Posts Tagged ‘dream dictionary interpretation’

Orgy

The release of repressed desires, glutting themselves.

Orient Oriental

The unconscious, the source of life and its mystery. Thus it often represents transcendental wisdom and intuition. See: Chinese.

There are legends throughout the world in which “a poison damsel” (as they call her in the Orient) appears. She is a beautiful creature who has weapons hidden in her body or a secret poison with which she kills her lovers during their first night together. In this guise the anima is as cold and reckless as certain uncanny aspects of nature itself, and in Europe is often expressed to this day by the belief in witches.

The east, as the direction from which the sun and other celestial bodies rise, naturally symbolizes new beginnings and rebirths. Dreams about the East (in the sense of the Orient) have other associations, sometimes of a spiritual nature. For someone living in the Midwest or California, “back East” has entirely different connotations.

May be an aspect “foreign to you” or a need to orient” yourself in the situation.

 Example: I dreamt next morning I intuitively remember a Chinese name. I telephone them. A man answers, calling me by name. I am surprised. He tells me he has known me for hundreds of years through incarnations. Somehow I have to die because of my child.

Example: The Guru or master was not Indian, and not surrounded by an Ashram or disciples. He was only known through personal relationship, and was a Tibetan or Chinese. I felt, or have the feeling, he was from a mountainous place. The master was showing or giving me a book to read or understand certain passages. There was a sense that he was acknowledging me as becoming a Guru in my own right. I was going on a journey with another person.

Example: This was very beautiful.  As I did so I felt even more fully the impact of the old Chinese man who I had felt the presence of earlier.  I could feel the beautiful quality he carried within him from his culture.  I understood that the brushstroke, as simple as it was, carried within it everything that the man was, and in turn he carried everything that was his culture.  I don’t mean that he carried all information and knowledge from his culture, but that he had arisen from it and could not in any way be distinct from it. As I experienced this I realised that it is only when we accept ourselves as a brushstroke that we can see the bigger picture.  As I said that I had the most amazing experience of accepting myself as a brushstroke and then of seeing the bigger picture.  It wasn’t that I saw in detail any particular thing.  What did happen was that I had a glorious sense of wonder in touching something beautiful that transcended myself.

Example: In the dream I entered a very large house in a row of large houses. It was as if I was visiting the house and yet lived there. Inside the house I went through many rooms, but eventually went through an initiation in which I entered a different state of being. It felt like a step onwards. The house was run by Chinese, and at one point I was having another experience with a Chinese woman. She and I merged and it was like another initiation. Then I was out side the house, but seeing it from what was the front. It was like a massive temple entrance. So I must have got in originally through the back of the building.

I started exploring the dream by saying that I am a grand house in row of grand houses. My first view of me was of what I thought was the front of the house but later realised was the back. Inside the house I was huge with masses of rooms and space. Even as the house I wasn’t aware of how many rooms I had and what took place in me. I felt as if inside me was a Chinese influence and every one was Chinese, but my exterior was very definitely English with a grand style. Although I didn’t feel as if I were exploring but walking through many rooms. I felt as if there was so much going on in the building of various things that I could not understand. I suppose if I try to describe this it would be that in many rooms the atmosphere and décor was so different it felt as if I was in different times or environments.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel the Chinese influence is alien to me or easy?

What were my feelings in the dream?

Did I experience new insights or views?

See Being the Person or Thing – Guru – Brushstrokes – Identity and dreams

Orphan

Feeling abandoned or unloved; feeling rejected or misunderstood – or part of yourself is being rejected and misunderstood. It may indicate feelings of vulnerability in independence and consciousness. Sometimes this reflects difficult events in your childhood, leading to you feeling abandoned or unwanted. If so there is often a link with feelings of belonging – whether you feel you belong to anyone, or anyone belongs to, or really links with, yourself. See: abandoned.

 Example: Dreamt I was standing on a street somewhere in the city of London watching an old-fashioned phone box. It was a weekend and all was quiet. The door of the phone box is open and on the floor are a variety of bones. At first I think they are from an animal, but quickly see they are human. A man enters the box to make a call. Suddenly three or four savage dogs attack, ripping him to pieces.

In exploring this by focussing my attention inwards and allowing spontaneous imagery and emotions, I found a lump that I had kept deep within that no one could touch or ever has. I split the lump and two halves of a walnut appeared. There was a picture of my mother in one half and my father in the other, as they were when I was a child. As I looked, the two halves crumpled into dust. I then saw myself go into the telephone box and try to make the call to reconnect with my parents. Again another shock. There was nobody to connect with. So once again the realisation came that I am an orphan. This brought another great wave of emotion that tore me apart.

