Posts Tagged ‘dreaming’
Agony
What feeling or decision, what responsibility or concern is tormenting you? Or does the dream suggest this is a physical pain? If so See: Illness.
Agony in your dream may be a sign either of something radically wrong in your body or in your inner feelings. If it is the first you need to arrange a physical check. If it is the second you need to arrange a situation in which you can talk out, explore and express the inner agony.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Am I aware of actual pain in my body while awake, and am I doing anything about it?
Does this agony depict a misery I am carrying inside me, and if so how can I allow it to be expressed?
What clues do I get from the dream about the source of the misery?
You can make great changes and healing by using Acting on Your Dream.
Struggle
For some people just to exist is a struggle. But there are so many struggles the dream might be pointing to. Struggling to earn enough; struggling for recognition; struggling to find and earn love; struggling against depression and despair; struggling against illness; struggling to find your way through the maze of life events; struggling to contain your anger about what happens around you or in front of you; struggling against the madness of some human actions; struggling to continue after the loss of a child or loved one; struggling to breathe; struggling to learn something – struggling.
What is your struggle?
You can find your way through such struggles.
See Recovery from a Life of Pain
Positions
Your stance or position in life; the way you are relating to what is depicted in the rest of the dream – or the way you feel you are relating to it.
above What is superior or has a wider view or possibility than your present standpoint; sense of inferiority in relationship to what is above us; what we strive for.
If we are standing above or high up: Having a wider viewpoint; being intellectual; feeling superior or in a position of advantage.
Idioms: Above all; above and beyond; above asking; above oneself; above board; above ones station; risen above oneself. See: high; hill; mountain; flying.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What are the abilities or achievements I feel good about?
What am I looking up to or reaching for?
What or who do I feel is above me?
adjacent/adjoining Suggests a strong connection with the dreamer, or what is wanted or being worked toward. For instance in Japan, rocks or trees that are close together are sometimes seen as married or linked. Dreams use the same sort of symbology to suggest a more than surface connection with someone or some aspect of life. There could also be the suggestion of confrontation or discovery – being near something in this case meaning that we can no longer escape meeting it, or it is near at hand in the sense of being discovered or experienced. The example below shows adjacent as depicting difficult feelings near at hand that the dreamer meets.
Example: I had a dream in which my best friend, her 4-year-old daughter, and myself were staying in this huge old, Victorian style house. My friend put her daughter to bed in another room, and we went in the adjoining room to watch a movie. My friend fell asleep and then all of the sudden, her daughter came screaming into the room, covered in blood. I didn’t actually see what happened, but I knew instantly that a crocodile had attacked her and bitten her legs off. I tried waking up her mother and I was holding her (the child) in my arms and crying. Then I woke up. The dream was so realistic, and when I awoke I was covered in sweat and shaking really bad. The dream upset me so much that I didn’t tell anyone about it. A week later, I found out two other friends had dreams in which this little girl was also attacked by a crocodile. What could this possibly mean? A.R.E. dream.
The dream suggests a close and perhaps psychic connection with the girl and her mother. See Possession
Useful Questions and Hints:
What or who am I feeling connected to or near at this time?
What is the influence of this connection?
behind The past; what you have chosen to or want to forget – left behind; what one is unaware of – as talk behind ones back; what has been learned or dealt with.
People behind dreamer: taking the lead in relationships; being decisive.
Idioms: Behind the scenes; behind the time; fall behind; put something behind me.
below Something you feel is ‘beneath you’; what is ‘below’ in the body – so the non intellectual or sexual aspects of self; something one can now look back on from a detached viewpoint. If below something else – see above.
Idioms: Beneath my contempt; It’s below my standards.
beside See: adjacent/adjoining above.
close Intimacy; being made aware of or having a fuller awareness of something or someone; what one feels connected with or has ties with; near to, in the sense of making a decision – near to leaving home; close to, as ‘close to finding the solution’; a situation that is near at hand or being confronted or realised now.
