Posts Tagged ‘dream’

Nude

Dropping the facade, attitudes or feelings we may mask our real emotions with in everyday life – for instance a child may scream if someone it dislikes gets near it, but an adult will probably tolerate the nearness, or refrain from expressing displeasure; expressing things that are not usually accepted socially. Also a desire to be seen for what one is or expression of natural feelings or desire to be intimate. Revealing ones true nature.

Being nude in ones dreams expresses concern about being seen by others as having imperfections, or feeling ones imperfections exposed to view.

Nudity also may represent a change of identity, before starting the work of rebuilding. It can happen after the death of the old self. After separation or divorce, because of feelings of vulnerability and loss nudeness is dreams may appear.

In most dreams this is an expression of difficulty in revealing your real feelings – who you are. More particularly, it is a sense of how you assume others see you when you reveal what your real feelings are. This is particularly true of affection, love and sexuality. The nudity might be pleasurable in the dream though, as when you are sunbathing without clothes on. In this case it is an experience of dropping all the social attitudes, poses and disguises we sometimes need to wear to survive in relationship with other people.

If you are alone in the dream your nudity is more likely to be pleasurable, and a way of allowing yourself to know who you are beneath the social roles and rules. Occasionally the nudity with a doctor becomes a desire to be looked at intimately and touched – but of course it can also be a form of being treated like an object while feeling vulnerable.

Many nude dreams involve the urgent desire to cover ones nakedness. This is definitely dealing with feelings of shyness about your wonderful natural self. Try imagining yourself back in the dream and feeling at ease.

Anxiety about being nude: Fear that others know what you really feel and desire; revealing desires and acts that are considered socially unacceptable and therefore one feels guilty or shocked about being seen doing or feeling – such as being caught making love with the husband’s/wife’s best friend; feeling vulnerable and having ones weaknesses exposed; guilt about being a human animal with sexual characteristics and urges. See: clothes.

Example: I was with my wife who was sunbathing nude sitting in a deck chair. She wanted me to have sex with her but I declined. Instead I stuck my thumb in her vagina, but she said this didn’t satisfy her.

He was in fact being nude in front of the dream group he was exploring the dream with. He began to feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, and suddenly knew what the dream expressed. In a stumbling way, he told what he felt to the group, saying, “As I am telling this to you, I know what it says, and I feel embarrassed. It is saying that I am not really a man, and don’t know how to have a proper sexual relationship. This because, sex for me is a sort of thumb suck, a comforter, rather than a shared meeting and merging.”

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are you alone?

Is this with a doctor?

Are you trying to hide your nakedness?

What did you feel in the dream?

See Being the Person or Thing – The Driving Seat – Summing Up

Numbers

Numbers can have a personal or symbolic significance. For instance, we may have had three children, so the number three in a dream about children could be connected with our feelings or fears about them – but three has generally been seen as the troublesome triangle in love, or the child, mother, father threesome. So a number may refer to a particular year of one’s life; the number of a house; the months or years that have passed since an important event; your family group – or have a general significance such as indicated in language – i.e. three’s a crowd; seventh heaven; nine days wonder, etc.

But here is an indication of what dream numbers mean. A man was hypnotised and told to dream of the numbers 65398801. Under hypnosis he told his dream and his associations. A man smokes a pipe (shaped like a 6) with a star on it (5 pointed star). He breaks the pipe in half (half of 6 is 3) and turns it up to become a golf club (6 becomes 9). He speaks of two impressions of infinity and twice draws the infinity sign 01 (vertically 88). He says: “the whole thing is nothing (0). There’s nothing except one thing, which is unity (1).

one One-self. One is also the first emanation from 0 or the void, therefore a beginning, the first, unity or being alone and independence. Just one left: Near the end.

I believe that human conceptions arose from direct life experience. For instance, when early humans saw a living creature emerge from a woman’s vagina it was an awesome experience. At the time they did not put the male sex act together with the birth of a living creature. The hole which a child emerges from was simply that – a dark hole, a nothingness. That over ages became the void, the emptiness that everything came out of.

Example: The first experience was looking at a green wall and seeing the huge moving 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 making different 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.

So, the number one is a sign of enormous creation, of coming into being as a human, our birth and entrance into life, a start. In a sense it is the darkness we emerged from, the darkness many people are afraid of. So, it is interesting if you look at a diagram of the stages of the Big Bang, for science says it took seven stages to bring us to where we are – so similar to the seven days of creation. Also, there was no light in the emerging universe despite its immense heat. Then after 300,00 years suddenly there is light – so similar to Let there be Light. So, the number zero still represents the great dark.

“When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter [the kingdom].” Quoted from ‘The Gnostic Apostle Thomas’
Idioms: It’s all one to me; one up; at one with; one and only; one off.

two Duality; relationship, indecision or making a decision; balance; male and female; two sides to an argument – or a way of comparing; opposition; the opposites such as light and darkness, harmony or conflict; parents and reproductive possibility.

Duality includes almost everything in life. For we exist strung between enormous duality – sleep and waking, male and female, pain and pleasure, light and darkness, life and death, and death and resurrection, war and peace, matter and anti-matter, negative and positive, the void and bodily existence. To be whole we need to accept and meet these opposites. In the pursuit of love, we need to recognise that we must integrate the other gender to become whole.

Chased by or fighting with two people: Two against one feeling, as may have happened with child and parents; feeling odds are against one.

Idioms: Put two and two together; two’s company; two timer; in two minds.

three Triangle; mother father child; synthesis; creativity – the child springing from the two opposites – therefore sometimes represents the solution to opposition.

It is a number representing the Holy Trinity, it is also the number of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity – the life force that moves us. Furthermore, the number 3 being associated to the triangle by its geometrical form, the Holy Spirit is also linked to the triangle and with reason: the clairvoyant Ann-Catherine Emmerick perceived the Holy Spirit as the Eye of God in the center of a triangle.

Number of the man because this one is composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. According to the Book of rites (Li-ji) the man, intermediary between the sky and the earth, also corresponds to the number three. A perfect number according to Chinese. Also a favourable number associated to the childbirth and to the birth. A sacred number of the woman in the Mayas.

Confronting three people, or out with two others: Facing collective will of others; non sexual friendship.
Idioms: Three’s a crowd.

four Physicality; the earth; stability and strength; the home or house; reality; down to earth – yet at the same time the spiritual within the physical; the four sides to human nature – sensation, feeling, thought, intuition; earth, air fire and water.
Four or more people: Feelings about meeting group decisions and feelings; someone’s opinion or will backed by others; supportive feelings.

Idioms: Four square; on all fours; four letter word.
five The human body; human consciousness in the body; the hand; sometimes called the number of marriage because it unites all the previous numbers – 1+4 and 2+3; the five senses.

six The symbol of this is the double triangle, or circle divided in six. It represents symmetry, unity of spirit and body, the visible and invisible. It is the harmonious relationship between man and God, spirit and body, the eternal and the transitory. Its sign is Virgo that expresses as craftsman or critic. It is a sign of service and rules the intestines. The sixth house rules health. It may also be word play for sex.
Idioms: Sixes and sevens; six of the best; hit for six.

seven Cycles of life – 7,14, 21 etc.; a week; spiritual meanings – seven candles, seven churches, seven chakras, seven colours, seven notes in music – so represents human wholeness.
The seven knots on the rope Mohammed saw hanging from heaven, which probably means there are seven levels of experience we need to experience to be able to enter heaven. These obviously also relate to the seven chakras and seven candles and seven churches. See Every 7 Years You Change; Dimensions of Human Experience; Chakras; Kundalini; Energy Sex and Dreams
Idioms: Seventh heaven.

eight Death and resurrection; infinity; old fonts and baptisteries are octagonal because of the association with regeneration.

nine The fact that all numbers rise in series of nines and then begin again, and that babies are born in the ninth month, lends itself to nine symbolising the completion of a process, or stage of growth. There are also, in some mythologies and religions, nine orders of angels or forces. At the ninth hour, the veil is rent between spirit and matter. The astrological sign is Sagittarius, the sage or counsellor. It rules the thighs, and the ninth house rules travel and dreams.

