Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’
Eden
Sometimes one has a feeling of being in the Garden of Eden, and this shows you have touched a sense of yourself beyond the limitations of thinking and time. It is the you that exists in connection with the rest of creation, and has always existed without effort. Often refers to life in the womb, or your infant state of awareness prior to learning how to speak. Can also depict purity, simplicity, or happiness. See Adam and Eve
If you think about the Bible story I think it is clearly about a tremendous change of awareness in human development or evolution. We existed in complete harmony with the rest of nature, and was all done for us by God/Life. And the change can easily be traced to the enormous shift between being a creature guided by instincts and that of modern humans whose instinct is to procreate. In attaining a personality with awareness of a ‘self’ we left Eden behind and had to find out own way instead of being guided by instinct. Now we are living in the midst of being cast out of Eden with our lack of awareness of a guiding forces, our nakedness of knowing what to do, our lack of communion with life around us, and our sense of fear of God/Life that is evident all the time in peoples dreams. See Reaction to the unconscious
Example: I was experiencing a strong feeling of being connected with all things. I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery.
Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naive, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle.
Useful questions and hints:
Have I experienced a feeling of being part of everything?
Does the dream in any way suggest life before birth?
Do I ever experience a feeling beyond good and bad?
See Processing Dreams – Life’s Little Secrets – Dream Yoga
Eel
Something that is difficult to get a hold on. Male sex organ, sperm. Dreams sometimes try to depict the unconscious life we experienced in the process of conception, and such slippery creatures as the eel can express this. See fish.
The eel can also represent an underwater snake – the lifeforce that underlies all that we are. See Energy Sex and Dreams and Reaction to the unconscious
The example and the comments about it give a lot of information.
Example: Hi – I would love some help with these dreams. I’m not pregnant. I’ve had 3 dreams first its meant to be a spa turns out its big rock pool river, heaps of tiny fish swimming around my feet I’m scared of them LOL. My partner is in the deep back part of the water he is not scared. Bit there is huge eels jumping out behind him into another river . 2nd dream; little spa pool 2 really nice coloured fish swimming into my legs, they hurt to touch them, but I’m not scared, I just try pick them up away from my legs. My partner again is sitting next to some girl who looks pregnant; I look at my belly and hope I’m pregnant not her. I don’t want her with my partner. A fish net goes over her belly. 3rd I have a positive pregnant test. God is there and he brands my ear with a red stone earring. I argue with him about how I don’t want to be pregnant or something like that. If you can help with the meaning of all this I would be so happy appreciative thank you.
What an amazing dream!! It is so absolutely full of images about pregnancy. Let us start with the rock pool/river. It is the flow of Life you and all of us are immersed in. It is what carries us or drives us on despite our little selves – what in fact grew you from a tiny seed in your mother’s belly. And the tiny fish are the seeds we grew from, the tiny sperm wanting to find a good home. You are scared of getting pregnant – probably been watching too many films where the delivering mother is always pictured in agony. See Method to shorten labor – many little fish
The bit where the eels are jumping is another neat image of your partner’s eagerness. Those eels depict his penis/sexuality. This shows how his inner self wants to give his sperm to you – the other river. The second dream is a bit more hopeful. Realising that you do not want another woman carrying your partner’s child you try to pick them up from your legs but it hurts. But God/Life steps in and brands you with a red stone earring – a sure sign you will get pregnant. Even then you are sure you are not going to get pregnant. Life has a way with these things.
Example: Next I see my self at the bottom of the ocean. I see a tall dark figure and a short dark figure (child?). The tall dark figure is feeding small pieces of golden bread to a Huge, Long eel or snake. The eel seems to have thin, slanty eyes and can’t see very well.
Being at the bottom of the ocean shows her being deep in her inner world or unconscious. Here the tall dark figure in this woman’s dream is an aspect of herself that is nourishing her own life energy. Golden bread is something that will never tarnish and is therefore eternal – as is our own Life.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What way am I relating to the eel or eels?
Does my dream in any way deal with pregnancy?
Was I frightened of the eel/eels?