I then turned toward the dogs as they came at me. I began to feel the sickness that I have always experienced in sessions, but I just shrugged and let the feeling wash over me. It felt like I have always ended up in hell by that route, and I realised afterwards that hell is hell and will never be anything else. I felt there was something deeper, so I kept to a centre line, trying to reach it. Again there was no feeling, so I turned toward in the God dream that I had, the look of total love for me in God’s eyes gave me the strength to trust my own process. I then experienced God holding my hand and telling me to surrender and allow myself to die.

Then the crisis broke through, and there I was in the kid’s home as my father was leaving. I saw myself, or I should say my being, go out to him. I felt that if I loved him he wouldn’t leave my sister and me. Then he left us in the orphanage, and I felt split in half between him and my mother, creating a schism in which I was left with a personality on either side. Schizophrenia is the word that covers this state. I felt what I would call the primal scream emerge from my being. Then I was through. I saw the dogs as my anxieties that have taken up two thirds of my energy through my life, constantly tearing me apart. I also saw that as a kid I didn’t have enough information to redirect the energy elsewhere. Kevin K.

Example: Last night I dreamt my wife was back from Australia. I was holding her very tenderly. As I held her she said, “While I was in Australia, each Monday a man I met uncovered a well or pool for Ben (us) to bathe in. I think it would be really good if we made love every Monday.”

I then said, “Why, did you make love with him?”

“Yes,” she said, “not once but twice.”

I felt myself unable to be near her any longer, and that was the end of our relationship.

I worked on this dream and the whole mass of emotions was triggered by not knowing when or if my loved one would come back – as happened in the hospital when I was three. That broke the seal and the rest just flooded out – weeks of it. Eternity of holding on, waiting for mother, terrified to let go because I would be consumed by anxiety and hopelessness. Ben was an orphan – so represents the deserted feelings. (Ben was an adopted child taken on by Anne. My wife was his nanny.)

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever felt as if I am alone in life and unloved or not knowing how to love?

Was I ever feeling left or abandoned by my parents?

Am I in fact an orphan?

See Abandoned – Inner Baby – Edgar Cayce – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Ossification

Becoming too fixed in your habits, your mental and emotional outlook.

Ostrich

Because of folklore the ostrich may represent avoidance of seeing what is happening around you. But if you have ever watched ostriches you will see how they run from anything that causes them anxiety. So they may be indicating your inclination to do the same. If not that, then the flight or fight instinct or survival. They can kill a man or even a lion when cornered – with powerful kicks. And apparently they do not bury their heads in the sand, but sometimes, like chickens, seek small stones to help digest food.

Ostrich feathers have often featured in exotic or sensual dances, or hats on sultry or upper class women, and may be used in your dream to indicate similar feelings. In Egyptian mythology they represent truth and justice.

 Example: I dream about a pack of prehistoric birds, they look a little like ostrich but from prehistoric time, they can probably run fast, they react to fear and instinct, they don’t have much brain, so they are kept secure in a enclosure next to a small river by the owner, a lady, they are fairly packed, they need to be look after with a balance diet, cereals, grass and water, they could get frightened easily by anything new, so that’s why there is an ongoing noise which is there to make them feel secure, like with very young children. These birds work in a small circus, the owner, a lady is their friend, and keeper, and she looks after their everyday comfort. So these animals are partly domesticated, they can take part in a simple routine, they are there as a testimony of the past, a heritage of some kind. JS

In exploring this dream I feel it relates to a very ancient part of me, which is not able to reason and act on instinct, but it is huge, can inspire a certain amount of fear. It is domesticated but could live with a little more space, need to deal with fear in a more reasonable way; this would mean less acting on impulse, to run away or to charge like geese for example.

 Example: I entered through an old fashioned drapers shop to find several people there at some sort of meeting and realised it was a group of royalty with their aides, etc.  I was to join Princess Diana as a princess. I think I stayed by her and she told me how to behave and what to say to the dignitaries. She told me not to be nervous and that I would soon get used to the life. I sat next to her and she had on her lovely print going away outfit with the print ostrich feather hat. I remember saying to her that it still looked smart, and, “I don’t suppose you will be casting it off yet?” I had my eye on it.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I associate with ostriches?

Is this about not wanting to see what is really going on?

What happened in the dream with the ostrich?

