Posts Tagged ‘dream meanings’

Castrate Castration

This represents a fear of not coping sexually. Losing sexual confidence or desire. Cutting off deeper feelings, sympathies, ambitions and energies. To cut off the penis or testicles illustrates the action of repressing the feelings, emotions and urges represented by them. This cutting off may be done by a fear, by feelings of guilt about sexuality, conviction of inferiority, dread of pain or being repulsed or thought repulsive.

Trauma and or/ fear regarding sexual drive, possibly leading to ‘cutting off’ full sexual flow. It might also point to fear of the responsibility which develops with sexual maturity, or the many difficulties in facing the pains and adjustments, which come with rejection by the opposite sex, or through competition for work and wealth, standing without parental support, making decisions, discriminating in the world of ideas and exercise of will.

Sometimes there is a powerful link here with the mother/father relationship from childhood. For some reason there may have been a disturbance in regard to the need to possess ones mother sexually, and so a self restraint about expressed sexual feelings. Sometimes it also suggests ones father was not a sexually potent male. In other words unsure of himself in regard to women, and perhaps still emotionally dependent. Castration also means you are no longer a threat to anyone, and do not have to face a woman’s full sexual and emotional needs.

For a woman it can mean a disturbance during childhood caused by parents not supporting or encouraging the child’s inner development. The penis envy that was so strongly supported in Freud’s theory has been seen differently by others. Karen Horney for instance states that, “Penis envy might occur occasionally in neurotic women, but stated that “womb envy” occurs just as much in men: Horney felt that men were envious of a woman’s ability to bear children. The degree to which men are driven to success may be merely a substitute for the fact that they cannot carry, nurture and bear children. Horney also thought that men were envious of women because they fulfill their position in society by simply ‘being’, whereas men achieve their manhood according to their ability to provide and succeed.”

The need for ones father’s or mother’s love or approval can be a factor leading toward homosexuality or lesbianism.

Example: Hear a recording of a well known recording artist (Tom ***) a homosexual who became straight through facing his unconscious tendencies. RECORDING.

Castrating oneself: Denying one’s own sexual drive, or introverting anger because of sexual drive. It might also suggest the conflict of choice between being feminine or masculine.

Being castrated: This suggests a real trauma that deeply influences your sexual relationships. This includes feeling that your innate being has been repressed or brutalised by another person.

Castrating another person: Your own sexual pains or trauma may lead to the unconscious killing out of sexuality in your children or others.

 

Example: ‘On looking at my son I see his penis has been completely cut off. I feel terribly upset, but notice that on each side of the remaining hole, special pieces of tissue have been implanted. These are budding, just like a plant, and I know, or am told, that a whole penis will grow.’ Edmond U.

Edmond did in fact frequently ‘cut off’ his own sexuality by abstinence. The dream graphically shows that sexual drives are like a living process.

Psychological castration: Peter had grown up in a Christian culture that, at the time, looked upon sex as something not to be spoken about. Underlying that attitude was that restraining sex was somehow a spiritual discipline. Also, while in his early teens, Peter’s mother had pushed a strong fear into him that sex could kill him. She probably did this because tuberculosis was a killer disease at the time, and a strong sex drive was one of the signs of the illness, and she was scared that Peter had caught TB. Consequently Peter avoided sex until overwhelmed by his own desires. In fact it took most of his adult life to find normal loving and sexual feelings.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise how I cut off or repress sexual feelings or relationship?

What has led me to the situation of my sexual nature being so injured? (Defining this is important as it helps to recognise the causes and leads to an emergence from the condition.)

If I really am honest about my early feelings about my mother and father, how would describe my relationship with them in terms of my sexuality? Also, dare I imagine sex with my mother – if I do what feelings stand in the way?

Try using Stand in role – Avoid Being Victims – Talking As

Cat Cats

Allergy to cats – Alley_cat

Black cat –

Catching mouse – Cattery – Claws – Cat’s Tail

Fear of –

Group of cats –

Having Kittens –

Kitten –

Neighbours cat or kitten –

Speaking

White – Wild

 

Because a cat is often an easy source of physical contact and affection it can depict the need to be cared for and warm affection, even sexual love accompanied with intense warm feelings.

But cats live by their own wits and do not need an owner to walk or care for them, just food and comfort. So a cat can represent a form of street wisdom learned through stress.

You may have felt a lot of affection from a cat, and so associate it with sensual, or even sexual pleasure. It can also represent your need to care for someone or be cared for, to have close physical contact.

Example: ‘I went to the fridge to get out some mincemeat to feed the cat. It came in. As it fed I had a strong urge to touch it, such strong feelings of love were pouring out of me. The animal looked up at my face as I wanted to kiss it. The lips had pink lipstick on. I kissed it, it’s paw came up around my arm, I could see the black claws. We were rolling around on the floor, it felt very sexual.’ Monica.

A male cat can represent male sex drive.

For some women cats are a substitute baby, it is therefore used in many dreams to represent a woman’s urge or need to care for someone, or directly her need to reproduce, or be involved in sex. Therefore it is often used to signify a woman’s creativity, which is a very real part of a woman’s makeup. It is obviously linked with sexuality as that is a woman’s creative process, but it doesn’t have to be sexual as it can flow in any direction she chooses. So it can flow into creating a real or dream baby, or become a creative project or business idea.

