Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Marriage and wedding

Feelings about being or getting married; uniting two different aspects of yourself such as intellect and feelings, practical and intuitive self; the ‘marriage’ between conscious and unconscious self – any children of the marriage would be flowering of new abilities or qualities. But children of married partners can often indicate the state of the marriage, its problems of wonders.

Sometimes it refers to what our energy or drive is uniting us with – such as a new business venture or creative scheme – any children of this type of marriage suggest our intuitive assessment of the likely outcome.

There are many urges in a woman or man other than getting a good partner. There is also the urge to find recognition in society, to move toward independence, to find a comfortable place in life – probably alone, to achieve financial independence, or to have children.

In some cultures dreaming of a wedding signifies a death in the family.

But from the viewpoint of the unconscious marriage is not about a church or civil ceremony. As the most orthodox church Catholicism states, you are not married unless you have had penetrative sexual intercourse. If that has not happened there is no need for divorce because marriage never took place.

The unconscious sees it similarly. As soon as you have penetrative sex with anybody you have formed links that are not physically visible but make a form of marriage. But it has to be between a woman and a man, for marriage is a holy rite leading to the wonder of procreation, the giving of life, which is what we are all about being life forms; which is  holy, not because the church says so, but because Life itself is a holy mystery.  So a man can never be married in the true sense to another man, or a woman to a woman. They can have a civil ceremony but not a real marriage.

But although the point of marriage is procreation, in dreams the creation of a child still takes place as many woman and men have dream children – which is the birth of a new part of oneself. It is a bringing to consciousness a new part of you that has been developing but remained previously unexpressed. Such births need to be honoured even though there is no physical sign of a child. So the new dreamt baby is a vulnerable part of you that needs care to grow and become a real part of your waking life.

But from this viewpoint there are two types of marriage, the first is through sexual intercourse between a woman and man. The second is through a complete union of the whole couple. Some believe that the spiritual marriage comes through the agreement to abstain from sex which should be a free mutual decision, rather than resulting from impotence or the views of one party. But experience shows another view which arises as one is able to open one’s life to the divine within you. This leads to the full marriage which includes the body, the personality and the divine impulse.

Example: I was led into the experience of my merging with Divine Love in marriage – when I married P. Gradually I was led to realise that it wasn’t me and P. that were married, the marriage was between the duality if Life meeting itself in wonder and love. This went on to a visionary experience of knowing the birth of each of us was the birth of wonder, of light and transcendence. I realised that we are all then ‘put down’ by those who raise us, and so the light we are is dimmed to an extraordinary degree. And I carried this light to my own spiritual self and all the women and men – including my children – who I loved. This felt incredibly real as if they would realise for themselves that they are married to the Highest. Example: I wanted them in some way to share what I had experienced – that the most high had incarnated into us.  God was not outside of us.  We are it, living this strange, often difficult, but wonderful life.  To have experienced that divine union in myself in the images of the divine female and the divine male as we join in a wondrous union, still moves me deeply as I write this.  To be shown once more that I am, as we all are, an incarnation of that very mystery of life, is a very great gift.

Dreaming of wedding if single: As in the example below, Mary could equally as well have dreamt she was the bride, but being in her thirties and unmarried it is easier for her to consider or experiment with the idea of marriage using the image of her friend. Should she marry whoever offers? When single one often dreams of marriage as a way of clarifying – what it would be like; could one succeed in it; is the present partner okay; how shall one achieve it? Man dreaming of marriage: For a man marriage faces him with something quite different to a woman dreaming of marriage. It is a woman’s initiation, and a man may feel as if he has to give up his manhood. So he may be facing such fears in his dreams – although marriage is a meeting and often a merging with his feminine self. For a man it can also be intimating the uniting of his female characteristics. See hermaphrodite; archetype of the anima Marriage: When a woman and man marry, something that often happens is that the woman interiorises the man and feels she is now complete. She has her man in her life and in her. The man can do the same thing. That is fine when it works by them staying together faithfully. But if the man leaves the woman, or the woman leaves the man, because they had taken their partner into them to become whole, the leaving feels like something has been ripped out of them. It is a terrible shock. See Archetype of the Animus Wedding dress: Feelings and hopes about relationship and wedding; in a negative dream it represents anxieties about ones relationship or the future. Wedding dress given by mother: Qualities and strengths or problems absorbed from mother about relationship; letting go of external mother by expressing her qualities in the present. 