See Associations Working With – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming
Egg
Apart from being food the egg is used in dreams to indicate your potential, the parts of you as yet unrealised or not fertilised by your conscious action or quality.
It might also represent the female ovum, prenatal life, being pregnant and from that the possibility of new life, new opportunities. Because of this connection with being unborn it sometimes is used to show a retreat from life, a desire to stay in the egg.
An egg is fragile and because it holds the potential of life, can express the feeling of vulnerability with something precious.
And obviously a food that you enjoy or do not eat.
If the shell of the egg is figured it may be saying, ‘come out of your shell’, grow up, or even “I do not want any part of life out of the womb”.
Whether the egg has hatched or not shows whether what is new in your life has emerged yet, or is still latent and needing further caring support.
Eggs can also represent nourishment, and if being eaten again link with potential – in this case nourishing your potential and helping it to develop.
The environment the egg or eggs are in gives a clue to the situation you are in regarding your potential and the development of what you are capable or. Basically you need to see if the eggs are protected, or in a difficult or threatening situation. If the latter, then you need to be more aware of how you are failing to support your own possibilities.
Example: Now I felt like an egg, like a chick in the egg. Somehow my shell had been taken away and all I wanted was to curl up and not have to be alive. Events were not offering me what my instinct had led me to expect. Without any certainty of being wanted, I was exposed, alone and vulnerable. There was nothing for me to unfold for or want to live for. Prior to this experience I had watched a documentary on the hatching of turtles on a beach. They were all impelled to run toward the sea, and if they made it they were comparatively safe. But on the way the seagulls swooped and ate many of them. As the baby I had no impulse to run for the sea. I was too aware of the dangers to want to move. I didn’t even want to be without a shell. There was no way the baby me wanted to unfold and participate in the adult life of M. So the baby me said “NO” to M who was asking me – the baby to take part in life, because without it I was a failure. But as M, observing this part of myself that had decided right at the beginning not to get involved in the difficulties or possibilities of life, I realised I had to find a way to induce it to change. If I did not manage this, a whole spectrum of my energy and potential would be missing.
Idioms: a good egg; all your eggs in one basket; don’t put all your eggs in one basket; don’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs; egg me on; egg on my face; goose egg; kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; nest egg; suck eggs; walk on eggshells; hard like a boiled egg.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How do I relate to the egg – am I caring for the vulnerability of life?
Is this showing me the possibility of new life or new growth?
What does the theme of the dream suggest?
Has the egg hatched?
Is this egg being used as food?
Where is the egg?
See Processing Dreams – The Egg of Juno – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Every 7 Years You Change
Egypt
Usually the hidden side of self, what we usually call the unconscious or our inner world. But dreaming of Egypt is usually slightly different to dreaming of China or Japan. This because the Far East is associated with the East, the rising sun; whereas Egypt has rich associations with the mystery of the pyramids, of the wonders of mummies and the dead, so the riches of the unconscious and the dead, death and life after death and reincarnation.
It may also be a link with our dreaming self at a deep level; and initiation into a new awareness or ability, or the tests you must pass through before receiving initiation. See Initiation
Because it has associations with the Biblical story of bondage, it may attime indicate this. In the biblical symbolism, life dominated by material values.
Example: Now I am experiencing going through the burial process of ancient Egypt. It is quite strange because I am both an observer and also the person going through the rite of death. I am seeing and experiencing the mummification process. I am not sure why but the word transubstantiation comes to mind. It is something I feel as the process is going on. As the substances are poured into my body I feel my being is transformed.
As I attempt to describe this I am reminded of what happened earlier with the incredibly fast vibrations that I felt were in some way changing my being. So this is again an experience of transformation. I sense it has a gradual refinement of the substance of my being. It is both a rite of death and a transformation of my being into a spirit, into a spirit being. As I write this I wonder if any of this translates into actual physical life. It is now two days after that journey and I do feel different in some way, but I feel that the process of transformation is still underway and I have to come back to it as a sort of meditation.
