Posts Tagged ‘dream’
Overcoat
Protective attitudes or feelings. Also the feelings or face you allow yourself in public. No display of intimacy. See: Clothes
Owl
Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ‘sees’ what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ‘feeds’ by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.
Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird. See: Second example in wife.
Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What do I know about Owls?
Does this show any use of my intuition and wisdom?
If the owl seems menacing in the dream, is this about my fear of the dark, or death, or possibly the contents of my unconscious?
See Core – Collective Unconscious – Being the Person or Thing – Using Your Intuition
Ox
Represents the earthy, practical, service giving and sexual parts of human nature. See: Animal; Bull.
Interchangeable with the bull, except oxen may be castrated, and so represent patient service without fire or aggression, or loss of sexual potency. The ox also depicts strength; patient endeavour; wealth for people who live in agricultural lands and self sacrifice. In China the ox or buffalo represented the untamed instinctive desires and reactions that needed to be trained to a new relationship with the conscious self. But in Chinese astrology the buffalo was similar to Taurus the bull sign. See: bull; Ox Herding.
Useful questions are:
Is my ox a patient docile creature, or is it like the fiery buffalo?
Am I working with my ox or in opposition to it?
Does my ox need domestication and training?
Oxygen
Energy, life giving forces.
Oyster
Silence, tight lipped, secretive, hiding a secret beauty. It may also represent the body, or material existence, in which your psyche develops as does the pearl, through irritation, and is trapped by its restrictions. In some dreams depicts the shell closed around your inner feelings. Eating oysters is thought by some to stimulate sexuality, and so it could be a symbol of this. And there is the saying, the world is my oyster, suggesting we can find riches and beauty in life once we open the shell. See: Clam; Pod.
Pack Packed Packing
It would be worthwhile wondering when you last packed your bags or house, and what you felt. The dream probably looks back at those feelings.
Packing can connect with leaving home, becoming independent or being rejected, It can associate with holiday feelings, and so a sense of ease. It can also link with making changes or wanting to change. Packing somebody else’s bags might therefore either mean you want to get rid of them, or you want them to go away with you.
It can also be a way to get rid of someone, packing their things and telling them to leave. This can often involve feelings of abandonment.
Already packed case: Readiness to meet change or to go on a journey – to meet experiences that promote learning and growth..
Can’t pack in time: Anxiety about details; feeling unready for change.
Packing up or packing away: it may be that you are trying to get too many, or too few, activities into your day
Packing and wondering what to take: Decisions about what stance or attitudes are suitable to meet present situation or change. I can mean you sense of an end in sight, also you might be trying to become more independent.
Packing bags: Suggest you are planning to go somewhere or make a change. Wanting to get away or making changes or a journey. Putting things in order and sorting out what needs to be done. Or an indication of putting one’s life in order.
Packing a bag might: Be putting something might be reluctance to face up to a problem or situation. It sometimes suggest the womb or sexual intercourse.
Example: ‘I am packing for a holiday, surrounded by a lovely selection of all sorts of clothes. I am matching outfits, shoes, scarves, handbags to match. It gives me great pleasure. I am wearing an old navy blue dress which is too short for me. So short I feel panic because there will not be enough time to change. I am now on the top deck of a bus. I have one battered suitcase and am wearing the same dress, trying vainly to pull it down over my knees. Suitcase bursts open and it is full of old clothes fit for a jumble sale.’ Valerie H.
Idioms: Pack off; pack up; send somebody packing; pack ones bags.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is my motive or feeling behind packing?
Do I have a plan to get away?
What is important that I am packing?
See Settings in Dreams – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Questions
Paddle
A dream paddle depicts your efforts to get where you want to go by your own or someone else’s efforts. It can also mean your means of methods to manoeuvre in the area of emotions or life experience. See: Oar.
A paddle is also used in some work situations where stirring or mixing is concerned. So the dream would be about what you are mixing or stirring and your ability to handle the paddle.
In a boat without a paddle: It suggests you are 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. Also it might indicate that you will travel without means to really make progress. Could mean paddling on your own, with only your own power, no help from others.