Example: I am at the wedding of my best friend. The groom doesn’t turn up and she decides to marry the first person who comes along. I wonder whether this is a good thing to do.’ Mary T. Example: When I was engaged to my present husband I dreamt we were married and I looked down at my wedding ring. It was twisted and bent. In fact I now see it as a warning because we have not made a good marriage.’ S.W. Example: I am a gay 20 year old woman. I’ve been in a relationship with my girlfriend for about four months now. Previously, she had been my best friend for six years. Last night, I dreamt that we were married. I didn’t dream of a honeymoon, or announcing our marriage, or even proposing or anything of that nature. In the dream, I just…knew that we were married. My girlfriend’s hair was significantly longer than it normally is, if that means anything. In the dream, she insisted that she wanted to have a baby, and she wanted to do it by becoming pregnant through a sperm donor. It was a little strange, because neither of us are really keen on the idea of having kids at all, much less actually becoming pregnant. We were both excited about it in the dream though. Example: It was the realisation that in the little community I live in I am the only single male. I am feeling, or guessing, that the other males here are curious about that. This led me onto spontaneous speculations about what this meant in my life and whether it was a problem I was not looking at. I saw that some of the women in my life have wanted me to be more fully involved as their partner. I sometimes puzzle why I don’t have the same need, or I don’t feel the same need in reverse. As I explored this it felt as if I didn’t want to be contained within a woman’s needs. It reminds me of the proprietorial aspect of male female relationships.

See: Integrating the female in the male; Integrating the male in the female; bride; bridegroom.

Marsh Swamp

This usually indicates feelings of being bogged down, held back, or retarded in some way. You may be stuck in attitudes or feelings that are holding you back, or even threatening your wellbeing. It occasionally appears to depict the cloying relationship existing between mother and child; or sometimes, though not so often, between father and child. The marsh here represents the difficulty felt in breaking away from parental control, the emotional hold over you, and the ties of security and protection. Or the difficulties faced in becoming real individuals.

The swamp may show feelings of despair of great uncertainty in a relationship.

The marsh or swamp can sometimes represent a meeting with what is lying hidden within you, and so it may be felt as threatening or frightening. It is a place where the ancient or primeval may emerge. So it may be an experience of being held or swallowed by the swamp, which indicates strong feelings of being overcome by difficulties or losing your power.

 Example: Now a huge unknown creature began to enter into my awareness. I felt the presence of an enormous creature rising to the surface of something like a swamp or a body of water. At first I thought it might be a whale, but as I paid attention to what was happening it defined into a huge crocodile. This huge creature looked at me and said, “Mathew, join me.”  I laughed at this because it was so huge, and with so many associations of swallowing things, that I said something like, “What do you mean join you? Don’t you mean that you want to eat me?”  The creature replied to me, “No. No, it’s not like that, I’m just like a submarine. I have all these lives in me. I have many, many lives in me. I am life. I contain the many. 

The great crocodile represent both the threat and fear we may feel when meeting our own hugeness. See reaction to the unconscious 

Example: I was walking past a large building site which had been excavated for foundations. Rain had filled the excavated pits and a large lake had formed. As I walked past I could see ancient primitive creatures rising out of the water. One of them, a large dinosaur, came toward me. I was scared and ran away. The dinosaur followed and started speaking to me. I couldn’t understand what it said. Don.

Don explored his dream and says – I realised that through my internal digging into myself I had uncovered some feelings I had never met consciously before. Seeing these things helped me understand what was behind my difficult feelings and fears. For instance I saw that fear is fundamental to all human experience, and I needed to meet it and help it to enter into the modern world instead of be repressed and remain primitive.

Example: As I looked I realised it was the road to the hospital here I experienced such trauma as a three year old – and in which I had my tonsils out/both. 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 like a marsh. It gave beneath my weight and I sank in up to my waist. I realised the cliff edge was unstable, and the whole area would fall. I was thinking and shouted to my wife to help me. She was gaily walking about, and made light of my call. 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

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you feeling threatened, and can you say what threatens you – not in the images of dream?

What is happening in your life what feels like you might get trapped or something emerging?

Is another person involved in how you feel and what you are facing?

See Facing Fear – Life Changes – Dealing with Fear – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Martyr

May suggest a holier than thou attitude, a reluctance to change opinions in the face of criticism or condemnation, rightly or wrongly. Willingness to suffer for convictions. The sacrifice of part of yourself because of convictions. As a dream symbol this is not really healthy, in that all aspects of the nature come alive and are useful in your wholeness. Moving toward wholeness brings a resurrection of the dead or repressed parts of yourself, made clean and harmonious. See: archetypeof the scapegoat/martyr.

One can be a martyr in giving oneself to a cause, or one can be a martyr in that one forever feels one is being abused or used by others. There may be a sense of being asked too much by those around you or by the events of life. In such martyrdom there may be a hidden belief that if one does what is asked, if one sacrifices ones life for another, then one will be appreciated and loved. If one gives enough, maybe one will be recognised and rewarded.  

Parents, but especially mothers, often have a sort of inbuilt martyr at work in them. It is from this they manage so many years of self giving.

P. W. Martin, writing in his book Experiment In Depth about archetypal influence and how it overpowers the person if they are possessed by it, says, ‘A man so driven will not necessarily be self-regarding in his action. He may be completely disregardful of his own personal interests, a fanatic, a martyr even, for the cause. But archetypal energy is inherently ambivalent, as destructive as it is constructive, a dynamic which in the end is self-annihilating.

Orpheus was a man, a prophet and a teacher of divine wisdom. He was martyred and his tomb developed into a holy shrine. Later he was seen as a Christ like man, who kept alive the roots of religious feeling connected with agriculture and nature, with its cycles of birth, growth, flowering, fertilisation, harvesting the seeds, decay and death. These were seen as natural and a reflection of human life, with its renewal in the spring that followed – a resurrection through a natural process, the mysteries.