The cat can therefore also link with refined female sexuality or ruttiness unless the cat is markedly a tom. See A Woman’s Creative Power

The term ‘catty’ refers to a spiteful woman, showing one’s ‘claws’, jealousy, anger or vindictiveness in a relationship. In this aspect it might refer to ones mother; independence; stealth; fertility. So if the cat in your dream is angry it might depict yourself if female, or feelings about a female friend.

Because cats are independent and often alone, they may represent the secret part of yourself, or independence. See: Kitten; Animal;

In a man’s dream it may refer to a woman or to the female, intuitive side of his nature. The cat can be your intuition and feelings, perhaps warning you, through its sensitivity to moods, or unseen dangers. In some dreams it indicates cattiness – showing one’s ‘claws’, jealousy, anger or vindictiveness in a relationship. It might refer to your mother, independence, stealth, or fertility.

In some dreams the cat definitely represents the fear of bad news or general fears, especially if it is a black cat.

If you have bred cats it may well represent your own, perhaps unconscious, desires to have a baby.

Jungians see the cat as representing a deep psychological secret, a hidden side of ones nature, the shadowy less obvious or outwardly displayed side of your nature. This is most likely because cats go about their business without any attempt to explain themselves or to accommodate us poor humans. Also they are creatures of the night very often, and live a dark life. Prior to the custom of neutering a cat and, in the US, removing its claws, this dark life was often very noisy and obviously sexual and aggressive. Left to itself the cat is a master predator

The cat is thought to have first been domesticated in Egypt about 2000 BC, and all modern cats are said to be descendents of them. They are desert creatures and so do not pant in the heat as dogs do, and are also easy with freezing desert nights. They do not like rain though. The Egyptian name for cat was ‘miu’ or he or she who mews. Although the cat never became a fully acknowledged god figure as the jackal and hippo did, it was perhaps the most popular. She was known as Bastet or Bast, and a household goddess, the protector of women, children and domestic cats. She was also known as the goddess of sunrise, music, dance, pleasure, as well as family, fertility and birth.

But there was a negative side known as Sekhmet the goddess of war and pestilence, though later tamed by Ra to become the protector of humans.

EXAMPLE: My husband died over a year ago, and I live alone, no pets. Yet I dreamt I opened my front door and there was a cat waiting to be let in. It was my cat, and I knew I hadn’t fed it for ages or looked after it. I felt awful that I had neglected it for so long. The strange thing was that the next day as I walked around the supermarket, I kept wanting to go to the cat-food section to buy food. – Winnie P. – Exeter

In losing her husband Winnie has lost her source of given and receiving affection.

EXAMPLE: I was with a young boy and went to his house. I believe his mother was there and a cat. The vivid part was that the cat spoke to me. It spoke in a rather female voice, very clearly. As it spoke I felt great amazement. I had lots of thoughts about how it had learned language – that it could speak because of human language – what did language do to its psyche – and so on. I didn’t reach any conclusions. I noticed as it spoke that it had tiny lips, but they were perfectly formed like a woman’s. They had lipstick on – or at least were red and attractive. Ben.

Ben’s dream has a mixture of sexual attraction, femininity and the ability to express in it.

EXAMPLE: I am sitting in the hotel staff room eating lunch at a large dining table. One by one I am joined by perhaps a dozen women. The atmosphere is pleasant, easy and light hearted. I enjoy the feeling of being the only male among a dozen attractive women. Then I notice a strange thing. One by one all the girls around me turn into cats, but carry on laughing and talking as if nothing is happening. I find this interesting and not alarming. I am aware each girl turns into the sort of cat that is right for her – a vivacious redhead becomes a purring orange tabby; an aloof, slightly superior lady becomes a Siamese; the only ex-girlfriend of mine present becomes a black witches familiar.

I remember turning to my left and asking: “Tell me Rebecca, how did you do this?” The Rebecca cat giggles with a human voice and says: “He doesn’t have a clue, does he?” As I look at the Rebecca cat I realise she still has her human eyes. This I realise is true of all the cats, they have human eyes in feline faces. As I realise this one says: “I think he’s beginning to understand now” and laughs. Paul C. Teletext.

This graphic dream so well illustrates how our human personality exists within our animal drives and urges.

Example: I was with a young boy and went to his house. I believe his mother was there and a cat. The vivid part was that the cat spoke to me. It spoke in a rather female voice, very clearly. As it spoke I felt great amazement. I had lots of thoughts about how it had learned language – that it could speak because of human language – what did language do to it – and so on. I didn’t reach any conclusions. I noticed as it spoke that it had tiny lips, but they were perfectly formed like a woman’s. They had lipstick on – or at least were red and attractive. Ben.

Ben’s dream has a mixture of sexual attraction, femininity and the ability to express in it.

The next example illustrates how we might not be caring for the natural and instinctive side of us.

Example: ‘I am given an animal to look after, usually somebody’s pet while they are away on holiday. I then completely forget the animal, go away and when I return the animal is either dead or very dried up or has been got at by another animal and is in the throws of dying. When I wake from the dream I feel most dreadful and it is only when I am fully awake and realise it is not true do I feel better.’ Lynda E

Example: Recently a neighbor brought a newborn kitten to my home hoping we would care for it. My daughter, Sydney, cleaned the blood off and put her In a box.  Meanwhile, I left work at five armed with doll bottles and powdered milk.  One evening after feeding her, I was wondering if she would live beyond her current three days old. Before I was fully asleep that night, I saw a picture of her at about seven weeks old, running and playing. She stopped, looked at me and said, “Of course I’m going to live!” Her name is Betsy and she has developed into a big, beautiful kitty that we all adore. Martha Folin

Alley cat:: Sexuality; promiscuity; down on luck.