Example: Then my father gets into a small row boat and I get in. He slowly and carefully goes over the wooden boundary. The motor gets caught. My father says “Uh-oh.” I say, “Don’t tell me uh-oh, when we’re in deep water.” We then get over the thing. Then I’m in a canal. An Indian guide is behind me paddling. He is reciting the legends of our people. I feel like I’m going home.
Example: It was a rare day, as believe it or not, it was not raining, the sun was shining, loch flat calm like a mirror, I was happily paddling along, felt as if I was floating in an in-between world as the sky and clouds were reflected in the water. On my right side, I became aware of a shape skimming along side of me, only about 3 feet away. I was amazed to see that it was a buzzard; it was so close I could reach out and touch it, wing tips actually touching the water. It stared at me as it flew past, and then let out one of those high pitched ki noises they make, which made my whole body quiver, partly due to being startled by the noise. I am not sure what was actually going on, but it was a special moment, one that will always be with me, I most certainly felt blessed.
Example: Dreamt I was with L my son far out to sea on a small raft like boat. L was about three, and the boat was a flat canoe shaped thing about two feet wide and eight long. It was just above the water. It seemed secure apart from that, but water did sometimes roll over its surface. I could see no land, but felt sure I knew the direction and was paddling with my hands to go in that direction. I felt it would take a long time, but didn’t feel anxious about that. L was sat in front of me, also quite happy.
When trying to explore this dream a little, I felt it was about being afloat on the infinite ocean of life, and the small raft/boat was the rather flimsy attitudes or threshold that stands between me and that ocean. It didn’t seem to matter if I didn’t get anywhere by my efforts.
Idioms: Paddle ones own canoe; in a boat without a paddle.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do I feel I am adrift in life, or in control of my life?
Can I find my way through currents and whirl of emotions and challenges?
See Martial Art of the Mind – Being in Control – Using Symbols to Change Life Problems – Talking to Inner Self
Padlock
Often in dreams it is about personal security or fear of being ‘got at’ by someone chasing you. It also represent a barrier that someone else has put in place to stop you in some way. It is like someone saying ‘No’. Or if it is your padlock, you are saying ‘No’. Difficulty opening it either as owner or not, shows how hard it is to overcome this ‘No’. See: Lock.
Sometimes it can represent an attempt to have sexual contact. It depends whether you are locked or unlocked.
Example: I go to a locked doorway on the left of the building. The lock – padlock – is securing the top of the door, but by pushing very hard I forced entry through the bottom, the lock still in place. I cannot recollect why I entered, but now a man comes from another part of the building and catches me trespassing. He accuses me and I make all manner of excuses.
Example: A man chases me up the stairs to my boarding house apartment on the 4th floor. When I get inside, I put a big padlock on the door and pray that the clasp will hold if he starts pushing on the door.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is my dream showing me I have locked up?
Have I discovered what the key is to unlock myself?
Are my tension and depression signs of my locked position?
See Life’s Little Secrets – Avoid Being Victims – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Martial Art of the Mind
Paint Painting
There are many sayings that illustrate how paint can be used in dreams. We can paint the town red, paint too rosy a picture, whitewash everything, paint too clear a picture. It can also represent a memory caught in an artistic mood.
These suggest letting loose pent up high spirits; being too optimistic; trying to cover up mistakes; being too honest. Painting can also symbolise self expression, realisation of inner contents, hiding the real condition of things with a veneer of paint, or to put a new appearance on things.
The unconscious frequently senses things, or synthesises out of our experience, views of things we have not been consciously aware of. A dream may depict this as a painting; subtle feelings or realisations; a view we have of or about something.
The realisations connected with a painting or picture can often indicate memories of what live is us unconsciously as our heritage from the past prior to our birth. See seed
If we look at a painting, we see certain colours on it. That particular painting exists because of the texture, the minerals, the earth and chemicals that go into the paint or ink used. It is also a result of the movements, the skill the artist has put into it. It is an incorporation of all those things and many other things not mentioned. It is also an expression of the light that falls on it. Without the light it is not apparent. In different lighting conditions it will change its character in some way.