During my experience of this rite of death I understood that these rituals, but especially the meaning behind the rituals, have become a part of our unconscious. They are like a stratum, a level deep within us through which certain psychological, even physiological and spiritual growth processes still work. They are patterns that are still very powerful in us and our being used in some way to effect personal or spiritual growth. What I mean is that it might be very difficult for the deeper levels of our being too express or communicate to consciousness what is happening, what changes are occurring in us. Now these ancient rituals and ways of life are ready-made images and have great meaning for us, so are still relevant and powerful to us today.
Useful questions:
How is Egypt being presented in my dream, and what do I associate with that?
Do I have personal experiences or associations with Egypt?
Is there a suggestion of mystery or hidden meaning in this dream?
See Associations Working With – Spiritual Life In Dreams – Inner World
Eight
Usually associated with generation, degeneration and regeneration. In the growth of a seed, we can take the seed to represent number one, its relationship with the soil or opposite as two; the budding of seed into shoot as three or the point of growth: then the reaching above ground and rooting as four. The opening of leaves five; the development of stem six, the formation of bud seven, the opening of bud and fertilisation eight, the forming of seed nine. Thus eight can be seen as a climax where the old self opens to the development of the seeds of the new. It is a sort of death or degeneration into matter, that yet develops the seeds of the future, of spiritual consciousness. It is thus the sign of death and rebirth. Also of Justice. In the symbol of the figure eight, we see that the down ward loop drops and then doubles back to rise again. The Zodiacal sign of Scorpio, the governor or inspector. It governs the generative Organs, and the eighth house governs legacies, death, the occult. See: Numbers.
Elastic
The ability to adapt. It may also show feelings to do with things that rebound.
Elastic is often used to hold things together so might be used to indicate a relationship that is either pulling together or broken. Elastic can also constrict, as it does when placed around the testicles of male sheep to cut off their sexual development. Also arrangements can be elastic.
Elastic also typifies the ability to stretch and reach beyond your usual boundaries. In some dreams and inner experiences time itself is elastic and can stretch infinitely or became shortened.
Elastic stockings can also suggest a medical condition that might need attention.
But there is something that a mother has with her children. Once it is made, no power on earth short of death, and no psychic power, can break the bond of connection that connects a mother to her child and the child to its mother. In the inner world of dreams their beings are held together by an elastic umbilical cord which stretches but never snaps. People have struggled to cut their relation to their mothers by psychological murder, repression, flight, and any other tricks. All in vain.
There is also another elastic connection that exists between a man and a woman, a strange cord running from their solar plexus, which can be felt. Sometimes it is felt as a throbbing or like the following example.
Example: This emerged with enormous emotional energy and carried many insights with it. One of them was that we still form this umbilical cord as adults when we establish a close relationship. I realised that many people experience the breaking up of a relationship as a pain in the solar plexus. I have even felt a rebound effect in one relationship – like an elastic band snapping and banging back into my feelings. I knew at the time the woman had suddenly disconnected from me. I phoned her later and found that her ex boyfriend had returned and she had decided to drop her relationship with me and go back with him.
Elastic band: Sometimes used as a way of drawing one back when they get too far away, or as a tight band to restrict the flow of blood, and therefore the function of what is restricted.
Useful questions and hints:
What is happening to the elastic and what does this suggest in terms of action – pulling together – stretching – broken?
Is the elastic being used for something – is so what?
What is my relationship with the elastic.
See Associations Working With – Ages of Love – Characters and People in Dreams
Elbow
A support. An idea or hope, giving support or flexibility in expression.
Electricity Electrocuted Electrified
Energy and emotions; anger; potential; power. The drama in the dream will suggest whether the energy or emotion is being met or used constructively or destructively. For instance in some conditions of anxiety or excitement one can ‘burn oneself out’. It is this power of our feelings and drives that electricity in dreams refers to.
Just as we are all enmeshed in an intricate chemical environment, in which detergents, fertilisers and hormones are now part of our food chain, so we are enmeshed in a massive electronic environment. Our dreams may give us insight into how we relate to this and it to us. We are constantly shifting our relationship with this life-power through our thoughts, attitudes and physical health. It has enormous potential but we tend to reduce it through fearful feelings, shame, guilt or disgust. These all lower the current so to speak. Also we can turn it into destructive energy through those feelings. So electricity can indicate the power of life and death.
