Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’
Duck Ducks
Because a duck can fly and also dive under water it can represent both your ability to raise your awareness, to expand your mind and horizons, and also to look into what is hidden under the surface of life. And its ability to float and swim on the surface of water shows it can survive in the conscious mind. Of course for many people it can be associated with food. See: Cormorant.
Ducks can also be beautiful when flying, and are also hunted and shot, so it depends on the dream what they mean to you – are they a thing of beauty or vulnerable.
Ducks are also always followed by drakes, and can be about the way we may also wish to pair off. With babies they are wonderful and highly vulnerable – and even the tiny pieces of fluff leave small waves – suggesting the waves we all leave in living our life, whoever small and vulnerable we might be. See Associations Working With
‘Duck’ might also indicate that you are ducking to avoid something as in the second example.
They are often vulnerable birds because they are hunted, as the following dream shows the duck part of us is vulnerable and needs help.
Example: In my dream last night I was cycling down a familiar lane and came across a white duck which had been injured by a car, it looked dead so I stopped and got off my bike and propped it against a gate but when I turned round the duck was standing and looking at me. It was strange because the way it came right up to me and looked directly at me. I seemed to know what this creature was thinking and it was asking me for help.
Example: Then there is some excitement and we duck down right before a shot is fired by a Secret Service agent standing in front of us. He fires at a man running behind us out of sight between two buildings. I watch the man fall, slowly lowered to the ground by two other SS agents, saying something as he dies.
Idioms: sitting duck; duck takes to water, dead duck; lame duck; duck out; duck soup; duck’s guts; ducks in a row (ducks in order); duck an issue.
Useful questions and hints:
Is the duck wild and free or is it a pet?
Does the duck look vulnerable to you – if so what do you feel vulnerable about?
Are you ducking to avoid something – if so what are you dodging or avoiding.
See Associations Working With – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – LifeStream
Dumb
Inability to express inner feelings.
Dung
Dust
Ideas, thoughts or ideas that can be lifted up by your inner nature. Or ideas without feeling, dried up. The accumulation of time, the passage of time since you last felt or realised what the dream portrays. Also physical life ends in dust as the last example shows. So dust can suggest the remains of what was once alive or active in your life. It is what is left of what has died or worn out till it is tiny and can be blown away.
Dust is often associated with dirt, the debris of how people live, and of not cleaning up ones mess. It can be something that obscures what is of real value – or covers up the past – so depicting feelings that stand in the way of our clear perceptions.
Clearing up the dust shows you making big changes in your life – changes that needed doing for a long time. Dust swirling up can suggest that you are unable to see or realise what is in front of you. Dust thick in a dream house can suggest age or even long lack of care.
In some dreams there is magic dust that can heal of make real changes.
Gold dust can have such an influence. It can represent all that you have realised or built into your life from deeds done or words read. Coloured dust depends on the colour, but it is about bringing a change of mood and power. See colours
Example: We take turns spending the night at a dust filled place underneath a stadium or at home. We do this because one place or the other is always being bombed. I am upset having to move back home when T. asks me (for tonight) as I have all my stuff under the stadium.
Example: “You are nothing but dust. I have called and called to you my dead father. I have begged and prayed, and receive nothing from you. And now I spit on you and kick you aside.” Then, to my amazement, there beneath where the bones had been shone a beautiful treasure. It was not a treasure of gold and gems, but what we so often attempt to represent with precious metals and jewels. It was the shimmering and holy presence of Life. The bones and dust had been covering up, hiding this radiance. When I picked up and held that treasure I knew that this was my true inheritance. I had buried it underneath what was dead and worthless in my life. I had taken the dead shells of what had been living to be a value. And I cried out because I had been duped. The religion of my land that had promised to lead me to the living spirit of things had presented only bones, only what was dead, only what was without life and power. The idolatry of the dead had led me into worshipping a false God.
Idioms: bite the dust; collecting dust; dust bunny; dust devil; gathering dust; see me for dust; when the dust settles. Useful questions and hints:
Is the dust a sign of age or obscuring things?
Is this all that is left of something – if so what?
Is my dream telling me I need to clear out the dust and cobwebs in my mind?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Inner World – Learning to Allow Yourself – Martial Art of the Mind
Dustbin
The The unwanted parts of your experience and memories. The things you want to get rid of in yourself; things you don’t like or are ashamed of. See: garbage.
Does the dream point in any way to health or the body; it may be about collecting toxins that need to be got rid of.
Often things that you have used but are no longer needed in your life – or the packaging that goes with ‘life’. In other words you might need company, but you have to feed them as well. Ask yourself whether you are collecting views or things that are of not use to you.
Occasionally there are things in the garbage that are really useful. Can you wort out what is useful from what you feel or think is rubbish?
Trash has been used in America to refer to people thought to be inferior – white trash.
Useful questions:
What part of my life or experience are no longer useful and need to be got rid of?
What is the dream telling me about the trash?
Are there things I am throwing away that are in fact valuable in a way I didn’t see?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Programmed – Compensation Theory
Dwarf
Unconscious forces, or the powers that work on your being to keep it functioning. See: dwarf poem.
A dwarf may also represent a part of the yourself that has been held back in development due to fear, pain or guilt. If you dream you are a dwarf it may express the feeling/fear you are small, insignificant, undeveloped.
A part of your personality left undeveloped or not integrated. For instance we may have musical ability which was suppressed by the need to bring up children, or a part of you malformed by painful childhood experience or lack of emotional nourishment. It may therefore be a link with your unconscious.
The story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs are an excellent example of its symbolic meaning. The dwarfs worked underground – the unconscious – bring up treasures. They are working well because of the caring love of a woman. If the dwarf or dwarfs are care for they will become valuable and help the dreamer to do well in the world and they will grow into adulthood and full stature.
So a dwarf often represent the potential or intuitive ability you have that has not been helped to realise itself. Because of the world the dwarf lives in, unable to be like other people, the dwarf is often a figure of deep understanding of the human condition and its tragedies.
Example: I had, or was, a deformed baby, having four eyes, and a somewhat distorted face. The eyes were operated on, two being removed. But the baby grew up a dwarf, very lonely, and shy. The dwarf and the normal me were one yet separated. He lived downstairs, and would often climb the stairs and stand outside my door hoping I would see him and befriended him. I, inside, vaguely felt his presence, but whenever I got near the door his shyness made him retreat downstairs.
The next thing was that a large male dwarf, and two female dwarfs came along the footpath. The two men (whom I now was) recognised they were deeply related to each other, and ran into each other’s arms with great love. As they held each other, they (I) felt that two incomplete parts have now found each other and would become whole.
The following are a series of dreams showing the development if one cares for ones dwarfed self.
1st dream: Then we heard footsteps upstairs, and knew it was the ghost. The eerie atmosphere increased and increased, and the footsteps could be heard coming down the steps of the stairs. We decided to go and have a look at the ghost, despite the fact we were somewhat scared. But when we looked up the stairs we saw it was a youngish woman who was dwarfed in stature, and very unhappy. This was why she haunted the place, and had materialised. I put my arm around her shoulder, and made her feel loved, and led her into the kitchen, where we talked to see if we could help her. The whole eeriness had disappeared.
2nd dream some months later: I was in the wings of a theatre, watching the acts, some sort of variety. As I sat watching, a dwarf woman who was one of a troupe, came and whispered to me and kissed me. I was overwhelmed with love, and tears ran down my face. I hoped she would see them to know how much I loved her.
3rd dream many years later: The woman dwarf had features that, even in the dream, reminded me of someone. On waking I realise it was the dwarf woman who played the ‘medium’ in the film Poltergeist. Once in the room with her I felt more strongly I had known her for many years. She told me she was going to look in her crystal ball to tell me what she could see for me. The room was quite dim. It was her bed-sitting room, and like the corridor, had an air of things going on difficult to see in the dimness.
Throughout this dream I had an erection, and at this point got much nearer to waking, and am aware of the erection and the warm sexual feelings filling my lower trunk and chest. I realise the woman has never been made love to, and I feel compassion and love for her. I pick her up and hold her lovingly. I do not have an awareness of penetrating her, but the charge of sexual feelings flows into her. She transforms into a beautiful female and I know she will always love me – be a haven of love. She has a sister or friend in the room, also a dwarf. She is more difficult to love but I manage it. She transforms into a more native woman.