Black cat: Depends what dreamer associates with it – so may be good luck or bad luck and evil – i.e. events working for or against one; anxiety. The belief of a black cat being evil is a throwback to times when people persecuted women accused of being witches. Their cats were also seen to be evil. Of course if you believe that cats are bad luck, then it may symbolise that for you.

Black cats are invisible in darkness and can apparently appear mysteriously. So they often represent something that arises from the unknown or unconscious. It can therefore indicate a woman’s creativity, which is a very real part of a woman’s makeup. It is obviously linked with sexuality as that is a woman’s creative process – and the black cat therefore suggest her creative potential is emerging from an area she did not known about previously. See Woman’s Creative Power

Bobcats: Bobcats, like other wild animals that are adaptable and can live on the outskirts of human territory, are very ‘street wise’ or capable of surviving despite heavy human hunting.

So in your dream it can depict your survival instinct, and your ability to fight back with real cat zeal. It represents intelligence and patience. Like most cats it is not a pack animal and so is solitary in its habits – and also brings up it ‘kittens’ alone. See cats.

Cat’s claws: Spitefulness; desire to hurt; hidden aggression; clinging, or ‘getting ones claws in someone’.

Cat having kittens: Desire for or feelings about babies or ones own babyhood; fertility.

Cat Cattery: If it is a cattery for breeding it could refer to your feelings about having a baby – or if you breed cats then look at Easy Dream Interpretation. In general it suggest you are having a rest from, or not taking responsibility for your female qualities.

Cat catching mouse: A problem solving activity in you; cat and mouse situation in work or relationship.

Cat’s tail: The tail is a very expressive part of a cat; a very visible and active part, so represent the expression of your instinctive feelings.

Fear of cat: Fear of the female in oneself; fear of females; difficulty in meeting feelings and intuition; sense of danger. See: Animal phobias at the end of the animal section.

Group of cats: Group of women; relating to the different moods or feelings.

If allergic to cats: If you are allergic and dream of a cat it would signify a negative and threatening reaction to a situation or relationship.

Kitten: Feelings about vulnerability or babyhood; feelings about caring for someone or something vulnerable; parental urges, perhaps protectiveness.

Neighbouring cat and kitten:  It could be that you have developed a link with a child that is not your own. If the cat and kitten were not from the same family as yourself, it may show you are making a relationsnhip with a new partner and their child.

Speaking cat: Ability to express feminine feelings, intuition or sexuality; a realisation of feelings of physical hunger or emotional or sexual attraction. See last example below.

White cat: Can represent your feminine intuition and a link with the natural beauty in you.

Wild cat: Stealth, ferocity, intelligence, cunning, ability to survive. Like most cats it is not a pack animal, so suggests living and bringing up children alone.

See: First example under the general information at the end of the separate animal definitions.

Idioms: Copy cat; bell the cat; cat and mouse; cat’s whiskers; cat out of the bag; cat and dog life; cat on hot bricks; something the cat brought in; a cat’s paw; cat among the pigeons; while the cat’s away.

Useful questions are:

What is happening or what am I realising in my relationship with the dream cat(s), and how does that relate to my life?

If I take out the word ‘cat’ from my dream description, and replace it with what I feel about this cat, what would I write?

If there are elements of caring or love in this dream, am I looking after that side of my life?

If this is about a kitten, what are my feelings or desires about my childhood, or about a baby?

See Easy Dream Interpretation; Talking As; Processing Dreams

Cataclysm

Looked at from the point of view that dream images represent our own life and feelings in some way, the end of the world, and the fears that go with it, depict the powerful and threatening inner and outer changes that accompany major transitions. The transition from childhood to adolescence for instance is the end of the world that existed for the whole lifetime of the individual up until that point. Such points of transition occur several times in the life of anyone who dares to grow and adapt. Menopause for women, the leaving home of children, the loss of a job, retirement, can all be represented by the end of the world – or a world. See: Atom Bomb.

Catacomb

An exploration of your inner contents or past experiences and their effect on your present life. A descent into the unconscious, so meeting feelings about death and rebirth, deception and wisdom. A search for your inner roots, lasting values, underlying abilities. The unconscious link with forebears.

Usually refers to feelings connected with death as in the example. It suggests, even in this, a womb like condition, and birth or a child may also figure in the same dream. A place of power or hidden forces, where a connection may be made with our unconscious, our inner link with other people and the energies of our body.

Example: ‘I was in some kind of cave or crypt. My father told me and my family of his coming death. He was calm and caring but my mother, sister and myself were grief stricken and for some reason went to buy him gifts.’ Clare M.

Example: I had this dream about me and a girl my age in a dark ancient crypt and we were fighting/battling giant spiders and looking for something, once we were near done with the searching of the something she put hints in wanting to have sex and we ran through the cave/crypt looking for a place to have sex, upon finding the right spot we ran into a large spider than the rest and I found myself holding a butcher knife and I killed the spider, afterward a spectre or ghost appeared and I found myself standing with the girl in a mansion study.