Pregnancy; childbirth; the end of a cycle and the start of something new; cycles. Represents creation and life’s rhythm as it develops. Because it is the final simple number it represent absolute things and it is the symbol of the totality of the human being.

There are nine gifts of the spirit mentioned by saint Paul: wisdom, knowledge, faith, gift of healing, to operate miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, to speak in different kinds of tongues and the gift to interpret them.

999 or 912 calls: A desperate attempt to be heard, or a cry for help in a difficult situation or feeling state.
Idioms: Nine days wonder; nine times out of ten; nine to five; cloud nine; nine points of the law.

zero The female; unconscious; the absolute or hidden; completeness. The circle or zero also represents the most profound aspect of human nature and the cosmos, that of the hidden, the invisible within all phenomena. It is the silence or void in which all feeling, thought, sound exist – the space between the notes of music that allows it to be heard. It is the nothingness that essentially allows existence.
ten A new beginning; the male and female together – ten to one.
It can also mean matter in harmony – 4 + 6.

Representing the Creator and the creation, 3 + 7, the Trinity resting in the expressed universe.
For Pythagoras, 10 was the symbol of the universe and it also expressed the whole of human knowledge.
Sum of 5 + 5, the number 10 represents the two opposite current directions of the conscience: involution and evolution.

According to H.- P. Blavatsky, the 1 followed by 0 indicates the column and the circle, meaning the principle of the female and male, and this symbol would refer to the Androgyne nature and also to Jehovah, being at the same time male and female.

The zero in the form of circle is a symbol of unit, completing then the meaning of the number 1 to show that the number 10 contains all preceding numbers as a whole contains its parts.
Represent the first couple, the marriage: 1 = the man, 0 the egg fertilized by the 1.
The number ten is regarded as the most perfect of numbers, because it contains the Unit that did it all, and the zero, symbol of the matter and the Chaos, of which all came out; it then includes in its figure the created and the non-created, the beginning and the end, the power and the force, the life and the nothing.

It represents the straightness in the faith because it is the first number “in extension” (of two digits), just as hundred and thousand, explains Hugues of Saint-Victor.

According to Agrippa, “ten is called the number of all or universal, and the complete number marking the full course of life.” Also he attributes to it a sense of totality, the achievement, the return to the unit after the development of the cycle of the first nine numbers.

Represent the revelation and the Divine Law.

The Mayas, it represents the end of a cycle and the beginning of another. The ten was regarded as being the number of the life and the death.

In China, the cross represents the number 10 – as the totality of the numbers.
Thanks to http://www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/

eleven The eleventh hour has represented last minute activity, last desperate efforts. It also represents strength to face and control animal nature or instincts, which gives us liberty from them. It is two on a higher level, or one that has joined with itself and is so doubled the power.

Eleven is the matrix, or mould, within us, that receives and restores form after the pattern we have already created in the past, or on the basis of what we have experienced in the past. The astrological sign is Aquarius, the seeker or scientist. It governs ankles and nervous system, and the eleventh house rules long friendships.

The number 11 is the number 1 twice. So it is one with extra power, so suggests the merging with the original impulse of one added to the spiritual power, imagination, creativity and all that is complementary as an opposite. It is the first number that is itself doubled so is the prime number doubled.
It can represent someone who faces tests but comes out victorious of the tests with the acquired knowledge.

In China it represents the Tao.
twelve A year; time; a full cycle or wholeness as in the Zodiac or twelve disciples.

thirteen This represents the twelve aspects of your psyche under direction of your core. If an aspect of your personality is still unredeemed, then pain and misfortune attend you in some degree. In general the number thirteen can mean the falling away from perfection, a marring of something good. But for Americans it has many other associations, such as –
13 original colonies,
13 signers of the Declaration of Independence,
13 stripes on our flag,
13 steps on the Pyramid, on the dollar bill.
13 letters in the Latin on the dollar bill.
13 letters in “E Pluribus Unum”,
13 stars above the Eagle, on the dollar bill.
13 plumes of feathers on each span of the Eagle’s wing, on the dollar bill.
13 bars on that shield.
13 leaves on the olive branch, on the dollar bill.
13 fruits, and if you look closely, on the dollar bill.
13 arrows.

