Posts Tagged ‘dream’
Aura
An expression of the level of your being or mind that extends beyond the narrow confines of your sensory perceptions or intellectual understanding. We know now that our eyesight is only aware of a tiny part of the spectrum of light, our hearing only aware of a small amount that dogs and bats can hear, and the radiations from our brain also are unknown to us except if we use special equipment. And all of those radiations are seen as an aura reaching out from our body and can sometimes be seen as colours or what we call an aura.
I know many people say there is no such thing as an aura. But now people are often shown wearing night or infrared glasses. These enable our poor eyesight to extend its range slightly, so the can see the aura of heat that surrounds living bodies.
Another explanation is that people who have a very intense experience of illumination or enlightenment sometimes are seen with an aura.
Sometimes we touch a concept or feeling that has massive connections, so vast they begin to build up beyond usual levels of realisation or sensing. We might call it a mega-concept, which goes on building and generating realisations we have never had before – that is, we have never made those connections before. When your mind is functioning in that way you become a different type of human being, an individual, but connected much more fully with your inner and outer reality.
So an aura around an object, person or animal depicts this function, i.e. that in the dream you are aware of more than you usually are, or more of your potential is being expressed. As such the aura show how much of your potential is shining out of you. The first example below illustrates this. See: archetype of the self.
The aura in dreams is also often associated with death, or the spirit of the person whose aura is seen – spirit being here used in the same way as ‘she had a fighting spirit’. Therefore it might suggest we are aware of wondrous or awful qualities of soul of the person or ourselves. It can also suggest power of some sort – internal energy.
Seeing an aura can link with intuitions or feelings you have about the person you see it around. Occasionally the aura indicates a health problem. In such cases the dream would include some feeling or realisation that the colours or marks in the aura showed an illness or upset in the system.
Example: I was following a woman up a hill. As I did this I experienced a very wonderful feeling. It felt as if light were beginning to shine out of me as if I had a glowing aura. When we reached the top of the hill we were arms about each other, and I had the glorious sense of being wholly myself – wholly a man. I sensed that I had reached a new level of manhood by more fully accepting myself, by more fully giving and allowing more of myself to be available to others. It felt to me as if manhood is a glory, a shining out of life itself through a particular person.
Example: When we came to my sister, I had the feeling she was ill. I can’t fathom why, but I was just about to ask him to look after her, when he stretched out his right hand and gently stroked her cheek. He said to her, “You’re dead aren’t you?” I was absolutely stunned and it was then that I was aware of how cold and white he was. I realised then that he was dead, and so he could see she was dying – due to some aura as her spirit was leaving her body. He then disappeared, and I was frantic trying to find him, to ask him how long before she would die. I was crying and almost hysterical to find him, and that is how I awoke. L. W.
Example I had a dream that I was talking to about 5 or 6 people and I was reading each person’s aura. Suddenly one of them came to me and asked if I could I tell him the colour of his aura. All at once I heard celestial songs and his aura was all white. I awoke feeling like the person had been Jesus. As a result of this dream, I had a pain in my head for several days afterward. ARE dream.
The last example is interesting because the woman dreamer begins to experience something beyond her usual awareness. The pain in the head is a common result of this as parts of the brain that were dormant or inactive begin to operate or develop.
Example: ‘I walked past a married couple who were walking up the hill too. As I passed I heard them say something about a shepherd. Looking up the hill I saw the sheep, then The Shepherd. A beautiful aura of many colours surrounded The Shepherd. I looked and felt joy and exuberance rise in me, and I ran to the couple saying it was THE SHEPHERD.’ Brian C.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What am I feeling or realising about the aura?
Does this extend my awareness of something or someone?
If I imagine myself as that aura what do I feel?
See Altered State of Consciousness – Dreams are Virtual Realities – Enlightenment.
Australia
To have Australia in your dream depend almost entirely on whether you have lived there, born there or whether it is an unknown for you. So you need to ask yourself what associations you have with the land.
But in general it could mean for many opportunity, hard-headedness, practicality, dubiousness about the irrational. See: Abroad; Australian aboriginal dream beliefs.
Useful Questions and Hints:
See Processing Dreams and Talking As to find out what your associations are – also Association of Ideas with Dreams.
Author
This may depict a part of yourself that is creative, especially to do with telling the story of your real self, your real inner passions and dreams, your life story.
An author in a dream suggests they are creative, and are a sort of author-ity.
But is the dream author really a creative person or just saying it for effect.
It might suggest ideas you have about writing, about becoming a writer, about the difficulties of doing the work. But it depends what the author is doing and what your relationship with them is.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it you/the author has written or is writing about, and how does that relate to your waking life?
How would I describe the character of the author or her/his abilities – and does that describe facets of myself?
Is the author ambitious or something – if so what?
What is the action or theme of the dream? See Plot of the Dream.
What is your role in the dream? See Role in Dream.
Am I meeting the things I fear or dislike in my dream? See Fear in Dream.
Authority
Might depict what has arisen in your life out of relationship with father. Or the dream might depict your relationship with authority, or a view of how you use power of authority. See conformity.
An authority figure in dreams can suggest many things, depending on the theme of the dream. So it could indicate your own best sense or intuition; a know it all attitude, which might be ‘I am right and you are wrong because I am the authority’. Or it can be about dependence and wanting someone to tell you what to do and where to go.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I the authority in the dream?
Am I in a passive relationship with the authority?
Am I learning or teaching anything?
See Active Passive – Carry the Dream Forward.
Autism
Virtually all of us have areas of our feelings, or responses to particular situations such as learning or a relationship with the opposite sex, in which we have been hurt or traumatised. These areas or responses may be represented by an autistic child or adult. These withdrawn or hurt parts of self can sometimes express great shrewdness or insight when met in the right way. This may be because within such experience we hold awareness of how pain or difficulty influences life, and what pains other people carry. See: idiot; Archetype of the Outcast.
So it can represent your own lack of or inability to express yourself. See I AM
(Thanks Chris)
Useful Questions and Hints:
How am I relating to the autistic person, or the autism in myself?
Can I accept that I can learn something from this person or situation?
What are the events of this dream suggesting? See: themes; habits and Crazy As a Jaybird – Sane Reasons for Some Crazy Behaviour.
Autobahn
See: motorway.
Autograph
A symbol of who you are as an outward character. Usually a sign of yourself in someone else’s life.
Often indicates a feeling of importance – as when someone asks for your autograph.
Trying to get someone else’s autograph suggests trying to get some of their influence in your life – like saying, “I met this person”. See: signature; writing; Name
Useful Questions and Hints:
If this is your signature, what or who are you giving your essence to?
If someone else’s autograph, what am I needing or wanting their influence or power for?
What do the events of the dream suggest the autograph is in connection with?
See Processing Dreams.
Automaton
A habitual and unthinking or unconscious reaction; some aspect of the body’s automatic working, or a view of the body as mechanical instead of alive and intelligent. Or perhaps an unfeeling and automatic relationship with someone or something.
If the automaton is like a created figure such as Frankenstein or a golem, then it suggests something that you are now facing that you created out of our own actions and feelings, or is active as an independent force. See: Lurch; monster; robot.
This may be a sign of a trauma from the past which makes one unfeeling and so on automatic responses.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is the automaton creative or destructive – and can you see that action in your life?
What is the automaton doing – in my life?
If I imagine myself as this thing, what do I feel or realise? For help doing this see Stand in Role and Talking As.
Automobile
See: Car, or parts of car, such as engine, etc.
Autopsy
A search within oneself or ones life experiences for what has caused something in you to die or to stop functioning.
You could be asking yourself questions, and so examining the past for clues – perhaps for what has brought about present loss of motivation or sense of loss.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What am I examining in myself or another?
Am I tearing myself open about some issue, or being torn open trying to understand it?
Can I bury this body now it has been examined?
Try Talking As the body being examined, or body.
Autumn
‘The autumn of one’s life’; mellow feelings; gradual but often pleasant decline; maturity; middle age; past the prime; a period of change when the old order of things is fading away, and the new has not shown itself.
This might suggest a time of harvesting what has grown or been developed in previous years or months. Autumn in your dream may also suggest a time which is not good for active creativity, but more suited to ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. The falling leaves of autumn may therefore remind you that many attitudes are outworn – no longer necessary ways of living and working – are falling away and not to be held on to.
Autumn leaves: Old memories, skills, attitudes, things you have developed in life that are no longer performing a useful function due to the changes happening. They can therefore be dropped. It is just a process and like all life is carrying on readying for a new phase.
If the dreamer is in middle age: Represents these years of your life. The details of the dream show what you intuitively feel about these years and what can arise from them. It is therefore helpful to see if you can understand this season of your life and what it brings. It may be a time to rest and let go some of the outer activities of the past.
Mrs C. had the following dream at a time when she started her own business against her husband’s wishes, and one week before he walked out on her. Autumn here depicts the sense of something coming to an end.
Example: ‘ My husband was in a wheelchair, I was pushing him along a promenade. At the end of the promenade was a path which we took. The path went along the top of a cliff. The sea below was pretty rough, a typical Autumn day at the seaside. All of a sudden the path came to an end and there was a steep slope to the right which led down to the beach, I decided to turn right and go down the slope. When we got half way down the slope the path started to give way on the left and I found myself without enough room for the four wheels of the wheelchair. I was desperately holding on, tilting the wheelchair to the right to keep it balanced on the two right wheels when my husband got panicky in the chair and moved. The chair tilted to the left and fell down the rocks. I started running down the path towards the beach, towards my husband and the wheelchair. I never reached the wheelchair or my husband because I awoke and that was the end of the dream. ‘ Mrs C.
Example: My brother had his arm around my shoulder as we looked at the dark blue night sky. A symbol like a witch appeared in the sky. I looked at a tree with no leaves, just three branches. A cat and dog sat on it. The cat was on a branch that veered outwards. The branch broke off and my brother said, ‘Is that the way it’s going to be?’ Kelly 19
This fascinating dream by a young woman of 19 most likely depicts her relationship with her brother. The lack of leaves shows there is nothing now growing between them. The dog and projecting branch represent him, and the cat herself. There is I believe a fairly obvious sexual connection, and the dream shows how she is breaking away from an unconscious male female link with her brother as she matures. The branches come from the same trunk depicting family relationship.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is the autumn of my dream offering or revealing?
Is this autumn a time of loss or of fresh opportunity?
What are the fruits of my summer that exist in this autumn?
See Identity and Dreams; Plot of the Dream; Individuation.
Avalanche
The power of frozen emotions. We can freeze sexuality by anger or jealousy, etc., and the build up of tension might then release in a dangerous way. A possible build up of tension or circumstances that can be or has been triggered into release.
Associations with an avalanche also suggest that there is something which is delicately poised which if triggered can cause a disaster. The image might involve fear of being overwhelmed by the release of emotions that had previously been held at bay – frozen or denied – and have been or might be released. There is also the possibility of anxiety about surviving a major upheaval or change in ones circumstances.
Threat of avalanche: Anxiety about withheld emotions being released or triggered into expression by events.
Dreamt by person who has been involved in an avalanche: Emotions connected with trauma of past event; anxiety about ones survival.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What has built up in my life that is now released or threatening to release?
Have I been ‘freezing’ feelings that I now have to face?
What can I do about dealing with this in a way to avoid danger or damage?
It might be good to read Facing Fear and Dream as Computer Game
Avenue
See: Road.
Awake Awakened Awakening
This means that you have realised something or woken up to something. Maybe you have woken up to your present situation. It can also show how you are emerging from a period of withdrawal. Sometimes you wake because someone is calling you or you feel threatened. It is important with such dreams to capture the feeling and see if you have felt that before in the past, or who is calling you and why.
Sometimes an awakening happens to mark a future inner growth was taking place. Or you realise as the example that you have ‘been asleep’ to much that you were capable of experiencing and now are awake to it. We can also realise that something has either be repressed since youth, or ha been held back from being expressed because you were involved in dealing with other things snd you have awoken things that you had wanted to do or develop such as art, writing, starting a business or even in the sense of a desires for love and a willingness to face sexual experience, and give oneself to it.
To become aware of something. Not able to let go of conscious thoughts and involvements.
Example: I was suddenly awakened by a feeling I was being attacked. Still dreaming I looked to my right and saw a strange man standing near my bed who I felt was trying to mess with my head. Reaching out I send a bolt of energy at him that exploded in his face. He immediately disappeared, but I sent several other bolts exploding after him. This amazed me because I had never done anything like that before.
Example: I know that she has had no sexual life for 20 years, and I have now awoken her passions again. She takes me to an upstairs room, and I believe her husband comes back, but she gets rid of him somehow, I think for good.
Idioms: Rude awakening; wake up to something; wide awake.
Useful questions are:
What woke me or involved my interest?
Is there something I am frightened of that keeps me from sleeping?
Have I got a habit of not sleeping?
Award
See: Prize.
Axe
Power, authority of material nature. Desire to hurt or destroy, or fear of these things. See: Arms; weapons.
Idioms: Axe to grind; to be axed lose one’s job.