The dark ancient crypt shows that you have found a way into your unconscious. You are with a girl – your female half – because in our inner world, of which dreams are a mirror, you are both male and female. To become a whole person you need to enter the girl fully and marry her – i.e. unite with her. But there are feelings in the way. You have not fully become independent of the influence of your mother. The fact that you killed the spider shows you have taken a big step toward independence. The ghost is probably an old trauma or experience that is still ‘haunting’ you.

Example: It seemed a terrifying thing to be dead and descends into a crypt, lifeless and without motivation. Here I felt or experienced a very strong sense almost like a dead body, if it had awareness, might feel in a crypt. This is quite difficult to describe. I suppose what I was experiencing was a sort of ready made or social image of death. The sort of fears we have about it. It had in it the sense of dust, decay and cobwebs – the quiet dead silence of the tomb. But here, right in the midst of death, I had the sense of eternal life, of resurrection. It seemed to me as if you could not have one without the other, and this was the meaning in Christian doctrine where it says you must die to be reborn.

I am not sure if it was at this point that many images of the mixture of death and birth came on me. I had the experience that one needed to be bitten by the snake and die before one can be reborn into that transcendent life. But what came next was a long experience of exploring the view of life arising out of being a biological bag of water, wind, and shit. This went on for image after image of rampant wet sexuality or eating, of seeing nothing in life except physical existence. Again it is difficult to describe because of the huge variety of the images and scenes.

I suppose the underlying thing I was searching for in this series of feelings and images of the very physical side of life, such as eating and fucking, and the question was, is this all there is? There was an underlying morbidity in what I saw and felt. But I think this was my view. I wanted to find the transcendental in all the aspects of life, but it was difficult within the way I was looking at these feelings or parts of life experience.

I thought, or at least I came to the conclusion, that they expressed the preoccupation with the body and the physical that most of us have in present times. We are preoccupied with the physical and with examining it in detail. We are all trying to arrive at an understanding of the meaning of things, of death, through this minute examination of the physical world.

The longer I was involved in these images, the more it seemed ridiculous in the light of everyday knowledge that all things rely on each other, and that everything exists as an integrated part of the cosmos. The theme of the dream then changed. The day before this session I had a long conversation with B. She had described some of the people she works with or cares for in the old people’s home. B. had described how frightened some of the people are of dying. Although they had lived a long and varied life, they had still not come to terms with death. In the dream I realised I was looking for some way of communicating certainty about the goodness of death to B. I wanted to be able to look her in the eye and tell her she would be cared for.

Tracing it back, when we go into death through the jaws of the hunter, the lion, what do we meet? If we go back far enough we discover not anger or lust, but the lion’s desire to feed its cubs, or to survive. We find ourselves back in, back behind things. Behind the snake, behind this tiger, behind the human being, behind the decay. If we go back far enough we find ourselves in the awareness of the pack, in the species, in the formative forces of survival and reproduction that lies behind things. We find ourselves in that mystery, in the jungle where the essence of life pervades the various forms. From that place the viewpoint that we are nothing but a physical form, that we are a small cog in the wheels of life, that we must put up with what we have, seems ridiculous.

From that place we look at ourselves and see what a fantastic piece of equipment our body and mind is. As a conscious person we are right in the middle of everything. To say, “Oh God, we are nothing but a piece of slime, a helpless pawn in the hands of destiny,” is ridiculous. We are the culmination of everything that has existed before. We are that growing tip, that exploring awareness, in touch with unimaginable potential. We are everything that can be. What can we do?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I meeting deeply buried memories from childhood, or the repressed parts of myself?

Do I have any feekings this might represent past lives?

Do I have unconscious fears or dreads of some sort?

See Unconscious – Acting on your dream – What we need to remember about us

Caterpillar

Male sexuality. It can also depict prenatal forces of growth. Or sometimes destructive activities, like a bacteria, something causing disintegration.

Although sometimes the caterpillar in a dream refers to  sex in some way, it has many other associations. The caterpillar can transform from a grub like state, that sometimes depicts prenatal life and its power of growth, into a completely different creature – the butterfly or moth. So it can suggest the power in you that if cooperated with, can turn your life around from mere existence to life in a different dimension. Sometimes this links with enormous internal changes going on within.

Chrysalis and butterfly, crucifixion and resurrection, have the same significance. First there is death and burial, the caterpillar turning into chrysalis. Then a new creature is born and the resurrection takes place. These are symbols of the life of each one of us. We are all potential butterflies.

Example: Last night dreamt a science fiction sort of dream. I can only remember a small part of it. I was looking at a tiny caterpillar sort of creature. It was on the door of a cupboard, worm like, with a pointed burnt out looking tail. The thing was that the creature had within it the mind of a mature person. I was trying to communicate with it by holding up sheets of paper or cardboard on which Chinese script was written. I thought the being inside was of Chinese origin. Later in the dream I saw huge changes going on in the environment. I realised that the tiny creature and others like them were responsible for the enormous earthquake like changes occurring.

Example: Today my son dropped the container in which we had reared a beautiful caterpillar. It had shed one skin, grown to a wonderful size and loveliness, with enormous fur and shining colour. A few days ago it began to spin its web prior to becoming a chrysalis. It was dropped. It is now pulp, going moldy.

I loved that caterpillar. Like all things in the world, a small movement can destroy it. How many lovely children or people have been smeared upon the earth today.