And for minorities: the 13th Amendment.
thirty three Represent great change, experienced as death and rebirth. So it suggests a new life.

thirty four It is said to represent the realisation or enlightenment.
It also has a profound significance in the astronomical cycles of Mars and Jupiter. In numerology it breaks down to 7 (3+4 = 7).

Wikipedia says – 34 is the ninth distinct semiprime and has four divisors including unity and itself. Its neighbors, 33 and 35, also are distinct semiprimes, having four divisors each, and 34 is the smallest number to be surrounded by numbers with the same number of divisors as it has. It is also in the first cluster of three distinct semiprimes, being within 33, 34, 35; the next such cluster of semiprimes is 85, 86, 87.

Big numbers A lot; impressive; much of oneself involved.
million or billion Beyond the personal; often associated with riches of some sort.

 

Nun

Sexual restraint; religious feelings or morals; idealism.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Does this represent how I feel about Nuns, especially if I went to a parochial school?

Is there indication of prayerful, meditative, or religious side of my nature?

Do I have moral inhibitions and restrictions because of organized religion? (See monk)

See Archetype of the Nun and Monk; Archetype of the Ascetic; Questions Put to Tony; Archetype of the Search for Self

Nurse Nursing

Healing, fears of health, desire to be nursed or cared for, compassion for others. Desire to be loved as a child. The nurse is sometimes used as a figure of fear too, someone who will punish. For some people the nurse is a very sexually attractive person, and so links with sexual needs or desire.  

But if you work as a nurse, then your dream is more likely to be about your relationship with your nursing.

Florence Nightingale with her concept of nursing, and all the women and men nurses who gave and give us so much, all of these figures stand over us and are part of our unconscious experience here in our daily life.

“A young nurse said that she was almost ready to leave nursing. She said that she faced death nearly every day; babies died, children, teenagers, mature individuals, and the elderly all died – everywhere she felt overwhelmed by the emotions of experiencing it all.

The nurses experience was one I recalled easily. She said that her difficulty about death was resolved by the running meditation and she was ready to continue nursing with enthusiasm. I cannot remember her exact words, but it was about the essence of being a nurse. For nursing was not simply handing out medicines or dealing with wounds, nursing was to be a companion during the journey of life from birth to death. As a nurse we walk with the mystery of Life all the time, through the dark moments and light, and our companionship in that long walk give enormous amounts to the others making that journey. That young nurse was ready to continue walking with others making the journey.

It reminded me of when I was nursing on a geriatric ward. A bedridden patient, a lovely old man who had no relatives to visit him, called me and asked to sit and hold his hand. I sat for some time with his hand in mine, but the sister in charge of that ward was like a sergeant major and insisted we kept moving. I explained that to the patient and left him. That night he died.”

Nursing a baby: Caring for ones own infant needs which still exist in ones adult life; giving care and love to someone who is relating to you in a baby way; wanting a baby, or needing to express the depth of your own ability to give and love.

 Example: I was in a hospital. A nurse passing by looked at my baby son and then suddenly looked again and said, “Did you know there is something wrong with your baby?” I told her I didn’t. She said she would prefer not to tell me, and to ask the sister. I knew this was because what she had seen was a serious illness.

Example: I was in a hospital. Doctors and nurses were about. I was led to realise my lungs were filling up with mucous or phlegm. The doctor said to me it wouldn’t affect me in a short term, but if I kept on smoking I would feel the effect badly in later life. The dream was so vivid I decided then and there to give up smoking.

Example: There were a lot of children, mostly girls, who had no parents and were trained for nursing from an early age. One of the girls came to me as I lay in a chair. She wanted a cuddle. I held her for a while. Then a boy came for a cuddle. I said to one of them, perhaps the boy, “There are plenty of mums about (meaning the nurses), but you want a daddy don’t you?” I held him with my strength. One of the children asked me if my nurse friend had got a man yet. I considered for a while, then said no, she hadn’t, as I realised I was not her “man”, only a friend.  Alec.