See birds – Working with associations – instincts – Facing Fear

Otter

Ability to ‘swim’ with skill –  to meet the ever changing moods and feelings of water without ‘drowning’ – i.e. to meet the changing, the currents and falls of life without ‘drowning’.  It also indicate skill in seeing what is under the surface of your everyday life and mind, and the ability to draw nourishment out of the hidden depths of your mind and spirit. Ancient cultures saw the otter as a clean holy creature. In early Britain the otter was seen as a holy animal, with the ability to transfer from the land to underwater. This meant the ability to dive into the world after death, so a knower of the mysteries.

The otter is also an extremely playful creature and may be shown in your dream as your natural good spirits and playfulness.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you looking within for answers or strength – if so what is your dream otter showing of this?

Does your dream show the otter swimming well or badly – and how does that reflect on your life skills?

What is your dream otter doing and what does that suggest?

See Animals – Being the Person or Thing – Conditioned Reflexes – Summing Up

Oval

The shape often indicates the womb in some way, either that or female qualities or sexuality. The womb here suggests the reproductive drive, the unconscious desire for a child or more children, and the possible neglect of those feelings and longings. See Women’s creative power

Sometimes represents egg and all that can come from it, or being circumscribed or limited, or in the throes of time. It can therefore be a symbol of material existence, and time.

An oval shape is often used in arenas suggesting in dreams important events taking place within you that have a mass of you involved in – for we are all a mass of people and animals – or even religious or mystical ceremonies. See Autonomous Complex; Animals in your Brain

Oval stones are also important in dreams. If they are polished or shiny it shows that you have done a lot of inner work on yourself. The stones may represent divine powers.

 Example: I looked in the big collection of clear oval frog eggs and some I just intuitively knew were not ready, even though they were full grown frogs in there. And some may not live but I was ok.

We are all a miraculous expression of Life, and as such our dreams are also expressions of biological life in all its aspects. So I see your dream as a wonderful insight into what you have within you and are so caring for, are your eggs. Of course your dream imagery uses frog eggs, which is the nearest thing you had seen. As your dream so clearly says, some eggs hold a full and whole being in them, and others are not and may not live. That is so true of Life which gives us lots of chances, some of which do not work. But you know deep in you that they are very precious and should be guarded.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How is this oval shape presented in the dream?

Is this related to the symbol of the egg somehow?

Does this suggest material existence, or the quality of time?

See Circle – Egg – Spiritual – Summing Up

Ovaries Ovum Uterus

For many women the uterus represents their unconscious sense of being a full woman and their adequacy, just as testes do for men. Of course, it also links with the ability to have children, so could represent fears or feelings about this. If you dream of problems in regard to the uterus, it is always worth having a physical check.

The way we develop as a personality emerges from very fundamental biological and psychological levels, of which the reproductive/sexual is deeply important. Because of this the uterus may represent for women the source of their emotional and creative energy. This at its primal level is linked with procreation, but it can flow from there into other directions such as your creativity.

If you are a woman, this is your potential. You developed in this way because you are a creature of evolution. If you deny that part of you – the urge to procreate – you deny yourself. Do not cut yourself off from your roots otherwise you will die to your real self. To become free, it is not necessary to repress that part of you. In fact, that basic, primeval drive is your source of power. It is a great river of energy. Out of that your power arises. You do not have to bear a child to have that creativity. Take hold of that primitive part of you, that ancient river of desire and longing, flow with it. Of course, it will try to go in the old channels, the old pathways. This may lead you to start looking for a mate. That is okay. Feel it. Own it as yours. Now create your own male inside yourself. Build him out of your ideals, your longing, and your need. Then form your inner male from the many parts of their own nature. Use your pleasures your pains, your power and your weakness. Take the love you have and breathe into the man the breath of life. Take that male and blend it into your female. Then take off and fly. See The man in the Woman

In a man’s dream, or even in some women’s dreams, the uterus might well represent pre-birth experience – life in the womb. This might include the need in some of us to return to that experience to integrate aspects of it that have remained troubling to our adult personality. See: Ovaries.

Here is an example of what I was explaining above.

 Example: I had a very odd dream this morning and felt the need to understand why a baby has appeared in my dreams twice this week. This morning my dream was as follows: I was at my parents’ house that had burnt down, in my old bedroom when I suddenly felt as though I were giving birth. I saw the entire process of the baby coming out of my body as though I were floating around myself. There was no pain and the process happened quickly with the baby gliding out of my body. I quickly placed the baby girl in some baby clothes I found but then realized that I had not washed it. My sister-in-law took the baby and then handed it back to me, its body washed but not its hair because in the dream we saw that as something sacred that should be reserved for the mother to do. I held the baby and then realized there was an air conditioner pumping cold air into the room. I laid the baby on the bed and tried to turn it off, which I couldn’t. When I came back, there were two babies on the bed, a large boy baby and my little girl. I started to wonder if I had given birth to twins. I called to my mother to help me swaddle both babies to keep them warm from the cold air and continued to worry about why I hadn’t passed the placenta. I also started to worry about how I had gotten pregnant as I am a lesbian and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain this to my partner.

