Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Chrysalis

An outer inactivity, while you are inwardly going through great change. A new aspect of yourself getting ready to emerge, or sometimes a desire to retreat from the world. See: Butterfly.

Church Chapel Temple

This indicates your religious feelings or beliefs, including the moral code you live by, or your feelings, negative or positive, about organised religion. So the church can represent the attitudes and morals you hide behind in living your life. In other words you may hold back your own longings and need by using ideas of right or wrong, and imposed rules and concepts such as sin. On the other hand you may rebel against social norms in morality and so accept a way of life demonstrated by other rebels. Either way, this may not be who you are within yourself.

Example: Dreamt I was taking my dog Merlin for a walk. He was pulling like hell, and I was going to hit him to make him walk more calmly, but the lead broke. He ran off and played with an Alsatian dog belonging to the man who works at a nearby garage. We were all in the churchyard near my old school – St Marylebone.

Just then a woman “broke from cover”. She had been hiding by the church. She ran as if she had done something wrong, and the dogs chased and stopped her. I went to her. She explained something about me having drunk wine with her, and this had caused this reaction, as if she were on a hallucinogenic drug. We became very emotionally close then. Steve.

Steve says about this dream, “Merlin is my feelings of joyous energy and love trying to get away from the hold/leash I had always kept myself on through my moral restraints. The break is made. The man is myself working in a job beneath my capabilities as I am doing at the moment. The woman is my love, sexuality, which I felt so guilty about most of my life and hide under the cover of church/morality. This has been a life long struggle. The alcohol depicts the attitudes I use to hold back or deaden my love. But I have started releasing – and this has produced a rather confusing condition in my life after restraining myself for so many years.”

Each of us have a sense of our relationship with the forces of life within us and the world around us. A church may depict this sense and what we do with it. This is our awareness of what is holy or fundamental to all life, and therefore eternal, such as the urge to exist; the cycles of life and growth; reproduction and interdependence. So the church, or entering the church might indicate how you let this wider awareness and impulse flow into you, how you relate to it. Or it might show you opening to its influence.

The church may also represent what spiritual qualities or functions you have developed or built in your personality. By spiritual is meant those things that transcend the limitations of your body senses and identity. For instance when you care for another person you are going beyond your own personal needs and desires. This giving of yourself, or receiving from another, transcends your own limitations or boundaries. In this way the church can depict the indwelling wonder of life in each of us that we so often forget or work against.

The physical structure of the church particularly represents these inbuilt qualities.

Example: I was with several other people searching the rubble of what had been a great church. The building, recently ruined by some disaster such as an earthquake, or perhaps internal weakness, was now no more than a heap of stones. I and others searched amongst the rubble for anything that might be salvaged. Suddenly, among the stones that at one time made up a wall near the door, I found a most wonderful chalice. Its wonder was not because of any precious metal it was made of, or from artistry. It was because the stemmed cup shone with its own light, a light that never diminished. Just seeing it, being near it, produced an experience of awe and wonder.

As we took up the cup we understood that it was the emanation of this light around which the church had been built. Yet out of some fear, the chalice had been hidden in the wall of the church, and stranger yet, completely forgotten. With feelings moved by this tragedy we realised that for perhaps hundreds of years people had continued to attend the church, performing empty rituals, singing hymns, going through all the motions of worship without any direct relationship with the wonderful manifestation the divine cup gave. But now we could once more place the chalice in a place where anyone could stand in its light. For it shone on all without exception, and each of us, as we were permeated by that divine light, were transformed in some way by it.

This exceptional dream shows the dreamer looking at the ruin of organised religion that completely misses the point. Then he finds it, the light that never falters and is not caused by anything else – the eternal Spirit that we can bathe in.

See: archetype of the christ; Life’s Little Secrets; compensation theory; religion and dreams.

Walking past the church: Not entering into contact with the best in us – or our rejection of dogma or what religion means to you.

What was my actual response to the abbey, and what part does that response play in my life?

Example: It was like an English Church with several great spires. The whole building seemed to be built in a white and gold design. The gold parts shimmered in the sun. I gazed at this wonderful sight for some time and felt such a wonderful feeling of upliftment, my tiredness gone. Johan E.

Example: The priest was going to question and assault my friend in connection with some opinion he had offended the church with. I went to stand near him to give him moral support, and physical help if necessary. I hated seeing anybody degraded. The priest saw my move and sent three thug type men to shoulder me out. They surrounded me to knock me down. I went berserk and knocked them all over the place with kicks and punches. John P.

In the example John sees the dogmas of the church as an assault and degradation of human qualities of love and moral support. See: prayer

If you have negative feelings about religion, then your dream may be expressing something to do with these conflicts.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What are the feelings in this dream and where do I meet them in my daily life?

What is my relationship with the church in the dream, and what does that suggest about the way I feel about religion or life?

Did I experience any sense of holiness or the divine in the dream, and if so what has it left me with?

Try using Easy Dream Understanding – Being the Person or Thing

Cigar Cigarette

In some ways smoking a cigarette is like drinking alcohol. This is because it has a mind altering or consciousness altering influence. Like alcohol it changes the way we feel or respond to life, and inhibits anxiety while stimulating alertness. So it can depict our dependence upon the drug to deal with our anxiety or lack of confidence. See: alcohol.

Because of this dependent link, the cigarette is sometimes shown as a friend, a helper to meet stress.

Cigarettes also now link with taking into oneself something that is a danger to health. In a dream this might point to actual absorption of cigarette smoke, or of subtle but harmful atmospheres or attitudes in those around you. Of course it may associate with feelings or fears about cancer. If this is so it could be linked with a great deal of suppressed anxiety, as in the following dream. It has shown to lessen the chances of a woman becoming pregnant. See Infertility causes of.

Example: I am a regular smoker. I often wake 3 or 4 times a night dreaming I have dropped my cigarette. I wake and frantically search everywhere, turn the lights on and often cannot go back to sleep. I don’t realise it’s a dream at the time, so think I have really dropped one. How can I stop this?  ‘The Marlbro man!’

This dream is not simply about smoking, but about a life threatening situation.

Smoking with someone suggests a link, a connection, maybe conditioned by or made possible by mutual dependence on the drugged reduction of anxiety. It can therefore sometimes represent sexual relatedness. In this way the cigarette might depict penis or genital sex.

If you are now smoking an electronic cigarette, the n the health risk has gone, but the dependence might still be a factor.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can I recognise the cigarette as a dangerous means of deadening anxiety and difficult feelings – and could I find less dangerous ways of doing this?

Is there any sign of being in a clique or special group in the dream, and does this happen in my waking life?

Are there health fears shown in the dream, and if so what can I understand from them?

See Talking As – Being the Person or Thing

Cinema

Films often portray on the screen elements of our own inner world, with its fantasies, fears, trauma and passions. Looking at the screen is like looking at a mirror in which you see portrayed your own inner life and drama. Therefore the cinema can depict any of these aspects of yourself. 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.

Example: I’m watching a film or video taken from a helicopter, I suppose, of a city skyscraper all the way up to the roof where a singer – maybe an opera singer – is performing, singing to the sky in an evening dress. The “camera” passes over her and continues, showing the tops of other high buildings. Now I’m in a car on a hill – it’s night, been night all along – and I’m crying because I’m afraid to go up that high. I couldn’t do what the singer was doing. The person I’m with hugs and consoles me. Alta

Here Alta is meeting her own fears and recognises them as factors that limit how ‘high’ she can go in life.

Example: When I looked at the film it was a carnival going on in the street, people with gay clothing and crowds watching. Two girls were going to sit in an old model type car, but someone said it would be better if they sat on the back of the car as they could been seen in the parade. Then I was looking into the crowd to find me and it was like looking at a snapshot, it felt very important that I find me, I saw my green slacks just showing, right at the back of the crowd. H. K.

Here the main feature in the dream is the effort to ‘find me’. So the dreamer is watching the film in order to clarify their own self image, or find out who they are and how they relate to other people – the crowd. She was there, but at the back.

The cinema is sometimes a place of romance, of sexual contact, or fantasies about it.

Films enlarge the area of your experience, just as dreams do, so some dreams might use this image to suggest vicarious experience. Or else the horror films, and these feature in many dreams,having pu the idea of awful fears in people’s mind. But they are a good way to face ones own fears. See Facing Fear and Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

If we are lonely or depressed, we may read a book, go out with a friend or watch a film, stimulating feelings that displace the loneliness or despair. This ability to produce positive or different feelings is often seen in the dream process. By holding in mind an image connected with hope and love, feelings will be produced that will compensate in some measure for pain or depression we may be feeling. See Depression and Dreams

There are of course documentary films, and films that give you a new perspective on life and the world around young and the universe you live in. This type of film is a way your dream creator brings new experience and new perspectives to your awareness.

The cinema may also be a dream environment in which you can have an objective view of parts of your own personality – as if they were film characters. See: film.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the theme or the feelings in the film and how do they relate to me at the moment?

What is happening in the cinema, and can I find reference to that in my waking life?

Am I learning something from this film, and if so what?

See Plot of the Dream – Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Circle Circles Circling Round

Yourself; personal identity; wholeness. It suggests a good harmony between all the aspects of your being – thus a feeling of pleasure, centeredness and openness, physical, mental and spiritual; may be used to depict the Self. It can also depict eternity; female sexuality; ‘the same dull round’ of routine suggested by Blake, in which one might be trapped if there is no alternative, depending on the content of the dream. If the circle is irregular, suggests imbalance or lack of harmony. See: ring.

Completeness, wholeness, all of the parts of our being, body, soul, spirit. It also represents the universe as a whole, harmony, symmetry. Sometimes symbolises an enclosure or restraining influence, or protection, and stands for the womb, or female sexual organs. May also represent emptiness, receptiveness, or a fertile condition. Or just yourself.

In dreams one often walks in a circle, or ploughs, or is moved in a circle. This means that one is enclosing, protecting or bringing the enclosed under the influence of the power that caused you to circle. Your circle of friends. But it can also mean searching for something or someone. Magic and teaching can occur in the circle in our dreams.

Example: To my amazement a huge living and wondrous circle appeared on the wall. It was full of movement, everything dancing in time to music. At the very centre of the circle was emptiness, nothing, a void. Yet out of this nothingness all things emerged. There were plants, animals, people, hills, rivers and mountains all coming to birth. They danced out in their own individual movement, yet each unknowingly was part of the whole wonderful and intricate dance which made a great pattern and movement in the body of the circle. All danced to the periphery and there turned and moved, still in their ballet, back to the centre. At that centre they plunged into its oblivion again. But at that very moment new life sprang from it to dance once more.

Example: I dreamt I was sitting in a circle of elders, it was cold and there was a fire. The mountains behind the oldest were purple and I could smell water. An elder to my right with very white hair in two long braids pulled out a pipe and I offered my cigarettes to him. I took one and sprinkled the tobacco in my palm and cupped my other hand underneath it. He turned from me and addressed the circle, speaking in a different language. I asked what language he was speaking and a voice in my head said “Tiwa” – it was a deep, masculine voice, and then I understood it.

“The magic circle of the fairies, the sun, the moon, a phonograph record with its diminishing grooves, a bedspring, or an ascending spiral, all may represent degrees of harmony and wholeness. A halo is an even more graphic illustration of a mandala, for it is automatically associated with saintliness. The triangle within the circle shows the same union with the divine self; for the triangle is representative of man in the earth and the circle symbolizes God. Combined, it shows wholeness of ideals and purposes.

The square indicates a balance in the material.” Quote from Dreams Your Magic Mirror.

Idioms: Go round in circles; come full circle; vicious circle; circle of influence/friends.

See: shapes and symbols.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent a figure of speech, such as: go round in circles, come full circle, circle of influence or friends, family circle and so on?

Does this suggest an enclosure or protection of some kind?

Is the dream about wholeness, or completeness?

Does it have a more spiritual meaning having to do with universal harmony?

Is there anything frightening about the circle?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Key Words

Circumcision

This may associate with feelings either of losing some sexual power, or of cleaning the penis. But of course it may also be associated with being Jewish, or having being parented by those like Moslems or in hot countries.

As circumcision often takes place at a very early age it can link in ones experience or unconscious with enormously complex fantasies. This is because it is a pre-verbal experience and so one tends to illustrate or view such experiences through fantasy or fairy stories – perhaps mythological themes, as Freud pointed out with the Oedipus complex.

Some times the lost part of the penis is shown as a missing petrol cap, or a ‘dead end’. It may be felt as a broken penis, or there may appear a desire to ‘steal’ someone else’s penis as ones own is broken. There can be shame or a sense of inadequacy around this.