My beautiful friend looks into the crystal. It is not a thing made of glass, but a great dimension of mind which appears to open in the room, hanging in the centre and is a portal to another dimension, about eight feet across. She tells me I am already touching something that is beginning to happen in the world. My life will become involved in it. I will play my part – by no means a key or leader, but one which I will gain great satisfaction and love from.
Useful questions and hints:
What is the dwarf doing in the dream?
Do I feel small in relation to others in a situation?
What of me has been held back by neglect or pain??
See Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Dying
See: Death.
Dynamite
Explosive emotions or a threatening, explosive, situation. See: Bomb.
Eagle
The eagle can represent several things, depending upon its context in your dream. It can point to the powerful, strong hunting instinct in business or in being a providing parent. It can depict protective strength; a male figure; relentlessness. Dominance or a male figure. It is certainly an uplifting power of feelings or ideas, a protective influence.
Because the eagle, like most hunting birds, has an extraordinary far reaching and inclusive vision, it can link with the ability of your own mind to at times expand far beyond the immediate sense impressions and concerns, to include years of life experience, and what you have learned when looked at as a whole. It can therefore represent spiritual vision. This is because the height of the bird and its steady gaze give it unusual perception and wide awareness. To touch such enormous wealth of experience is to be penetrated by the holy. Something so beyond the limitations of our own small personality enters us and leaves its imprint. See: Birds.
Sometimes it is seen as a threatening influence, if it is seen as connected with carrion. But if so it is you fears you are dealing with. Because it is a bird of prey it might appear as a threatening influence. Also this wider awareness may at times feel as if you are ‘carried away’. Being lifted into the unknown in this way can cause unwarranted fear. See The Life Will ; Dreams are Like a Computer Game
In some dreams it represents love, and its death or destruction can mean the death of love – as occurs in divorce. Cayce says that teenagers at a critical stage in life sometimes dream of an eagle pecking or tearing at their heart or thymus area. He says this represents the emotional entanglements that youngsters are subject to and incapable of understanding.
The Egyptian god Horus is a hawk or falcon, and was called the ‘all seeing eye’. This was because it represented the higher function of the unconscious to see all things.
Also the Hawk of Achill, or Seabhag, was one of the first animals to come into being according to Celtic mythos. He has an immense memory and is said to live a very long time. He represents knowledge and the search for it as seen in the poem The Hawk of Achill. He is an ancient bird, over 5,000 years old easily at the time it was written. He is also, as many birds are in mythology, a messenger between the realms. This means he can travel from this realm to that of the otherworlds of the myths he exists in. See Myths and Legends
Example: I was gazing at the sky and the stars, looking up to the sky. The stars were shiny and yellow gold similar to the colour of fire. There were a couple of stars similar to shooting stars but they almost looked like tiny pieces of fire display, like fireworks. It looked beautiful. Soon after the dream shifted to a computer screen and I was checking my emails. I was scrolling down the in box and then clicked on a message thinking ‘why didn’t I check this before?’ the message appeared with a picture of a huge bird and it looked like a Eagle (but the colour was white with a bluish/black outline) with its wings fully spread and moving as if the Eagle was flying; and there was a message underneath in tiny English letters which I read something similar to ‘ your life is going to transform’- I can’t remember the exact words but it was something similar to this and then I woke up. Could this be a message for the future /a prediction/ a omen?
Such beautiful dreams are a real indication of your potential and should be taken seriously. Of course dreams arise from a very deep part of your nature and are like seeds, and so need time to grow and open to the surface; so be patient and hopeful.
Idioms: Watch like a hawk; eagle eyed; like a mother hawk; watch me like a hawk;
Useful questions:
What do I know and feel about eagles?
How was the eagle portrayed in the dream?
Does this have something to do with keeping a ‘sharp eye’ out for something?
Is this about nobility, power and freedom?
Have I experienced an overview, or bird’s eye view of a situation?
See The Wider Life – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Ear
Dreaming of ears suggests awareness of subtle information, rumours or intuition. Because we do not have to see what we can hear, the dream ear can depict information we have gathered without seeing it or being aware of it – in other words intuition. That is, impressions of things that are not obvious. This particularly refers to the ears of animals. See Intuition – Using It
Ears also refer to your ability to know what is going on around you out of sight, but particularly your skill in listening to what others are telling you. This might be literally about what they are saying in words, but also about what they suggest by who they are and how they are.
Ears can also suggest private things whispered to you, as in the example. But they can also be an erotic area when kissed or nibbled.