I smile because of the fact that none of us today – apart from a few individuals – have ever been taught anything about Life and how it operates in us. Dreams are not about outer reality; they are reflections of our inner life; and our inner life has very different rules. It is a world that is very different to the waking world in the body. In the dream world in a sense you do not have a body. The point is that whatever we believe we are; whatever we believe the world is; in our dreams it becomes that because we create it out of our mind stuff.

In the film Matrix, the hero is at one point put into a lucid virtual reality called ‘the construct’. He cannot understand what is happening to him, and his guide says, “What you see now is what we call residual self image. It is a mental projection….” Your dream is exactly that, an amazing moving and living projection in which you act and interact with YOURSELF. There is, in the widest or cosmic sense, nothing else. The dream process transforms your emotions, your beliefs and hopes, your fears and traumas, your intuitions and creative visions, into people, environments, animals and events. Understanding that is vital.

If your dream is directly about your ovaries, it may be about feelings, fears or hopes you have about your fertility and your ability to procreate. But it might also link with the deep drives or urges you have as a woman to guard and care for your ‘eggs’. This is the big difference between yourself and a male. A male can lay his eggs – sperm – and leave them. A woman holds onto her eggs, guards them, and nurtures them into growth. See: am I a man – am I a woman.

If this fundamental drive is thought of simply as energy, this is understandable. But it is energy that is highly personal and felt as our emotions, fear, hopes and urges. If the energy is not handled well it can flow into neurosis and depression. If we are in union with it then creativity, wellbeing, love and pleasure are expressed and experienced as its flow. Therefore some dreams featuring the uterus will be a drama in which the relationship with this energy flow is detailed. See: energy sex dreams; vagina; individuation.

In a man’s dream, or even in some women’s dreams, the uterus might well represent prebirth experience – life in the womb. This might include the need in some of us to return to that experience to integrate aspects of it that have remained troubling to our adult personality.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is the dream suggesting a physical problem – if so am I experiencing emotional difficulties in regard to childbearing – or should I have a physical check?

Does this is any way suggest pregnancy?

How am I relating to the energy flow of reproduction in my life?

Does the dream suggest wanting to merge back into the womb?

Some interesting connections are Woman’s Creative Power – Brain Levels and Dreams – Easy Dream Interpretation and What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Oven

Because of the idiom ‘one in the oven’ may depict pregnancy or the womb; the human ability to transform character qualities. From being a sulky, irritable person, one can change to being self-giving and open. Depicts this because the oven transforms inedible substances or objects into delightful food, or course burns them making life inedible.

In common speech is used as a symbol of the womb, one in the oven. Also as a symbol of the crucible or melting pot, where changes in life are made. It therefore represents transformation. See Alchemist

 An oven is a cooks tool kit, so what you do or fail to do with the oven has bearing on how you care for a basic need.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you cook well or depend on someone else to provide for you?
Does this represent transformation or changes in life being made?

Is this about pregnancy as in ‘a bun in the oven’?

See Context/Theme – Key Words – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Emotions and Mood in Dreams

Overcoat

Protective attitudes or feelings. Also the feelings or face you allow yourself in public. No display of intimacy. See: Clothes

Owl

Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ‘sees’ what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ‘feeds’ by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.

Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird. See: Second example in wife.

Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What do I know about Owls?

Does this show any use of my intuition and wisdom?

If the owl seems menacing in the dream, is this about my fear of the dark, or death, or possibly the contents of my unconscious?

See Core – Collective Unconscious – Being the Person or Thing – Using Your Intuition

Ox

Represents the earthy, practical, service giving and sexual parts of human nature. See: Animal; Bull.

Interchangeable with the bull, except oxen may be castrated, and so represent patient service without fire or aggression, or loss of sexual potency. The ox also depicts strength; patient endeavour; wealth for people who live in agricultural lands and self sacrifice. In China the ox or buffalo represented the untamed instinctive desires and reactions that needed to be trained to a new relationship with the conscious self. But in Chinese astrology the buffalo was similar to Taurus the bull sign. See: bull; Ox Herding.