Today, several days later, I saw that the caterpillar was not killed. Although the blow came while it was in its fluid condition it has transformed into a shining chrysalis. It is a symbol for me of the faith I must have in myself while I yield to love and life. I must trust myself to being undone, fluid, dispersed.

If there are destructive caterpillars: This suggests worries are eating up your emotional energy and destroying potential growth and positive change.

If moving to chrysalis stage: This suggests an urge to find environment in which to make changes in your life.

Chrysalis: Major change going on within yourself; a new aspect of yourself getting ready to emerge; desire to retreat from the world.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any sexual overtones in my dream – if so what do they suggest?

What were my feelings during the dream, and what do they link with – were they about personal growth, beauty, childhood, feeling grub like or what?

What is the process of change and growth I am facing?

Are worries eating away at me in some way?

Try using Acting on your dream; Talking As; Life’s Little Secrets

Cave

It can represent a woman’s sex Organs, her womb, or experience of life in the womb, or prior to birth. Another possibility is contact with the past, with the inner life. Experiencing the past levels of consciousness, where treasures or fears may be found. Or we may find a spring, the source of our feelings or life.

Apart from a spring, there may be early man, or a snake in the cave. The ancient man is your earliest levels of consciousness. But the spring and snake can bring healing and peace, for you may have tapped deep sources of healing in such a dream.

Generally the cave represent your ability to withdraw into yourself in some way. Therefore it links with the possibility of experiencing earlier states such as those that were common to you in childhood, or even prenatal life.

Example: ‘I am in a large, airy cave like room. I am pregnant and wearing a white gown. I am lying on my back on a flat slab like surface with my legs drawn up.’ Joan D.

The cave is also an entrance to the unconscious. As such it may lead to completely different dimensions, environments or states of mind. The following dream illustrates this.

Example: I unblocked a hole in the cave and climbed through. It was like entering another dimension, for I was in a brilliantly lit room. In the room were many windows and doors. The room was in the shape of an arc, a semicircle. Looking out of one window I seemed to be looking at a Swiss landscape. The next window looked out on an entirely different place, and so with the third.  Eddie.

Entering the cave can therefore lead to re-experiencing life in the womb. But it links to the life beyond the restrictions of everyday awareness, linking our present self with all the links it has with the past and life itself. This is the path that eventually confronts us with the void we face at time of taking our next step in our personal evolution. We may experience this as an empty cave in which we thought there would be spiritual upliftment or treasure. This is a confrontation with the fact of our link with all things, in which we lose the sense of external things to find or rely on. In some dreams this leads to a real contact with the forces of our evolutionary journey. See Meeting Our Own Hugeness

Sometimes the cave appears in dreams dealing with your exploration of the deeper levels of your mind. So it depicts going back into the past levels of your consciousness, where treasures or fears may be found. This is like an inner archaeology. Or you may find a spring, the source of your feelings or life. Apart from the spring, there may be primitive humans, or a snake, in the cave. The spring and snake can bring healing and peace; in them you are touching the energy of your latent potential.

Example: This morning I woke up and as I opened my eyes and sat up there was this alien creature there in front of me. I was amazed and felt wonder because it was real and solid and was trying to communicate with me. I felt so much love for this strange creature and its attempts to communicate even though I couldn t understand what it was trying to say.

Then suddenly a switch must have been tripped inside me and I understood and knew the alien. It was my wife and she was saying, “Tony turn over you are snoring.”

I must have been coming awake from a level where my language centre hadn’t yet been switched on and I was seeing my wife as a delightful  alien. I believe it is an example that shows the very different states of mind between waking and sleeping – In sleep we are in the most basic and primal level of consciousness where there is no awareness of language. Remember our evolution spans millions of years, and our sleep consciousness was at the very beginning before we were even different sexes, before language and certainly before waking awareness.

Christ is said to have been born in a cave, and this depicts your infinite potential being found in the ancient levels of your being. See: catacomb and crypt; unconscious; Archetype of Christ; last few paragraphs in individuation.

Sometimes a cave has been man made by chipping away at the rock face.

Example: I have come across a cave dug into a rocky cliff.  A track sloped down from a hill or a mountain past the tunnel entrance, which was on my left.  I saw a few men emerging from the tunnel.  Small broken rock covered the exit to the cave forming a level surface to walk on.  I knew the men had found treasure in the cave.  I saw bits of gold, like chunks of rock, on the ground near the exit. I knew also that there was still a great treasure in the tunnel.  Another person went in to get some of the treasure.  However, I knew that to have a treasure you had to answer a question put to you by something like a Guardian of the tunnel – maybe a sphinx. The person didn’t emerge and I knew they had not been able to answer the question.  But I heard the question I would be asking if I went for the treasure.  It was, “What goes into everything twice?” I thought the answer to be 1/2, but wasn’t sure.

The man who dreamt the above dreamt explored it fully. He says of it,  As the exploration begins I then start thinking about my life as it is at the moment and it is the work that I do, and the last big insight was in regard to preparing for the future and I wonder if I will find anything to add to that.  I have felt, for instance, that there are huge changes ahead, but I have no clear indication of what they might be for me personally yet. What I did find was that the cave is an absence of something.  It is the result of work done of clearing out, of chipping away at what was there.