Idioms: At close quarters; close fisted; close on; close to home; that was close.
distant Barely conscious of; a long time off; something one does not identify with strongly.
in-front The future; what is seen and understood; what is being confronted.
Lying down or prostrate If Injured shows a possible psychological situation that has ‘floored you’. If resting you have given up your persona efforts, making way for new ideas or impulses to arrive. If in prostration it shows that you have recognised something bigger, more advanced or powerful than your personality, so you are opening yourself for something better to enter you.
Example: It was the Swami, whose photo I had seen at Exeter. He was sitting on the floor, as was everyone else, but in semi darkness, and partly covered in a coat or blanket. He looked at me, but seemed to sink into himself or the gloomy light. When I saw him I saluted him in complete prostrating, lying face down on the floor.
The interpretation he arrived at was that, “My love prostrated itself before the love of something holy. The love of what lifts ones spirit remains partly hidden, but through your surrender, this love will come to you.
opposite Meeting or ‘facing’ a situation; opposition or resistance to decided direction.
side Supportive feelings as ‘by ones side’; as well as; indication of choice as ‘what side are you on’ or ‘who’s on my side?’
Idioms: From all sides; let the side down; on every side; on the wrong side of thirty; on the right/wrong side; on the side; pass by on the other side; pick sides; put to one side; side by side; side with somebody; take sides; take to one side; the other side – death; safe side; bit on the side; seamy side. See: adjacent/adjoining above.
Move Movements
In general the quality of your movements in dreams depicts your feeling or mental state, your confidence or lack of it, your ability to make changes – move easily – or difficulty in facing change – paralysed. The quality or lack of it that you express in your life; what you are creating or ‘giving off’ in everyday life. But movement is always an expression of who you are, of your potential to achieve, to make changes, to ‘get somewhere’. So look to your feelings in the dream to define what it is of yourself that is being expressed, what of your potential is flowing or being denied.
If it is an object moving, it suggests the thing has direction, life, or purpose of some kind. In this case you need to understand what your relationship with it is in the dream. It might also refer to it attracting your attention.
Agility: Coping well with your situation; adaptability; mental quickness.
Easy flowing movement: Self acceptance and thus easy expression of oneself; feeling in harmony with emotions and sexuality.
Getting stuck, unable to move: Often being held back by anxiety or fears, such as fear of failure. See Life’s Little Secrets
Moving house: See house moving
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do I have any sense what my movement or posture expresses?
Am I aware of my body much or what I am saying through it?
Do I love moving or is it a chore?
See Body Postures – Use Body – Postures Movement and Body Language – Mind and Movement
Active Passive
We are in a passive role when we are an inactive observer in our dream, we are all the time on the receiving end of dream action, or as in the example below, make no effort to move from discomfort. If this occurs frequently in our dreams, we are probably passive in our waking life also.
Example: ‘I was in a house that I lived in many years ago, how I got there I do not know, but I saw myself sitting in an ordinary chair just behind the closed front street door. It was very quiet, and I was afraid, but I did not make any effort to move.’ Ms J.
This habitual passivity can gradually be changed by such techniques as active imagination. It is our own emotions, fears and sexuality we are meeting in our dreams, so it is wise to take charge of ones inner feelings rather than be a victim. The following dream illustrates an active dreamer. See: Secrets of Power Dreaming – Active Imagination – processing dreams.
Example: ‘As I walked toward a house a number of demons or devils came at me menacingly, trying to stop me getting near the house. Although they made all the ghostly noises I wasn’t at all afraid of them. I felt they were a damned nuisance, and to show them I meant business I grabbed one and with my right hand I gripped its flesh and squeezed. It started to squeak in pain and I squeezed harder.’ Clive J.
Example: I am on holiday, standing outside the hotel, at which I am staying. The day is lovely, warm and sunny. Across the road and to the right there is an old white house with a low, stone bridge leading away from it into the country. I turn, enter the hotel, but when I get to my room find my luggage has been removed and the room occupied by strangers who seem completely unaware of the situation and of me. I then go to the dining room which is full of people eating, enjoying themselves – I know no one and am left standing in the doorway, watching.