Christianity as it developed into an organisation fought against anything which linked it with past beliefs such as the Egyptian statement that a virgin mother had existed before Christianity, as it had in the statements of Buddhism. So it killed out any beliefs in its connection with natural cycles – which are obvious because the birth of the sun/son takes place as the sun is born in its yearly cycle. The Son of Man is said to have its start in heaven, not in the body of a human child – and yet we are all the creations of the great creative act. Even Christianity says the same – “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” In his own image – it cannot be any clearer than that.

 Example: Although my father appeared to be passive in sending us away, his values governed our household, and these (as I interpreted them) included: – don’t give up at all costs because that is weakness; – if it hurts it’s worthy (martyr); – what you feel about something is not the point: what you are doing and achieving materially is what counts – don’t worry if you’re in a pickle because God will look after you: do what God wants and you’ll be alright (NB this tends to be the opposite of what you want because you’re sinful – another justification for why hurt is good for you).

Example: Rob is my son and he finds it hard to forgive himself.  I associate myself with Rob here.  I had always struggled with what God’s will is in my life.  Maybe I was supposed to stay in the marriage…be a martyr.  Back and forth I would struggle with this.  I had no one to talk to about any of this until my job change and meeting this supportive priest.  I know today, that by leaving the marriage it was the absolute best thing I could have done for every one of us.  We are all much healthier because of it.

Example: The mother of one man who goes to church every Sunday and labors every day cooking and sewing for charity. Her eyes are ever lowered in meekness and humility. In time of strife she dissolves into tears, and if things go too badly she has a heart attack. She is the most unfortunate, put-upon woman that ever lived—her face proclaims it. But she has driven her husband to impotence and drunkenness, and rendered her children helpless, dependent slaves to her every whim. Her whole family has literally been destroyed by the guilt she laid in its path.

Her son grew up obsessed with the idea of his own wickedness. Not until he realized that his sense of evil was a gift from his mother, not until he had ascertained that what she called evil was simply what displeased her or conflicted with her interests, did the pall of his self-hatred begin to lift. Finally, in one shattering revelation, he saw behind her mask of innocence the hidden monster, saw the transmuted fury and vengeance she had poured upon him, the cruelty of the psychic damage through which she had manipulated him. Only then did he learn to free himself.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel others have abused me?

Am I happily self sacrificing, or do I try to get acclaim or love in that way?

Am I ready to die for a cause – if so what cause or belief?

How would I describe the martyr in my dream?

See Archetype of the Martyr – Avoid Being Victims – Being the Person or Thing – Life

Virgin Birth

This represents motherhood or the positive and even holy feelings about ones mother that arise in one at a very early age. But Mary is also a symbol of religious openness or receptivity.

This represents the human soul or psyche and its possibility of dropping pre-conceptions, thus attaining an inner virginity and through that being receptive to the unseen or unconscious side of self. Christianity named this the Holy Ghost. But older cultures also depicted this inner state of fertile receptivity. For instance Egypt expressed this human possibility in the form of Isis. Also Buddha’s mother Queen Maya, in 500BC, is said to have dreamt that a six-tusked elephant pierced her side with one of its tusks. This produced an immaculate conception. She understood the dream to mean the resulting child would become a monarch whose domain was the world. So the idea of virgin birth was not new to Christianity.

When we experience this personally, the child we conceive is the union between the receptive conscious self and wider awareness. This receptivity and virginity of mind leads to the birth in oneself of a force or activity that gradually transforms and enlarges ones life and experience. In the west we call what grows in us ‘The Christ’. Other cultures give it different names. See: How I Became A Virgin; Lifestream; Archetype of the Christ; archetypeof great mother; virgin; Meetings with Christ.

Generally speaking, outside of the Catholic faith, the image of the Virgin Mary is smiled upon. Even where critics point out that many older religions also had virgin deities who gave birth to a holy child, they still often fail to see its significance as far as mankind is concerned. This does not mean, however, that a few with understanding have not openly pointed out that the Virgin Mary represents an active principle in every person. Literally, every person can turn to this for help. But let me explain. Seen as dream symbols, the virgin birth gains a personal, inner significance to the man outside any religious beliefs. From this we can see that Mary represents the intuitive, receptive part of our own nature. Our feelings, our own virgin nature (i.e. that part of us not interfered with by thoughts, doubts, fixed opinions, biases and pre-conceived ideas) is open to new ideas, new opinions, new feelings. So Mary conceiving from the hidden processes of Life means that our own state of receptivity, of freedom from bias and prejudice, of ‘pre-conceived’ ideas, can receive parts of our nature that are as yet unknown. This is really only common sense. No new idea comes to any man with a closed mind and heart. No discovery is ever made by a person who believes they already know it all. To receive the new, we have to have at least a part of our mind ‘virginal’.

As Einstein said, “Knowledge is limited – Imagination circles the world.”