This led to revealing what we consider to be treasure.  The treasure was there but it had not been revealed, it was part and parcel of the rock.  So I am left wondering what the something is inside the cave that asks the questions of those who enter.  I have a sense, not anything strong, but a sense that it is a question, or a questioning, that exists within me.  I feel that all of us perhaps have such innate questions; life itself questions how to survive, what it is.

Another feeling or thought that I have is the question that within the cave represents things that we need to deal with before we can actually access the treasure we have within ourselves.  What I mean by this is that we ask ourselves many questions that may divert our attention or energy, and those things that need to be in some way met before one can go any further. The question I met in the dream was, “ What goes into everything twice?” I think I know the answer.  It is a 1/2.  Divide anything by 1/2 and 1/2 goes into it twice.  But what significance that has I do not know.  The answer leaves as big a question in my mind as the question itself.

What I find interesting about the dream is that there are pieces of gold lying about outside the cave.  So one could gather a lot of treasure simply from what is already available.  There would be no need to enter the cave.  But there is the promise of enormous treasure inside.  It isn’t so much the wealth, but there is the impression that the treasure is not simply lumps of gold, but un-nameable things that one would find extremely valuable.  There is also the sense I have while that the cave that has been dug, that has been mined, connects with natural caves that go deep into the earth within the mountain.  I have a sense that these link with the far past, with the origins of life on earth, and our own beginnings.

A question I asked myself now is, who are the men that come out with armfuls of treasure?  What aspects of myself are these men who had come out with the treasure?  Also – what part of myself – is the person who went into the cave and did not come out?  Is there a part of me trapped in the search, trapped in this inner exploration?

As I begin to feel my way into the question, I have a sense that the cave connects with the memory of my ancestral past.  This arises out of a feeling that both of them lead into the unknown, into a darkness that has not yet been fully explored.

I feel, as I enter more deeply into my wider awareness, that the men who came out with the treasure depict the enormous amount that I have mined from the long years of my exploring.  I have in fact already gathered enormous treasure.  Of course I still wonder what else there is left to find.

I am feeling that the person who went in and did not come out represents the unanswered questions that we all hold within ourselves.  Those questions of course keep us still within the mine, still seeking answers and understanding.  That is the part of self that continues to chip away at the rock face, knocking away the rock from the gold, uncovering more of the possibilities that were held within that solidity.

We may find in the cave: A fear of madness or being lost; a sense of meeting the divine; our own traumas or destiny; a meeting with death and rebirth, or our long past.

The empty house/cave: There is an inner emptiness that is often thought of as nothingness. But that nothing is everything; if it were something it would be some-thing and therefore could not be everything. As such it is your core self.

When people think of emptiness they usually see it as a destruction of everything – a death of self. But the nothingness of the void is part of the paradox of existence – for the nothingness is at the same time everything. But everything is all inclusive. As such it cannot have any defined characteristics or shape, otherwise it wouldn’t be everything. This is because if you were to say what a beach is, you could not say the sea was the beach, or the sky, or the land. None of them separately is the beach. The beach is the indefinable amalgam of them all. In just that way the Nothing is the indefinable everything that underlies the particulars of your life – you fundamental self.  The Next Step.

People often feel they are facing death. But what is death?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I trying to withdraw back into myself to avoid difficulties in life – if so what are they?

Am I experiencing deeper levels of myself in this dream, and if so how would I describe them?

What do I experience or find in the cave, and how does that link with my present stage of life?

Try using Processing Dreams; Associations Working With; Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

Cd

Can simply be the sort of pleasure you feel on listening to music; the impressions left on you by events, people – therefore memory, but often memory integrated by the unconscious into insights; information you have gathered; the impression we might leave behind at death – what remains of us; the impression we would like to give others. Idioms: For the record; track record..

Ceiling

The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity; the height or range of your imagination; your mental limit or boundary.

Protection, security, against the life’s difficulties, so protection against the storms of life. Something above your head, or out of reach. The attitudes or beliefs you use to protect your identity, the height or range of your imagination, or your mental limit or boundary, so a boundary of ideas or awareness. If you live in a flat with people above you, the ceiling can mean the things other people do that enter your life, interfere with it, or even damage you in some way. See house and buildings.

The ceiling is often the place where we find ourselves the first time we experience being out of our body. So it can indicate higher awareness or an approach to the spiritual dimension.

In many dreams awful or frightening things come from or through the ceiling. This shows they are creations of your own mind, coming through the boundary of your imaginations. Of course sometimes a wonderful light or being comes through the ceiling.

 Example: I walked past the photo stat. room. Two girls came out into passageway, TERRIBLY distressed and spoke of Satan. I went into the room and saw Satan in the upper corner of the ceiling leering down and mocking head and shoulders. I calmed the girls and everything became okay. Mr. A. A.

Example: I’m in a flat in a skyscraper; I don’t like it very much because in real life I’m frightened by heights and this is a very high flat. There are some friends of my partner into alternative lifestyle; there is a girl who would like to make love with my partner. I feel there is a connection between them. We are in fact on the top flat so I can see the sky through the ceiling made of glass. There is a huge eagle; it is so huge I can only see his head, his eye and his big wings. I feel it is huge and it is looking like some kind of bigger awareness, looking at human life and at me, it has got to do with a wider consciousness above us and around.