Example: We came to a hill sloping down. Somehow we were then airborne and rushed downwards and across the valley. Then we became frightened because we were hurtling towards the opposite hillside at the wrong angle. We would hit it instead of gliding along above the ground until we landed like planes touching down. A power cable was crossing the valley. For a while I held it to guide our glide, but was frightened of the current, and it was the wrong angle anyway. But somehow we managed to land okay.
The dreamer explored his dream and said that gliding down is the descent into experiencing the problem I have of holding on to people because of the security they give me. The flying is me being carried along by the inner forces to facing or experiencing the fear of the problem. The power line is the descending life energies. I let go because I am involved in fear of failure, of being hurt. The power line is also the humility before life, realising how much we depend on Life for our existence. So I turn toward that help. The turning and the descending power are one. See: snake; emotions and mood.
Electricity can be the source for so many things such as sound, images, hospital treatments, computers and power as for a vacuum cleaner. So your life energy can also flow in many different ways, depending on how you direct it. It can be the power behind movement and work; the energy or sex, the power behind emotions and thoughts, and even the energy behind an enlightening experience.
A great deal of mystery has surrounded the word kundalini, the Sanskrit word for life energy. Basically it means the potential that resides within us, probably because it was not clearly understood, but in practical terms the serpent power is the psychobiological energy that expresses in you as the many processes and functions of your body and mind. It is like the electricity that flows into a house that while it is not the picture on the television screen, or the movement of the cooling fan, is the power underlying all the many things arising from electricity.
Your psychobiological energy is at the same time the energy underlying your physical movements, your digestion, heartbeat, your emotions, awareness and thinking; and also a potential that has not yet been expressed or manifest. Very often a person’s sexual expression or social expression is not flowing easily. All that energy backs up like water behind a dam. It creates a pressure that will seek to flow somewhere. In many cases it moves into neurosis. In other words, because it is not flowing outwardly and satisfyingly into social and sexual relationships, it may turn inwards, enlivening the usually unconscious and disturbed patterns of feeling. Then the person lives out neurotic ways of expressing sexually and socially. They may for instance express anti social behaviour in violence or destruction. They may express in destructive sexual behaviour, or be even more introverted into deep depression.
But the normal human behaviour is simply one of the ways we as mammals can express. The life process itself can be expressed in an infinite number of ways, as we see in the different creatures on the earth. The fact that we are as we are is simply the result of the global, environmental and social changes we have faced. What some of the ancient outcasts found was that there are possibilities beyond the normal and beyond the neurotic. They drew out of the potential in the power – shown in dreams as electricity or water – the possibility of what we call enlightenment, a life beyond the limitations of the ‘normal’, beyond the pain of everyday living. That is how the practices of yoga, Tai chi, and many of the other personal disciplines of mind and body arose – as methods of expanding the potential of the serpent power. See Archetype of the self
Example: I was kneeling on the floor in a house. I have worked as an electrician so was probably working in the house, but in some way I had hold of, or was connected with, a large electric cable. The cable was live with electricity, and it touched my right shoulder. The effect was excruciating and shocking pain. The most intense memory is of struggling to pull the cable away from myself, fighting to stay conscious against the terrible current lashing through me. I screamed out for my mother, who I was sure was in the building somewhere, to switch off the electricity. I knew I only had a little time because I could not survive that current long. I have a vague sense that the current stopped, then the current and struggle started again. T.B.
In exploring his dream T.B. first of all met feelings of great pleasure and strength about his ability to work, and that work and helping people with practical needs was the main way he shared love, the main way he expressed his energy, the main way he earned a wage. He says, “So the dream is not simply saying I am working, but that work, as an expression of myself, connects me with others and the world. In other words, this is an important part of my communication, socialising, and loving others.”
