning he had completely recovered.
Idioms: Doctor something; have an animal doctored; doctor the accounts; doctor in the house.
Useful questions and hints:
Do I suffer from worries about my health, and does this dream reflect them?
What is happening in my relationship with the doctor?
Am I in a healing situation, and if so in what way?
See Life’s Little Secrets – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Document
Usually an important idea, or important information about yourself.
It can also a symbol of your right to continue or to enter into a new phase of your life – such a passport or ticket is. Or it can be a proof or sign of your identity such a birth certificate.
Documents can be evidence in a claim or in a trial of your worthiness, or even to give power – as in power of attorney. Also a chance of inheritance.
Example: At one point I confronted a tree stump which spoke. It had a large lower lip of bark which could protrude. I gave it something to eat which it spat out. It said it wanted something ‘connective’ I believe. I dropped some knitting wool in its mouth. This satisfied it. It had a huge amount of wool in its mouth, and I was concerned whether it could chew the stuff. Then the tree wrote out my report. The document was very grand and it was written out with an air of great solemnity and legality. I had passed the test, but not with very high marks – maybe because I put the wrong stuff in its mouth first.
Whether written by yourself or someone else, this is usually about an important idea, or important information regarding you or what you are doing. While asleep we have access to a much greater range of memories and connective links with information than while awake, and so can be more creative in what we realise or what we call out of our inner world.
If the document is old it is probably expressing intuitions you have about what you have inherited from the past.
Useful questions and hints:
What impression do I have of what the document was about or what it contained?
Was this my document or did it connect with someone else – if so who?
Does this contain information about the past, about family or inheritance, and can I define what?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Plot of the Dream – Life Changes
Dog
The dog appears more often than any other animal in dreams. It depicts our natural drives that are well socialised, but still have the tendency to revert back to the spontaneous or ‘wild’ state quite easily. For instance our anger might usually be well under control, but if someone teases us we might surprise ourselves by the amount and strength of our anger, or our desire to cower and hide. But the dog is often a sign of enthusiasm, care or warning – as can be observed so often if we have a dog. See animal
Example: I had misinterpreted the meaning of Tramp my dog, who I felt was my inner self. I now see that Tramp is my psychic self, the mixture of instinct, complexes, feelings and closeness to nature. Possibly my intuitive, habitual or instinctive response to events. He is my companion on walks, to run faster, react quicker, smell better, fight more savagely, and face hardship.
Similarly our sexuality may be usually expressed in a socially acceptable way, but if we are in a situation where our sexual pleasure is stimulated or allowed easy expression we might deeply shock other people and ourselves by what we do. It can also represent easy expression of such aspects of ourselves as aggression – maybe because dogs show their teeth easily – as well as their sexuality, especially male sexuality; also their easy expression of love. Also the parts of self we usually keep out of sight, but which may express spontaneously. The dog as an example of intuition is shown in the following dream.
Example: Was crawling through a tunnel underground. I was now in a dreary, dismal, drab Edwardian type room. My mother, father and my dog, Tramp, were also there. It was quite a big room. Tramp went up to the fireplace and put his paw up under the shelf as if pointing. I looked and saw he was indicating a crevice under the shelf. I felt there and found papers in there, but also that there might be fingers in there touching mine. I said this to my father, but he did not reply. The hole was getting bigger all the time, and the room darker.
The dogs can represent this feeling energy, this natural life response to events and ones situation, our easy flowing natural feelings such as devotion, perhaps to a lover or child. The dog is yourself if, the natural you if you let your emotions off the lead. So it can be your uninhibited love or anger, your open sexuality, or even your honest needs.
For some people a dog was the only source of expressive love in their childhood, so may well depict this; fidelity and faithfulness, as the sheep-dog it is also the guardian of our welfare. Like the cat, the dog can be a substitute baby for childless women, or represent affection or caring.Occasionally we depict a person, or what we feel about a person through the character of a dog. See: cat.
Example: Actually seeing a dog in my dream I find not the dumb animal that humans patronizingly assume to be there, but a creature of remarkable complexity and deep emotions, capable of various levels of behavior, of guilt and loyalty, or shame, of identification with people—a creature so like themselves that other distinctions seem negligible. It broke down my assumptions of superiority. It sent me spinning back to the sense of kinship with animals that primitive men, in their rituals and folk myths, so clearly revealed. I found myself becoming snakes, tigers, bears, rabbits with such ease and pleasure that there would seem to be a veritable menagerie in the back of my mind. Moreover, the conviction of animal identity, once accepted, is terribly convincing. Having accepted the limited truth of my animal kinship, I am loath to see the broader areas in which such a communion is untrue. See Animals in your Brain – Temple of the Animals
Example: The role then came to life and spontaneously I as Vince the dog went to Alan and stood up on my hind legs with my paws on his chest, looking into his eyes. I wanted to communicate something to him.