Example: James Mason and I are in the back seat of a car. I’m like Lolita. He’s very sexually attracted to me and tells me to change my clothes. He kisses me and pinches my left nipple. I’m sexually excited. I say, “But people can see.” An older woman is standing outside the car. He insists. I put on a pretty, brief pleated skirt with see-through lace seams and a turquoise velour top. He leans back in the car and says in a whisper in my ear, “Take off your panties.” I feel sexually excited. I do so. I get out of the car, noticing I can see flashes of my legs through the lace. He is possessive and demanding and I love it.
A dream might also at times indicate ear infection, as the following example.
Example: I continually have a dream that I have an earache. The pain in my dream is excruciating, then I wake up and there is no earache. Any ideas? Could I be grinding my teeth to cause this problem. S.
When questioned S said she did have a slight problem with a tooth at the back of her jaw on the same side as the dream toothache. Such tooth problems can lead to ear infections. So they are worth taking notice of, and one should check out ones health in the area.
Ear rings: They can often refer to the quality or otherwise of your hearing/intuition.
Example: In my dream I found a pair of earrings on the floor, found one first and then spotted the other. I picked them up and had a good look at them.. they were shaped like strawberries and sparkled.. as if made of some kind of jewel. I popped them into a box labelled “lost & found” up on a shelf knowing they would be claimed.
The dreamer gave an interpretation – My own thoughts on this is something I had lost, connected to my own inner hearing, that which enabled me to listen to my own intuition/Spirit. Berries being that they nourish ourselves from within so I have once again found something that will nourish my being on a deep level. DD
Idioms: An ear for; all ears; bend your ear; blow it out your ear; can’t believe my ears; cauliflower ear; coming out of our ears; cute as a bugs ear; ear candy; ear to the ground; pin back my ears; in one ear and out the other; play it by ear; reach one’s ears; flea/bug in the ear; gain the ear of; ears burning; long ears; lend an ear; music to my ears; having an earful; hear from; up to my ears; will not hear of; hearing things; silk purse out of sow’s ears; up to my ears; wet behind the ears.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If I am failing to hear something, what does the dream suggest it is about?
What am I hearing and what can I gather from that?
If I am picking up intuitions of things ‘out of sight’ what do they tall me?
See Using Your Intuition – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Characters and People in Dreams
Earth
The earth is your body. It is all the things in nature that you take for granted, that enable you to exist. Just as the physical earth is made up of past events the trees and leaves, the plants and creatures that have lived and crumbled into the dust of the soil so the earth of your dream represents your past on which your present exists, and your future is built. Therefore, digging into it would uncover things you have buried there from your past; feelings that have lain buried. The earth is also your mother. It depicts the soil, the genetic material, and the background from which you have sprung. It is the womb of the past from which you have being born.
Are you growing things in the earth?
Anything growing from the earth in your dream shows something that has developed from the possibilities of your life, and who you are. From the point of view of dreams, everything you do think can feel is a creative act and things grow from them. Therefore, if you are planting something, then you are attempting to develop something you from your possibilities.
Are there things you are digging up from the earth?
If you are uncovering an object, or old bones, then you are probably becoming conscious of long buried memories and feelings from your past. If what you are taking from the earth is vegetables, or things to eat, these are the fruits of your past efforts, and suggest benefits arising in your life.
Is the earth muddy or dry?
If the earth is muddy and difficult to walk in, you are probably finding your present life hard to deal with. Negative emotions are bogging you down. But if the earth is dry and firm, then you are feeling of firm ground as far as relationships and creativity are concerned.
Are you under the earth?
The level of awareness prior to birth; the basis of consciousness out of which your personal self-awareness sprung. The unconscious processes of yourself, with its collective family influences, and racial memories.
In some way our exploration into humanness leads us to reach up against gravity until we break into cosmic identity. We leave the womb of the earth. We complete our birth cycle, like a caterpillar finishing its life, and the metamorphose into something else. We become free of gravity. Free of the body that gave us birth, and become a cosmic entity.
Being in a tunnel, cave, or mine, show you exploring what is usually beneath the surface of your mind and feelings. This is a journey into your unconscious. Remember the rules here are different to those in everyday life. Here you create your own environment, your own traps and freedom, out of your fears, hopes and love. See mine
This often represents the things you take for granted in life, like your body, the processes of life, your family or cultural background, the basics of belief upon which you stand. But earth also represents the past, the fallen leaves of your experience from which soil new structures of self are built.
Digging into the earth is digging into your history, and in its layers you find the story of the evolution of consciousness and life in matter or mother.
To come up out of the earth, or a grave, is to be born out of this mother’s womb, into new insights or period of your life.
Clods of earth: The stuff of life, of the past from which we grow and have our being. Clods can also represent the basic everyday thing we meet in life that are life lessons we learn from.
Soft earth or fields: Mother; the fundamental processes of life out of which you have your exist.
Off the ground: Losing connection with your roots of family or culture. Living in a state of mind that does not connect you with common reality. This may also be occasionally shown as being on a high building.
The things we take for granted which act as the supportive background to our life and activities, such as parental love, our own reality as a person, social order, the thousands of things which constitute ‘reality’ for us; the basic ‘taken for granted’ aspects of one’s nature. For instance language and culture are such. They give us the very basis for our personal and unique personality, yet we stand upon them just as the earth supports us.
The earth is your body. It is all the things in nature that you take for granted, that enable you to exist. Just as the physical earth is made up of past events – the trees and leaves, the plants and creatures that have lived and crumbled into the dust of the soil – so the earth of your dream represents your past on which your present exists, and your future is built. Therefore, digging into it would uncover things you have buried there from your past; feelings that have lain buried. The earth is also your mother. It depicts the soil, the genetic material, and the background from which you have sprung. It is the womb of the past from which you have being born.
The ‘ground we stand on’; attitudes and relationships we have taken for granted; everyday life; the past. The ground, like earth, holds in it all past experience, summarised as it is in culture and language. See Unconscious.
Example: In that darkness we were one as I had never been one before. For an age we remained, and then gradually arose, as I gave him the keys to new life. “All that was dead has become earth. It’s no longer sick or rotten, but bloody good earth. The new thing can grow in it now. It is been a hard winter, and it’s going to be a good summer. There is a good harvest coming.”
Idioms: Down to earth; go to earth; like nothing on earth; more things in heaven and earth; life on this earth; spirit of the Earth; under the earth.
Useful Questions and Hints:
In what way am I relating to the earth in the dream – digging – planting – walking on?
Is the dream suggesting something about my background or heritage – if so in what way?
Is it about the soil, the symbolic nutrients of my growth?
See planets – Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Life’s Little Secrets
Earthquake
Usually involves feeling of fear or insecurity. The loss of confidence in things that have always been stable or dependable in the past – this includes things such as a relationship, your personality structure, health, etc; so the breakdown of opinions, attitudes or relationships which seemed so dependable and you have taken for granted.
An earthquake, like a tsunami, are the result of deep natural processes taking place in the earth. But as human beings, most of us live as if we are somehow not a part of nature or the earth. Yet we are products of natural processes and our conscious self if a tiny little bit of consciousness largely cut off from its deeps.
These deeps are shown in dreams are often depict earthquakes, floods, huge waves and floods that take place in our own nature as creatures of the earth. They depict huge changes that are taking place within us, for each of us are immersed in a ‘river’ of constant change. If you think about it you have been carried, pushed, impelled by this current as you were moved through babyhood, childhood, teenage and adulthood, and there are more stages of growth beyond adulthood. And as we passed through these changes we died to our old self in order to change to the new. It is the current of Life. This current then carries us on through old age and through the gates of death. All the time we are faced by decisions, and each decision directs us on a different path, helping to create our future. And this is a force of growth and change.
So it may also show great inner change and growth that makes you feel uncertain of your ‘ground’. The growth from youth to puberty may be felt as an earthquake, as also maturity to middle or old age. Because earthquakes can destroy our house, a whole town, it can represent the attempt of our inner being to shake and destroy what we have built and hold onto as our reality. Often we have become so unmoving and solid in our thinking and beliefs that a dream earthquake is needed to destroy the old to allow a new or more flexible you to emerge. In such cases the dream indicate great changes in your life. See: Earth.
If you told me you had dreamt of an earthquake I would therefore want to ask you about your marriage or other domestic relationships and about your work situation. I would ask about any changes happening in your life – especially those caused by deep down tensions that are starting to release to bring in a new life for you.
Occasionally, but not often, you have a dream that warns you of a coming earthquake.
Example: At two in the morning on the night of the Los Angeles earthquake, Claire Douglas, a British born psychologist who now lives in Malibu, woke up having had a most alarming dream. ‘In the dream,’ she said, ‘I am outside when suddenly the earth starts to shake. It starts slipping away and I slide down this hill with a terrible sickening feeling, but I realise I can get to the side and get back up again.
‘I look up the hill and feel terribly worried that something worse is going to happen. What I see is a great bank of earth with a tree in it. Some of the earth around it has slid away, leaving a few roots exposed. but most of the roots are very firm and it’ll hold. I see the terrible damage, but I’m all right.
‘I wondered what the dream meant, especially when my cat Sophie crawled under the covers with me for the first time ever. Am I getting ill, I thought?
‘But at 4.30, when the real earthquake struck, it helped me so much. Even though these books – which I only just managed to clear up before you came – were being thrown all over the place and the crockery in the kitchen was being smashed, I thought this is not the end of the world. “The dream had come to show me I was going to survive. I haven’t the foggiest idea how it happens, but there are pre-visions.’
Example: The dream of a few days ago where I was putting posts in to start a new building wonderfully typifies this process going on in me . The building is set upon a moving surface, yet built in a way that can stand earthquakes. It doesn’t have to be built on a rock, because actually rocks get shifted around in an earthquake. So, it is built on moving base making it in a way that it can move and yet maintain its own structure. And that is how I see my life today, it needs to be built in the middle of such enormous change. We need a structure, but we need one that will shift with a change.
Example: Just after the four days of meditation I dreamt the following – I was standing or walking in a landscape that was uncultivated, rocky, and with many trees but not a forest or wood. The land sloped away to my right. As I looked to my right though I could see a great river of boulders and earth flowing downhill till it went out of sight behind me. I knew that great earth changes were going on, with earthquakes as part of them. The wide river of huge rocks was a part of these earth changes. I did not feel frightened, but I did feel it was necessary to keep watch on what was going on around one.
In exploring this dream I realised I am the landscape as ‘changes that are part of natural events’. I clarified that the ‘power’ was myself. I am life. I am the creator. I am what created my personality. I created the attitudes and structures of this personality that are now breaking up because they are not mobile enough. I can create other forms. I created this body and will break it down again like all forms. I am facing great personal change.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are the signs in my present situation of great coming changes?
Am I feeling signs of coming change or the shifting of dependable people or situations?
How can I prepare myself for change?
See – Life Changes – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Features on Site
East
The indefinable but felt source of your personal awareness. The mystery of birth and existence. Sometimes represents what you know unconsciously but have never made conscious.
The four major directions such as North, East, South and West have unconscious significance, but this must depend upon whether you grew up in the northern or southern hemisphere. What is said is for the northern hemisphere, reverse it for the southern hemisphere. There are polarities in your nature. Two obvious ones are your physical body, that gives the appearance of solidity and is obvious to others, and your thoughts, that are not visible or apparent to others.
Beginings starts in the east – from where the sun rises we begin a new dawn. Each day is a good new day with a fresh beginning, a new start. East is the direction of the physical body and newness including children and newborns. It is the time of change for all is a new beginning. New ideas and seeing the light. It represent change in all its ways. Also Spring is the season when all things begin to grow and awaken. Yellow is the path of Life, to begin the walk as a warrior, to shine in all that you do. The sun rising in the east empowers each of us. The energy to do and to begin the action of the mind and heart is there.
The East represents one polarity, that opposite to individual personal awareness. Every night in sleep you slip into a condition in which you lose personal awareness. Your sense of self is lost in what you call unconsciousness, but which is, if you enter it with some awareness – lucidity – a great ocean of consciousness, a universal mind in which you exist as a part of all life. Sometimes we bring back some insight, some wisdom from this ocean. We stand on the shore of it and understand something. This is the Wisdom of the East so to speak. So the East links with the mystery of life. It also connects with rebirth due to the Sun rising; resurrection from ignorance or darkness. It is the source of the teachings concerning your immortal self. See: Answer to Critics – Directions.
In symbolism it is what in the East is called the Crown Chakra – the symbol of realised personal potential, the redirected fundamental instinctive drives, leading to the opening of higher brain functions. For many Westerners, the East and its mysticism is a balancing influence to the often dry and sterilizing effect of Western intellectualism.