He goes on to say, “The electricity is the energy of my life. It is the energy of my emotions, of my connection with others. This had been, as it were, short-circuited by what I felt to be the criticism, the rejection, and non-understanding by my last two female partners. I felt that I had tried and tried, while preserving my own integrity, to live in the way they wanted me to. But this felt as if it was an enormous self-denial at times. It was a self-denial that created this almost death dealing introversion of energy. The anger I felt about this had in it the sense that there might even be an inherent attempt to kill out my manhood, my flow of positive male energy. That is how I felt, anyway. As I summarised this I felt I could stand up and smile, and say I’m not going to be killed.” See: example under blindness in dreams; energy sex dreams.
Body being electrocuted or given electric shock: This suggests emotional pain such as one might get on hearing ‘shocking news’ or perhaps a painful way of experiencing change. It can also depict any sort of shock or startling response to internal or external events, and may also be a dramatic way of symbolising the pain you feel physically from repressed emotions such as anger or desire. These may cause such psychosomatic but real suffering as lower back or chest pain.
The electrocution could also be a response to something happening to the body while asleep, such as lack of circulation in a limb causing pins and needles. In some dreams though it is clearly a response you have to your own enormous energy – i.e. you may be frightened of the enormity of your potential energy, or you may be relate to it in a painful way because of past experience. Such energy can of course be creative or destructive, as are most great natural energies such as fire or electricity.
Useful questions and hints:
What sudden shock have I experienced recently?
Am I aware of the enormous potential energy I have?
Is the dream depicting the way my energy is expressing or being held back – and is this creative or self destructive?
Has something really shocked or shaken me recently?
Is this about the way I relate to my own potential – if so what is indicated?
Does the dream show me relating to the electricity in a destructive way – if so what can I learn form that?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Processing Dreams – Life’s Little Secrets – Avoid Being Victims
Elevator Lift
Mood shifts or movement of attention – as when we move from being involved in physical sensation and shift to thinking. It can also suggest a rise or drop in status or work situation or our emotional highs and lows – the lift going out through the roof could show tendency toward being manic – or going underground would mean meeting influences from the unconscious. Perhaps being ‘uplifted’ or feeling ‘down’.
Going up in an elevator or lift: Movement toward waking or becoming more aware; the mental; or an escape from anxiety or being ‘down to earth’. Sexual pleasure, or mounting feelings of love and attraction. It can also indicate going up in the world, so may link with ambition or achievement. Overcoming difficulties such as anxiety to reach a goal. In some dreams there is a tremendous amount of anxiety and feeling of insecurity.
Basement: Going underground, meeting influences from within you that you may not identify with and so are strange or even alien. Sometimes you find or meet wonderful things her because it is an area of you that holds treasure as well as challenges. You might find a child, animals or even an angel down in the basement.
Descent, going down in a lift: Getting more down to earth or practical. A return to difficulties after living in our fantasies or escapism. It could sometimes signify the down feelings of depression or sexual restraint.
Falling down lift shaft: Although this may be very frightening, you cannot be hurt or die in your dreams. You can of course feel fear, but that is because you believe you will be hurt or killed by the fall.
The hole or shaft is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it, if you allow yourself to fall into it you, realise that it is the way to your own centre and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland and is a way to sink deep into yourself and discover what you really hold within you. But the hole and facing death are really gateways to discover who, or what, you are.
Example: I felt as if I were falling down a long hole, like Alice in Wonderland. The observing part of me understood that I was dropping backwards through my whole life. At times I seemed to bang into things, or bump off things, and these were the painful times in my history. At one point I wondered if I were experiencing some sort of healing regression, but I only touched the events of my life as I fell back. Eventually I came to rest. It was wonderfully peaceful and even my thinking had stopped. I didn’t have any feelings of having a body or shape. I simply existed. Again the observing part of me wondered if this was the womb, but it quickly became apparent, or I knew, that this wasn’t the womb, it was the basic level of my awareness, and how it felt to be before thinking and speech. I began to feel afraid as I realised that if I dropped any further back I would cease to exist. Then I knew the fear was unnecessary as every time we go to sleep we drop back into the condition where we lose any sense of personal existence, yet we emerge none the worse the next day. So I let myself drop. Suddenly I was aware that something held me. It was the process that had grown me from seed in the first place. My ego had not created me or grown me. But now this deep part of me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me. At least I understood from it that if I opened to it each day, if I surrendered to its action, then it would grow me to a fuller life and realise itself in me. This felt like a holy gift, that the mystery of life would live in me.