The communication was so strong that I as Alan felt it and will describe it. Vincent reminded me of the many things we had shared in life. As this happened I felt such love – the love I really had felt for that beautiful dog. As I felt this Vincent and I became one being. I remember carrying him in my arms when he was young because, as a runt he was so nervous that at times he couldn’t even walk. I remember going everywhere with him as I walked London. I also knew that Vincent represented for me the ability to see into the invisible worlds – psychic sight and sensing. He had demonstrated it to me at least twice.
As all these memories poured through me I felt deep emotions pouring up and started crying. Crying because Vincent was helping me be aware of things I had not put together before. Lately I have been trying to extend personal awareness again, into lucidity and into the world. The emotions I was feeling were due to a realisation, and as this happened I knew what the previous dream of Vincent meant. I understood because various bits of memory came together to form a whole.
In mythology the dog has symbolised the guardian of the gates of death, or a messenger between the hidden and the visible world. The dog was also thought of as a guide or guardian of the hidden side of life entered in sleep and death. The following example illustrates how love can survive death.
Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!
Dogs can be a wonderful intuitive friend, even life saver. This is because it has been proved that dogs often know when their owner is ill or about to have an attack. But dogs are also very psychic. See Talking with Dead also Cats and dogs know
Example: In a dream, my dog, Gus, told me he had worms and needed to go to the doctor. We went the next morning. Dr. Dennis Umlang looked at Gus, a picture of health, then asked why the visit. I – told him Gus needed to be checked for worms. “Have you seen any evidence of worms?”, he asked. “No.” I answered, “but I still want him checked.” The testing showed negative. I told Dr. Umlang the dream and asked that they try again. That’s when he told me of the heartworm test which is costly but the only way to detect their presence. “Do it,” I said. The test was positive! Ordinarily there is no real warning of heartworms. By the time symptoms appear it is often too late and treatment is dangerous due to the animal’s weakened condition. Because of early detection, Gus survived the treatment with no damage to vital organs.
Barking dog: A warning or a sign of protection. Warning that something or someone is there who is not a friend – or that you should not approach whatever is shown in the dream.
Black dog: The black dog figures in quite a lot of people’s imagery. Bernard Levin uses it to represent depression. For some people it brings feeling about death. The sense or meaning the dog gives in relationship to depression or death in dreams is that it is a living energy in us that has gone ‘bad’ and thus causes the depression or death. Such depression is usually the result of past painful experiences that are like lumps blocking free flowing positive life energy.
The black dog also show you urges which are largely unconscious, or it is a messenger related to what is unconscious in you. So the black dog can indicate sexual feelings that you are not proud of, or any natural feelings, even feelings of love that you hold back.
Dog attacking: Either being attacked by someone and so representing their anger or snide criticism – or your own anger or aggression. See: What Does my Dream Animal Mean
– Animal phobias at the end of the animal entry.
Dog on lead attacking: If you are holding the lead – restraint of your aggression toward someone. If someone else is holding the lead – feeling attacked by someone. As in Cornelia’s dream in the example below, there may be a sexual connection.
Dog on lead: Restrained or controlled urges; urges we have trained or directed; holding back or restraining or directing parts of oneself.
Puppy: Youth, heedlessness, spontaneous affection and enthusiasm. It often represent a child, or feelings about wanting a child, being pregnant with a child, even one of your own children. Also vulnerability or dependent needs. Like any young animal, it can depict your need to care for or love something, or be loved. What happens to the puppy, if neglected or mistreated, most likely indicates memories of pain from your own childhood, or neglect of vulnerable parts of yourself. See: Baby animal in animal situations; Neglected animal in animal situations.
Woman’s dream – attacked by dog: Could well be feelings about male sexuality or a relationship with a male. Possibly the dreamer is holding back her own female strength and cannot meet the male strength.
Example: ‘I continue on my path, and suddenly the nettles disappear and the path is clear. Ahead the wall has curved round to face me, but there is a gate in it, and I can see my dog waiting for me on the other side.’ Mrs M. G.
In the dream from an elderly woman the dog is leading the way through the experience of meeting death. Mythology has often shown the dog in this light, as an inner sense of knowing how to find transformation through death – or as the ravaging threat of death.
Example: I was with a female friend who is a lesbian. Two dogs attacked us. My friend ran away but I couldn’t. Cornelius.
On exploring her dream Cornelius discovered feelings about her own womanhood and relationship with males. She realised the dogs represented her relationship with male sexuality, and that her friend was afraid of males.
Example: I was aware of the danger of two, or maybe one young child. They had been allowed to carry a small animal which acted as a scent lead for large tracker dogs that were hunting and would attack and kill whatever they were tracking. I found one of the boys trying to hide under a pot or a basin in the spare ground behind the house I lived in London. I pulled him out from his attempts to hide. He had no idea of his danger. Two of the dogs – perfectly harmless and friendly when not hunting, were coming close to me and trying to lick me. They had huge mouths. I got very angry with one man, a farmer type, who I thought had been careless in the way he was urging the dogs to hunt. I swore at him in public, calling him something like a ‘fucking idiot’. There was a large public gathering and I wondered what the public would think of me swearing. D.G.
There is an obvious reference in this dream to the unconscious urges some people have to hunt and hound others. The dogs especially depict this unleashed aspect of human nature, harmless when not set into motion. It also shows how such actions by others threaten the child in us, or the areas of personal vulnerability.
Example: I come out of my house. Across the street is a nursery. (this is actually true, there is a nursery across the street and the street is well used and busy) I looked up to see my yellow male Labrador dog named Odo. (He is a dog I have now) He was sitting in a truck on the passenger side. He looked like he was smiling. I thought, “What in the world is Odo doing in that truck?” At first I thought he was driving the truck, but then realised that he wasn’t, an ancient old man was. And the truck was weaving from one side of the street to the other. I yelled for Odo to come back and he jumped out of the truck. How I don’t know. But he did. He came running toward me, but there was a chain-linked fence between us. The fence ended at the street, but Odo was attempting to climb over the fence instead of going around it. I shook my head and said to myself that he was going to hurt himself. Sort of laughed, too. Then I woke up. I remembered thinking the day before that I was comparing my husband, A, to Odo. And thinking if I could just accept the silly things he does as well as I do with my dog, our relationship would be so much easier. K.
In this dream K. is probably right that she is using her dog to consider her relationship with her husband. She may even be using the dog as an image of her husband and his character.
Idioms: See a man about a dog; hair off the dog that bit you; call off the dogs; you can’t teach an old dog new tricks; raining cats and dogs; dirty dog; as sick as a dog; dog eat dog; dog in the manger; dog tired; dog’s life; gone to the dogs; let sleeping dogs lie; lucky dog; tail wagging the dog; top dog; die like a dog; dirty dog; gay dog; go to the dogs; hair of the dog; sick as a dog; lucky dog; raining cats and dogs; see a man about a dog; teach an old dog new tricks; tail wagging the dog; thrown to the dogs; etc.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is my dream dog represent someone I know or my own spontaneous feelings?
Is there any indication of relating to this dog as a child or a love object?
What feelings is the dog expressing?
Is the dog helping me meet or understand death or the unconscious?
If so what am I learning?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga
Doll
This frequently represents yourself when you were a baby, or at least, your feelings when young.
Many dreams including a doll show it being savagely beaten or injured. In this case it could show you how hurt you felt in your own childhood, or perhaps it means you are angry and need a target that will not hit back. Occasionally, in a woman’s dream it could mean you want to be cared for like a precious doll.
Many ‘doll’ dreams are, as the example, using the doll as a target for violence. This may refer to how the dreamer felt as a child when smacked or attacked emotionally – like a helpless doll.
It could also be a means of displacement for anger or feelings the dreamer would like to discharge on another. See also: toy; cuddly toy.
Example: ‘She continues to attack him and to my horror and feeling of helplessness, his head comes off. But the neck is made of some sort of material with a string hanging off it, and I realise it is a doll’s head.’ Mr R. H.
Many dolls are used to express a desire to have a baby.
Dolls can also express the way we feel about the past, or represent different people – Mum and Dad, brother or sister. We use them to act out or experience things we might not be able to do in daily life. Using a doll in the dream frees us from any guilt we might feel if we really expressed our real feelings.
Example: And then last night, I dreamt that I had really long hair, which I have had, but now it is shoulder length; and then I went to put it in a braid because it was all in the way, and easily tangled. Instead I cut it all off, unevenly… I looked like a bald Barbie doll, varying lengths of pieces sticking every which way, and a shiny bald spot on the front. But I wasn’t upset, just a bit confused why I cut it off, because I liked it long.
In the above dream the person had recently gone through a massive transformation and the dream shows her uncertainty of how she sees or feels about herself.
Sometime a desire to return to wonderful days of childhood or a part of you that needs to be brought to life.
Example: In answer to this rather truculent question the patient flared up. “You fool, how do you think I can give it to myself? Can I go back and make my parents rich? Can I take back the doll my sister stole; can I go to school without those awful holes in my dresses—ashamed, ashamed of everything I had and was? Oh, God, oh, God, it’s frozen in time, like a fly buried in amber, and nothing can ever change it. As long as I live that little girl will go on wearing her coat to hide her dresses. As long as I live that hateful woman will always be turning away, cold and disapproving. Nothing can save that girl, nothing!”—and now she ‘was sobbing quietly for the past she could not change.
The rupture between the patient’s ideal of herself and the facts that shattered it was eventually healed, but her dilemma points up a fact that all of us face. Reality can seldom be bent to our dreams for ourselves, either the reasonable ones or the unreasonable ones that could never possibly be achieved. Our hopes are too big for it. Every life bears its residue of unfulfilled dreams, and every parent looks to his children to satisfy them. See Opening to Life
Example: I noticed a large rag doll on the floor. I seemed to know the doll belonged to Joan, and was unconsciously used as a substitute for her deep longing for a son. I held out my hand to the doll, with love, and it came alive and crawled to me. It came to me as a lonely child might come into ones arms hungering for love. I held it close to me, and Joan came over and I held her too. Then all barriers seemed to melt, and everything disappeared from view. All that existed was I as a united being and consciousness. It was, I think, beautiful. I used the word think, because I find it difficult to describe the experience. We melted into each other beyond the sense of being separated by the surface of ones skin If one literally entered during sexual intercourse, and melted together like drops of water uniting, this is how it would be.
Useful questions and hints:
In my dream what feelings are there connected with the doll?
In what way is the doll being handled or used.
What does the condition of the doll express?
See Every 7 Years You Change – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex
Dolphin Porpoise
Because dolphins are wild creatures of the sea that actively develop a relationship with humans, they are often taken to represent the contact and relationship we have with the deeply unconscious natural forces within. Such dreams suggest life is not simply operating blindly, but reaches out to us if we reach out to it; powerful unconscious energies in us; conscious awareness of one’s link with all life; contact with the one life within all things. See: Fish.
The dolphin can also indicate powerful inner energies, or conscious awareness of your link with all life and contact with the one life within all things. In some dreams a dolphin can be alink for you with your core self, your spirit, and so it may communicate or teach you.
Example: About a month ago I decided to terminate a relationship which had lasted more than twenty years. Two nights after making this decision my body took over at night and started rocking, banging, pushing, the back arching. These alternated with rest and floods of soothing energy pulsating through my whole system. In the morning my back felt totally open and vulnerable. Soon after this event I had this dream – I was swimming in a broad river of clear, warm water full of life energy. It was deep and the river had rock cliffs rising either side of it, 40 meters high. Above that I could see the green of some trees in the sunlight. Further up stream the walls of rock joined and formed a tunnel.
I was swimming on my back when suddenly I saw a huge fish. It was about 4 meters long, coming out of a cave towards me. I panicked. Then I thought it might be harmless and went on swimming quietly. It was a dolphin, and very gently it swam behind my back and covered it, hugging me from behind. I lay absolutely quiet embraced by the powerful and gentle energy of this being. Energy was pouring into my back. Finally I reached round and touched the fin of the dolphin. It was like thick velvet. Rhea.
Useful questions and hints:
What do I feel in connection with the dolphin?
What is emerging from with and influencing me?
Am I aware of knowing my connection with the one life?
Does the dolphin communicate anything to me?
See Inner World – Associations Working With – Life’s Little Secrets
Donkey
As with the animal: The hard working and long suffering processes of the body, such as the automatic or instinctive processes. The ass or donkey may also represent your body as a beast of burden, or that you are living as if you are only a dumb working animal.
If the ass or donkey is being ridden by or pulling someone else: You may be feeling you are doing all the hard work in a relationship, or working like a beast of burden.
Riding a donkey or ass or donkey: This may represent humility or feeling in a lowly position. But this may also simply relate to your relationship with your body’s needs and responses. For ass as part of the body, See: Anus.
See: Ass.