Alec was a married man with children. His wife had been a nurse. When Alec explored his dream he described what he experienced as follows.

It was clear early on that the nurses represented my wife as she had worked as a nurse, but the rest of the dream was still beyond me. But as I imagined myself as the young boy I knew this was me. I didn’t like seeing that part of me. I had kept it covered up with pride over the years, but it was there and I was at first ashamed to see this childlike, dependent, emotionally hurt part of myself. It was because I related to my wife in this dependent, childlike way that the dream showed me holding him. My father had never really been a man for me and the child me was desperately in need of knowing that strength.

The boy’s question was a turning point for me. In fact my wife didn’t have a ‘man’ yet, because I was still moving toward real manhood. But suddenly I felt what the little girl in the dream meant. I said to my wife, “You’re the little girl in the dream. Do you see? Every time I get back to my warm sexual feelings I’m a little boy again, because I haven’t really grown up sexually yet, and that scares you. Whenever my weak side shows, you feel really threatened so you attack that part of me. It’s because you need a strong daddy because your father never provided it, and every time I show my weakness it triggers the little girl in you whose daddy was weak. He never grew up, so you never had a strong man for a father. That’s why you married me. Okay, I am strong enough now to be your strong daddy like I am in the dream.”

There was more to the problem though. Why did my wife’s little girl trigger my withdrawn little boy? I entered into this. I remembered how, when we had separate beds, I had often wanted to masturbate but had stopped in case my wife heard. I realised how much I wanted to hide my masturbation from her. At the same time I realised how I easily stood before her naked and with an erection, so what was this problem over masturbation? Of course, it was mother again. My mother had given me hell over masturbation as the disapproving mother, and when my wife got into her “downing” role I saw her as the disapproving manhood killing mother again, and was deeply repulsed by her. I am not going to be killed again by/mother/wife, so I will cut off from her and will give my manhood to women who do not kill me.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Is this a desire to be nursed or cared for?

Does this represent a healing activity, or concern for my health?

If I am a nurse, is this about my relationship with my own nursing skills?

Who have I cared for, or who has cared for me?

See Being the Person or thing – Characters and People in Dreams – Magical Dream Machine – Questions

Nut

Feeling a ‘nut’ suggest you see yourself as foolish. A nut can indicate nourishment or wisdom that needs work to get at its kernel. Sometimes used to say someone is crazy. A nut can also be a seed so represents potential. Nuts can represent humanity: the kernel, or soul, is encased by the shell, or flesh and bone. Nuts are also goodness hidden in a hard shell, so represent truths or realisations that were worthwhile working at.

A nut to crack means a problem to solve, or in a nutshell suggests wisdom or information put in a compact form.

The nut on a bolt suggests something that holds things in place, a fastener or indicator of security. So a loose nut could say that there is an impending problem if what it secures comes loose.  People use ‘nuts and bolts’ to mean the working of everyday life.

 Example: I remember as a little girl being able to float upwards and I still dream of soaring upwards at different times, but I have always questioned this in myself and stopped believing I did that as a child. As an adult I thought I was nuts,

Idioms: a nut case; drive you nuts; everything from soup to nuts; go nuts; health nut; a nut; nut bar, nut case; nut house; nuts about; nuts and bolts; nutty as a fruit cake

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I eat nuts often?

What does my dream suggest about nuts?

What sort of nut was it and what associations do I have with it?

See Being the Person or Thing – Summing Up – Questions – Questions Put to Tony

Nymph

See: Fairy.

Oak

Strength, perseverance, mightiness, sheltering, protection, hardiness, fruitfulness. Continuance in the face of difficulties, or facing of hardship. This has probably arisen from some of the harsh climates oaks grow in, like on rocky sea cliffs. Many people translate or understand the cross of Jesus to be a tree. Artists have sometimes depicted Jesus nailed to a tree. Often, this is the oak, which symbolises the power of physical life, the power behind material creation. See: Acorn, Cross, tree.

Oar Oars

The personal energy and skill used to direct our way through the ‘waters of life’, therefore your feelings and social atmospheres and situations; word play for whore; phallic because of its in and out motion. So it is your personal power or skill you use to move through and survive the flow of feelings, social atmospheres and troughs and waves of life situations. Having oars can mean feeling in control in the midst of emotional challenges.

 Example: I’m a young woman standing on a sea shore. I am waiting for my man. I hear the oars in the row locks of a boat, then it comes into view. A man comes to me, and puts his arms around me like he’s known me all my life. My man pauses, turns his head to a man still in the boat and says – Tell them this is it. Phillipa.

Example: I dreamed I was afloat in a rowboat, drifting without oars and wondering helplessly whether or not I would drift ashore or out to sea. I awoke still drifting helplessly with the tide and nowhere near land.

To reach land would represent security that the young man lacks. The sea shows his relationship with the unplanned and unprepared for life situations that he is not capable of meeting without oars. So instead of having the ability to make his own way, he will be moved by circumstances – the tide.

Boat without oars: Ill equipped to deal with the situation you are in. A loss of motivation and being subject to external events to direct your life. So this might point to indecisiveness or lack of initiative.

Having only one oar: Trying to row with only one oar, may suggest your need for a partner or mate. Or mean that you are skilled in sculling, a skill in being independent and directing ones own life.

Idioms: Stick ones oar in; rest on one’s oars.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening with the oar or oars?

Was it me or someone else using the oar(s)?

What was the situation on the water?

See Self Help – Life – Individuation – Being the Person or Thing – Conditioned Reflexes

Oasis

The life giving influence of emotions and life processes within the ‘desert’ of intellectualism or materialism. A place to quench a thirst brought on by spending time in a desert. See desert

Dreaming of arriving at an oasis suggest that after difficulties you have or will reach the waters of life, a break from challenges and rest and recuperation. Maybe it is time to rest and take care of yourself. It points the way that you can find life and survival in a sterile or unproductive period of your life.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Have I arrived at a place in my life that is like an oasis?

Or is it something like a promise that I see in the distance?

Have I been through a dry and sterile period?

See Letting things Happen – Summing Up – The Seed Meditation – Being the Person or Thing

Oats

Sexual energy; sexual satisfaction. It can also indicate basic nourishment or sustenance. In other words, what you need to grow as a person.  See: Corn

Apart from consumption, wild oats have an important role to play in skincare. They were used as early as 2000 BC by the Egyptians and Arabians to beautify their skins. Oat baths were largely used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for healing skin ailments. Oats are also a great absorber, so they will suck any impurities out of the skin.

 Example: Was in Wilson’s farmyard. There were some puppies or something – not sure – and I went to get them some oats. To do this I walked to the top of the hill where the oats were kept. I had a bucket and a young man came with me. As I was filling the bucket with oats, we saw a bull nearby. It looked a bit thin in the flank, slightly cow like. My friend was a bit nervous, but I told him the bull was all right, and to give it some oats. The bull was so hungry it emptied the bucket in a couple of mouthfuls. So I scooped some more oats out for it. My friend looked at its penis, remarking how huge it was. I said, “I should think so. After all, it’s a long way into a cow.”

Idioms: feeling his oats; have ones oats; off one’s oats; sow wild oats; getting his oats

Useful Questions and Hints:

What was happening with the oats in my dream?

Was I eating them or was something or someone else eating them.

Did sexual feelings come into the dream in any way?

See Eat Eating – Energy Sex and Dreams – Being the Person or Thing – Edgar Cayce  

Obe

OBE’s have been reported thousands of times in every culture and in every period of history. A general experience of OBE might include a feeling of rushing along a tunnel or release from a tight place prior to the awareness of independence from the body. In this first stage some people experience a sense of physical paralysis which may be frightening. Their awareness then seems to become an observing point outside the body, as well as the sense of paralysis. There is usually an intense awareness of oneself and surroundings, unlike dreaming or even lucidity. Some projectors feel they are even more vitally aware and rational than during the waking state. Looking back on ones body may occur here. At this very first stage of complete independence some people experience intense fear. This is most likely due to fearing that one is dying. I believe there is an unconscious connection between the externalisation of ones awareness and death. See: feature on Out Of Body Experiences

Obesity

See: FatPerson.