If the lift goes out the top of the roof, or the connection with base is missing: Can show a critical situation of the mind being split from body awareness; schizoid or manic.
Trapped in lift: Suggests that you are trapped in a particular attitude of expression on yourself. Also that you cannot or do not know how to move from one level of yourself to another – sexual to loving; thinking to intuition; depression to wonder.
For instance in some ways you can be likened to a car. You have a brake, a gas pedal, and a steering wheel. Most of the time these are applied unconsciously by external controls. Running, making love, drinking coffee or watching a powerful film, will cause your body and mind to become more excited. Your breathing and heart will speed up. This is like pressing the gas pedal. Drowsing in an armchair, drinking alcohol, is the opposite, and slows you down. This is the brake. As for the steering wheel, other people or events influence you and your direction. However, you can learn to press your own pedal, apply your own brake, and take more control of the steering wheel. Learning to use your own controls instead of them being constantly activated by other people or events is a life changing skill. So, for a start, if you recognise that breathing reflects excitation or quietness, learning to direct your breathing is one way of taking control. So, for a few minutes try slowing your breathing. Do not hold your breath, but simply make it as slow and smooth as you can without having to gasp for air. See Avoid Being Victims
Example: ‘I was in a lift with a young woman. She intimated there was some difficulty about getting the lift to work. I felt this was not so and pushed the button. The doors closed and the lift began to ascend. As it did we moved close together and kissed. But the main feeling was of being accepted and liked. This moved my feelings so much I felt a great melting feeling in my abdomen, and a lot of body sensation against her body.’ Anthony F.
Here the lift shows Anthony ‘being moved’ emotionally and sexually – the lift can depict sex and the energy flowing up the trunk in love or meditation.
Example: That is the story, isn’t it? You watch a young woman’s dance and enter into it. At her final jump you enter into her and lift her to the transcendent moment. You open her to that wonder and she experiences all she can dream, all that she is, in that moment. Then you draw back.
Example: During one dream I saw myself getting off an elevator on the tenth floor. Not surprisingly, on the tenth of the month I received “uplifting” news by way of recognition for my professional work!
Example: I saw many little red devils who began to press me deep into the ground. Deep in the earth I met the king of the devils. He frightened me and in seeking to escape I noticed an elevator on the right.”
Dreams, said Edgar Cayce, may be interpreted on more than one level. In the dream, the earth is the boy’s own body, or his own unconscious. This is where he will meet both the king of the devils and his assistants. The boy’s being pressed deeper into the earth by the devils in order to meet the king of the devils symbolizes the pressures and temptations of life that force us to meet ourselves in order to develop latent abilities. The elevator to the right indicates that there is always a way of escape from temptations or devils—and that is the right way; for the only devil we have to fear is ourselves.
Idioms: a lift; get a lift; give me a lift; lift a finger; lift my spirits.
Useful questions and hints:
Am I experiencing a shifting of my mood or attitudes?
Can I direct this lift or am I just a passenger of life’s changes?
Who am I with in the lift and what is happening?
See Associations Working With – Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Individuation – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Eleven
11 The eleventh hour has represented last minute activity, last desperate efforts. It also represents strength to face and control animal nature or instincts, which gives us liberty from them. It is two on a higher level, or another level, symbolising a reflex of number ten, which is the dynamic directive to reincarnate, or re-express. Eleven is the matrix, or mould, within us, that receives and restores form after the pattern we have already created in the past; or on the basis of what we have experienced in the past. The astrological sign is Aquarius, the seeker or scientist. It governs ankles and nervous system, and the eleventh house rules long friendships. See: Numbers.
Elf
A force active in your unconscious.
An elf is a small part of S-elf and is a useful part of your abilities. Elf or elves seem generally to have been thought of as a group of beings with magical powers and supernatural beauty, ambivalent towards everyday people and capable of either helping or hindering them. However, the precise character of beliefs in elves across the Germanic-speaking world has varied considerably across time, space, and different cultures. See: prominently associated with sexual threats, seducing people and causing them harm. For example, a number of early modern ballads in the British Isles and Scandinavia, originating in the medieval period, describe human encounters with elves. Dwarf.