In the last example the woman is extremely passive in her response to other people taking over her room. Because a dream offers so many possibilities the woman could easily throw the people out or acted in a more aggressive manner; for dreams are created by you emotions, fears and also your courage or lack of it, so fear creates fearful or passive dreams. So you Cannot be hurt or die in your dreams.
Remember that dreams are like a computer game in which you can kill or be killed – feel it all – and come out of it unhurt unless you are still frightened. Fear is a great creator of awful dreams and you need to fight back.
In the ancient view of dreams recorded in the Atharva Veda, being active, or even actively aggressive, was seen as a positive sign, even if one was injured or mutilated as a result of one’s active stance. Whereas if the dreamer passively accepted injury in a dream this was seen as a negative implication. This was because it was felt that the active or passive stance within the dreams indicated a similar disposition during waking life. As the active person is generally more successful, the dream sign of an active disposition was seen as fortunate.
We are psychically always on one side or the other—tiger or fawn, destroyer or destroyed, taker or giver, object or subject, active or passive, creator or created. Here is the dichotomy of our fall from the greater self of primitive psyche into the forms of reality, the division of self and other. All our lives we try to achieve a balance of these contradictory opposites, and whether in our egos we succeed or fail, every function claimed by the ego is balanced by its opposite in the subconscious. Only in the fusion of infancy, or of sexual orgasm, or in religious ecstasy do we escape the psychic wound of division. See Stuck in life – unable to move and Avoid Being Victims
There is another side to this disposition of action or passivity though, where passivity has a positive connotation. So this must not be forgotten in regard to dreams and dream work, or in fact in connection with everyday life. This aspect of passive/active is described well by P. W. Martin in his book Experiment In Depth (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1964). In talking about working with active imagination he says, ‘One must be actively passive – active in giving over the energy, passive in observing. The outstanding characteristic of the true vision is its complete autonomy.’ This is a very important issue, as without the ability to control one’s reaction to one’s inner life, much of it will remain unavailable. If one is stuck in being constantly controlling one’s thoughts and emotions, in being a sort of powerful ‘in charge’ sort of person, then ones spontaneous inner life may never be able to emerge. Thus an ability to become passive is essential. But Martin calls it passive-active because it is a consciously decided passivity rather than an unconscious habit.
This holds true even while one is asleep and dreaming. I learned this lesson while hunting as a young man. For hours I had walked through woodland looking for a quarry but without sign of a single creature. Tiring I stood against a tree eating a sandwich. Slowly and magically the forest came to life around me, creatures walking and flying nearby unafraid while I remained quiet.
This powerful control of ones own activity in an open and receptive state is the key to the doorway of the living ‘creatures’ and personalities of our dreams – to the unfolding of innate qualities that would not otherwise be able to break through the threshold of consciousness and become known. Without being able to become passive in the sense of not interfering, the spontaneous emergence of unconscious vision and content cannot occur. The examples given in active imagination and dreams shown how this is used in actually meeting unconscious content – alsp see Opening to Life.
Postures Movement and Body Language
Even in everyday life, the way we hold and position our body, the inclination of chest and head, the movement of hands, are a means of communication. The apparently intuitive information in some dreams, when investigated, can be traced to an unconscious insight into the language of the living body. We all have this ability to understand body language, but it seems to be something that is inherited from our ancient forebears, perhaps developed to an intense degree as a survival need prior to the growth of verbal language. It therefore remains a largely unconscious ability. In our dreams, however, it is a major factor in how the dream is structured.
If you cannot find a satisfying description below, imagine yourself making the movement or posture in the dream to see if you can define what the feeling quality is, or what you are expressing non verbally. It can often be of value to make the movement or take up the posture physically instead of in imagination. By comparing the movement/posture with another one, it can help to clarify its quality. See: body postures.