Example: I look to the east and I see a bridge, and a few industrial buildings with lights and smokestacks, and I feel relieved as I think I may find some people here. As I look towards the city a single skyscraper pops up straight out of the ground, fully formed. Then another building pops up, and another off in the distance. A whole gleaming, ultra modern skyline appears like Oz, all glistening and brand new, a complete cobalt city arose in the distance, shining through the deep purple night miles from where I stood by the river bank. I realize that this is a most amazing thing, and I see that this is now a time far, far in the future from the place of the beautiful cranes and the human rains, and even in the future compared to our present era.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What have I brought back from the ocean of sleep?
Do I have personal associations with the East?
What does my dream suggest about this?
See Reaction to the unconscious – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Eat Eating
Satisfying one’s needs or ‘hunger’. This can be any area of need, such as emotional, mental, sexual, depending on dream context. To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.
Occasionally a dream about eating shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies.
Eating is also taking something in you that needs to be digested. This is mostly about our life experiences, but can of course sometimes relate to food. See digest
If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family – ie we all evolved from single celled creature and gradually developed different bodies so we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we do it might be questionable.
It is a deep seated urge to eat, but often our dream self expresses it as a great hunger for life experience – all manner of experience, not just the frothy ‘enjoying oneself’ sort. Instead of running or avoiding things, even scary things. take them into you. This is like eating; you take something in and it becomes you. This is because we project all things outside of us in dreams, and to some extent we lose the energy they would otherwise give us. So accept that every part of your dreams is an expression of some part of you. So taking it into you makes you stronger and more capable. See example under alligator.
Example: With great shock I look in the hole and see wasps eating my flesh away, so my hand is almost hollow. I awake with the feeling of being old and decrepit.
Here the dreamer’s emotions were eating away at his self confidence leading him to feelings of being near to the scrap heap, having outlived his usefulness. The dream had depicted these emotions and thoughts as wasps. This enabled him to see that if he entertained such feelings, they would certainly eat away his grasp of life.
Example: ‘I am putting four of our puppies under the grill and cooking them.’ Maureen. LBC.
Although Maureen hasn’t eaten her puppies yet, her dream illustrates how food is used to represent emotional needs. Maureen is childless, has a lot of mother love, planned the pregnancy of her bitch, and gets enormous satisfaction from rearing the puppies. She is literally hungry for the exchange of love and care she finds in dealing with her puppies.
Example: A male friend of mind had finally come back from his vacation and I was flirting with him and he turned me down. We were eating pancakes outside. I remember leaving the table and the pancakes no longer hungry. Then I came back wanting to eat the pancakes again. Then I got in my car and drove for a long period of time.
In the above dream the hunger is for a loving relationship, but when she is turned down she loses her hunger, but regains it and regains her drive.
Here is a completely different view of eating:
“I had prepared some food to eat later. When I ate it I experienced the most wonderful awareness of hunger and absorbing, not just the oats, nuts and seeds, but also the environment, and all that I had learned and taken in from Jacqueline. I mean by this the total environment, earth, air, water, culture, history, people. I felt like a hungry animal, cramming food in my mouth, loving it, and knowing I was feeding Life as well as myself.
I felt that if we have the courage, we are a firmament of experience. By exposing ourselves to experience, and allowing ourselves to really feel the pleasure, the torment, the passion of what we meet, we are feeding the essence of our being, Life itself.. But we are more than a mouth, we are also a way of gaining insight, of integrating experience, and that is the real food of for our essence.
I felt this is the real human work on the planet – consciousness, integrative sentience. This, I felt, is certainly my work, my function. It is to feel, to experience, to cry, to laugh and certainly to love. But in the midst of all that, to connect, to learn, to ask why or what, to gain insight and knowledge even if that is a struggle.
Life, places are situations where we can feed. Life says, “Take this in! Take this in! Experience, feel, ferment. Then show it to me. You are my digestive organ.”
Humans are the body of Life. So each of us has a fundamental function we can perform in the body of life. The brain, the nervous system, the mouth, the digestive organs, the muscles. But if you will not perform your function; if you are so shot full of being something just for your own ego or needs, then you forget you are part of this super organism – this massive body of Life. Then you have lost something wonderful. You have lost your place in the scheme of things. But if you will not feel your emotions, your fears, your passions; if you will not get mixed up in the dirt and splendour of life, then you are not really alive. You are not a part of the consciousness of Life”.