Useful questions are:

Is my ox a patient docile creature, or is it like the fiery buffalo?

Am I working with my ox or in opposition to it?

Does my ox need domestication and training?

Oxygen

Energy, life giving forces.

Oyster

Silence, tight lipped, secretive, hiding a secret beauty. It may also represent the body, or material existence, in which your psyche develops as does the pearl, through irritation, and is trapped by its restrictions. In some dreams depicts the shell closed around your inner feelings. Eating oysters is thought by some to stimulate sexuality, and so it could be a symbol of this. And there is the saying, the world is my oyster, suggesting we can find riches and beauty in life once we open the shell. See: Clam; Pod.

Pack Packed Packing

It would be worthwhile wondering when you last packed your bags or house, and what you felt. The dream probably looks back at those feelings.

Packing can connect with leaving home, becoming independent or being rejected, It can associate with holiday feelings, and so a sense of ease. It can also link with making changes or wanting to change. Packing somebody else’s bags might therefore either mean you want to get rid of them, or you want them to go away with you.

It can also be a way to get rid of someone, packing their things and telling them to leave. This can often involve feelings of abandonment.

Already packed case: Readiness to meet change or to go on a journey – to meet experiences that promote learning and growth..

Can’t pack in time: Anxiety about details; feeling unready for change.

Packing up or packing away: it may be that you are trying to get too many, or too few, activities into your day

Packing and wondering what to take: Decisions about what stance or attitudes are suitable to meet present situation or change. I can mean you sense of an end in sight, also you might be trying to become more independent.

Packing bags: Suggest you are planning to go somewhere or make a change. Wanting to get away or making changes or a journey. Putting things in order and sorting out what  needs to be done. Or an indication of putting one’s life in order.

Packing a bag might: Be putting something might be reluctance to face up to a problem or situation. It sometimes suggest the womb or sexual intercourse.

Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.  

Idioms: Pack off; pack up; send somebody packing; pack ones bags.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my motive or feeling behind packing?

Do I have a plan to get away?

What is important that I am packing?

See Settings in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions

Paddle

A dream paddle depicts your efforts to get where you want to go by your own or someone else’s efforts. It can also mean your means of methods to manoeuvre in the area of emotions or life experience. See: Oar.

A paddle is also used in some work situations where stirring or mixing is concerned. So the dream would be about what you are mixing or stirring and your ability to handle the paddle.

In a boat without a paddle: It suggests you are ill equipped to deal with the situation you are in. A loss of motivation and being subject to external events to direct your life. So this might point to indecisiveness or lack of initiative.  Also it might indicate that you will travel without means to really make progress. Could mean paddling on your own, with only your own power, no help from others.

 Example: Then my father gets into a small row boat and I get in. He slowly and carefully goes over the wooden boundary. The motor gets caught. My father says “Uh-oh.” I say, “Don’t tell me uh-oh, when we’re in deep water.” We then get over the thing. Then I’m in a canal. An Indian guide is behind me paddling. He is reciting the legends of our people. I feel like I’m going home.

Example: It was a rare day, as believe it or not, it was not raining, the sun was shining, loch flat calm like a mirror, I was happily paddling along, felt as if I was floating in an in-between world as the sky and clouds  were reflected in the water. On my right side, I became aware of a shape skimming along side of me, only about 3 feet away. I was amazed to see that it was a buzzard; it was so close I could reach out and touch it, wing tips actually touching the water. It stared at me as it flew past, and then let out one of those high pitched ki noises they make, which made my whole body quiver, partly due to being startled by the noise. I am not sure what was actually going on, but it was a special moment, one that will always be with me, I most certainly felt blessed.

Example: Dreamt I was with L my son far out to sea on a small raft like boat. L was about three, and the boat was a flat canoe shaped thing about two feet wide and eight long. It was just above the water. It seemed secure apart from that, but water did sometimes roll over its surface. I could see no land, but felt sure I knew the direction and was paddling with my hands to go in that direction. I felt it would take a long time, but didn’t feel anxious about that. L was sat in front of me, also quite happy.

When trying to explore this dream a little, I felt it was about being afloat on the infinite ocean of life, and the small raft/boat was the rather flimsy attitudes or threshold that stands between me and that ocean. It didn’t seem to matter if I didn’t get anywhere by my efforts.

Idioms: Paddle ones own canoe; in a boat without a paddle.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel I am adrift in life, or in control of my life?

Can I find my way through currents and whirl of emotions and challenges?

See Martial Art of the Mind – Being in Control – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems – Talking to Inner Self