From point of view seen from dream study, they are obviously repressed or shadows part of our own nature that are best integrated into consciousness. See Integrate Integrating; Digest
Principally about communication, or connection. This connection may be through ones thoughts or intuition, not only through physical links such as the telephone line. So what you remember in the email is worth considering. See: letter.
If the email is from someone you know it will usually carry a message relevant either to the way you relate to that person or how you see them – i.e. business, love, shared interest, etc.
Useful questions and hints:
What is communicated and what relevance does that have to me?
If this is junk mail who is it from?
Am I intuitively having insights that I am not recognizing or really aware of?
See – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Life’s Little Secrets
Embalm
The attempt to prolong the present form of beliefs and feelings, despite the fact that life has moved on, and is attempting to express in new ways. Fear of death. Desire for physical immortality.
Sometimes we hold onto a past part of our life or memories instead of surrendering them up to the process of Life. See Life’s Little Secrets
Useful questions and hints:
What am I trying to preserve that is dead in me?
Is it something I believe in or are convinced of?
Am I scared of facing death?
See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Dreaming of Death
Emblem
This probably relates to what you deeply, but perhaps unconsciously identify with, or have links with. For instance you might identify with the culture of your parents if you are en immigrant, or you might identify with a certain type of person. So the emblem in your dream would show you where strong psychic strengths are. It could be a link with your inner confidence. See: badge; medallion; symbol.
The image of the tree has been see as the natural emblem of the female, to whom through sex man’s worship is ever drawn? But other things can be seen as emblems.
Useful questions and hints:
What is an emblem that is full of life and feelings for you?
Is there anything yougive a tlot of time and energy too (such as sport or children) that has an emblem?
Do you feel somethings are holy?
See Processing Dreams – Settings in Dreams – Life’s Little Secrets
Embrace
See: Cuddle.
Embryo
Something developing in the unconscious. Something growing within which we are not yet aware of and not yet sufficiently developed to express outwardly, and that is vulnerable. Or a regression to early levels of consciousness. A desire to live in womb-consciousness.
An extremely vulnerable part of us. It can refer to our own prenatal experience or our feelings connected with our prenatal life – for instance we may have been told our mother tried to abort us. Even if this is not so, the idea acts as a focus for our feelings of rejection and infantile pain. The embryo or foetus would therefore symbolise such feelings. See: baby.
From conception until birth the growing organism increases its weight alone up to 27 million times. So it is an energetic urge, but also one which brings detailed control over the miracle of forming a living human body. This comes about by stage after stage of formative forces acting in the construction of our being. As an egg and sperm we are tiny single celled creatures. The next two stages of development as the cells increase in size and number resembles the activities found in many simple living things such as plants. The twenty day old embryo develops four brachial grooves, which in the embryo of a fish grow into gills. At this point the formative forces which produce a fish are active, as were the formative forces of a plant at an earlier stage. These are then supplanted by forces which bring about features of the mammalian upright animal we can be. See Programmed
The embryo can also depict a fragile and new part of you growing. It could even be an indication of pregnancy. In some dreams the embryo links with feelings of great peace in which you experience your core self. See Your Core Self
Example: She kept saying ‘Larisa, your ship is going to leave’, urging me to leave her and get on the (apparently ) my ship. Finally I said ‘one last kiss’ and I kissed her and reached for the pole? to get on my ship. But it slipped through my fingers and I get into the sea. I went down to the bottom of the sea and I lay on the floor of the sea for a million years – aeons or so it seemed. There was no sense of time. I lay all covered up like in a shell or a flower or a womb – but it felt very embryo like.
Useful questions and hints:
Do I sense this as expressing my own uterine life, or as a fragile growing part of me?
Have I been thinking about pregnancy – do I need to check to see?
Am I at the beginning of a new project or way of life that is still at the embryo stage?
See Creative Dreaming – Programmed – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams