Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Aboriginal Aborigine

In most dreams this refers to your more spontaneous feeling or instinctive or natural reactions to the things that happen to you. Often, like unbidden sexual or religious feelings, this side of your nature may be less conscious than your more daily or socialised reactions. The aboriginal may also represent your less rational or logical side, the part of you moved by feelings, magic, ritual, or ancient beliefs.

In some cases it depicts the side of yourself that may not have much chance to express in most social situations. But it is also the side of yourself that is closest to nature, with keener senses. It is more intuitive and less rational, and does not regard itself as distinct from the natural forces that produced you, or the other wild creatures of the earth. So at times this dream figure may enable you to see things more clearly, cutting away the social complications.

The aboriginal may also be a link to relating well to your own nature energy and motivations.

The modern western adult is often very much out of touch with the life giving processes within them and may feel isolated and often ill at ease in the world. The black figure in dreams, or the native, can give us a much needed connection and balance. It can also be an image of less sophisticated parts of you. See: African; Australian aboriginal dream beliefs.

Useful questions are:

Am I at odds with this natural part of myself?

Is there some love and understanding between us?

Is this being asking something of me?

What can I learn from this side of myself?

Does the primitive part of me need attention or is trying to grow? Use Talking As to understand more about this side of you.

Abort Aborting Abortion

In general this is about losing or getting rid of a part of you, or a project/idea, that was just developing and is therefore fragile. It can refer to a relationship that has not worked, or you feel will not work. It suggests one has aborted, or might abort or lose, an idea, a direction, or an area of one’s feelings such as might surround a love affair; an attempted relationship, direction or project is not supported by your own enthusiasm, love, energy or confidence.

The loss of something developing within you that you must decide whether you wanted it gone or whether you did not want to lose it. Or the feeling you will lose a creative idea, a direction, a project or an area of your feelings such as might surround a love affair; an attempted relationship, that is no longer supported by your own enthusiasm, love, energy or confidence

If you are a woman and pregnant, it may be revealing a fear of losing the child; or you may be exploring feelings to do with abortion; or even feeling something from the past.

The dream is seldom a prediction.

If the abortion is natural: Something your being is rejecting as unhealthy or unwholesome, or something you have been developing that has not worked out.

If dream connects with actual abortion: The emotions surrounding the actual experience of abortion; sense of guilt; the fears of damage to future possibility of childbearing; the feelings about loss of the baby. All these need to be healed in some measure.

Also: The body was in the midst of a process if the abortion was induced. The body has powerful feeling reactions which need acknowledgement, and are frequently presented in dreams. See: baby.

Example: I dreamt that my mum had a miscarriage. When I woke up I knew she had split with her current boyfriend. She rang up and I said, ‘Mum, don’t tell me, I know why you’ve rung, you’ve broken with your boyfriend’. She was amazed and asked how I knew. Antoinette T.

Antoinette’s dream shows how the dream uses abortion to depict the loss of a relationship.

Here is another example:

I woke up sweating this morning, I had a dream that my husband and I were in a car accident and something went wrong and my body was trying to reject the pregnancy ( I have never had a child, but 2 years ago I lost a baby due to miscarriage) and the doctors gave me an emergency C-section. The baby was a girl and extremely tiny, I felt very attached to this little girl, and she ended up dying of complications.

My reply to this woman was – Now the Big you has tremendous feelings and is involved in you as only it can understand. So in your dream your car accident represents what it felt like when your baby miscarried. Something had gone wrong that was why the miscarriage happened.

But you as a woman are a wonderful thing, and the Big you and the personal you are so intertwined, but you/we are usually unaware how much the Big you feels when a baby is lost. It has worked miracles to form this amazing thing – a baby. And to see it lost it felt badly. So you and the Big you were very attached, and the Big you more so as it had formed every cell of the baby.

So what you felt in the dream was a little of the crying for that loss for both of you. When a woman is open to her inner process of Life – the Big you – then she will try to heal her heart and her body of the loss. Mostly it is just swept under the carpet. But your dream is a way of healing. Meeting the feelings of the Big you can be scary because we are not taught that we have anything in us except blood and guts and so have no experience of knowing who we are.

Example: I had an abortion when I was 16 years old I was forced into it. My child would have been 6 years old by now. I been having dreams of this little girl and she keeps calling me mommy it simply breaks my heart. And all I do is cry. But what does it mean to have dreams like this?

Reply – There is so much people never learn from school, television and public opinion. Your child is not dead and of course she is communicated with you in your dreams. Your love for her keeps her alive, and please do not keep ‘breaking you heart’ because it puts a real burden on your growing inner child.

It would take me too long to answer your questions fully here, but if you click on the links you will get a lot of what you need to know. So see – Fertility – Summing Up – The Inner World – Talking with the dead

A friend wrote to me recently and was supporting abortion. My reply was, “I partly agree, but after abortion many women have difficulty having a baby, or the first baby is born with malformations. Examples are my wife’s’ sister whose baby was born with terrible problems. Also my father’s sisters – Roman Catholics were very keen on abortions and not having babies and all died of cancer of the womb.

But here is something I experienced while working as a therapist. Linda had been sent by her doctor because she suffered depression. “The fourth and final session began with Linda lying on a blanket.

Useful questions and hints are:

What have I lost that has been newly developing or emerging in my life?

Is this something I should try to regain?

Does healing need to take place around the feelings in the dream?

See Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming –  Life’s Little Secrets

 

Above

This links with what you feel is superior or has a wider view of your life or possibility. It sometimes shows a sense of inferiority in relationship to what is above you. Or you might be looking at what you strive for and presently seems above you.

In many dreams what is high, or if you are in a high place, indicates you are experiencing the most refined side of yourself – those things that exist beyond body concerns and link you with universal awareness.

If you are standing above or high up: Having a wider viewpoint of your life or feeling superior or in a position of advantage. Sometimes this says that you are living in your head instead of your heart.

Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself

See: height; hill; mountain; flying.

Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself. ]

Useful questions are:

What are the abilities or achievements I feel good about? Find out by using Talking As.

What am I looking up to or reaching for?

What or who do I feel is above me?

Abroad

Your feelings about that country, or the view or associated feelings you have of it; being in or moving toward a new or changed life situation. For instance just being married might be a very different and new way of living, so be shown in a dream as a foreign country. Occasionally such dreams reveal things we absorbed or learned in connection with that country and its culture.

Being abroad, or mention of a country other than your home, in general is a way of depicting particular feelings or a situation you are in. For instance, if Italy is abroad for you, you might feel it is a warm and romantic place. It would therefore represent a situation in which you are feeling romance and warmth. But a country at war would represent conflict.

If you have not previously been to that country it could suggest exploring new interests, relationship or personal attitudes.

Are you travelling abroad in the dream to get away from a present difficulty or feelings?

So in most cases, abroad suggests a change, or a different feeling or life situation than you are presently in. The dream may be referring to the exploration of new interests, or new areas of yourself – or even of being in a situation you are not at home in.

If you have been to that country, the dream most likely refers to the events or emotions that occurred while you were there.

If the country is a place your family originated from, it may depict the unconscious influences and cultural attitudes you inherited from your family.

If you have lived and worked in that country: You need to define whether you were happy or stressed there and what you absorbed of the atmosphere while there, because the dream would be referring to this.

If abroad or going abroad: Making a change in your life, doing something new; wanting to escape your present environment; getting away from it all; moving into a new attitude.

If someone or something arrives from abroad: A change; something new arising in your life.

Someone of the opposite sex from abroad: Hopes for a new relationship; a relationship that has new features; difficulties with intimacy in present relationship.

See: travel – or specific country.

Useful questions are:

If you have lived in the dream country:

What was your overall experience of that place?

Were you happy there, lonely, what characteristics of the people did you take in?

What is your general view of the country and its people?

Am I or should I be exploring new interests, or new areas of myself?

Is there a situation in my life where I don’t ‘feel at home’?

Explore you dream by using Dream Processing.

Abscess

Painful and withheld emotions or memories. Occasionally it might represent a site of actual physical illness. Perhaps the abscess represents a situation in which old and painful experiences are coming to the surface to be dealt with.

The part of the body on which the abscess appears might give a clue to what part of yourself in terms of personality or abilities the dis-ease is felt.

Abscess still swollen and unrelieved: Emotions still repressed and may be causing psychological infection – influencing views and decisions negatively. The dream abscess may also represent a site of physical illness which may or may not be obvious while awake. In the example below, the abscess has released its pus, or painful feelings, perhaps through Hilary’s prolonged crying. The emotions are, with Hilary, affecting her ‘grasp’. She also uses other imaged word play in ‘near the knuckle’. Washing up shows her clearing away the influence of her ‘evening meal’ of experience. See: individuation; body dreams.