Example: ‘I have to keep walking because there is something I am afraid of behind me. When I am pressed up against the ceiling being crushed I look down and the stairs and banister rail are swarming alive with a black moving wave of crawling things, like some awful insects. In the hallway is a swamp with crocodiles and other hideous things. My terror is terrible. The person who actually lived in this part of the house was the owner’s mother. She treated me badly but no one knew as she was artful in her abuse. She pulled me along by my hair, locked me in a cupboard, and once locked me in the orchard – four high walls and a hidden door.’ Rita

 

Idioms: hit the ceiling; scrape me off the ceiling.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel any sense of security or protection against difficulties?

Is something over my head, or out of reach?

Could this show mental or creative limits or boundaries?

Or does a feeling or horror intrude?

See Talking As – Processing Dreams

Celebrity

Meeting or being a celebrity may show that you desire to be noticed and acclaimed. Or the famous person may be your own potential, often unacknowledged, and projected onto dream character.

If you are deferring to the character, or feeling they have power over you, they may be showing how you relate to a parent.

If you have difficulty relating to the famous person, you may be struggling with accepting yourself as respected, or your desire ambitions and efforts to become successful.

Sometimes: The person may, because of their life or role, represent a particular quality such as courage, love, ‘ruling’ drives in life, authority, etc.

Cellar

See: Basement; Cave.

Cemetery

You are probably dealing with thoughts and feelings about death, your family heritage of attitudes or traditions. In a few cases, the dream may be a form of contact with someone you know who is dead. The cemetery may also refer to things in your life you have ‘buried’; melancholy about life or feeling ‘different’ to other people; a relationship, which you think is ‘dead and buried’. See grave; Dreaming of Death

Depicts our thoughts and feelings regarding death and therefore our family and cultural heritage of attitudes or traditions relating to death. In western white stock who have been raised in a culture dominated by a materialistic view of life, the image of the graveyard often includes feelings of limited time left to live, of death as a final end, of death as a morbid corruption that is the concluding goal or meaning of life.

The cemetery can also indicate your personal contact with the dead. By this is meant either a very real meeting with the essence of the dead person, or a fuller experience of what you carry within you of them through your relationship with them.

The cemetery, and especially graves, can point to things you have ‘buried’ – memories or love, pain or guilt that you have suppressed or tried to hide from. Therefore it might indicate a relationship that we think is ‘dead and buried’. See Difficult Relationship

If you are an introverted person the graveyard can link with feelings of being melancholy about life or feeling ‘different’ to other people. See Archetype of death

Example: During a major operation I dreamt I saw my little daughter – dead for many years – standing in a corn field. When she was actually buried the cemetery was skirted by a corn field, and later in life, coming to terms with this early death of a child, I imagined my daughter walking into the corn field. In the dream I walked into the corn field. My daughter was waiting for me with her arms held up. I put my arms to her and we greeted each other smiling. At that point I felt it wasn’t time to die yet, turned and walked out of the corn field. Ken S.

Example: I was walking by a riverbank near a cemetery. As I walked and drew near to the cemetery, I saw submerged in the river a record player-in fact my record player. I walked into the river and pulled it out.

Prior to this dream he had experienced several dreams showing the river being blocked, or silted up, or made sluggish with reeds and weeds, and in this dream he was walking in the direction the river flowed, it being clear and free flowing. The river is the flow of his life, showing the energies of growth and creativity, the energies underlying emotions, thinking and sexuality. The dream shows him as consciously following their flow. The cemetery is the many past lives buried within him. The record player is the faculty of memory covered up by the emotions or flow of his inner life, but now he is bringing this faculty to the surface. He felt this dream had something to do with past lives, but was far from being sure.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feeling in regard to this cemetery or the graves in it – and where does that feeling appear in my life?

Am I meeting feelings about death here – if so what are they and can I really feel them?

What have I buried that is being met in this dream?

Am I feeling a contact or memory of someone who has died?

See Dead Husband – Talking As – Easy Dream Understanding

Centaur

Human nature has arisen out of the instinctive and powerful experiences of animal life and consciousness. The centaur is a beautiful image of this mixture of animal and human that we still are, and often deny. The techniques of yoga are in some ways an attempt to unite the two in harmony. The word yoga actually means unite or join together, like the word yoke.

Dreams often remind us of this connection, and how we may be ignoring it and losing the wonderful advantages of linking our conscious personality with this much older level of ourselves. So the centaur in our dream shows that you are in some way meeting and relating to this part of you. See: Horse.

This might be reference to your sun sing Sagittarius. As such it is said to deal with: Physically it is related to the pelvis, hips and thighs. It is said to have a masculine nature, and is therefore more active in its energy expression.

As a Fire sign it is connected with the identity – specifically with the search to find a deeper meaning in human existence. It is therefore connected with religious and philosophical urges. As a Mutable sign, planets placed here express their energy in a flexible and changeable manner, with a certain restlessness or inconstancy. Sagittarius in characterised by a love of truth and righteousness, and an unfortunate tendency to express it rather too directly, even when not asked.

There is a love of open horizons and travel and a need to expand on an inner intellectual level. There is a pronounced urge to rise above the animal nature towards the divine, and an impatience with the trivial issues in life. A dislike of superficiality may result in intolerance for the ordinary niceties between people

Useful questions:

In what way am I relating to the centaur, and what does that suggest?

Did my dream centaur communicate with me in any way, and if so what?

Have I recently been experiencing an awareness of things previously not met?