So the painting is partly an expression of a human being and their qualities and skills; it is partly an expression of the chemicals and minerals and surfaces involved. As such it is an extraordinary thing. When we look at it we are witnessing all that goes into it. Maybe we don’t realise it; perhaps we don’t see everything that composes it. Maybe we don’t realise that in its present form it has substances from when the earth was you, that its atoms are from the beginning of time, or that the canvas it is on was formed by the efforts of several people not even consciously known by the artist. And of course, the painting is unique. There will never be a painting exactly like that. A copy might appear on the surface as the same, but there will never be quite the same mixture of minerals, chemicals, movements, human qualities, that entered into the painting.
A paint box perhaps shows talent in that direction, or that you are expressing something form within.
If you are painting a picture it shows you in the middle of creating or expressing or realizing something. If you know what the subject of the picture is this will indicate what the connection is. Sometimes things we realise deep down do not easily translate into words. The dream painting is a half way house, and your feelings about it help you put into words your inner intuition.
Are you simply looking at the painting, or is it being destroyed? Whatever the action is this refers to the subject of the painting or your intuition.
Any form of artistic expression: Self expression; expressing ones feelings or intuitions; ones inner situation; creative ability.
Painting as in decorating: Making changes in the way we live or feel about ourselves; expressing feelings; the impression we give to others; what ‘colour’ we are painting things, in the sense of painting a very black picture; a cover up. We can paint the town red; paint too rosy a picture. Or we might be working at changing our appearance or life style. See: photographs.
Example: So many men and women have not trod this path of being ready to walk directly into the darkness of personal death, because life as it is painted by the extant philosophy and religion have taken away all personal connection with the underlying reality of life in them. Life is a spirit that never takes form yet is in all form.
Example: The object of active imagination is to give a voice to sides of the personality (particularly the anima/animus and the shadow) that are normally not heard, thereby establishing a line of communication between consciousness and the unconscious. Even when the end products-drawing, painting, writing, sculpture, dance, music, etc.-are not interpreted, something goes on between creator and creation that contributes to a transformation of consciousness. Jungian Lexicon
Example: In sleep, we may approach some inner landscape that represents our wholeness – the latent qualities of our own being. The wonderful thing is that our dream is our own. It uses our own symbols, our own emotions, our own understanding, our own possibilities. With these it paints a truly personal wonder we call a dream. Surely this is worth understanding?
Example: She is tall but slight in her figure, which is hidden not only by her clothes but by a long skein of light brown hair that falls below her waist. I sense her breasts are small and quiescent. Her back is straight and her buttocks narrow. She is still and calm but occupied in pouring powdered paint onto a papier mache relief map, which instantly transforms the territory beyond into a colourful, exotic landscape filled with African animals of all description leaping and running with enormous energy.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How is ‘painting’ portrayed in the dream?
Is this about self expression or self realization?
Am I putting a new appearance on things, giving them a new veneer?
Is this a play on words such as ‘painting the town red’, ‘painting a rosy picture’, ‘whitewash everything’, ‘paint a clear picture’ and so on?
Are you painting a picture?
What do you feel the picture describes?
What happens to the painting?
See Emotions and Mood in Dreams – Being the Person or Thing – Genius
Palace
A sense of importance, or privilege. In some dreams about a palace, there are evident feelings of something special happening. This probably links with the way palaces are used in fairy stories, as for instance the palace in which the Sleeping beauty lives. Such a palace represents the wonders of yourself, your amazing mind and qualities that might be sleeping or overcome by enemies – i.e. disuse or ignoring them.
The palace is also the storehouse of your culture and past, the treasure house of your family, your social and racial inheritance. In one ancient palace dating about 884-859 BC, the tree so Life was carved on a wall. See The Sacred Tree In Dreams And Myths
An old place: This is usually a very important dream. What the palace contains or is found here through exploring the dream are signs of a past and what you still need to remember about who you are; probably skills that are still latent in you.
Palace tombs: These also are extremely important. They contain the memories of your ancient past that can only be unlocked by exploring them. See Being the Person or Thing
A golden palace: A dream place where great transformation of yourself can take place, or important realisations can be experienced.