Example: ‘Was looking at my knuckle and saw that I had a nasty boil which had come away as I did the washing up and all that was left was a big hole, pink and healthy looking skin around. It felt very close to my knuckle bone. My lover had told me he was leaving me for good, and going back to his children. That evening, I cried most of the night.’ Hilary K.

Useful questions are:

What part of my body is this on, and am I aware of any problem in that area?

Are there painful past experiences, or irritating thoughts that may still be causing dis-ease in my life?

What does that part of my body represent psychologically? (Look it up in the rest of the dictionary, i.e. arm; legs; chest.)

Explore you dream by using Dream Processing.

Absence-Absent

If it is a person who is absent the meaning of the dream depends very much on what you feel in the dream, and what your relationship is with them. So you need to define what your response to the absence was – were you lonely, upset, glad, hoping for them to return?

Having defined what you felt, then ask yourself what they suggests in your waking life, or what part it is playing in what you are doing. Do you have a sense or worry the person is leaving you, or that there is a distance between you? This may also connect with feelings of being incomplete, as one might if an arm was missing.

If it is an object that is absent from where you expect it to be it suggests that your expectations are not matching reality, or that changes have occurred that you have missed observing.

If the object connects with another person, such as a ring, then it indicates feelings about a change in the relationship. This might simply be a change in the way you feel rather than a change in the other person.

Useful questions are:

Are these my feelings or do they reflect what is true externally?

What am I missing or in need of in my waking life?

Is there a waking event that stimulated this dream?

You can find out more by using these techniques Talking As; Processing Dreams;

Acting on my Dream. Also see What we need to Remember about Dreaming.

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Absorb Absorbed Absorbing

This suggests two separate qualities that merge into one. In a relationship, whether a feelings relationship or one in which you are learning something, you often absorb things from the person. You might take in such things unconsciously, as you did many things from parents and from the culture you were raised in. So the process of absorption in a dream may refer to such influences you are taking in.

Dreams often represent learning or personal growth as an organic process. Ideas and experience are taken in, digested, then form part of an organic whole in an integrated way. This is sometimes depicted much as a tree absorbs through its roots. What is absorbed becomes a living part of the organism. But that does not mean taking it in whole; it is broken down and only the parts that are usable are integrated into the life of the organism, the rest is discharged as waste matter and is later used as compost.

Seeing something absorbed in a dream may therefore represent the taking in of ideas or influences, or even poisonous feelings, depending upon what the dream images are.

The meaning of the dream does depend on the situation of the absorbing. So if your body is absorbing something, this may refer to something you are eating, or some influence in your life.

Being absorbed in something like water or energy suggest your personality opening to being a part of the wider life around you.

So being absorbed into something it suggests an enlarged experience of yourself, or a letting down your defensive barriers. It might also feel like being overwhelmed by another persons identity or another influence you do not identify with.

Useful questions are:

Does the dream give me a clue to what I am absorbing?

What do I feel in the dream, and what does this say about me?

What do I do, or what could I do, about the situation?

Try the following to help you clarify the dream Talking As.

Abstract

An abstract shape, patterns, or colour in your dream most likely refers to feelings you meet that are difficult to define, or even recognise. It is important therefore to define them from whatever feelings or responses they produce in the dream.

Useful questions are:

What do the colours or patterns remind me of or make me feel?

Do the images lead me to do anything in the dream or respond in any way?

If so what does it suggest?

Try the following to help you clarify the dream Talking As.

Abuse Abused Abusing

Abusing, being abused, or abusing, physically or sexually, may point to your own past experience. The dream may be an attempt to work out the inner damage you have about this. If not that, then there is a likelihood it is showing you some way you are either abusing someone else’s friendship, or are yourself being, or feeling, abused.

It is like aggression, and can be physical or very subtle, so can be passive-aggressive. Some times abuse, like aggression can be caused by held back sexual urges, or a means of passing on what you received in abuse as a child.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I have any memories or feelings about being abused?

We sometimes abuse ourselves by damaging or repressing parts of our nature, so does the abuse point to this?

Am I in an abusive relationship or work situation?

It may  be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward; Using symbols to change life problems and Dream Yoga. Also see hostility; aggression.

Abyss Black Hole

Usually the abyss represents the unknown, and perhaps the infinite, of your own mind or consciousness. The fear of falling into the abyss represents your attempt to control your feelings and what emerges from within yourself. It also frequently refers to feelings about, or fear of, death. To quote from Dream Yoga, “Death is a fact that we all face, and it is no good running away from it in our dreams. That only makes it more scary. Because you CANNOT run away from death you should meet it face to face. If you do that it will transform into the beautiful part of life it is, instead of the horror we have been taught to see it as.”

The positive side of the dream is that it links your conscious mind with the immense potential you hold within yourself unconsciously. Part of this potential is an experience of going beyond opposites, of resolving paradoxes, of moving beyond the limitations of the rational mind and emotional responses. In these ways it is similar to the dream images of the Sea; void. It can also be thought of as the void or nothingness. This can be frightening until we realise that the void has everything in it, but it is without form. Another way of looking at it is that it is the polar opposite to waking consciousness – the deep dreamless sleep type of awareness. See Levels of the Mind in Sleeping. 

 

Falling into the big black hole:  Are things we avoid in waking life, but should not be avoided in dream life. Here is a dream of someone who is no longer afraid.

There was still a current trying to pull me back into the black hole hugeness, and I began to feel afraid as I felt that if I regressed any more I would cease to exist. Then it came to me that I regressed every day in this way when I went to sleep. I lose any sense of personal existence yet emerge none the worse the next day. But in sleep I regress to whatever lies beneath consciousness without being aware of it. The difference now was in being conscious of what was happening. So I knew the fear was unnecessary as every time we go to sleep we drop back into this condition.

So I let go and fell. I didn’t go to sleep though. Instead I fell into an awareness of immensity, of hugeness, and the immensity was full of knowing. Like a raindrop falling back into the ocean, I seemed to merge with that hugeness and yet maintain a sense of my own existence. And between the hugeness and my own sense of being there was communication. I was aware that what held me was the process that had grown me from being a tiny seed in the first place. It is so obvious, but I experienced it like a revelation that I had not created or grown myself. But now this deep part that had caused me to exist and grown me was unfolding me again, like a plant opening. I understood that we each have this force at our centre, and as I watched it working in my body and life, it seemed to communicate with me. I understood from it that if I opened to it each day, if I surrendered to its action, then it would grow me to a fuller life until it realised itself in me. This felt like a holy gift, that the mystery of life would live and know itself in me.

The hole is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it you realise that it is the way to your own center and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland.

The abyss in a dream gains its meaning largely from how you respond to it. It suggests a situation you might fall into or be lost in, but it is also space, infinity, a situation or state of mind not limited by form or smallness.

Sometimes the abyss is the same as a void, suggesting the formless spirit of life lying within and at the core of all physical formed life. Therefore it might link with the transcendental or the spiritual life of death.

Example: The first experience was looking at a green wall and seeing the huge moving circle of the mandala. At the centre of it was emptiness. Out of this nothingness poured forms of living creatures, all moving and dancing out from the centre in time with each other – though the individuals were not  aware of their synchronous movements. These emerging, dancing forms went out to a periphery – the edge of the circle – then they danced back to the centre and merged back into the nothingness. I knew this represented life and death and again life, for as things fell into that nothingness, at the same moment new life spewed out of it.

But holes can be like that at the base of the tree in the photo, can be an entrance into another experience or dimension,

If feared: Fear of losing control; loss of identity; fear of failure; meeting with those dark fears or worries we hide in our depths; lack of confidence; death in some form; the unconscious. Having these fears in no way suggests the external or internal world warrants anxiety. But lack of confidence will obviously hamper performance in dealing with the difficulties represented by the abyss.

Without fear: Being able to take risks, not be afraid of illness and death in a paralysing way. It suggests going beyond the boundaries of one’s own limitations, concepts, present experience. It represents the enormous personal potential lying beyond already formed conceptions and experience. It is the aspect of human consciousness existing beyond the opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong. Access to this gives tremendous liberation to the dreamer, freeing them from restricting rigid concepts or habits of thinking, responding and relating. See: death; falling; pit; void; archetype of the void.

Useful questions are:

Am I frightened of the abyss?

If so what is my fear about?

What does the abyss offer me if I enter into it?

What holds me back from it?

What have I found in meeting it?

Try Acting on my Dream.