Feelings of helplessness can invade a child around such issues, and also fix a determination not to ‘let anything in’. The results are often experienced as unsuccessful sexual growth, or the inability to find peace and fulfilment in sex. But often such issue are found to have many connections with other infant or childhood events and traumas. See

If you dream of circumcision and you are not circumcised then it has the general meaning as explained above, and of cutting off your sexual feelings and drives.

But in recent times I feel the reason circumcision was used in the past has been revealed, for in Africa it was made necessary to stop the passing on of AIDs. The foreskin is in  fact a natural harborer of bacteria.

Female circumcision is usually about feelings of guilt, shame, or suppression of healthy sexual urges.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I facing difficulties or struggles regarding sexual feelings or performance at the moment – and if so what are those struggles about?

Do I repress my sexual feelings, or feel shame about them?

Are there strange fantasies I have about sex and sexual organs – if so what is their underlying theme?

Try looking at Children’s Traumatic Fears – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Background

Circus

The arena or circle of consciousness in which we can watch the instinctive drives and see how well they are socialised or brought under control. All the instinctive, physical, passionate sides of one’s nature.

But there are so many aspects to the circus, and so it depends upon what your dream focuses. If it is the animals, then it may be showing you how you relate to your instinctive and natural impulses. The following example illustrates this.

For ages there was only quietness. Then slowly there arose a stifled feeling. I was struggling for breath. Not desperately, but almost a gentle struggle. So slightly it was almost unnoticeable. It was like a slow murder – and so little at a time it didn’t look like murder. Then up burst words and realisation. The body – the beast or animal – was like a circus animal (we had been to the circus last week). The poor beast/body will do anything you train it to do. Or at least it will try its hardest, like a willing beast, to do what we ask of it. I felt the loving willingness of my beast, trying to breathe slowly as I asked it to do. And the words and insights and feelings came that by training my beast in that way, a part of it was being suffocated very slowly. Part of it was being killed degree by degree. Why?

If it is about the acts, then it is often about your own skills, abilities or fears, and problems – such as fear of heights.

The circus can also be about experiencing alternatives to the way you live and see the world at the moment, and about the variety and perhaps exotic opportunities life offers. Circus people might depict these alternative ways of life, or of being street wise and widely experienced in the ways of life.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it I am feeling or experiencing in connection with the circus, and how does that relate to me?

Am I dealing with the animals – my physical urges and hungers – or am I involved with the people – unusual ways of life?

Are there fears I am meeting in the dream, and if so in what way can I change the dream to meet them?

See: carry the dream forward – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Easy Dream Understanding

City Town

One’s relationship and interaction with other people, society, and all the opportunities and diversions city life offers. Therefore the dream may show something of the many choices you make or can make about your direction, relationships or activities. It may also be about your sense of community, or the mental and emotional environment in which you live. For instance if it is a dark rainy city, then it suggests you are living within that sort of dismal inner life. If bright, sunny, with opportunities, then that is most likely how you feel about things. See Inner World; capital

A town may be a place you seek a partner or someone to have sex with.

Example: Then we each talk about our sexual fantasies – some of us, at least. How we are going to get them satisfied. I seem to be an observer while the girl orders up hers on a phone. “How do you like to have your sexual fantasies known/discussed in public?” I ask. She gives me a wry smile. There are bar girls tottering around on high heels and one of my friends gets into a fight with a native man who accosts his girl. I help him by helping to beat up this guy. Later I am in town where it is raining heavily and at least two of my glasses (spectacles) are destroyed or broken. A policewoman blames me for this – my carelessness..

The dreamer comments on this dream by saying, “I have no vision of the moral consequences of my actions or of the sadness I cause sexually speaking.”

Example: I dream Su, a woman I am in love with, is shown paddling a dingy to a local town, where I am going to meet her. But there were difficulties about getting there.

Su in this dream shows that I still haven’t ‘met’ or integrated the ability to love without grasping or wanting to posses. The difficulty in the dream suggests that I find it difficult to express this more open love.

Example: The city was very beautiful and busy, as I passed through an arch a woman circus act stared at me. I felt slightly embarrassed again, and then I passed another woman who also showed great interest. It made me feel good about myself I was still unsure yet I felt I was a man. KK

Here is another possibility shown in the dream – how we meet so many people in a town and so are exposed to view. In the case of KK he struggled with his feelings of being a man when in a relationship with women. So we may meet our own opinion of how we look to other people.

The city may be like a mandala, a circle with many extensions, a symbol of your inner state, the structure of your personality and what it is built upon. In this case the beauty or despair of the city will be saying a lot about your present inner condition. See: mandala.

Alone in a town: Feeling isolated and out of touch.

An ancient or historical city: It can indicate many things, such as an old or outmoded way of life you have left behind. It can sometimes represent a part of history you are fascinated by and so are about the way of life then and how it affects our present life. Rarely to can also show a past life and even relationships with others and the influence and relevance the past life has on the present one.

Home town or town of birth: The familiar way of life; the way you usually go about things. If it is a past home, then it shows your feelings or state of life at that time.

In a deserted town: Outmoded social attitudes or way of life.

In some dreams: Work and opportunity.

Seeing a whole city from a higher viewpoint: This shows you have expanded your awareness of yourself and the environment in which you live. these further reaches of consciousness certain qualities were necessary. A certain amount of confidence and fearlessness were needed to meet the further reaches of mind.  See Dimensions of Human Experience  – Exploring Inner Space

Strange town: The new; different attitudes or way of life, new choices or opportunities.

Idioms: Go to town; ghost town; man about town; paint the town.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the mood or atmosphere of the city, and does that reflect the inner state within myself I have created?

What am I doing in the town, and metaphorically what does that say about me? (i.e. if I am lost in the town am I lost in my life at the moment? If I am looking for love or business opportunity in the city is that true now in my life?)

What are my interactions with others in the dream suggesting about me?

See – Introduction to Dreams – Associations Working With – Being the Person or Thing

Clam

Emotional withdrawal. Some part of your feelings may be closed up. The clam suggests there is some sort of outer hardness to protect a sensitivity or hurt. Often the defensive shell we use to avoid hurt or sexual or emotional involvement; the female sexual organs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there any signs that I am sometimes emotionally withdrawn?

Do I clam up sometimes if offended or scared?

Are you very sensitive and so try to protect your feelings?

See Easy Dream Understanding – Settings in Dreams – meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream

Classroom

The learning process; what we learned at school – not lessons but interrelationships, class structure, competitiveness, authority, mortification, group preferences, etc. Also it can be habits of behaviour or feeling reactions developed during those years – puberty occurs at this time, and confronts us with many new feelings, choices and drives.

People have told me that criticism aimed at them by a teacher had changed them right into adulthood. Someone told me a teacher told them they couldn’t sing, and they have never sung since. They were in their forties and were then helped to sing. Another person, Tom, was listened to while his classroom was singing. The headmaster went to each person and then stopped at Tom and was told he was ruining the whole class and couldn’t sing. Tom’s response was, “What the hell does he know. Of course I can sing!” He carried on singing and was told by a musical voice trainer that he was actually like a musician with his voice. See Avoid Being Victims

The classroom itself can indicate study; relationship with authority; whatever sense of oneself engendered by school. Maybe you need to ask yourself what you actually learned at school.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Did what you learned at school have a negative or positive influence on you?

What do you feel overall about school?

Did you rebel or learn from authority figures.

See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Clay

The body; material affairs. Or yourself, shaped by events and impressions. Physical life, materialistic attitudes. The parts of yourself that can be shaped, or have been shaped, and perhaps hardened. This can refer to many things, such as part of ones nature that have been shaped by other people or circumstances and have hardened. This could be a shape that is either quite without art, or an expression of great skill. See: Earth.

In some belief systems a being of clay can depict an elemental force. At its simplest level this represents the mineral forces active in your being. Sometimes such influences tend to deeply influence the personality, and may therefore be felt as invasive beings or forces. In essence this would mean ones response to life would be largely materialistic and incapable of sensing the subtler side of nature and people.

The clay for some people represents the possibility of artistic or self expression. But this probably links back again to how you express or shape yourself. But it could be an expression of some part of you or a gift you are making.

If it is a part of your body, or a body, it suggests life or responsiveness is lacking in that part or that person.

If it is simply clay earth, it depends what you associate with clay, or if you are a keen gardener and see clay as a poor soil to grow things in. The clay can also suggest difficult terrain.

Example: “I dreamed that a man was creating a clay model of me. When it was completed he placed it on the desert. I was surprised to see that the upper half of the torso was alive. It did not, however, resemble me at all. Rather it looked like an exotic, dark, foreign girl. To my complete consternation I observed that the figure from the waist down resembled a toilet bowl, moist, and earth colored!”

An interpretation of the dream was give as, “A warning to the girl that she was becoming a ^“sex-pot.” This was symbolized by the toilet bowl, the use of which relates to the sexual organs. The newly molded sculpture indicated recent experiences. The foreign looking woman indicated that this was not her true self. The desert in which the man placed his creation symbolized the spiritual aridity to which this activity was reducing her.”

Idioms: feet of clay; modeling clay.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is it that is clay in my dream? (Look this up in the rest of the dictionary.)

What have I shaped or been shaped by, and what is the quality of this?

Is this something I can be proud of or can change?

See – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

See: Earth.

Cliff

If on top of cliff, fear of, or possibility of, falling in the eyes of others or yourself. Fall from power or achievement. Fear of not being able to achieve.

Other meaning can be that you are faced with the feeling of being on edge; facing danger; making a difficult decision; taking a risk; encountering a barrier; or the unknown, depending on dream content.

On edge of change, danger, or a decision. It can also indicate taking a risk or a barrier, and so being confronted by fear and how you deal with your fears.

Example: I am falling down a cliff. In the dream, I know if I hit the bottom I will die. (I’ve been told by dream ‘experts’ that this is so.) I hit the bottom – my body is splattered on the ground, but ‘I’ am floating through the air thinking ‘How strange! I’m supposed to be dead! But I’m alive and free.’ Ingmar Bergman. See SummaryQ1

In many cases if you are at the top of the cliff it shows great space beyond where you stand. Some dreamers find this threatening, and for others it is an opportunity to fly or in some way relate to the vastness of the universe – their inner life. In this sense it represents the unknown, the possibilities of your life and how you relate to them. So it shows how you respond to or relate to the hugeness of your unconscious inner life.

The example shows the cliff as a wider view of life, an overview, one which includes death. It is shown as the uphill struggle in life, looking back or down from which one has wisdom. It is also the test of self trust, and the facing of ones fear.

Example: ‘I was standing on a cliff top overlooking the ocean. By my side was a man. He had short cropped silver hair, gleaming, and piercing blue eyes. He seemed old, but was broad, muscular and gave me the impression of having lived many lifetimes, or being very wise. He indicated the sea and I understood I should plunge into it. I did so, leaving my body behind, and became a part of the ocean. At the same time it seemed I could at any time stand beside the man on the cliff again.’ Debbie.

In Debbie’s dream the cliff is also the edge between life and death; between fear of death and exuberance of life; between being trapped in the concept of oneself as simply a physical form, and the freedom of realising oneself as naked consciousness.

 Being at foot of cliff: If trying to climb it – the immense difficulties we face in growing and facing all the fears and traumas in the way of our progress. Between sea and cliff, it suggests that you are becoming aware of the enormous consciousness your personality is only a small part of, and the cliff is the also enormous heritage of the past you have. See The Unconscious

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my relationship with the cliff and what does that suggest?

If I am high up and can see expanses of land or sea, what am I understanding?

Am I meeting the challenge of the cliff, or am I trapped by fear or feelings of impassable barriers?

See – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Methods of Awakening

Climb Climbed Climbing

Trying to, or rising above, difficulties. Trying to achieve a new viewpoint, or to learn or develop a new understanding.

Sometimes we climb in a dream to avoid something; to get away; to climb out of some mess we are in. We also climb to reach something, and in doing so make take a risk.

Climbing has risks, whether you are climbing a tree or trying to climb the social ladder. Attaining new heights in work or relationship we reach the new and face anxiety, so may have a fear of failing/falling. In such dreams it is necessary to have the right support or foundation to climb from. So if the thing you are climbing over are insecure, it might be pointing to earlier phases of your life not helping you to develop confidence and a secure sense of yourself. See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Facing Fear

We climb: Often this is to avoid something,  to get away, to climb out of some mess or difficulty we are in – in which case it expresses effort on our part.

If we climb to get something or somewhere, to reach it, this can express ambition or motivation.

Climbing may also depict the first half of life, and going downhill middle or old age. If you are approaching middle age, climbing a hill can represent the first half of your life, and going downhill middle or old age.