Example: If I explain, if I tell you what I am – I am a palace. I was a wondrous palace. I am only a ruin of what I was. This building. This part of the building wasn’t a ballroom. It wasn’t an eating place. It was a place where certain things happened. It was a place where many people left things. They came here and they gathered and they left. It was a place of exchange. If you could bring something here, then you could take something away. Or you could take something away if you gave something. There is an old story that has to do with how humans sold their souls. That is a degradation of what I am, what took place here. I am a place of exchange, not a place of selling. You would give something of yourself and gain something
Example: In 544 BC, the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya, dreamed her bed was transported by four kings to a high Himalayan peak, where four queens adorned her with jewels and brought her to a golden palace. A white elephant with six shining ivory tusks appeared and painlessly pierced her side with a thrust of its tusk. She awoke to the song of a blue bird and realised that she had immaculately conceived. Her dream was interpreted as signifying that her child would become a universal monarch. Five of the Buddha’s dreams, along with dreams of his father, King Cudhodana, and his wife, Gopa, appear in the Pali scriptures and describe his future vocation as a wandering monk
Example: A Muslim who saw in his dream a huge palace with a cross on its roof. He heard a voice saying that the palace belonged to Jesus Christ and only He could open the gate. Sometime later he was reading Pilgrim’s Progress and saw on one of the pages a picture identical to his dream. It was this experience that directly led to his conversion to Christianity.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What were you doing or experiencing in or about the palace?
Did anything happen to you in the palace?
Where you attacked or meet anything that frightened you?
See Settings in Dreams – What is the main action in the dream? – Clicking On
Palmist
Intuition; or inner feelings about how you want to live your life, or where you wish to go.
Pan Pot
There is a side to this, however that sometimes links a kitchen-the sink, stove, pots, and pans to represent a person, especially a housewife, with the idea of being a servant or slave in her own household. There may be feelings of anger and frustration associated with these dreams, which would be shown in the handling of the food and utensils-the pots and pans especially-so be aware of all these possibilities. (This was written by a woman who had obviously suffered).
But I, a male, remember when my wife went away for a long stay with her sister, leaving me with four children, how easy it was. The children were all off to school early, and by ten o’clock the house was tidy and clean. The children had helped in keeping their rooms tidy and so I had hours each day to do as I liked. Then I started cooking the children’s main meal so it was ready for them when they arrived home from school, for I had noticed that the children were hungry and would try to snack if there was no ready food. I also cooked all the bread and did all the washing – and cleared out a lot of rubbish.
Of course if the wife also works and she has to do everything at home and the male simply sits or is out drinking, then she needs to kick him where it hurts. I grew up in a working family and learned to cook when I was young, so it was no problem to get a meal ready for my wife if she was late home. I think it might be important for women choosing a man to see whether he can cook, clean or is a mother’s boy. So many people say they fall in love, and actually known nothing about their prospective partner. At the time I had a wife who hated housework. I often struggled to do the work that I did hours a day and year after year, but I did it because I wanted my children and myself to have food in the house and feel warmth.
For cooking: This may link with the care you give to yourself or your family, with everyday life and its needs, or represent some sort of receptive situation.
Chamber pot: This refers to what you need to discharge from you, either emotionally or physically. It also might refer to the female genitals.
Cooking pot or pan: Receptive state of mind and feelings perhaps connected with creativity – cooking – family life or providing for ones needs; everyday life.
Chamber pot: Feelings and values connected with excretory functions; female sexuality.
Pots and pans: Can represent your feelings about preparing food and what you put into it or fail to give of yourself.
Dented Pans: Perhaps you resent cooking and so do not take care of these precious tools of family life.
Handle Broken or Missing: Be careful, you may not handle your task well.
Idioms: Flash in the pan; sex-pot; shit or get off the pot; pot of gold; chimney pot; pot hole; melting pot; coffee pot; pot shots; flower pot; pot bound; from the frying pan into the fire; pan out; a chicken in every pot; gone to pot; piss pot full; pot calling the kettle black; pot of gold; sweeten the pot
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are my feelings in the dream about pots?