Mask

A false self you might put on in meeting others; latent qualities you can express or wear when needed – a mother might be a tigress when her children are threatened, but a meek person otherwise. Her tigress would not be ‘false’; ego less. An artificial front we have learned to develop since childhood. See Ground Zero – The Psuedopod

 We can mask our real feelings and guilt with other attitudes and feelings, perhaps because of ones work or relationship that is felt as disagreeable. So brutality or hurtfulness in relationship can be in the form of subtle accusations or criticisms masked as rational comments.

 A dream image is simply a mask you use to describe a feeling or a realisation. So if you dreamt of a mountain lion, and you imagine yourself in the body of the mountain lion/dream image, you will get behind the mask and you will feel the quality and reality behind the image.

 Example: When the masks of the dream images were stripped away, the woman sobbed so deeply because her daughter had never been independent from the mother’s love before and it was terrible for the woman to face life without her daughter. Her daughter had left home and gone to university, and the woman had dreamt her daughter had been murdered.

Taking of a mask could suggest people seeing you without the cover of status, vocation, lack of confidence or the pretense we use – or maybe reveal the real beauty or genius you have. Or putting on a mask might be a way of putting ones ego aside.

Animal masks may suggest either animal qualities being worn, or sometimes the person transforming into the spirit of the animals that we all have within us. See Levels of the Brain

Or sometimes another aspect of you showing itself yet remaining masked, or a dead person – trying to communicate with you. The clown shows us the wonderful and tragic human feelings underlying the masks we might wear in daily life.

An oxygen mask suggest you either have signs of breathing difficulty, or else you feel a life threatening situation is being dealt with.

I found that death has a beautiful face once we tear away the awful mask we put on it. Death is naked beauty. It is a mask we put on it because we have been assured again and again that death is the end and all we see are the marks of illness or bodies torn apart by war. We perhaps all have masks which hides our true being. For most of us have never be aware of the Life that moves us, and so are masked.

 Example: I had a strong fantasy of the head, which was severed from the body and skinned, coming alive it, was me and what I had done to myself, who I was that felt so much, I had torn my body and head apart trying to find a solution to the misery I had suffered for years. With enormous certainty I realised that there was no cure for my sickness and I had struggled in vain. It was a tremendous blow – and I gave up. I mean I gave up hope, everything, and simple lay there.

Then I saw flesh on the cheeks of the head. Then it was like a native mask made of various things, and feathers. The feathers predominated in the fantasy. The mask of me was made of many things, but behind it when I/it fell apart was the certainty of being. The mask kept breaking up, leaving only a few feathers, as if it or I were nothing. I remember saying – “There is not even a mask, there is no me, it’s just a few feathers!”

Then I had a vision of one feather tied to a twig by piece of wool, blowing in the wind – a feather blowing in the wind. This was very stable and persistent in the fantasy. Everything resolved back to the feather blowing in the wind. It seemed like a Red Indian symbol, perhaps tied to the suspended body of the dead, but I could not understand.  Then it came to me that I had to listen in deep stillness – not think, not seek to understand, not struggle, just listen. My whole being entered into silence, gently listening as one might listen to the rain falling on a lake. Then suddenly it was known – the feather blowing in the wind – the sound of one hand clapping – the essence of human existence. Open against the sky – emptiness – enormity. I was healed.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was expressed by the mask or what was its function?

Was I wearing a mask, and if so what did I feel about it?

Do I ever ‘mask’ my feelings?

See Martial Art of the Mind – Clicking On – Programmed – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams

Mass

An approach to the sense of wholeness, the communal whole or collective mind, or to the Christ. See: Meetings with Christ; archetype of Christ.

In an inner sense the wine or spirit used in the celebration of the mass represents a life changing influence, an influx of power or potential – i.e. a deep self acceptance allowing new and often life-changing experience and energy both from within and from other people and events. In this sense the alcohol or spirit is probably used by the unconscious in dreams because the conscious self often feels helpless, or has to surrender control, in order to allow the up flow of what is potential or innate within you to emerge. It therefore relates to drunkenness – drunk with the spirit. See last example below. Here is a man’s experience of exploring his dream about being drunk because men had poured alcohol into him. See alcohol

 Example: As I allowed this I had a deep sense that this represented a profound self acceptance, but also an acceptance of my life situation. I can see this in that I am no longer struggling to climb out of building work or common everyday life. The men in the dream I felt as ordinary everyday life experience, and they were pouring the spirit of life on and into me. In other words the acceptance of everyday life opens to a connection with the roots of life within oneself – life that is both common and ordinary, yet profound. At this first part of the dream I also had an image that I was drinking the blood of thousands of human beings. I don’t mean I was drinking lots of blood, but that I was drinking the essence of their lives. This had in it the experience of taking in a huge realm of everyday life. It was the taking in, the acceptance of a wide range of human experience – everything from deep sexuality to religious realms of the supersensual. This I felt was what the wine used in Mass represented.

The lifting of the chalice represents the spiritualisation of the wine – but in fact it is only a symbol unless we feel inside us that we are taking in the blood – “drinking the essence of their lives”.

The bread is also a wonderful representation of what is holy in our everyday experience.