Example: I recently reached my fortieth birthday and dreamt I was walking uphill. It was quite tough going. When I got to the top I saw the road on the other side was very steep. I felt frightened of going down it. I looked around and saw that the top of the hill stretched away on each side, so there was plenty of space, like a plateau. I realised that I could walk around and there is no hurry to go down the hill.

The next example illustrates a common use of climb – to see what is there, beyond, above, out of sight. This aspect of climbing also often includes the process of personal growth or positive change. The higher viewpoint is also one that includes a vaster or more inclusive understanding of life. In the dream the child is exploring growth in this way, to see what maturity and death have in store.

Example: ‘We climbed this tree, the baby as well, to see what was at the top. The baby fell out of the tree. We climbed down and took the baby to a room and lay it on a bed. It seemed to be asleep and didn’t wake up. Later we went back to the room to see the baby but it had gone. In its place was a bluebird. As we looked the bluebird flew away.’ Dream of a nine year old girl.

Idioms: Climb down; climb the walls; social climber. See: hill; mountain.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Why am I climbing – is it to escape something or to get somewhere or something – and what does this point to in my life?

What do I see, achieve or understand when I have climbed?

If it is difficult to climb, what is stopping me or acting as a barrier?

Try using Being the Person or Thing – Dreams are Like a Computer Game – Avoid Being Victims

Clock

This may refer to your sense of connection with other people, duties, or the restrictions or disciplines you place upon yourself. The clock can sometimes represent your span of life, and the ticking, your heart – how much time have you left? What time of your life is it?

Clock or watch: The boundaries or restrictions we create for ourselves through our awareness of time. It can also relate to a sense of duty and timing, a realisation of urgency or having ‘lots of time’.

The clock is also an indication of duration, of how much experience you have passed through, and of course your passing life. The watch or clock also connect powerfully with arriving, meeting and leaving; with departing work, or the pressure of being on time.

Ticking clock: Might be the heart; life ticking away.

Big clock: One’s life – how much time has passed or one has left.

Clock watching: Tension, a desire to be somewhere else or with someone else. Wanting to escape from either a situation or from the demands of time and responsibility. Being bored or lacking satisfaction. Feelings about ageing.

Clock with hands still: The end of something, timelessness, or a death.

Expensive watch: Quality; boastfulness; accuracy; wealth.

With hands racing: Time running out or a frenetic stressful feelings of events pressurising you. Sense of urgency.

Alarm clock ringing: Message to wake up to something happening in your life, or to remember something you had set yourself to do. Sometimes a warning. See: time – of day.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the dream situation about – parting, waiting, rightness, impatience – whatever it is how does it relate to me?

Is this about timing, and if so in regard to what?

What time of my life is it?

See Being the Person or Thing – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

 

Close Closed Closing

To shut out, divide, not wish to know, feel or experience. Fear of being entered, fear of sex. But also protection and privacy, or even decision making if you close a door against someone or something.

You can close a business deal, close your heart to someone, close your mind to any suggestions or anything new, or you can have someone or something close to your heart.

Closing ones eyes will probably have much the same meanings, though it might also be to switch attention from outward experience to inward and the infinite possibilities of memory and imagination and beyond.

Example: But the feelings that arose were of the love of beauty and art that her father had shared and helped unfold in her. But she had kept that part of her closed because of what her mother had said. Now it was open to her again and she could allow it to unfold further in her life.

To close a door etc.: To be closed emotionally, or to end or shut something out. Often this requires a decision or strong feeling. Or it might be a response to protect oneself or someone/something else. It can mean you want privacy or you do not want someone in your life and are trying to find ‘space’ for oneself. It can mean a dismissing attitudes or tension we use to shut others out of intimate contact or it can be repressing memories or feelings and decisively ending something.

For close as in near: Intimacy; being made aware of or having a fuller awareness of something or someone; what one feels connected with or has ties with; near to, in the sense of making a decision – near to leaving home; close to, as ‘close to finding the solution’; a situation that is near at hand or being confronted or realised now. Idioms: At close quarters; close fisted; close on; close to home; that was close.

Idioms: a close call; bring to a close; a close shave; close a deal/sale; close to the vest; close to my heart.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this closed on me or am I closing something – and what is that in my life?

Am I opening to or shutting out something – ending or beginning?

What is it, a person, situation or thing that is involved in the closing?

Try using Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Acting on your dream – Associations Working With

Closet

See: Wardrobe.