Posts Tagged ‘dream meanings’
Bright
Brooch
See: Badge.
Broken
The word or image of something broken enters into many areas of our life. It can be about a relationship, something in a house that might indicate a physical situation, a piece of equipment, a plant or object. Being broken indicates something is no longer working, that it has been clumsily used, worn out, or old and no longer something that can meet the demands of active life.
Something broken can also relate to oneself, as when we feel broken and hopeless or a failure, broken by events and people.
Look up the object or equipment elsewhere. For instance a broken water pipe could show either a physical weakness or that your way of channelling your emotions is no working well. See: damaged.
Useful questions are and hints:
What is it that is broken, and what does that indicate in me and my life?
Can this be mended or changed in any way?
Is this information I need to take seriously in regard to my health or my relationship?
Try using Being the Person or Thing and Talking As
Brook
See: River.
Broom Brush
An effort to clean away irritating or old thoughts and feelings or things such as influences that are still in your life from the past. It usually links with efforts to clean up your thoughts or life, or to wipe/brush away cares or irritations. It therefore links with change or efforts to change.
Broom can also represent the male penis.
The broom or brushing can also refer to pushing something aside, such a relationship or other things you want out of your life.
If it is a paint brush then it links with making changes, but still has the association of getting rid of things.
Example: I am a teacher and I am mildly interested in one of my students. I know it’s not right, so I resist. He tries to interest me. In a fit of energy, I start to clean up the room. I get a broom and sweep Toostie O’s on the floor. He also starts to help. We feel good about being responsible and taking care of business before pleasure. After it’s clean, we (now my daughter Dovre and the young man) laugh and frolic together. I (a mature person) am pleased with them and approve of their actions. Barb
Example: ‘I dream insects are dropping either on me from the ceiling of our bedroom, or crawling over my pillow. My long-suffering husband is always woken when I sit bolt upright in bed my eyes wide open and my arm pointing at the ceiling. I try to brush them off. I can still see them – spiders or wood lice. I am now well aware it is a dream. But no matter how hard I stare the insects are there in perfect detail. I am not frightened, but wish it would go away.’ Sue D.
Idioms: brush cut; brush it off; brush up on; brush with death; brush with the law; paint with the same brush; tar with the same brush; brush-off; give him the brush-off; the brush-off.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What in particular am I brushing away or cleaning?
Am I managing to do this or are there difficulties?
Is the brush or broom working?
If not maybe I need to use a different strategy.
Try Acting on your dream or Being the Person or Thing
Brother
Oneself, or the denied part of self, meeting whatever is met in the dream. These may include rivalry, anger, feelings of persecution, love and admiration, authority, or an outgoing ability to deal with the world.
Brothers often appear in different ways in a sisters dreams. She can be used as a helpful DIY guy; or someone to share fun with, or even someone who needs your help. See Characters and People in Dreams.
If you don’t have a brother, it most likely depicts an aspect of your personality illustrated by the dream character, or your male characteristics.
Example: Dabney was a baby about 10 months old. I carried him around but he was still capable of doing all these craft things. Now we were in the farmer’s house. The baby had grown up. Now he was a younger brother and he was sort of me.
In the dream the person recognises that the dreamt of brother is actually as aspect of herself.
Brothers: If you have brothers in a dream can mean many things depending on what is done or the dream context and environment. So look up What is the main action in the dream?; Background; Context and any other things they are up to, like fighting, helping each other, etc.
Death of a brother: This suggest the death of the Elder Brother, and Its significance to the world. So is loss of a talent because of defects, imbalances, or weaknesses in the physical body. Death of a younger brother the loss of vulnerability, or something you cared for or were at odds with.
In woman’s dream – younger brother: Outgoing but vulnerable self; rivalry.
Older brother: Authority; one’s capable outgoing self; feelings of persecution.
In man’s dream – if younger brother: Vulnerable feelings; oneself at that age. See: boy; man.
Idioms: Big brother; brothers in arms; blood brother.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Could this indicate ‘brotherly love’, or perhaps rivalry?
What do you associate with your brother?
What was the relationship in the dream?
Try Talking As and Easy Dream Interpretation
Brow Forehead
This usually refers to thoughts, especially clear and insightful realisations. In some dreams there is a mark or even a swelling in the middle of the brow. This indicates the ability to be aware of things beyond the limitations of your senses. It suggests that the instinctive urges or energies have been lifted up into a new form of expression or perception. This sometimes occurs through loving feelings or learning to become detached from desires, anger, moods and longings. But detachment does not mean you do not have anything to do with the world and its ways; you can still have anything you want but you can let go of it easily.
But as the last example points out, what you are that is often hidden to others is written on your forehead.
Example: I recently took three antidepressant pills over 6 days. During this time I had dreams that my brain was being snipped with scissors. I also developed a large pimple between my eyes – the region of the third eye or brow chakra. And…my friend in Singapore developed a searing headache between her eyes (again the brow chakra) just after I took the third pill. When she called me to tell me about it, her headache automatically went away.
All of this suggests to me that antidepressants cut off our third eye connection to our higher self or whatever spiritual connection exists. Jan
The brow definitely links with our mind and our potential as the following example shows.
Example: It was very beautiful and symmetrical in every line, silver in colour; but as it appeared I saw that it was not so much a fish as a great creature, a mixture between a black panther and seal, with a smooth legless body. It reared its head, and I saw it had an emerald at its brow, just above its eyes. Our reason for calling it up was to get the jewel.
Example: The Buddhist monk then told me to look at his forehead and see what was written there. I looked and saw the lines on his forehead were placed so that they spelt out a word explaining what he was. It was something like MEEK. He then told me to look again and I would see my own self written there. Again I looked, and this time saw the word BITTER. The other people there could not see the writing, and he told me everyone had what they were written on their forehead. He then pointed into the audience and said, “But you will do the thing you came to do. You will do it!” He pointed beyond me, but I felt the words were for me.’
Useful Questions and Hints:
If there is a mark or words on my forehead, what is suggested, or what do I feel about this?
Am I gaining new insights about something – if so what?
Have I had some new form of perception lately – if so how would I describe or define this?
See Using Your Intuition; Victims and Being the Person or Thing
Brute Brutal Brutality
This may hide experiences of pain during your youth or childhood. Sometimes it replays scenes of violence witnessed or felt.
Bubble
Illusion. Something delicate and easily lost such as day dreams. Sometimes it depicts the transitory human existence. If on the skin it can suggest injury or the site of poison or hurt – perhaps old hurts being realised.
A bubble is an entire and enclosed world. So inside the bubble might suggest a different ‘world’ of feeling, attitudes or experience. In this case the bubble might be a protection, and can indicate strengths or attitudes that are protective or inhibiting. But an ovoid can express the power of your own potential, the power still unexpressed that can come to life and flow through you. This is sometimes shown in a dream as a floating bubble or flying saucer.
Occasionally a pregnant woman might use a bubble to depict the amniotic sac holding her baby.
Also bubbles can show that something is leaking, as with air in a tyre, so might point to something needing attention.
Example: I am standing in the toilet peeing into the water. This creates lots of bubbles. As I look at these bubbles I notice each one has an eye looking at me. Fascinated I bend lower to look back at these eyes. When I do so I see they are not ‘eyes’ but ‘I’s’. Each is a tiny reflection of myself looking back at me. Amused I ponder this multitude of me. Each tiny being, with its own individual sense of self, its own eyes and legs and fingers, feels it is separate from its fellows – and it is. But what they don’t realise is that their awareness, their consciousness is a reflection of me. I am their god. Out of me all have their being. – Then suddenly I realised I am myself a bubble. I too have a sense of being independent, with my own eyes, fingers and legs. Yet in reality I am only a reflection of one great life – One Self existent in all diversity and multifarious forms. I felt afraid.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How am I relating to the bubble and what is it indicating?