Obscene

It is reasonable and healthy for all of us to have a dream which surprises or shocks us occasionally. As dreams partly deal with aspects of our urges and fantasies which we do not allow in waking life, such occasional dreams are safety valves. It is healthy to be able to allow a wide range of dream experience, from the holy to the deeply sexual; from outright aggression to tender love. In fact we can gain an idea of the depth and broadness of our own soul – whether our psyche is narrow – from the range of dreams we experience. If obscene dreams assail and worry us again and again however, then there is a problem in the way we are relating to ourselves and the exterior world. Psychotherapeutic counselling might help. See Autonomous Complex; Being the Person or Thing

Obsessed Obsession

We are all obsessed or possessed in various ways. For instance, we may not be able to walk down the street without shoes, or be unable to appear in public without a collar and tie, or properly shaved, or with the wrong people, we are thus literally possessed by social codes, fear of looking a fool, and so on. Being possessed by such things our actions are controlled by such fears. These are the demons that rule our life and enslave us, and that were spoken of in the past as being cast out. These factors are often symbolised in dreams as an obsessing agent. Autonomous Complex

The agent need not be your own fear or drive however. There are other driving forces, such as social pressure, the and great external forces such as government or corporations, that act upon your psyche.

Being possessed by such things means our actions are to some extent controlled by them. The unconscious pictorialises this situation by using the images of demons or dark shapes. These are demons that rule our life and enslave us. It is such demons that Jesus cast out in the Bible stories.

In past cultures the ideas or fears which obsess us would have been described as an evil spirit or ghost taking over the person. This is because the irrational obsession takes hold of us against our will, so is quite an accurate image.

Obstacle

This suggests you are facing some difficulty that you feel is blocking what you want to do, or your freedom of action. The barrier can be external or internal, so you need to consider what it is in your life that is leading to this feeling of obstruction.

Depicts something which causes uncertainty or withdrawal of enthusiasm, creativity or love. Such might be produced by someone’s criticism which evokes our own self doubts; indecision; our own inhibitions or anxieties; maybe even a hidden form of not wanting to succeed because it would confront us with the new – we might fail. The obstacle, obstruction, barrier or interference can be a person, a wall, a river, animal – or it might be an internal thing like paralysis or a lump in the throat. Refer to the entry on the appropriate subject to define what it is acting as an obstacle. See: First example in failure; fence; wall.

Breaking something, or breaking through a wall or obstacle, show you freeing yourself from old habits or restraining influences. Also a fallen bridge might link with a lost opportunity, broken bonds and connections, or broken opportunity or a difficult obstacle. Crossing a river or ditch also represent to an obstacle you are meeting. To jump over something suggests you are making an effort to avoid or overcome an obstacle.

Sometimes a warning of an obstacle can be a warning light, a foghorn or traffic lights on red.

 Example: ‘I have this recurring nightmare. I see my mother standing by my bedroom door, blocking it as if I am being trapped and stopped from getting out. I often call to her ‘Let me out Mum’ but she just stands there staring with no expression on her face at all. I end up getting out of bed and switching my bedroom light on and then she disappears. Sometimes I will see her standing by my wardrobe. It seems as if she is always standing by a door and trying to trap me.’ Natalie S.

Natalie is fourteen and the obstacle she faces in choosing her own clothes – the wardrobe – and making her own decision, is her own dependence upon her mother, and the need to develop a new relationship with her.

 Example: ‘As I was driving along I turned my car over. I wasn’t hurt but could not now get to my destination. I didn’t feel at all upset about the car being damaged.’ Tim K.

The example shows a subtle and self made obstacle, the damaged car. In fact Tim admitted ruining his own work opportunities – the car – because he was frightened of failure.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

What obstacles can I remember meeting in life?

In the dreams what type of obstacle was it and how was it dealt with?

How do I deal with obstacles I meet in daily life?

See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Martial Art of the Mind – What is the main action in the dream?

Occident

See: West