My experience of the meaning of this came about because my awareness was lifted up and spread over the immensity of time, and from this condition I was shown the beginning of things.

I cannot say I saw this, more that I experienced the condition of the beginning. And this condition was the gathering together of what I understood to be a whole universe that had previously existed. All that had existed had come to such unity that although this beginning was physical, it was also, in its unity, a being. It had awareness. This awareness did not exist in what we know as space and time.

As I experienced this I felt as if a resolution between science and religion had taken place in me. For here was something like the condition science suggests preceded the ‘big bang’. But what had been left out, I realised, was this consciousness, this immense being. For all life had here found a unity in one immense being beyond my comprehension. It was, in fact, difficult to grasp because I was overcome by emotion as I witnessed this.

This great consciousness had longed that other beings might exist. But in its present form this was impossible. Then I understood something that tore my heart to pieces, as it still does today when I dwell on the memory of the experience. This being purposefully went about destroying itself so that our present universe – we – might have existence. It was such a wondrous action for it was done in such a way, with such skill, with such love and self-sacrifice, such art and science, that its very death was a magnificent creative act. In other words its death struck into action forces and effects that created the universe in all its variety. This death is what we know as the ‘big bang’. It created time and space and the very special circumstances of the ‘death’ set in motion the forces that brought about a very particular universe. Without the particular influences set in motion there could easily have been a universe without any ‘space’ for individual awareness. It could have been a universe where everything was purely automated. It could have been many things.

As I experienced this, I realised that everything, every atom, every living thing that exists is a part of that wondrous being. There is nothing that is not of its love. So that whatever arises in the universe arises out of, and as, THAT. The human sense of God is a realisation of the very substance of our own existence. The awe we might feel is from an intuition of what has been given us as our own being.

So the bread, which represents the very ordinary and everyday source of our existence and nourishment, is in fact the very being of God that we eat. But we need to be aware of what we do in eating to make it holy. See big bang

Useful Questions and Hints:

Can you be aware that you are taking in and living the holy all the time?

Will you let your life reflect the holy that you are?

The bread and food you eat are all the creation of the universe?

See Enlightenment – Self Help – Life – Summing Up

Massage Masseur

Healing influence, loosening up of rigid attitudes, tensions, preconceptions, repressions.

Being massage or giving massage in a dream is a very intimate relationship, and in fact is much deeper than many people realise. Our body is a wonderful and sensitive thing, and pressure or massage does not simply touch the surface of the body, but can touch the very brain, our memories and trauma. So unless we are aware of that we may not be doing anything other than a sensual or sexual stimulus, unaware of the depths we are touching.

Example: I dreamt I was massaging the feet of my dear friend. I was very happy and wanted to do a good job for him (he has helped me so much in waking life). His feet were smooth and well looked after so it was an absolute pleasure for me to offer love and gratitude in this way. I remember wanting to use a range of massage techniques but he was gently moving away after some time, I felt he was possibly overwhelmed or embarrassed by my gesture. He thanked me with his eyes and I smiled because I knew I would pick up this act another time. This person often makes appearances in my dreams and we always have lots of fun together. I feel he is deeply connected to magic.

Example: F. was kneeling behind me and began to massage my spine. This was an extraordinary experience because it felt that where she touched my flesh, or rather where she produced some pressure on my flesh, I could feel the nervous impulse cascade through my body. It was literally as if I could feel it passing from one set of nerves to another to another and another, cascading through different sections of me. I could feel that where my body was touched it connected with different parts of me, physical and psychological. I could see that F. was moving on too fast so it was stimulating other areas and other responses. So I asked her to slow down so I could explore what was stimulated by touching one area.

It is amazing how different parts of the body respond. I explained to F. that each time she touched there was a ripple through my whole body. I said this because she was moving across different areas too fast. The same one place could produce a prolonged enough response to discover what that part of the body connected with physically and psychologically. Then I asked her stay in one place, to keep the pressure on one area. When she did this I began to feel that the particular spot being pressed connected with my throat and my rectum. It has links downwards and upwards. I could also feel a small part of the brain lit into action as it was pressed.  As this was happening I began to feel that nature erected self-awareness because it was so wonderful for life itself to look back at itself and develop further understanding. It had the possibility of working with the other creatures, of being a part of the processes of life on earth. We could work with forces of nature. Instead of that it has become a sort of self idolatry thing. You know, look how great we are. Let’s do this for us! It is like that awful advert – “Because I deserve it!”

I asked her again to stay on one place so I could see if it were possible to explore the connections.  “I can experience this impulse going right into my brain. But it is also going straight down into the cellular level of my being. It seems to be stimulating different responses that my being is capable of. It is calling them into play artificially. I suppose it is like playing notes and causing a piano or musical instrument to respond in certain ways. So in a way it is like exercising my being. I can feel a part of me coming alive in some way. It makes me wonder what this conscious self of mine is; what part it plays in the body. It is lovely to feel it as part of all that is happening in my body at the moment.”  There is something going on in my body that I am barely aware of yet. Areas of sensitivity are touched that connect with past experience. Therefore the touch connects with those areas, with those feelings, with those memories. It goes on and on because those memories connect with habitual responses and the other levels of myself. F. was pressing on the lower part of my spine where I think there was not much sensation. But it was bringing about the response in which my body wanted to groan and move. There was no pain attached to this it was simply an impulse arising from the pressure on that area of the spine. I allowed the moaning gasping sound to be expressed. I could feel the memory that was being touched and stimulated linking right back into the womb. A distinct sense arose that my body was just being formed – that I was just forming my body. As I was doing this things happened. I could feel my body as an integrated whole. The moaning struggle went on, deepening. I began to make baby like noises. As this happened I experienced complete helplessness with the overriding feeling of not being able to move. Like a tiny baby that did not yet have the capacity to move its own limbs because of the impact of full gravity. I knew in some way that this was how I felt when I was born. I couldn’t move and was completely inert and dependent. Completely without an ability to do anything for myself. There was just a big hunger.

Matador

Conflict or struggle with sexual drives. Or it might show sexual tensions.

Or on the positive side the ability to dance with or relate well with the enormous instructive drive to protect, care for and mate. See: Bull.

Mattress

Similar to bed – the situation, comfortable or otherwise, one has created in life. You made your bed, now lie on it. See: Bed.

Comfort; sexuality; relaxed feelings.

 Example: ‘I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don’t ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.’ David H.

David was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in his present relationship. But he realised from the dream that he had slipped back into attitudes which had existed in his prior relationship, and might very well damage the present one.

 

Jung sees the mattresses as representing a marriage. A mattress can also be where we hide things such a money, books or magazines. So it suggests things you like or want but are afraid someone will see what you are doing.

 Example: I was aware of having a lot of money in a night safe that I had to hide from somebody who was coming to steal it. I knew he would look in the usual hiding place so I found secret compartment in the mattress at the top of the bed. But when I put it in it looked so obvious I was afraid he would notice when he made the bed.

Rotting mattress: Something very wrong with your life situation. Or a comment on your relationship.

Uncomfortable mattress: This suggests either a relationship difficulties or that something is troubling you while asleep. What makes the mattress uncomfortable, and can you define what the discomfort is?

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is the comment on the mattress in the dream – comfortable, uncomfortable, alone?

What do I associate with the mattress?

Do I like going to bed?

See Working with associations – Inner World – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Maypole

The maypole is a symbol of this universal connection between all things. This is a sexual symbol, but not necessarily directly about genital sex. It represents the positive, dynamic, creative forces of growth and fertility in nature and in you. But it can also represent the still turning point around which all phenomena connect, or the point beyond time and space where all things connect.

It also represents the positive, dynamic, creative forces of growth and fructification in nature and man that cause the growth of crops in the spring.

 Example: We have dreamt of the Maypole with streamers (ribbons) in different colours leading to each member of the group. The colours seem to indicate what is occurring within an individual. Or we may see the Maypole with streams of light touching each member. At times, the Maypole will not be there, but instead light will be seen encircling each member, joining us in a larger circle of light. At other times there may be a fountain of water, overflowing and shimmering like hundreds of sparkling diamonds. These droplets then touch each of us in the group. These experiences seem to indicate a unification of consciousness, all members seeking and sharing the same Ideal. Norma Coles, Florida.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I ever danced around a maypole or swung around a pole or even spun around to make myself giddy?

Do I see the maypole as a sexual symbol around which maidens circle to become fertile?

What was the message of my dream and the feelings in it?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Processing Dreams – Magical Dream Machine – Questions

Maze

The maze is an ancient symbol often used in mythology. It can depict the difficulties of finding your way out of the entanglement of dependence upon your mother and cultural norms.

Also we are often lost in the confusion of ideas and feelings, conflicting urges and opinions and the difficulty in finding your way through the mass of apparently irrational emotions and images arising from within, or the variety of opinions and authoritative sources of information outside.

This area of self is sometimes an area of seeming chaos. It needs some other level of yourself, the intuitive faculty, in relationship with the rational mind, to guide you through. Sometimes you need to admit you are lost and need help.

This dream of someone is an example or this – Before waking this morning I had an extraordinary lucid experience that involved me in what felt like a real place. The clearest part of this was of me in a maze. The walls of the maze were made of hedges, as the whole thing was outdoors. But I realised, because I was lucid, that I had purposely created the maze as an experiment. The point of the experiment was that the maze was complicated enough to make it difficult for me to find my way out. So, confronted by the difficulty of emerging from this dream maze, because of the lucidity, I could understand that this was a dream image, a reflection of the actual world I live in, and in doing so I simply realised that I was not actually in a maze, but only lost in feelings of being trapped in my own mind, and was thereby free of the maze.

I then experimented again and again with this, moving to exist beyond the images I had been, or could be, lost in. This was such an extraordinary experience and realisation it is difficult to put into words with enough impact to make it real. What it led me to see was that all dreams involve us in an environment or situation of one sort or another. Usually we feel the dream to be so real, and the feelings we experience because we are immersed in them, to also be real, that in a very real way we are trapped. But we are trapped in the feelings, ideas and beliefs, not the dream. So if we were in a prison cell in a dream, then there would be no way out of that cell without a key. But realising oneself as being the awareness behind the feelings and images means there is no prison; there is no entrapment; there are no walls to hold you. The apparent reality of the dream is then seen as simply pictures and feelings – stuff of the mind that we have conjured and become identified with and lost or trapped in. Even imagery with positive feelings is a form of trap if we identify with them. The more I look at the experience the more I realise that virtually everybody on our planet is trapped in a prison of their own emotions, thoughts and ideas. To recognise this in any reasonable degree leads to an extraordinary sense of freedom. To see that we live our life trapped in the world of thoughts, of emotions, of sexual drives, of fears or beliefs, is astonishing.

Example: If we place you in the centre of a circle and put all our dream characters, animals and objects around you in a circle, and if add to this all the many things that impact upon us such as peoples influence on you; your thoughts and emotions and how you are swayed by them; your physical urges such as hunger and sex, and of course pain and pleasure; your desires such as ambitions, your sense of being a success or failure, and the hundred and one other things that hit you as you stand in the middle, as well as your intuition, social pressure, hormonal influences, fears, ideas and images from media or people, your instinctive drives etc., we would see what a diverse mass of influences we stand in the middle of.

So the maze can represent the circuitous and often confusing route you take to greater maturity. In this sense the maze represent an attempt to find your way through conscious thoughts, opinions, doubts and childhood traumas fantasies and beliefs, to an experience of your fundamental nature. At the centre of the maze however, instead of a treasure you may find emptiness. What is at the centre – you are – reality – the unconscious – Life. We need to realise that we all live in a very real inner world that we mistake as us – you – me – I. This world is created by your thoughts, beliefs and opinions and it seems impossible to find ones way out of it. But the secret is to realise that it is really a creation of our own mind and so we can dissolve it by seeing the opinions as opinions, the thoughts as simply thoughts, and your beliefs as simply beliefs.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I realise the enormous power of my inner world?

Do I feel lost in the welter of ideas and impressions that impact within me?

How do I find my way when confused?

See Inner World –  Secrets of Power Dreaming – Autonomous Complex – Individuation

Meal

Taking in life; absorbing something of life and the world; being enriched. If you are with others, then it might reflect something about the way you relate socially to people. It could also be a sharing of life and experience with others. See: Food.

Measure Measurement Measuring

Might refer to wondering how long – days and weeks – something will happen. The amount of friends you have is often used as a measure. Comparisons are an awful measure, because you often compare yourself with someone who you believe is better than you. But that is not how Life sees you. You are the survivor of countless lives of your predecessors; you are also the winner if the enormous effort of conception. Also you are a life form, and living example of life. Life is a miracle no one has understood. We might clone life, but we cannot create it. So you are a miracle with enormous untapped potential – so stand up straight and be proud. How ‘big’ something is in life. How you measure up to your own or other people’s expectations?

 Example: “I know this may sound strange, but the most powerful thing for me was that I realised I am alive. The realisation was accompanied by the sense of being life. I now know I am life and life is not just a chemical reaction or a set of biological drives or responses. As life I am always exploring, reaching out, becoming, learning what I am capable of and what I am. Just to exist is itself a great pleasure and miracle.”

To quote from Edgar Cayce, “The fact that man’s body is a speck of dust on a small planet leads to the illusion that man himself is a small creation. The measure of the soul is the limitless activity of mind and the grandeur of imagination. No soul takes on flesh without a general plan for the experience ahead. The personality expressed through the body is one of many that the individuality might have assumed. See Edgar Cayce

How do we measure success in our life? Many people who are seen as successes often commit suicide or are depressed, despite their riches. Being a success is probably learning how to integrate the many aspects of yourself, to have working relationship with your inner life, and so find an expression that is a reflection of the deeps in you. What we call ‘love’ is not a measure of success. Love in our culture is a terrible merry-go-round which can throw you off at any moment. Look around at the many, many failures. See Beware of Love – Life

 Example: A shoe salesman had me take off the shoes and measure my feet. The measuring device showed the same size that the shoes are, so I was baffled as to why they were suddenly pinching.

Shoes represent your present attitude or chosen way of life. The dream is saying you need a bigger view of what you are doing, because you present attitude is not fitting you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

How do you measure yourself- by money – good looks or lack of them – success?

What does your dream say about measurement?

Are you proud that you are a living survivor of countless generations of forebears?

See Big Bang and God are the Same – Martial Art of the Mind – Karma – Levels of Awareness

Meat

We often say, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Here it represents your likes and dislikes, the characteristics, the experiences of life. Meat also represents sexual or physical experience, physical strength, prowess. To partake of meat is to partake of experience of the body, or material values.

Physical or worldly satisfaction or needs; the best bit of life; nourishing; good fortune or good hunting in ones endeavours. Sometimes refers to sexual behaviour, suggesting it is lacking anything but a physical dimension.

If you are a vegetarian: Something to be avoided; feelings of guilt; death.