Example: ‘Marilyn was experiencing emotional pain connected with her impending divorce. She had dreamt of seeing a dinosaur standing in her path, devouring all who approached it. We explored it by having Marilyn find a body posture and movements that for her expressed the feeling of the dinosaur. In doing so Marilyn did not sense anger or aggression as she expected, but she did feel like a predator that always had to TAKE to gain her own needs. This feeling immediately reminded her of her family life as a child. She remembered when she was sent shopping as a very young child of three or four, as well as buying what she had been asked, she purchased some sweets for herself. When she arrived home she was treated as if she had done a terrible thing, and that was where she began to feel like a predator. It seemed to her as if her own needs were always gained at the expense of someone else.
With this awareness, she could now see that the dinosaur standing in her path clearly related to her present situation. Bargaining to gain a realistic share of the house and property jointly owned by her husband and herself, felt to her as if she were gaining her needs at his expense, like a predator. That made her feel so awful, she was almost ready to allow her husband to take all, leaving her without house or money to start again. Her awareness of where the feelings arose from, and the unrealistic part they played in her life, allowed her to relate to the situation with less pain and more wisdom.’ From Mind and Movement, Tony Crisp, Daniel.
crawl If you are an adult, crawling can suggest feelings of caution, feeling your way, or regression to a more childlike state. It might also be because you feel there is no room to “stand up” – or that you feel vulnerable.
carrying See: carry.
jump Jumping to: Daring; taking a risk; sometimes connected with flying. It can also connect with a change.
Jumping to avoid: Feeling of threat; anxiety; evasion tactics.
Jumping off: Getting out of a situation, or changing your situation. Children do this as a form or daring to see if they can face their fear.
Jumping down: This depends on the feelings attached to the action. If you are jumping down to something slightly lower, this may relate to something that needs a small effort to reach or get to, something that you want to do or achieve, but causes a slight hesitation and a change or slight risk, such as when you approach someone and feel anxious, or are starting a new job. If you jump from a high place and there is anxiety attached, then it suggests you are taking a risk, or are uncertain of an outcome in regard to something you are doing or facing. It is therefore helpful to ask yourself what you are doing that leads to feelings of anxiety, or what changes you are making that you are uncertain about.
Jumping over: There is a suggestion here of making an effort to avoid something or to overcome an obstacle. Or is there a feeling in the dream of wanting to reach someone or something?
Jumping at dreamer: Unexpected; irritations.
Idioms: One jump ahead; the high jump; jump at; running jump at yourself; jumping down ones throat; jumping off place; jump out of ones skin; jump the gun; jump the queue; jump to it; jump on the bandwagon; jump to conclusion.
kneel Humility; acknowledgement of dependence or co-operation; sense of awe; defeat.
prone Relaxation; letting go of activity; introversion; sex. Or: Retreat from the world; feeling injured; afraid to stand up for oneself; non involvement; negative introversion; weakness; death.
Idioms: Lie low; lie at ones door; lie in wait; take it lying down. See: squatting down and standing below.
rising Usually suggests an improvement of some sort – a change from inactivity to activity or engagement.
run/running Exuberance; flowing life energy; strong and easy motivation. One can run to or run away, so it is important in some dreams to define which one it is. Also it is important to define if you are running to get somewhere, to reach a goal, or simply running as an expression of exuberance, or to get fit.
Running away: Avoiding something; trying to get away from something, ones own emotions or sexuality for instance; not meeting problems in a way that will resolve them; anxiety about what you are running from; feelings of guilt.
Running to: Trying to reach a goal; energetic attempt to reach a goal; anxiety; responsibility and self-giving; sometimes running toward danger.
Running with great pleasure: The unhindered flow of your innate self; an expression of the person you can be if the blockages and hesitations are dropped away.
Running without knowing why: Uncertainty; lack of clarity about what you are feeling or expressing – where you are going to or from.
As if made of lead: Held back by ones own hesitations. See: paralysis under body.
Example: ‘There followed a nightmare of running along streets, round corners, knowing I was being followed and trying to get away. Then I met a friend who was also running away. She took me down a narrow street full of down and outs and prostitutes.’ Pauline B.
Idioms: Run for ones money; run of the house; out of the running; on the run; run along; run down; run for it; run out of steam; run out on someone; run up against; run wild. See: chased; second example in emotion and mood; nightmares; processing dreams question 7. See also: lucidity.
sit Ones situation at time of dream; status, depending where one is sitting; being relaxed; inactive waiting.
Sitting up: Becoming more involved.
Idioms: Sit back; sit for; sit in on something; sit on; sit out; sit something out; sit tight; sit at someone’s feet; sit in judgement; sitting target; sit on the fence.
squatting down and standing The down expresses: Sleep; rest; withdrawal; non involvement. Idioms: Feel down; down and out; do someone down; down at heel; down hearted; down with. See: prone above.
The standing position: Your involvement in the exterior world of change, opposites, and needs that require expenditure of effort; being involved or active in the world or with others; your ‘standing’ in society; what one ‘stands’ for; being active; confrontation; co-operation with others.
If you are standing on something like a ledge or a plank, this represents the things that give you support. For instance you might the confident about dealing with individuals, but anxious when dealing with a group. The feelings or attitudes underlying the confidence or insecurity are represented by what you are standing on in your dream.
Idioms: Know where one stands; left standing; make a stand against; stand alone; stand aside; stand by; stand corrected; stand down; stand firm; stand in someone’s way; stand up for; stand up to; stand ones ground; stand on ceremony or dignity.
turn A change; making a new decision.
walk Motivation and confidence. Where you are walking is what you are meeting in life, or where you are going or exploring. It also involves personal effort in trying to get somewhere. It can be about changing your relationship with things, or a period of experience you are passing through.
Walking up a lane: As above, but may be memory lane.
Idioms: Walk over somebody; walk away with; walk off with; walk on air; walk tall; walk the streets; walk out on; walk out with.
Aerobics
A possible reference to your attempts to keep healthy – lose weight – remain sexually attractive. How the dream presents the action will define whether this is a suggestion for more activity in that area, for less, for a change in attitude, etc. Occasionally this might be giving you the experience of how it feels to be really flowing and alive. If so nurture the feeling and replay it often.
Useful questions:
Do I need to take more exercise and is this dream suggesting it?
Are there aspects of the dream showing new information about health or giving health suggestions – if so do they apply to me?
As a piece of drama what is the dream depicting?
Advocate
An advocate in your dream is a part of you, or a feeling, that supports and argue for you. Often it is a demonstration of qualities you are not aware of.
If you are the advocate for someone else it suggests you are feeling strong and clear about a situation or person.
See Lawyer
Adversary
The person or group you are pitted against represent something, probably within you that you are in conflict with. Such dreams show parts of your nature you struggle with. Jung called this the Shadow, the aspects of yourself you are frightened of, or repress for one reason or another. Enemies in dreams usually refer to some facet of this. Though it may simply depict something you are struggling with, a relationship for instance, or feelings about work.
Because the enemy is usually an aspect of yourself, real change can occur by relating differently to each other. For instance if you are lucid in your dream you can become them so fully there is no problem.
Useful questions:
What is it in me that I am in conflict with?
If I imagine myself in the dream is there any way I can resolve the enmity?
What is the action in the dream and what does this show of the details of the conflict?
Adult
If you are a young person dreaming of an adult it may be indicating your potential, what you can become if you continue your present direction in life. But most frequently it is about the influence of an adult or adults.
To be an adult is not an easy task or achievement. There are two very different sides to it. Most of us achieve an adult body, but very few of us achieve emotional, sexual or spiritual adulthood. The story of this is told in all the old myths and legends – after all the greatest meaning is life and what we can achieve in it. So in becoming an adult we brave great dangers, face monsters, pass through difficult initiations. Fundamental to the whole drama of our life is the evolution of our own identity from the depths of unconsciousness in the physical process of conception, through to developing self awareness as an adult – from the great ocean of collective culture, language and society, to the emergence of ourselves as a mature individual. To do this we face death and rebirth several times when we metamorphose from baby to child; from child to adolescent; from adolescent to adult; from adult with youthful body to ageing body. It is such an incredible journey, so heroic, so impossible of achievement, so fraught with dangers and triumphs. It is the greatest story in the world.
The modern western adult is often very much out of touch with the life giving processes within them and feel isolated and often ill at ease in the world. The black figure in dreams, or the native can give us a much needed connection and balance.
Even if we feel we are an adult, there are usually still enormous potential remaining unexpressed, stil a great deal of unmet childhood or baby needs. See Beware of Love
Example: I was in a very loving relationship in which I had developed powerful emotional links with D. We communicated many times each day while apart at work, etc. But one day there was no communication. I felt tremendous anxiety and emotional pain and shock, really frightened that she had dropped me. In fact she hadn’t, but my fears were very real and difficult to deal with. A real shock.
If you are an adult facing feelings of abandonment, it may be helpful to recognise that such feelings usually connect with the realisation in childhood that if your parents died, abandoned you, or you were left and felt abandoned you would not have the skills or maturity to obtain your own needs. Although, as an adult, you might now be capable of gaining your needs, such powerful feelings of helplessness, anxiety or sense of abandonment, can be stimulated by any situation reminiscent of the childhood situation that first called them into play. Therefore, it can help to carefully look at your life situation to see what changes are producing these feelings. You also need to decide whether there is real cause for fear, or whether you are suffering anxiety due to past experience.
During adolescence we move from youth to becoming a mature adult. This means learning in some measure to be independent of the work energy, the money and time given by parents. It means making your own decisions, earning your own keep and establishing yourself in the community and world in some way. Sometimes the break from parents is made by establishing a relationship. However it is achieved the change needs a level of heroism in many ways, and if you succeed the difficulties change and deepen you.
Adult love:
This means a growing sense of recognising the needs of your partner yet not denying your own. It means the ability to be something for the partner’s sake without losing your own independence or will. It means becoming aware of the issues that colour or influence relationship, and meeting them as partners. Independence and closeness together. You become caring sexual partners through discovering each others needs and vulnerability. It is emerging from the dependence of parents and what they provided or failed to provide. That it is difficult is shown by the number or people who never manage it – never move from wanting to be handed food and money as a child does – never moves beyond being angry with others for not supplying their needs – never manage a love relationship with the opposite sex – or a love relator’s with anybody.
When we move beyond the processes of growth faced in adolescence we journey into adulthood, during which we face relationships, work, parenthood or creativity, with more independence. However, there is no age at which we can say we have arrived at adulthood. Sometimes elements of babyhood, childhood or adolescence have not been outgrown even in old age. Dreams sometimes illustrate this when we see ourselves in the dream with an adult head on a baby body. Or we have an adult body but the genitals of a child, and so on. But in general, in this period of our life we dream about the issues of relationship, of finding our own strength to deal with life creatively and satisfyingly. There is an attempt on the part of our dream process to release and deal with early traumas or situations that occurred and led to blocking or trapping our potential energy and creativity. Without this clearance much of our energy to express and achieve is tied up in the past, or in non productive habits. At this time too our dreams explore the challenges and difficulties we face in outer life.
Unfortunately meeting challenges with a reasonable amount of our potential means a real and honest self-assessment and meeting with areas of feeling that have not been healed in the past. As Freud so clearly pointed out, there is enormous resistance to this. It is much easier to explore the controlled world of lucid dreams, or see ones dreams in the light of inspiration rather than confrontation. Of course, dreams are all these things.
Useful questions:
What is the character, the strengths or weaknesses of this person and what part do they play in my life?
What is happening between this person and me, and how do I connect with that?
If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel or realise? (See Dream Visualisation for help with this.)