Occasionally: Shows information about actual nutritional needs or physical allergies. Also: To eat is to continue involvement in the fundamental processes of life, a celebration of interdependence. It is an expression of the desire to take in nourishment, whether physical, emotional or nourishment of the mind. Experience itself is a form of food because we take it in and digest it.
To not eat: Shows a conflict with the physical reality of one’s body and its needs; an avoidance of growth or change; an attempt to be isolated from others, reality, the whole.
Avoiding certain foods: Expression of decision making in dealing with needs; food allergy.
Fasting: Withdrawal or turning away from natural urges. Or learning a different relationship with the instinctive forces. Not taking in what society, the world is offering.
Giving food to others: Giving of oneself to others, or nurturing some aspect of oneself.
Eating objects or repulsive food: Meeting objectionable experiences; trying to ‘stomach’ things which make you ‘sick’.
Example: ‘I ran into a house and came face to face with a huge stag. I noted the open back door, whereupon he started eating my leg. I was pushing against his horns and managed to stop him chewing me.’ Jasmine C.
Being eaten: The first part of Jasmine’s dream, not quoted, is obviously sexual. Being eaten therefore suggests she is being consumed by her sexual drive. Being eaten, especially if it is the face, also shows how our identity, or her fragile sense of self, is feeling attacked by emotions or fears, other people, or internal drives. The classic story of Jonah illustrates this, and shows how the conscious personality needs to develop a working relationship with the unconscious.
Eaten by dogs or maggots: Feelings about death. See Individuation
Eating an animal: Integrating our natural wisdom and energy; absorbing strength from sources other than or conscious personality; sensual pleasure and nutrition.
Eating clothes: Trying to digest feeling about your social image – how you appear to others, or how you feel you appear to others. There is a big difference between the two. It might also suggest having a hard time enjoying your life situation or even your own self-image.
Idioms: Eaten away; eat dirt; eat humble pie; eat like a horse; eat one’s heart out; eat one’s words; eat out of one’s hand; eat out of house and home; what’s eating you?; proof of the pudding is in the eating; dog eat dog. See: food.
Useful questions:
What am I eating and what does the dream situation suggest about this?
Is this saying something about my needs?
Is there any hint of this indicating nutritional needs or allergies?
See Levels of Awareness – Levels of the Brain – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Echo
Inner response from outer action. This might suggest the effect of things you do in life, like reaping what you sow. It can also be a representation of things glimpsed in everyday life, the importance of which were missed, or impact overlooked.
It might in some dreams indicate a copy of something or that you are currently in a rut and could do with a change of routine or environment – like stuck record.
Example: There are so many reasons with which we explain how and why the beginning, but the underlying one is usually that unconsciously the realise whole areas of our being I had been brought to a condition of deadness or pain. Life in us through whatever means, ideas, feelings, longings, it can express, leads us to seek a aware of healing this deadness and agony can lead into. Life in us lies wounded, pleading, dead but alive. It’s cries echo up into consciousness and filter through the mass of ideas, or justifications, and hopes we have been buried alive under. Perhaps only slowly we begin to listen to the voice that calls for help. If we do, then a particular day stands out as the one on which we rolled away the stone which blocked the tomb we had buried our life in. That day, and experience on it will be different for each of us.
Example: Now memories swirl before the person like the sere leaves of autumn. The times of empty houses come back, the sound of slamming doors echoes down the halls of the mind, and a cold wind frets curtains of memory. He remembers the time he was lost in a railroad station, the nightmares of being sent to an orphanage, the nights he awoke screaming in strange darkened rooms and cried for a mother no longer there.
Example: “Never! Never! Never!” Shouted the woman who had sprned God’s love.
“Ever! Ever! Ever!” echoed God.
Useful questions and hints:
Am I echoing somebody else’s behaviour?
What is it I hear and can I understand it?
What is this an echo of?
See What is the main action in the dream? – Avoid Being Victims – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Ecstasy
Reflects a state of being completely in accord and harmony. There are no discords, conflicts, or divisions of self. This is different to elation, which may be experiencing one sphere of the emotions.