If you have difficult feelings about killing animals or eating meat, it can be about those feelings. After all we kill whatever we eat, but as we are all from the same family we are only giving to ourselves – though the way we did it might be questionable. Realise that everything is alive and can respond. Plants too are living beings and respond what is done to them. We need to recognise that we are all from the same source and our only difference is the body we inhabit. Life gives itself to us as the creative action, and it is always dying as it gives itself to us. See Big Bang and God are the Same

 Example: Experimenting with this I attempted communication with a sick New Zealand tomato tree we had. It was in a large tub, well fed and watered, but had the greenfly, and was also wilting. We had sprayed, but the general debility of the plant seemed to attract the fly. I used the technique of LifeStream to see if my intuition could asses the condition of the plant. The first thing I felt was an unexpected wave of love, as if the plant was wordlessly saying thank you for caring. Then I had the sense of my consciousness meshing with the consciousness/being of the plant. My impression was that the plant was an entity, a form of life and awareness, but it did not have a focused consciousness which could formulate the idea what causes this sickness? Because I could ask the question, and because I allowed my consciousness to consider the plant, a new situation arose; the plant could be aware of itself. The difficulty of the process was that everything was direct non-verbal experience. As the experience of plant life was new to me, I had to spend some time allowing the sensations to soak in and be analysed by my rational mind. What arose out of this was the understanding that the root system of the plant needed to spread sideways, not down. We therefore put the plant in a sack, with the same earth spread thin. Within a week the greenfly had all gone, without spraying, and the plant grew strong and luxuriant.

 Raw meat: instinctive or powerful emotions or drives; Quoted from Dreams and Dreaming by Norman Mackenzie. ‘It was found that some themes not only appeared in widely separated cultures, but that they also evoked very similar responses. C. G. Siligman, for instance, found that dreams about raw meat occurred in Ireland, Switzerland, China, Greece, the Ukraine, Nigeria, Tanganyika, Borneo, and Achin in Sumatra – and that in all these places such a dream was associated with some impending misfortune. In the Ukraine it presaged a burial; in the Zungeru district if Nigeria, the death of a friend; in Tanganyika, it was a symbol of a funeral feast. The origins of this common belief may be simple: for many poor societies, the consumption of large quantities of meat would be limited to funerals and similar occasions, and the association would therefore be direct.’

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel anything in reading the definitions above?

What was your activity or relationship with the meat?

Did you have any feelings in the dream?

See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Working with associations – – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Mechanic

Your means of dealing with habitual reactions, or the practical, ‘how things work’ side of life. Your skill in dealing with problems, when you can’t get started in the mornings, or on a project. The mechanic might also point to a physical problem, depending on the dream content. See Car; Engine

Medicine

Healing influence; meeting experiences we might not like but need to change a negative situation; positive changes that can be brought about; actual drugs we are taking.

Some medicines can actually make things worse, so if your dream suggests this try stopping taking the medicine.

Dreams depict our inner processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digestion, your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ or natural processes in you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to depression or illness.

We need to remember that our experience of self, our personality, is capable of being radically shifted simply by taking a drug or medicine – as with antidepressants, ecstasy or cocaine. This often reshapes the way we see ourselves, so an evolution in the process of identity building has occurred in our society. Identity in the end is not a set of beliefs or behaviours. The self is not limited to these.  In today’s world our identity is often shaped by chemicals/medicines/drugs.  The consumption of drugs, alcohol, sleeping pills, and certain medicines including anti-histamines tend to keep our awareness in the deep levels of Delta sleep, thus depriving us of the REM sleep so necessary for balance and sanity.

 Example: My doctor suggested I take a statin based medicine. At first there was no problem, but I gradually got so weak I couldn’t even turn over in bed. I suggested to my doctor that I stopped taking it and he supported me in the decision. Within days I began to gain strength again and am about my normal strength now.

Example: In my dream I was in the hospital giving birth I could feel the strong pain medicine working and I assume I had been given an epidural.

Considering that dreams are actually a creation out of ones own feelings, this dreamer has a strong belief that she needs pain killers, even though she has never had a baby. Many media films often act out a very painful birth, which give women the idea that all births must be painful. But here is another woman’s description of her actual birth experience.

 Example:  It was my first child and as my baby started it appearance I was in agony. But instead of tensing against it I surrender to it and it became a wonderful ecstasy of birth without any drugs. See A Method to Shorten Labour

 Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me.’ Audrey V.

Example: Frank Takes Gun, national president of the Native American Church, says: At fourteen, I first used Father Peyote. This was on the Crow Reservation in Montana, and I was proud to know that my people had a medicine that was God-powerful. Listen to me, peyote does have many amazing powers. I have seen a blind boy regain his sight from taking it. Indians with ailments that hospital doctors couldn’t cure have become healthy again after a peyote prayer meeting. Once a Crow boy was to have his infected leg cut off by reservation doctors. After a peyote ceremony, it grew well again.

Idioms: Taste of ones own medicine; take ones medicine.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I take the medicine out if its symbols, what was it?

Do I associate anything with the dream medicine?

What was I doing with or feeling about the medicine?

See Self Help – Dealing with Fear – Summing Up – Processing Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams