Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Fly

See: insects; flying; flies; airplane.

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Flying – not in airplane

This has many levels of significance, depending on the dream. It can mean you are flying or fleeing, from something you find difficult to face. This is usually something in your life you try to get away from by using distractions like social life, media entertainments, reading a book or watching a film, becoming over idealistic, religious, or living in the clouds of fantasy. See airplane

When flying we do not have our feet on the ground and so it can suggest either that you have found a positive expression to your energy, or that you have lost a practical grasp on what is happening. The positive flying when you are not fleeing from something, often indicates independence and the ability to deal well with your emotions or fears.

Example: I dream I was in my bed and had a magic carpet that I could fly on and I flew off with my dog.

Flying, in a plane, or without it, can also symbolise attempts to gain a view of what lies ahead of you in the future, or your potential. From the air we can see ahead, and back. We quickly review where we are heading, and the possibilities of our possible directions.

But flying does not necessarily mean movement, for in dreams flying indicates that you are in control of your fears and urges so you can hang in space.

Example: ‘I was floating atop a tree near houses and a rising walkway. I was saying to people around the tree that I had found something wonderful. Reaching out my hand I told them they could join me if they accepted this possibility in themselves. Some thought it was a publicity campaign, but were enjoying the spectacle. A few reached out and were immediately with me, until there were about six of us, men and women. We joined hands, experiencing a most amazing sense of well being. Then we slowly and effortlessly flew to a great height, leaving a trail of coloured smoke which could be seen for miles. It was to demonstrate the triumph of the human spirit. We then descended and were going somewhere else to show others.’ Margareta H.

There is a negative side to flying which depicts how we try to move away from internal trauma or fear by disassociating our feelings and mind from reality. We may do this by constantly reading books, watching television, or by internally deadening our feelings and body sensations. Thus some victims of sexual abuse dream of flying as an escape from their internal pain. Willa’s dream below expresses her own fear of her father who abused her, and shows how she attempted to escape this fear by ‘flying’.

The example below illustrates how much will, effort and learning can be involved in flying in dreams. This aspect of flying connects with the gaining of independence and the expression of one’s potential. Adler saw flying dreams suggestive of confidence and ability to solve present life problems. They portray the overcoming of obstacles and the people who have them are positively directing their life. The positive side of flying almost certainly depicts the ability to hold a steady state of mind against the difficulties of life. The negative side of flying shows a retreat from such difficulties.

 Example: I was held prisoner by an ‘evil scientist’ who appeared as an older white man, short, and wearing a white lab coat. We were in a room that looked like a laboratory high up in a tower. He seemed to want to conduct some kind of painful experiment on me. My fear was immense. I tried to escape by flying out of the only window in the room. I did fly out, but he came after me and pulled me back inside. Willa. Quoted from Sexual Dreams by Gayle Delaney published by Piatkus.

Example: ‘I was in a building with a group of people. I was being chased and suddenly fly up in the air to escape my pursuers.’ Michael O.

Example: I often dreamed I was being chased by boys or men. I would suddenly take off like a helicopter and fly away, sometimes narrowly escaping from my pursuer. M.C

Learning independence, and the ability to make decisions despite what others feel, may be done by ignoring our own feelings. This may be achieved by always keeping busy; never having quiet moments alone; filling empty periods with entertainment or company; smoking, drinking alcohol, taking sedatives or tranquillisers; rigid positive thinking. Then, as Michael does in his dream, we fly from issues we are pursued by instead of resolving them. This may lead us to the extremes of being either rigidly materialistic, or as rigidly ethereal. In either case we lose contact with everyday human issues, and may begin to have the ‘escape’ type flying dream, or out of body experiences. See Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

We are all born into a certain paradigm or ‘reality’. At one time, part of the ‘reality’ for most Britain’s was that anyone without a white skin was a heathen or savage. At other times the ‘reality’ has been that anything heavier than air could not fly. Meteors did not exist because theory discounted them – and so on. To break free of such paradigms and from the ‘gravity’ or hold our parental and social authority has on us, and to find a measure of emotional and intellectual freedom, takes the sort of will, effort and learning depicted in some flying dreams. See Archetype of the Paradigm 

‘During childhood I learned to fly in a long sequence of dreams. Each linked very clearly to the last. I would go to the nearby churchyard and in the beginning I would run along as fast as I could then jump and just manage to extend the jump by a great effort of will. In subsequent practices I managed to gradually extend the jump for many yards; and eventually I could skim along indefinitely. The next stage though was to extend my height, and this took enormous effort of will and body. I made active swimming motions and climbed, but only held altitude with great and constant concentration. With further practice still, this clumsy mode of flying was left behind as I learned to use pure motivation, decision or will to lift me into the air and carry me easily and gracefully wherever I wished. At this stage my flying was swift, mobile and without struggle.’

It is important to learn to fly because it is an excellent training for decision making, concentration, pure motivation and perseverance. You can train it first by imagination, by seeing if you can take of and not be afraid of falling/failing.

Flying expresses also the dealing with other internal influences which hold us down, such as self doubt, anxiety, depression.

Example: ‘I was flying. I felt nervous at first that I would fall down, but not afraid. I soon became confident and felt very happy and wanted the sensation to continue. I was flying over a building, could have been a small church, crematorium or graveyard but did not feel afraid or upset. When I woke I lay in bed and tried very hard to keep the feelings with me and, for reasons unknown, I do not wish to forget it.’ Mrs S. M.

In flying, Mrs. S. M. is finding a way to look at death – the graveyard – which gives her a different viewpoint, a different feeling reaction to it, and she doesn’t want to lose that precious newly learned view. In their maturing process, some people learn to see their thoughts and emotions as things they experience rather than what they are. For instance I might feel a failure and thus believe I am indeed a failure. Or I might recognise the feeling of failure as simply an emotion I sometimes have which I can choose a reaction to. This brings the sort of new viewpoint and freedom seen in the above example. See Avoid Being Victims

Flying alone occurs most frequently, showing the independent aspect of flying. But because it often involves our positive feelings of pleasure, flying may depict our sexuality as below, especially aspects of it expressing freedom from social norms and restraints.

Example: ‘I knew I could fly. I picked up one of the young women I felt love for and flew with her. Laughingly I felt like superman, and flew easily.’ Simon W.

Example: I miss my flights. I miss the feel of the wind. Soaring to the closeness of the earth and in full lightless speed into the high sky. Soaring down to touch the brim of the water below and seeing the flights reflections. I miss looking to my left and seeing my flight partner, a beautiful Hawk with beautiful yellow eyes. Never did the Hawk fly ahead nor behind or above nor below. I learned to see far below from high above. And when the flight was over I felt complete. I miss soaring!

Example: Particularly I miss coming alive for the first time – really alive and with a knowing and awareness that was like quicksilver and penetrating. I was flying – out of the heavy almost blind body still lying on the bed, and below me I could see great radiations coming from places on the surface of the earth. Was it prayers reaching out?

Transcendence is also depicted by flying. The tree is Margareta’s personal life. She is at the growing tip, transcending, leaving behind her past. Being high in flight, or on a hill or mountain also represents the action of seeing our life as a whole, having a sense of our overall direction and destiny, our essential self. This frequently gives rise to the drive to give of one’s best to others, as Margareta does in leaving behind a sign – the spire of colour.

Some researchers believe flying dreams often precede lucid dreams. See: lucid dreams; out of body experience. See also: hill; mountain.

Example: As this occurred I had a wonderful sense of being a lovely bird that has been in some way ill all its life. This meant it never flew when the flock took flight. Instead, to deal with its own difficulty it felt feelings of not wanting to fly like the others, of not wanting to be like them and do the meaningless things they do. But with the healing came the realisation I could fly, and I took wing and joined the flock. Now I am a creature of spirit, which I have always been, and I asked the Light to help me learn the ways of ‘flying’ in the spirit.

Another view of flying is that it is a way of exploring one’s own awareness and possibilities.

Example: That night I dreamt I was on the hill behind my old “home” in Amersham. A strong wind was blowing, but it was warm, sunny, and peaceful. Spreading my arms I caught the wind in my short coat and rose up like a kite. Higher and higher I went, and I experimented with diving and gliding. Sometimes I lost the airlift and tumbled over and over, but at no point did I feel fear. I twisted and found the lift again. At one point I rose to an enormous height and saw the earth distant below me.

Then I glided down and approached the field to land. It was near where I used to live near council houses, and was backed right onto the open hillside above two old elm trees. A young girl of about six was playing in the field. As I came in to land she saw me and ran away very frightened. I was gliding in the same direction she was running and called out to her not be frightened. She stopped and I landed. In amazement she looked at me and said, “How did you get to be up there?”

Flying in the clouds: This can either be about a sense of yourself free from the usual limitations of body, of concepts learned in a materialistic culture – or losing touch with your everyday life and escaping into imagination and longings. If it is the first it usually involves recognising that your essential self is not the body or the thoughts and emotions.

Idioms: Fly by night; flying high; send flying.

Useful questions and hints:

If I climbed above the clouds by flying, what sense of myself and the world did I arrive at?

Did I fly to escape from something or someone?

Are there difficulties in flying or is it easy?

Where did I fly to and what did I find?

See More than you Presently Know – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Processing Dreams – Archetype of the Paradigm

 

Flying Saucer

This suggests a change in yourself, or personal growth. It can also indicate becoming aware of something new, or some new aspect of yourself, one that you are not familiar with, and so seems strange or alien. For instance a change might be occurring in the way you relate to people or events.

Our mind has the ability to view our experience as a whole, rather than in parts. What we sense unconsciously in this way is presented to the conscious mind as images such as UFO’s or circles of light. Another way of explaining this is to realise that our conscious self is only a tiny part of the whole process of life active in us. There are amazing potentials in each of us that might only be glimpsed in stress situations. Occasionally this more powerful or bigger side of ourselves breaks through and is experienced as an alien, or great being. Because of the hallucinatory aspect of the dream process, and the fact that in dreaming we see exterior imagery as real, when this breaks through while we are awake, it is often difficult to accept the source of it as our own unconscious. See: Reaction to the unconscious;altered states of consciousness; space; spaceship.

The ball of light or fire: This is a common waking experience as well as dream image. It occurs when the person touches their sense of wholeness as described above. We see this mentioned in the description of Pentecost – the flame on top of the head – and may account for cases of people seeing flying saucers.

Example: ‘A flying saucer dropped a man on our lawn. He was seven feet tall and stood in a ring of light. The sky was vivid pink and a peculiar aeroplane flew over. It was the shape of a cross.’ Mrs A.

The circle, the light, the shape of the cross and the big man, are all symbols of the Self or the huge part of us usually unconscious. It shows an enormous amount of feelings and experiences are trying to surface from deep within you. They are shown as aliens because your present education and experiences are very different from what you are capable of and what you hold within you.

Willian James the famous writer on the mind wrote, “. . . our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. How to regard them is the question—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.”

Example: I was sitting in a deck chair on a beach, with a female partner on my left, also in a deck chair. Behind us were another couple in deck chairs, and behind them yet another couple. So, we were in a line of three sets of two deck chairs. As we were relaxing on the beach, I looked up and saw an astonishing sight. A line of flying saucers moved very quickly across the sky. They were two abreast, and probably about 20 of them. They moved toward me, high up in the sky, and then out of sight behind me.

So, I moved to the couple at the end of the line of a deck chairs. I said to them what a wonderful experience it had been. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen something like that. They shared this enthusiasm, and told me that now I had seen a UFO, I would have many other sightings, and perhaps even encounters. I realised that this couple were also speaking from a fixed attitude. They had somehow classified the event into an already existing opinion they held of UFO’s being some sort of mechanical spacecraft holding aliens. This did not fit my own observation of the event. The things that flew over my head did not appear to be made of any type of metal. They had more of the appearance of living creatures. Also, I had the impression of flagella at the rear, like many living cellular creatures.

Example: At the time a big wave comes crashing in, a flying saucer-like object comes down and skips down the beach and stops at the feet of some people sitting at a picnic table standing in the surf. I sort of walk over there and see a miniature tank emerge from the shallow sea water whose turret turns and begins spraying a liquid on everyone around. I get some of this liquid on me. Everyone listens to my story sort of silently, then they ask me how I feel. I say I feel all right, but I am worried about what was in the liquid. This is an unusually clear dream. It is like I am made to tell the story in the dream as well as experience the events so that I won’t forget any of the details. I feel okay, but different, as if something potentially life-changing has happened to me.

Example: We are doing the dream dance. As we begin to spin faster and faster, it is as if we turn into a flying saucer and whirl into outer space. We come into contact with an awesome source of intelligence. Then we realise that we have never left the ground. What is really happening is that dancing together we are ourselves the higher intelligence, with a power of consciousness that none of us individually can withstand. When we stop dancing, we are left with only a vague nostalgia for a being greater than ourselves.

The ridiculous thing is that here we are searching the heavens for signs of other life forms – all the time seeking physically – but our signals were received two thousand years ago, and sitting right here with us is an ET. But we are so puny minded we cannot even recognise it, or conceive of it. It has to be mechanical or technological (thus our picture of flying saucer is as some sort of mechanical contact between far distant minds) – but the Christ, the part of us that is in contact with a cosmic mind or a great power of love is so advanced in actual life skills – in the real technology of the Cosmos, there is not even a need for a body. See Meetings with Christ

As an example of how our dreams create images that cannot be taken at face value:

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’e snoring.” I must have been coming from a level where my language centre hadn’t  yet been switched on and I was seeing my wife as a delightful alien.

Example: I saw the creature that had triggered the light to come on, it was a female humanoid alien; she was covered in fur, maybe a greyish colour. As I saw her she knew I had seen her and was very nervous and started to run away. I had the feelings that she had stood at the door seeking shelter, so I called out to her not to be afraid and I would let her into the house.

I did that and she came in and she was a very timid creature, and I felt she needed care and love. I noticed that her face and hands were slightly different to human hands – she had three fingers rather than four. I reached out to touch her breasts and she did not back away.

The dream was very impressive and I felt showed how I had accepted parts of myself never uncovered before. The three fingers showed how a very ancient part of me had been recovered.

See: hallucinations and hallucinogens; satellite; spiritual life in dreams ; spiritual path and dreams; unconscious, the; UFO

Useful questions and hints:

Did I feel fear when confronted by aliens or a flying saucer?

Was there any experience of being lifted up or herded?

How would I describe the meeting with the saucer or aliens?

See Life Changes – Martial Art of the Mind – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment – Processing Dreams

 

Fog

Confusion; indecision; inability to see the real issues in yourself and your environment. The fog may also be an image of your state of mind – that you have a grey, lusterless mental view of things.

Another possibility is that the fog is an image of what is still unknown or hidden in you – your unconscious, and anything looming out of it is what is emerging into awareness.  People in a fog are often said to be trying to find their way home. Anxiety is a creator of confusion and fog.

Fear or anger starts is often seen in dreams as a fog that intiferes with our view of reality; it ends as something that can engulf you in its dark world. It suggests a strong need to clear the air mentally and emotionally.  Are you befogged by too many intellectual queries, doubts or objections. May also show your desire to hide your real motives behind a fog of self deceit.

However, this fragile thing we call self often builds powerful defences or boundaries to protect it from knowing its dependence upon the forces forming it. These defences often show themselves in rigid beliefs, in a fog of ignorance, in emotional outbursts against anything that might be felt to threaten, and also of course in the many ways in which we use drugs such as alcohol, medications and nicotine to deaden our sense perceptions of what is taking place around and within us.

Foghorn: warning of impending danger; fog-light – seeing better in a confusing situation; trying to improve perception. An obstacle or something confronting you that you have difficulty seeing.

Example: I am getting near to a place where the deads “live”; it is not a cemetery , it has big walls ( it is a place similar to the one I usually go to when I visit my grandparents in my dreams ) it is a   big space where a lot of people can be  . When at first  the gates open I am afraid by the thick fog which is everywhere, I can’t see anything, and I feel scared; I started running and I call for the livings; then the fog disappears and I am entering among the deads; there are all packed together , it’s a crowd of beings, I am looking for my grandfather, I see him and I recognize him, he is now a young  adolescent perhaps 12 or 13 . He doesn’t know who I am, and he doesn’t recognize me, I  don’t want to frighten him, I hug him and tell  him we belong to the same family, then I leave.

Example: I am in a grey fog. I am facing my mother, explaining that my father has been hitting me and maltreating me. I feel guilty. I turn to ask her if she knew what was happening. I began to think maybe she hadn’t known. She fades backwards into the mist.

Example: we were involved in some kind of change in time or shift in dimension or quality. There were difficulties involved but I had come through these. My son was doing it a different way to myself, entering into worlds of fantasy or images. I was worried about this, but in fact he came through the difficulties as easily as I did. It wasn’t that we changed our position in space at all, or even changed much as a person. I believe the main feeling was that the ‘dimensions’ were there, around us, in us, perhaps like a mysterious fog or barrier. Once we had passed through them they were no longer there to clear. There was also a sense of very real though intangible dangers. I see this as referring to such real dangers as loss of confidence, or loss of the hidden structures which make up sanity. At the end there was still a feeling that powerful forces were still to be met in an everyday sense – something like an opposing force – but 2000 baby carp fish had just joined us. At first I felt such tiny creatures couldn’t be any help. Then I realised these were forces in the unconscious which made a big difference.

Idioms: Not the foggiest.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling in the fog or about the fog, and can I connect that with my waking life?

If there is fear in the dream what am I afraid of?

Am I seeing or feeling other things in the fog, if so what am I becoming aware of?

See Processing Dreams – Questions – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Foliage

Ideas.

Follow Following Followed

You can follow orders, follow a leader; or follow an ideal or an idea; you can be followed and it can be threatening  or a good feeling. If you are following someone or an orderyou need to ask yourself why you are following and what is in it for you. If you are being followed wonder what or who is following you and what you feel about it. If you do not like it you can change it. See Secrets of Power Dreaming

If you are being followed, this might show who or what you are influencing, or what is coming into your life, perhaps what you are avoiding. To follow is to  have an attraction to, pursue, look for or seek something. It nearly always suggests you are being led by an attitude, hope or habit, and not consciously assessing present needs. In other words you may not be fully aware of what is leading you on in waking life.

Example: ‘The group I followed on the underground got off. I followed them. An elderly woman friend told me they were going home, not to my destination.’ Debbie T.

Debbie processed her dream and realised she was following old habits – the friend – which weren’t taking her where she wanted.

Example: A nazi officer got out. He looked at me and told me that I was under arrest. I was to report to headquarters. I asked, “Where is it?” He said, “Follow me.” So the kitten and I walked along. He went too fast (the officer), and I lose him. I didn’t know where headquarters was, so I asked directions!! It finally dawned on me that I could escape, that I was being really silly following orders.

Example: I then started to walk away from the tiger and I was afraid I would be attacked; in fact in my mind I was thinking “I hope the tiger doesn’t follow me”. However the tiger did follow me but it gave me a sense of protecting me and making sure I made it to my next destination.

To follow: Is to be influenced by; have an attraction to; pursue; seek something; look for. Nearly always suggests we are being led by an attitude, hope or habit, and not consciously assessing present needs.

Following animal: Led by basic drives, intuition or instinct.

Following opposite sex: Led by desire for satisfaction in love.

Being followed: Taking the initiative; pursued by memory, pain, guilt; ambition or a continuing sense of hope, doom, hunch, instinct.

Followed by opposite sex: Memories of old love.

Followed by animal: See: chased.

Idioms: a tough act to follow; do you follow; follow me; follow the rules; follow through; tough act to follow; follow the crowd

Useful questions and hints:

What am I being followed by and what does that link with in waking life?

What am I following and is this a habit or a desire?

What am I being urged on in my life by, and does it need re-evaluation?

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

Fox

Shrewdness in dealing with what faces you in life; a tricky person or relationship; street wise; trickiness in regard to events or self judgements. This usually relates to ones mistaken interpretation or attitudes to the situation. It also might depict shrewdness or wisdom gained from life experience; unpredictable behaviour or the ability not to conform. See: coyote; trickster under archetypes.

Getting close to the fox means you are getting close to the natural and responsive in you and around you – being at one with life in you. The fox is the shrewd part of you, in touch with nature and the world. This is probably because the fox, although a wild creature, lives equally well in forest and in towns. So it can give you great wisdom and adaptability.

Example: I was in a park and saw a fox carrying something in its mouth. As it got nearer to me I thought it was a bundle of rags it held. Then when it was alongside the bush it dropped the bundle and I saw it was a cub. The fox looked old and gaunt, not sleek or streamlined. It’s fur was coming out in places. It turned and fiercely went for the dogs to keep them from the cub. Then, as they all got behind the bush they dropped all aggression and sat down peacefully together. I realised this was because they were out of sight of the men. The fox was now sitting at arms length away from me next to the bush. We looked directly at each other and a powerful sense of connection pervaded me. It felt as if I and the fox were one being. I reached out and laid my hand on it. It made no attempt to move away, but I realised this was not a respect of its wildness, and took my hand away.

I worked on his dream with the dream group I organised recently. The park and the path connected with my sense of communicating a ‘way’ to people, an approach to their own being that is a link between humanness and nature. The dogs represent my view of the games that many people play to exist in the world. We think or believe we have to be aggressive and forceful to survive – the strong dominating the weak. In my dream I play this game for the sake of other people. As soon as there is an opportunity I drop this and find myself at peace with others. The fox is the shrewd, old me in touch with nature in myself and the world. I am getting rather gaunt, thin, and some of my hair is falling out. I still have the parental urge, but am learning to drop this. I found a deep sense of love, a non-grasping love, when working on the fox. And the bush I experienced as a sense of being at one with the Tree of Life – the power of radiant self-existent life in humans and nature.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

How am I feeling about the fox in my dream, and how does this link with my waking life?

I what way am I relating to the fox, and does this say anything about my survival instincts?

If I am in conflict with the fox what is the underlying problem?

In what way are my ‘street wise’ responses to life involved at the moment?

See Brain Levels and Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Animal – Martial Art of the Mind

Freeze Frozen

This usually shows that you have been frightened of expressing your emotions, or that you have denied a part of your memories, feelings or sexuality. It might be that you emotional natures has no developed by being in a cold environment. You, or someone near you, has been or is cold emotionally. It can also mean you miss or need affection or warmth. So it is about being unfeeling, but sometimes painfully unfeeling. To become cold emotionally and perhaps sexually. To need affection or warmth. To be unfeeling, but sometimes painfully unfeeling. See: cold

It depicts what is meant by the term cold shoulder, where we shut off any display of warmth or compassion. It also therefore shows the dreamer as having ‘frozen assets’ in a personal sense.

But often it means that the dreamer has shut off a part of themselves in a sort of cold storage – a freezer. Something what is frozen can be thawed, and so the frozen things can depict potential, personal assets not yet used or brought to life.

Frozen can also mean stillness, a quietness of mind and emotions.

A freezer would depict either your ability to repress your feelings, or ability to store something for the future – like denying spending now so you can save for something in the future.

Icicle: Frozen male sexual feelings.

Iceberg: Similar to ice, but may suggest frozen potential.

Body locked in ice, perhaps dead: Deadening of all our feeling reactions and enjoyment or motivation.

Idioms: Break the ice; cut no ice; put on ice; tread on thin ice.

 

Useful questions and hints:

What am I unfeeling about at the moment?

Is there a part of me frozen in the past and unable to move on?

Is this about stillness and a sense of peace in me?

See Associations Working With – Martial Art of the Mind – Secrets of Power Dreaming

 

Friend

Your feelings or worries about this friend. If the dream friend is no one you know then usually represents the inner intuitive feelings that encourage and advise you. The character of this unknown person will tell you what aspect of yourself the friend displays. Or it may relate to your contact with friends. See Characters and People in Dreams

Good friend: Each person, object or even place in a dream should not be thought of as a symbol, such as a road sign that needs interpretation. A person or object is a living part of you, just as your hand is not a symbol it is a living part of you. As such a person is alive and responsive, with enormous depths. And a good friend is a wonderful aid in your life, an aid that can see you through the difficult times, and show you a new side of yourself.

To understand the friend you need to be that friend. I mean imagine yourself in their body and see how it feels, and describe yourself as them, even ask them questions. In doing so do not forget that this is a part of yourself you are making more real. Don’t get the silly idea this is someone else, even though they have the face and body of someone else. In this way you will discover an enormous amount about your own strength and ‘goodness’. But if you cannot do that, then at least imagine talking to them ask them questions and listening for their replies. Or if you cannot even do that, then remember that you have a good friend and treasure it.

Bad Friend: This is the opposite of what was said above. So take heed of what you learn and try to avoid repeating the mistakes.

Boyfriend: See boyfriend

Girlfriend: See girlfriend

Example: A male friend of mind had finally come back from his vacation and I was flirting with him and he turned me down. We were eating pancakes outside. I remember leaving the table and the pancakes no longer hungry. Then I came back wanting to eat the pancakes again. Then I got in my car and drove for a long period of time.

Example: Back in January, my boyfriend’s friend was murdered. The trial is going to start soon and recently I have been having a reoccurring dream about his friend. I knew his friend but we were not close. In each dream, he is wearing the same clothes and hat and he is talking but I can’t understand him. We had the same first name and the look on his face gives me a weird feeling. He looks as if he is worried about something and I can’t understand what he is saying. I asked if anyone else has dreamt about him and everyone says no. What does this mean? Why would he come to me of all people? Is he trying to communicate with me? Thanks.

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.

Useful questions:

Is this friend someone I know? If so, what do I think and feel about this person?

If I do not know the friend in the dream, what characteristics does she/he have that reflect my own life at the moment?

If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel or realise?

See Being the Person or Thing – Processing Dreams – Learning to Love

Frog Frogs

Any amphibian and reptile depicts your basic spinal and lower brain reactions, such as fight or flight, reproduction, attraction or repulsion, sex drive, need for food and reaction to pain. This includes the fundamental evolutionary ability to change and the urge to survive – very powerful and ancient processes. Your relationship with the amphibian in your dreams depicts how you deal with such urges in you, and how you deal with the impulses from the ancient part of your brain – probably the spinal brain. (Thanks Melissa).

The deeply unconscious psychobiological life processes, that transformed us from a tadpole/sperm, into an air breathing frog/adult – therefore the process of life in general and its wisdom. The enormous information such symbols hold if we explore them gives them their power. It can also suggest a meeting with what we find difficult or repulsive in life and ourselves, that if we can accept it transforms into personal potential and power – the frog into the prince story. It is often a form of love that transforms the dark sides of oneself, the toad or beast, into something that is life enhancing. It can also be sub-personality, an aspect of ones character that is usually unconscious, but occasionally shows itself in behaviour.

The frog has also been associated with the power of resurrection and renewal.

Frogs spawn: Sperm, ovum and reproduction. It can also occasionally show as a doorway to another dimension. See: sub-personality; Autonomous Complex

Example: I felt close to a woman, and we were holding hands. Together we walked into a large building. I believe my woman companion had been in the place before. I say this because I was feeling slightly uncertain and she was feeling confident and supportive.

Inside the front door of the building was a wide passageway probably about 15 or 20 feet wide. Not far along this passage something completely filled the space ahead. It looked like frogs spawn, but much more ethereal, perhaps like patterns of energy with just a little material substance. With no real hesitation the woman and I walked into this wall of energy. I believe we knew more or less what would happen – that we would be absorbed and become wholly a part of this life form. As we walked into it I was trying to analyse what was happening and what it felt like. I lost all sense of my body as a dense form, but I could still feel my partner’s hand in mine in a very delicate way – again like energy playing upon energy

It can also relates to being a little frog in a big pond, or pointing our that like frogs, you are  jumping from one thing to another, or perhaps moving forward in leaps and bounds.

Frogs were linked with the Egyptian frog goddess Heket. It was associated with the flooding of the Nile. The association was made because when the Nile left its riverbed, millions of tiny frogs also appeared. So frogs represented abundant life and fertility to the Egyptians. An image of the goddess was worn by pregnant women as a talisman for a safe birth.

The frog and the princess who aids the frog to transform in a prince are about the power of transformation in our inner world. The things we despise or avoid are often – in our dream world – the things that have wonderful qualities of transformation.

Because frogs lay a mass of eggs they are symbols of fertility. This can represent the creativity you have unconsciously, or sometimes it is dreamt when a woman is pregnant.

We have a brain in us that is there because of our evolutionary history as a reptile.  See Reptilian Brain. Perhaps because of that Joseph Campbell felt that the frog is another example of the dragon and other frightening monsters whose role in mythology is to guard treasure. The reptile/dragon represents the dark and frightening aspects of ones own nature; the huge instinctive feelings we usually resist or repress. The treasure is your Core Self, which enables one to attain real womanhood or manhood. That is why the frog has also been associated with the power of resurrection and renewal.

Useful questions and hints:

What deeper levels of my life process or of survival drives am I becoming aware of?

Is there something of myself I am repulsed by and yet could be transformed?

Do I still need to emerge from dependence into a fuller maturity?

See Being the Person or Thing – Avoid Being Victims – Jesse Watkins Enlightenment

 

 

Front

This usually relates to what you are aware of, and what other people can see, about yourself or what you are doing. This is so whether it is the front of a house, a car, or yourself. It is the ‘front’ or facade you use to meet other people and events with. It is also the part of yourself that takes most of the impact of relationships and events.

When the term ‘the part of yourself’ is used, it means those personal traits, attitudes or skills you use. A person may be aggressive in business deals, but this might be something he or she has to use to cope with what is necessary in business. So it is only a ‘part’ of their nature, perhaps a ‘front’.

Front of body, house, etc.: The more public or expressed or exposed part of one’s nature, or attitudes used to meet ‘the world’. Also a ‘front’ or facade, used to create an impression; the point of stress where we as a person contact others and meet impacts, and so are more vulnerable.

Sometimes, as with the front of a car, or the front door of a house, especially if bonnet or door is being opened, it can link with sexual feelings. Something in front of you shows you being confronted by whatever it is, or it is becoming a more conscious part of your experience. See: Back.

But the front door if it is someone there is is probably about a new experience or person that is comng into your life.

Example: I was looking at my bookcase and remembered that Tim had commented that it didn’t look like I was a great reader. As I thought this I wanted him to know that what was seen on the bookcase was only the front row of books, and there were a lot more behind them.

This dream clearly shows how the woman has a lot more depth than her first impressions give. It is obviously telling her not to be put down by her man friends comment.

Example: I was on an unpaved road with an unseen companion. In front on my right was a steep hill road. It ascended through trees. As I looked I realised it was the road to the hospital where I had experienced such trauma as a three year old, and in which I had my tonsils out – both. I explained to my companion that the road used to be almost impassable, but it was now widened and tarmaced. I felt a sense of an awful past as I looked at the road. Then I was standing on the edge of a precipice or cliff. My wife was about four yards away near the road. I stepped in an area of soft earth. It gave beneath my weight and I sank up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable and the whole area would fall. I was sinking and shouting to her to help me. She was gaily walking about and made light of my call for help. I cried out again. Still she ignored me. I shouted again for her help. She took no notice and I sank deeper, the ground gave way and I fell to my death.

The front in this dream refers to what he is now facing, as is explained in the following: “I explored this dream with a friend. It was about the effects or attitudes of being left in the hospital by my mother. Mainly that I feel nobody – the woman I love – will come to my help in a crisis. So deep down, because my mother could apparently leave me in a hospital at three, I do not trust anybody – maybe not even myself. If you cannot trust your mother, who can you trust? I have transferred this mistrust to her also. Likewise, for reasons of her own, she doesn’t trust me.

I felt an area of hurt feelings in me to do with trusting nobody. Gradually the feelings melted into gentle feelings of need for others. I needed to be held sometimes. I need the stimulation and variety of other people’s company. I need some involvement from others in what I do with my life. I also feel the pleasure of having something that others wish to share. I realised how wonderful it is to have found something in myself that can contact and integrate the various aspects of my nature, such as my painful experiences, my sexuality, the highest in me, and so on. I want to share the ability to experience oneself so widely with others.”

Idioms: A lot of front; in front of; putting up a good front.

Useful questions and hints:

What is it that I am aware of that the dream brings more fully to my attention?

Whatever this front is, what is it expressing?

What is this the front of, and what does that suggest?

See Background and foreground – Background – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Frontier

This suggests you are making great changes in life, moving from one set of values or way of life to another. You are probably meeting some sort of barrier or hesitation. It suggests a point in your growth where you may have to prove yourself or make changes. The change might involve experiencing different territory, a different way or life or relationship – and thus a new experience of life. Hesitations and uncertainties may prevent you making the crossing. See Border.

Borders also relate to decisions or moral questions of whether a particular direction you are taking is expressive of your true purposes or identity, or if it will harm others. Frontiers are an everyday part of our life in other ways too, such as the border between sleeping and waking; between what we feel is right and wrong; between advancing and pulling back; between limited awareness and expanded awareness.

A frontier town can mean that you are experiencing your much more basic, natural but perhaps challenging self. This reflects more ‘homespun’ beautiful, uncomplicated, innocent feelings about life and love. These attitudes offer enormous space and opportunity as the many restrictions of social and political life fall away.

Take time with this because it is about something amazing that we all share. In dreaming or becoming lucid you are experiencing something of the usually hidden world of our body, of your mind, of your whole biological past, and Life in you that lies beyond the frontier of your personal awareness.

Here are frontiers we may cross. Greater insight into the functioning and health of your body’s organs and cells, along with insights into what is necessary to maintain or improve health and well-being.

Awareness of your forgotten journey from conception, through birth and childhood. This enables you the possibility of clearing any difficulties of development that occurred in that unfolding.

Gradual awareness of the incredible ancestral journey you are the end product of.

Recognition and entrance into the level of awareness or consciousness out of which your personal self awareness has emerged and is immersed in.

Beginning the journey along what has been called in the past the spiritual path. In plain language this means the slow entrance of your personal awareness into what exists beyond the frontier of sleep. Taking the focussed light of self awareness into the darkness of the unconscious world of sleep and the body. If you take this path, at some point you will confront the fundamental consciousness of the universe and recognise your existence in it. It will need you to meet fear, anger and many strange things – strange to you. See Dweller of the Threshold

Example: So I let go of the searching, of the hoping to find what had been – my marriage. Then arose a wonderful feeling as if I were standing on the frontier of a new territory. It felt very welcoming, very uplifting to have so much space and so much opportunity. I felt quite deep emotions, not in a sad way, but certainly in a full sense of feeling. Kath, who I was with, was also moved by seeing me experience deeply.

Useful questions and hints:

What new area of experience am I trying to move into?

Are there hesitations, self examination or questions of identity to face here?

What new opportunities or experience offer themselves here?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions – Features on Site

Fruit

Fruits may represent experience or efforts and what emerges from them. Especially the ‘fuits’ of your life, your abilties and rewards from your actions. Sometimes it represents that you have arrives at your lifes goals.

Soft or luscious fruits such as fig or peach: May represent female genitals.

Long fruit such as banana: May depict a hunger for sweet things; male penis.

Apple:  Satisfaction of hunger. temptation; breast.

Frozen

See: Freeze.

Fuel

Feeling drives; motivation; whatever has ‘fuelled one’s drive’. Petrol/gas is also a resource, something you know you can call upon to achieve something or ‘get somewhere’. So having an empty tank would suggest you have no such resources of energy, or motivation or ‘drive’ to achieve what you desire or need to do. It can sometimes indicate exhaustion and poor health. So it might indicate a change of diet or life style – getting more rest?

There is an interesting complexity here as you need resources – money – to get the resource of fuel. See Petrol

Funeral

This can reflect concerns about death, perhaps because someone close has died and confronted you with death. Death is an important aspect of your life, and dreams use such a dream to explore the subject, and find greater wholeness and healing. See: What Happens When I Die? Death.

Sometimes we dream of seeing someone we know buried when we want them out of our life. So this is a reminder that we want to make a break in a relationship.

Very occasionally we dream of the funeral of a close relative or friend, and this is because we have an intuitive realisation about their coming death.

People often dream of witnessing their own funeral. This is because we all wonder about death, and so sometimes practice it in our dreams. Seeing someone else buried might be a hidden wish to ‘get rid of them’. Very occasionally it is a premonition about the person’s health. A funeral may also represent the end of something in your life, like a relationship, or mourning for someone dead.  Feelings about one’s own death. Very occasionally a warning about health of person buried, or wanting the buried person out of one’s life.

Example: During my teens I was engaged to be married when I found a more attractive partner and was in considerable conflict. Consistently I dreamt I was at my fiancé’s funeral until it dawned on me the dream was telling me I wanted to be free of him. When I gave him up the dreams ceased.

Dreaming about a funeral can also be saying that something that is now dead in your life needs to be laid to rest.

A funeral gathering can also be a time when people concentrate on the passing of the person, and it can be a wonderful experience of lifting them. See Babs

One’s own funeral: It is a common dream to watch one’s own funeral. It depicts your own philosophy about your end. May also remind of what you want to do while alive; desire for sympathy from family; retreat from world; a feeling of deadness in life.

Burying yourself: Leaving an old way of life or old self behind.

Someone else’s funeral: A wish they were dead; a wish to be rid of them. It is often unconsciously used as an easy way out of a relationship – to fantasy them dead. It avoids the responsibility of making your wishes known. See: Second example under death.

Parents funeral: Difficulties with or move toward independence; exploring the feeling of their loss; repressing or letting go of the painful past. See: burial; death; death and rebirth under archetypes; death and dreams; death is there life afterwards?

On witnessing and experiencing a friend (Chris’s) mothers funeral.

 In describing this I have to say first that I did not go to your mother’s funeral with any sense of seeking an experience or looking for some sort of insight into what was going on. I went to be with you as your friend. And, as you know, the service was far from inspiring. The priest was stumbling over what he was reading, didn’t remember your mother’s name, and so there was some level of irritation with most of us because of what was happening.

So I wasn’t moved by the ceremony. I was there involved in what was going on around me. But suddenly it seemed that something opened in me and I could see or sense that all the people there, although they were not attempting to do what I was now sensing, were producing something by their very presence as a group. The funeral itself, the fact that everybody was there to be part of your mother’s funeral, acted as some sort of focus. It focussed their attention, their feelings and their thoughts as a lens might do. It focused all their mental and emotional energy on your mother’s spirit. I saw her lifted, buoyed up by it because in life she was crippled by Alzheimer’s. I suppose it would be right to say it was almost like she was brought awake by it also. So she was energised and lifted up to be with her chosen spiritual love, who was Christ. And what I had thought to be a funeral became a wedding as she was united with her love. That was a very wonderful thing to see.

So I believe funerals should not be a time of sorrow, but a rejoicing in the new state of life the dead experience.

Useful questions and hints:

What am I feeling in the dream, and where do those feelings appear in waking life?

Have I actually really confronted death with my feelings and seen it as part of life?

Is there a suggestion here of still trying to be, or failing to be, independent of parents or partner?

What do I want to achieve or do before I die?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Dreaming of Death – Talking with the dead – Edgar Cayce