Is there a sense of something easily burst in the dream?
Is anything inside the bubble? If so what do I associate with it?
Is this a leak – if so what is it pointing to?
Use Being the Person or Thing or Easy Dream Interpretation
Bud
As can be seen in the example under bride, the buds are about the wonderful essence of womanhood and femininity opening and flowering. The bud therefore often symbolises the richness and beauty of the vagina – not so much the physical vagina, but all the feelings, desires, opportunity of creativity and love the healthy vagina involves us in.
Occasionally it is seen in male dreams, or dreams relating to males, and the penis is shown as a bud. It has in this case a similar meaning to that above – the flowering of the richness of male sexuality
Buds can also be pointing to things you have ‘planted’ in the past – i.e. things done or set in motion – that are now beginning to become apparent outwardly in your life.
The few idioms associated with bud and budding are descriptive of these meanings: nipped in the bud – or nip it in the bud and budding genius.
Example: There are 3 candles burning. One, his candle, is near something and I go over to look. A plant is too close to the candle, and a bud is on fire. I pull it away and put out the flame. Most of the plant falls off. I exclaim, “Look how it’s grown. I got this plant this evening. It just had a few shoots and now there are long shoots and 2 or 3 buds.” I feel sad that it’s burnt and broken, but I feel O.K. because it grows fast and will regrow new buds. In a way, it’s like it’s been pruned and will regrow faster. I blow out all three candles and get back in bed with Paul. Barb
Example: “….I felt as if I were the bud of a crocus. I seemed to be slowly unfolding with difficulty. Not until I fully opened did I feel a great relief. The results of this have made me feel very positive in my outlook, and far happier…..I am a trainee yoga teacher and have been teaching for three years. I have a small class of fourteen students who are keen and attend regularly. I decided to have my students try this to see how they would react. I explained it as well as I could, and the feedback I got was:- A man in his thirties said, ‘I felt I was in a womb. It was very comfortable, cosy and dark. I wanted to stay there. I didn’t want to come away – it was so peaceful. I have never experienced anything like it before.’ He was very impressed. A woman in her thirties felt like throwing her arms around and kicking her legs. ‘I felt I wanted to give birth and was about to deliver.’ She didn’t fling herself about, but held back. I think it was a pity she didn’t let go. (A description of a woman using LifeStream).
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is the bud, or buds, living or dried up and dying? How does this apply to your feelings and life situation?
What is the drama in the rest of the dream linking with the bud? See keywords for help with this.
Am I aware of something growing and opening in myself or events?
Try using Key Words and Talking As
Buddha Buddhism
Depends a great deal on personal associations with Buddhism, but may represent your core self and wisdom from a wider awareness than your everyday knowledge. In this type of dream there is an awareness of wonderful release from the limitations we impose upon ourselves through believing the illusion we erect from our sense impressions, or beliefs and habits. So the Buddha sometimes depicts a form of liberation from thinking and desiring, and the worldview that arises from the sensory impressions of the world and the belief that one is only the body.
But often, in Westerners dreams it is associated with the denial of, or loss of, ego.
In a Christian persons dream it may depict a threat to their belief system. See: archetype of the self and archetype of the buddha; Buddhism and dreams.
The Buddhist beliefs are built upon the statement that human pain can be overcome or left behind. This could be seen as emerging at a time and historical period where masses of people were in a social condition causing pain. The second example is comments from a person exploring in a dream state.
Example: The memorandum also contained this grim warning: “It is probably no accident that the society which most consistently encouraged the use of these substances, India, produced one of the sickest social orders ever created by mankind, in which thinking men spent their time lost in the Buddha position under the influence of drugs exploring consciousness, while poverty, disease, social discrimination, and superstition reached their highest and most organized form in all history.”’ Quoted from David McClelland, Chairman of the Harvard Center for Research in Personality response to the use of psychedelics.
Example: As I explored the states of being suggested in Eastern practices I saw something I had never seen before. Firstly it was to do with the whole social situation of Eastern countries. Always the individual cells – the individual men women and children – were in stress in the sense that society pushed them to conformity. The cast system of India, the killing of students in social conflict, the conformity seen in Japan, and the recent feudal systems; all pointed to individual stress and pain. I saw the image of the termite hill as representing this. If the mound satisfies the individual members then their needs are met. But supposing there was not enough oxygen in the mound, this would show as individual and collective distress.
The other telling point was that the information I had received about the ‘answers’ to life in the Eastern system were always suggested as a release from pain. Buddha’s nirvana was an extinguishing of the integrity of the individual, so there would be a release from the pain of life. The sight of death, illness, suffering in Buddha’s life was what motivated his search for an answer. The path of Buddhism is a way toward release from suffering. This suffering I realised as the individual ‘distress’ such as the termites might feel if their ‘social system’ were not actually supplying the needs of its individuals. The massive concretization of the caste system suggests this from another angle.
In fact the whole story revolves around a young prince who lived a life of intense advantage and in looking at the life of those not so advantaged felt their pain. He did not preach a way of the rich sharing what they had with everyone, as was and is done in such systems as the Native Americans or many tribal people, but taught a way to escape from pain. And of course it still carries on, and today we are a people who are medicated out of their social pain. See We do Not Realise
What are my feelings or central experience in this dream? Is it of peace and liberation or threat?
Is there something in my dream that is like a paradox – if so what can I learn from that paradoxical experience?
If I imagine the mood or feelings of the dream what does it create in me?
Read LifeStream; Methods of Awakening and Victims
Buffalo
See: bull below.
Buildings
This section is about large public buildings such as hospitals, factories blocks of flats, depicting particular functions suggested by their nature, such as work or healing. But of course, if the house or building has a personal connection – the house you live in, or place you have worked – then you need to define what is the essential feelings about such. See processing dreams or Easy Dream Interpretation to help with that. If a house or building has a quality of some other type of construction, such as a library feeling like a factory, or a house a church, both aspects should be accepted as important. See: house for home and house links.
To quickly find what you want click on the links below:
Abattoir – Abbey – church – chapel – temple – Airport – Aisle – Apartment – Arena – Art Gallery – Ashram – Auction Room
Bakers – Bank – Barber/Hairdresser – Barracks – Book Shop – Bowling Alley – Brothel – Building damaged – Building entering – Building dream examples – Bus/Coach Station
Castle – Cattery – Charity Shop – Chemist Pharmacy – Church – Cinema – Circus – Classroom – Convent – Corridor – Crypt
Damage or structural faults – Dental Surgery – Druggist
Elevator – Entering building or house – Entering new building – Examples of interesting dreams about buildings –
Factory – Fairground – Falling down or Destroyed Building – Farm – Fire Station – Flat/Apartment – Fortress –
Garage – Glasshouse – Gymnasium –
Hallway – Hiding Place – Hospital – Hotel – Hut
Kennels –
Laboratory – Laundromat – Library – Lift – Lighthouse –
Mansion – Mental Hospital Asylum – Mortuary Morgue – Mosque – Museum –
Observatory Astronomy – Office
Palace – Plumbing – Police Station – Post Office – Prison – Public house/Bar – Public or dance hall
Restaurant – Radio Station – Ruins
School – Showroom – Stable – Stairs – Station Train – Station Bus/Coach – Store Room – Supermarket – Surgery – Swimming Pool
Underground/Metro – University –
Bull
The symbol of the bull often refers to the instinctive responses or energy in us that are powerful enough to drag us along, cause us anxiety if we are in conflict with them, or carry us further in our endeavours if we can work with them. Such instinctive urges may be in connection with sexual attraction and desire, feelings about people invading our territory, and protectiveness for family. But we have to remember that the bull is a domesticated animal, and so its enormous energy is available for transformation or direction. See Mammal Brain
Where the bull connects with sex drive, it may depict the aspect of it that is generally under control, but may occasionally be wild if provoked. The bull can also represent the basic drives toward parenthood, and caring and providing via sex. The bull might link with aggressiveness, a ‘bullish’ trait in you or someone else; or personal traits to do with being very basic or earthy, and perhaps sexual in ones relationships, and being moved by impulses such as sex or aggression, without being aware of this. The bull is of course a symbol of strength, ferocity, obstinacy, maleness and power. So at a times it can represent your father, or an enraged father.
The bull in your dreams represents the way you may have faced this power in the past. If you have faced it without love it will cause enormous tension and frustration. That is the negative side to the bull. The problem is that of the will turned back on itself. It was perhaps frustrated by guilt about success and love. The reason it is difficult to face the bull was because the bull was your lust, your sexual love. The conflict you felt about love also turned against and destroyed your sexual desire.
The bull also represents striving to break through. This might not be allowed because to break through would-be to face your past.
The aggressive bull: Often shows the frustration arising from your basic drives being taunted or thwarted. For instance a person may wish for a family, yet be frustrated by a form of sexuality in their partner that does not care for children. Or their inapt ability in sexual and family relationships causes such frustration blocking an easy and satisfying life.
The killed bull: A killing of the natural drives connected with family, sex and procreation.
If sacrificed: May show self-giving, or the abandonment of the life in which sexual relationship occurs.
The ridden bull: Shows a harmony between self awareness and its decision making, and the basic ‘animal’ drives, or the reverse if the riding is difficult or a fight.
To realize your place in this flow of events there is neither joy nor sadness, rather infinite satisfaction. Once achieved this realization of the perfect harmony of all things will never be voluntarily renounced.”
Example: I dreamt I was in a farmyard. A small boy climbed all over the bull, and it became terribly angry. It had been chained without attention for too long. Now it tore away and sought the cows. The gates were closed, but the bull smashed through the enclosing fence. I had rushed to the fence and sat astride it, but on seeing that the bull smashed it like matchwood, I looked around for some safe place. Meanwhile the Bull charged the first cow to mount it, but so terrible was its energy and emotion that it could not expressed as sex. It smashed the cow aside as it had done the fence. Then it rushed the next and passed it over its head, charging and smashing the next. Meanwhile I climbed into somebody’s garden trying to get out of the district.
Example: Was in Wilson’s farmyard. There were some puppies or something – not sure – and I went to get them some oats. To do this I walked to the top of the hill where the oats were kept. I had a bucket and a young man came with me. As I was filling the bucket with oats, we saw a bull nearby. It looked a bit thin in the flank, slightly cow like. My friend was a bit nervous, but I told him the bull was all right, and to give it some oats. The bull was so hungry it emptied the bucket in a couple of mouthfuls. So I scooped some more oats out for it. My friend looked at its penis, remarking how huge it was. I said, “I should think so. After all, it’s a long way into a cow.”
Example: Dreamt I was on top of the hill opposite Amersham hospital. There were bulls and cows in the field. I was afraid they would chase me, and tried to get away on a bicycle. But seemed to go very slow.
The dreamer explored this dream and says: When my feelings began to be released through dropping thoughts, sexual desire and love arose which I felt threatened by. I therefore attempt to escape by my efforts at self-advancement or meditation.
Idioms: Like a bull at a gate; bull in a china shop; red rag to a bull; score a bull’s eye; sacred bull; take the bull by the horns.
As an astrological sign the bull is the sign of Taurus. Therefore with Taureans the bull may depict their innate characteristics and how they are dealing with them. Taurus is a ‘Fixed’ ‘Earth’ sign. The bull, and the time of year it is within, symbolises being in tune with the instinctive earthy side of oneself. An animal born out of season, a calf for instance, would find it difficult in nature to survive, because there would be less food, and it might not be strong enough to face the winter. Therefore the Taurean is born ‘in season’ and has a harmony with the natural cycles. The sign denotes bodily, mental or spiritual strength; also inherited qualities of possessions; practical, useful powers or gifts. Its essential characteristic is that of service. The person born in this zodiacal sign is said to be a steady-going, reliable, practical, rather conservative person; slow to anger, but likely, if angered, to be a formidable adversary.
In past cultures the bull was considered sacred. In Egypt for instance the bull was never sacrificed. But in Mosaic times, and in the Persian cult of Mithras, the bull was used for sacrifice to God. In these approaches the bull was a symbol of servitude. But there are many different cultural approaches to the bull. In Christianity it was seen as representing brute force or the earthy quality of human life. In other cultures it was male procreative power, or the power of nature or God in action. It was occasionally called the Shaker, as it was seen as a symbol of the earth shaking – earthquakes.
There is a theme which appears in many cultures or myths connected with the bull. It is of the Hero confronting and overcoming the bull. Lao Tzu for instance, struggled with and eventually rode the bull, representing the human struggle and victory over instinctive or reactive habitual forces influencing consciousness. Also Theseus saves Ariadne from the Minotaur, suggesting that the conscious self has to meet and transform the instinctive sexual drive, the entangling forces of emotional dependence upon cultural norms, mother and public opinion, to be capable of a mature heterosexual relationship. Theseus, or our active growing self, frees Ariadne, the feminine or intuitive feeling principle. From this a new life can be born or emerge. While we live within and do not recognise or acknowledge the instinctive nature we all have, we fail to see the opening to a new form of awareness, one that is still in harmony with the instinctive and yet is not controlled by it. See animals
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is my relationship with the bull in the dream, and what does that suggest about my relationship with sex or natural urges?
Is the bull out of control or peaceful, and does that show my own inner condition?
Am I using or abusing the enormous energy of the bull in my dream, or am I afraid of it?
Try Being the Person or Thing and read Mammal Brain.
Bullet
A bullet often links with feeling wounded, hurt, or the desire to wound or hurt. Therefore, being shot in the chest or stomach suggests feeling the impact of someone else’s attack in one form or another. But remember that in the end it is you doing the shooting. See Dreams are a reflection of your inner world
Dodging bullets might therefore illustrate the way you are dealing with anxiety, with difficult life situations or hurtful situations in a relationship – perhaps criticism or direct verbal or social attack. Firing bullets would be the opposite of this, directing aggression or criticism at someone else.
Bullets can also depict sexual impregnation or aggressive sex.
In some dreams there is a link with fear of or exploration of death – a sort of ‘what happens when I die’ feeling.
But remember that whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so all the things that scare or hurt you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind.
Useful questions are:
What is my dream suggesting I am anxious about or hurt by?
What hurtful words or actions am I aiming at someone?
Am I feeling wounded by someone, or by events from the past?
See What do You bring to Your Dreams? and Stand in role
Burglar Intruder
This might indicate fears or difficult emotions arising from within you in a way that threatens you. If this applies it could indicate neglected parts of yourself which if met could enlarge who you are as a person.
Example: It being dark outside. In the window were displayed a number of colour transparencies that Bill had taken of an artist’s work. They were abstract paintings. On the left a panel of the window was opened and we entered the showroom, looking at the transparencies. Then suddenly a voice spoke from a loudspeaker on the ceiling. It said that we had set of a burglar alarm, and police were on their way. We hurried out the way we came, hoping to escape the police, but as we did so the voice said, “You can’t escape. I have seen you and know what you look like now – that porcelain one with a broken nose.” I knew he was referring to me, and felt he must be watching through a closed-circuit television.