Do I like or hate cooking – if so why?
What was the situation in the dream?
See Context/Theme – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams – Habits
Panther
Fierceness; temper; anger; In Christian symbolism it represented power to protect against evil. See: leopard.
Useful questions are:
What attitude or feelings is my dream panther expressing, and how does that relate to me?
If I imagine myself as the panther, do I feel anger, power or fear? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)
Is it a male or female panther and what does that lead me to feel or associate with it?
What is my relationship with the panther and what does that suggest?
Panties
Your hidden feelings. Your sexual feelings and desires. See: Clothes.
Pants
Paper
It depends what the paper is, whether it is a research paper, a newspaper, writing paper, wrapping or Christmas paper, paper objects made by folding, paper towels, paper as in a kitchen roll, toilet paper. If you can look up the particular type you may find something. Also the context in which the word paper appears is important. See Context/Theme; Newspaper.
So having read Context, see if you can begin to describe your dream differently, and see Key Words
Blank writing paper: Unexpressed sentiments or ideas; opportunity to express creative ideas or feelings to someone; feeling a lack of communication with someone else; writers block.
The blank writing paper method: The work of Dr. Caron Kent, gives a summarised version of this method. He began to explore himself because of his own need to deal with his depression by giving himself regular time at a typewriter and writing spontaneously whatever came to mind. In this way he found he began to contact areas of experience and feeling previously unavailable. He developed this in his practice as a psychotherapist into working with the body and feelings directly.
The idea in this approach is to sit down with a pencil and plenty of paper or at your computer. Have a clock or watch before you so it is easily seen. You must now, non stop, write whatever comes into your head, for ten minutes. You do not try to think, you simply write whatever word comes into your head and there is no need for it to make sense, whatever word appears with the thought what does my dream mean. This cuts out the rational thinking mind and leads to you tapping the unconscious.
So you must actually not stop writing for ten whole minutes. If, for a moment, your flow blocks, write continuously the last word until further ideas arrive. This is not done by thinking about what you should write, rather you should drop any attempts to think. There may be rather strange results at first. However, practice will bring the flow and harmony that you are seeking. The benefits of this will only be seen through practice. Try to do this exercise as many times as possible during the next week. Write anything that comes. You simply hold in mind about the dream without thinking about it. Actually, once you have asked about the dream you can drop thinking about it.
Wrapping paper: Depending on the colour and quality – how you feel others see you; the exterior impression of what you are getting or giving in a relationship; the outward appearance of your own potential.
Paper animal or figures: They give the appearance of being real but they are only paper and not real. So it may be about feelings you have about that. “Everything else is paper,” which means that it is not a living impression.
Research papers: May represent important thins you have or are beginning to realise. Or point to things you would do well to investigate.
Taking pen to paper: It suggests an urge to express your creativity or to communicate an idea for you to remember. It also could be a motivation to communicate something important to other or someone.
Example: I brought my daughter into an attic and it was filled with the most brilliant coloured art supplies, paints, pencils, paper etc. and I said to her, this is all for you. Then I woke up and couldn’t wait to start clearing out all the clutter. I’ve been working all day!! TK
Example: In the latest dream I was reading a paper with the heading ‘Broken Hearted Babies’, with a picture of both of us as babies, with our names underneath. Amanda – Teletext.
Example: But I couldn’t remember when the baby was born so I got the birth certificate and I started looking for the birth date and how much he weighed at birth, but it wasn’t a birth certificate it was some type of paper that I couldn’t understand so I gave up on looking.
The birth certificate is important. It is saying that there is something you do not understand about you or your baby and its background. It was a dream baby without a father and known background. Because you do not understand what it means to have a dream baby you could not understand what was said on the paper. I believe it was telling you that Life gave you this baby, and it will grow in you to change your life.
Idioms: Commit to paper; not worth the paper it’s written on; on paper; paper tiger; pen to paper; paper over the cracks.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is the dream showing things I usually do with paper or it unusual?
What would I describe as the action in the dream?
If I have written anything what is it and what meaning does it have for me?
See Writing it Down – Creativity – Secrets of Power Dreaming