See Levels (Brain) – Talking As – Acting on your dream

Centre Middle

If it is a person or thing in the middle of somewhere, an event or something, then your dream is emphasising the importance of the thing or person.

If the middle is between opposite: This suggests either conflict or balance, depending upon the feelings in the dream.

Emphasises the importance of the thing, person or animal in that position. It can indicate conflict where the middle is between opposites or obstruction when something might be in the middle of the road, corridor, etc. Or it could be feelings of being involved, when in the middle of a crowd for instance.

When something is in the middle of a circle or square can represent contact or awareness of you core self or Spirit.

If it is a centre such as a garden or educational center: Use things like Easy Dream Understanding to define the dream and its meaning.

If you are in the middle of something such as an exam or having sex: Use things like Easy Dream Understanding and Talking As

Idioms: Middle of the road; piggy in the middle; centre of attention.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What does the middle or centre mean to you?

What is this the center of? Use Talking As to define.

Does this represent the unchanging core of myself, beyond thoughts and feelings?

Am I tapping into the unseen power behind my life?

See Acting on your dream and Easy Dream Understanding

Centrifuge Centripetal

An influence that is pushing you outward or away from a centre, person or thing. A centripetal force pulling you toward a central point would be the opposite. It might indicate powerful feelings in yourself, or fears

If you are pulled into the middle of something it may also link with the mysterious life that is in ‘the middle’ or centre of all things. Or it may suggest the growth or beginning of something, the emergence from the mystery in the centre. It may also suggest pregnancy.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I feeling as if a powerful force or influence is at work in my life at the moment – if so what is happening to me?

Do I feel pulled into or pushed out of something or a relationship?

How have I described this force in the dream, and what does that suggest?

Use Talking As – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Ceremony Ritual

Your dream is probably emphasising something that is taking place in your life. For instance at puberty your body carries you from youth to manhood or womanhood. This is an incredibly important event, yet society seldom acknowledges you as a changed person. Your dream may do this, and even reveal some of the mysterious new qualities you have ass you move from one stage of life to another.

Similar to initiation. Such dream ceremonies or rituals often mark a point of change or transition, as ceremonies do in waking life – baptism, marriage, graduation, etc.

Ritual is also used to focus feeling or sexual energy in some way to gain an effect, such as healing or insight. So a ritual can point to important change – such as entrance into puberty; entrance into deeper levels of yourself; the opening of new attitudes or skills, just as marriage is an entrance into a new type of life and social situation.

As with marriage, a ritual can mark a promise of some kind. But occasionally rituals are the performance of habits – a ritualistic carrying out of actions that no longer have meaning or feelings attached to them.

Our unconscious has a wider sense of self, and things are seen as important that we might consciously feel are trivial. A ceremony in a dream brings such things to our attention.

In the example the girl is with her boyfriend. She may thus have been ‘initiated’ into sexual activity. Sex with her boyfriend has changed her image of herself.

Example: ‘A ritual began whereby a large knife was drawn and a few deep cuts were made to both our faces. I put my hands to my face and saw them covered with blood, crying and crying.’ O. S.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is happening in this ceremony, and what change, promise or new way of life is suggested?

Have I recently begun a new phase of my life, and is of what does it involve me in?

In what way am I involved in this – and what way am I involved in what I face in life?

Use Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Talking As

Certificate

Suggests the achievement of a new skill, or reaching a new phase of your growth or maturity. It can also link with feelings of confidence in your ability to attain a goal. See: Prize.

These are an indication that you have passed an exam or are now qualified in some way. They are sometimes man made distinctions and dreams often point out important things for you in regard to getting recognition and authority.

Example: I remember standing a room a few days after the baby was born and thinking “I should call my dad and tell him that I had the baby.” But I couldn’t remember when the baby was born so I got the birth certificate and I started looking for the birth date and how much he weighed at birth, but it wasn’t a birth certificate it was some type of paper that I couldn’t understand so I gave up on looking.

The thing about the birth certificate is important. It is saying that there is something you do not understand about your baby and its background. It was a dream baby without a father and known background. Because you do not understand your dream baby you could not understand what was said on the paper. I believe it was telling you that Life gave you this baby, and it will grow in you to change your life. It is small and vulnerable so take care of it.

Example: So, I’ve decided to attend a week long Dream Retreat at the Haden Institute, in part to see if I want to partake of the dream certification program. Around here, it seems one needs some sort of “authority” or “certificate” to be taken seriously in anything. I also have to balance that in myself – do I feel I need a certificate to be an effective dream worker? How much does my self-worth have to do with having or not having a “certificate”? So, I am hoping that attending this retreat will help me sort out that answer. I remember your words on this issue – how much you have been able to accomplish on your own.

Example: I was getting ready for the next level. But the whole dream was about these divisions or the sense of divisions – such as the dividing lines between the levels of experience. I find it difficult to define exactly what the pervading feeling was. There was a growing internal struggle though and a questioning. It may have been that I felt the divisions between the experiences were artificial – just as I feel, looking at Maria’s certificates of courses taken in massage and Reiki, that humans artificially create denomination to make them saleable or profitable – we create differences and demarcations for our own profit.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I seeking or have got a certificate?

Do I have any certificates in waking life – if so what do I associate with them? See Associations Working With

Do I feel the need for certification?

See Processing Dreams and Techniques for Exploring your Dreams