Posts Tagged ‘dreaming’

Alley

This is a direction you are taking at the moment. The dream shows you the often hidden side of what you pursue, so the condition, mood and quality of the alley is a comment on what you are doing or feeling. Because most alleys are small, it may be saying you are leaving the main highway of your life. See: road.

Like any road it indicates your prevailing direction in, or approach to, life – this direction/approach can be either self created out of your own actions or decisions, or arise out of other peoples or social influence. But the alley suggests limited possibilities or horizons, or present limited possibilities will be overcome with effort and initiative. The ease or difficulty in the alley shows the state of your present situation.

An alley with a dead end suggests concern about a tight situation that appears to have no easy way out.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What situation in my life does this describe – limited opportunities, lessened horizons?

What is the main action in the dream and is there any connection with situations in my life?

How would I describe my situation in the dream – i.e. happy, lost, searching, etc – and in what way does that link with my waking life?

Am I walking this alley or looking down it – if the latter, what opportunity or difficulty does this suggest?

Am I involved with other people, and if so in what way?

Where am I going or what a I trying to achieve?

Alligator Crocodile

Feelings or fears of being attacked or overwhelmed, possibly from within oneself, or by a powerful mother – i.e. ones internal dependence upon mother. There is so much about ourselves we do not know, and when a new aspect of us, or a much larger power within us emerges – like and great creature from our depths – we react to it with fear. See Autonomous complex

The alligator and crocodile often represent a hidden form of treachery, apparently harmless until it opens its mouth to eat us, such as that of a person spreading malicious rumours or trying to undermine us in some way. Another attack from deep within can be from repressed emotions.

But the alligator or crocodile as a dream creature is not the same as an external alligator. It is an enormous creature from your own depths, your inner self or core self – the part of you that you are not aware of and are frightened of. See core

The alligator or crocodile is similar to the serpent and depicts the power of the emotions, influences and experiences emerging from the unconscious. If you do not relate to your unconscious urges constructively, conflict can occur. Then you may feel fear of these forces within you – fear of being swallowed, or dragged into dark feelings. That is, of being carried away, or possessed, by fears, urges, ideas, arising from within, or fear of the irrational.

The Egyptians worshipped a crocodile as a guide to the dead in the underworld. It represents not only a threat, but also a wealth of wisdom about unconscious things. It possibly represented the forces of the unconscious because of the observation of the crocodile emerging from hidden depths to lay its eggs on the river bank. In this sense the crocodile or alligator in some dreams represents a personal confrontation with eternity. Depending upon the dream, the crocodile may well depict your fears about your inner hugeness. When we meet this it shows a personal awareness of merging with the many lives held in the collective unconscious. It is illustrated by the Christian idea of being cells in the body of Christ. We retain individual life, but know ourselves as part of an eternal life. This is possibly a natural stage in ageing, as our physical prowess and motivations fall away, this immense inner life begins to open to us. See The Life Will

As some people keep pet alligators, there might be a very personal meaning if one has actually kept an alligator.

Example: Now I looked at the large pool where the river surfaced. A woman swam in it, and was going to enter the tunnels. As I watched I saw some huge crocodiles swim toward her. With great speed and confidence she swam away, obviously being able to match the threat. A group of people in the pond, through their group strength, also dealt with the crocodiles.

Example: I can remember that in the dream another person and I, a male but very indistinct and shadowy, were facing mythical creatures in some sort of odyssey. A strange sort of crocodile or alligator type creature was supposedly attacking me. I had mixed feelings about this. Partly I felt there was nothing to fear about the creature, but another feeling was that it might be able to do some damage. In fact it was biting me across my chest, but all I felt was a very strong tickling feeling that made me laugh.

Example: Now a huge unknown creature began to enter into my awareness. I felt the presence of an enormous creature rising to the surface of something like a swamp or a body of water. At first I thought it might be a whale, but as I paid attention to what was happening it defined into a huge crocodile.

This huge creature looked at me and said, “Mathew, join me.”

I laughed at this because it was so huge, and with so many associations of swallowing things, that I said something like, “What do you mean join you? Don’t you mean that you want to eat me?”

The creature replied to me, “No. No, it’s not like that, I’m just like a submarine. I have all these lives in me. I have many, many lives in me. I am life. I contain the many. You can swim this ocean alone Mathew, if you wish. Or you can join me, you can join the many. You can always, if you choose to live your independent life again and  leave us.”

I laughed here because I had the image of me being independent, stripping off, diving over the side of the boat into the ocean and swimming off. It is something I have often done in the sea, swimming long distances alone, or off to an island out to sea, by myself.

I began to give myself to that great creature which I now understood as the collective unconscious, the unity of lives. It felt as if it was absolving me, much as I had experienced earlier on. (One of those strange and beautiful, and also moving coincidences just happened. I am reading this in using voice recognition, and it is proving to be very accurate. But in the sentence where I said that I felt it was – and the word was supposed to be absorbing me – the software used the word absolving. And here I am again, back in the ocean, weeping as I know there is no judgment on the life I have led so alone and cut off.)

 

Useful questions and hints:

What does the alligator represent to me?

What do I know about them?

Am I feeling threatened or carried away by any fears?

In what way is my intuition or awareness reaching beyond myself ?

Do I feel myself part of a larger whole?

See See Summming Up – Reaction to the unconscious – Secrets of Power Dreaming

Alone

Being alone in a dream expresses one’s sense of isolation, feelings of loneliness or independence, depending on dream feelings. Feeling alone can be a sign of dependence, you need someone else to feel complete – though this seldom works out. See Beware of Love.

In many dreams being alone expresses a fear of attack or being overwhelmed. If you feel happily independent then you have achieved a great deal. See Individuation.

Idioms: Go it alone; alone together; alone = all-one.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do I feel okay about being alone in the dream or in waking life?

Are any feelings or fears about independence indicated or relevant?

What is the theme and drama of the dream adding to the aloneness?

See The Trackless Way; Identity And Dreams.

Alphabet

May refer to something basic to learn, being learned, or that you learned in childhood. It can also link with separate things that when put together in the right way can lead to an understanding or meaning.

But like numbers, the alphabet is the pieces outof which we make words and can express ourselves with. So it is the buildign blocks of enormous creativity. The thing is, can we put them together?

Useful questions are:

Could this be about ‘lessons in life’?

Am I or do I need to learn something from the beginning?

Are you feeling like a child in some way?

If you put the pieces of your experience together can you arrive at a clearer understanding?

Can you be creative?

Altar

Symbolises the sense of awe in face of life, nature or God. Also willingness, in face of this, to sacrifice some personal desires, to that of a universal desire. Schweitzer has said that a man who picks a worm out of a puddle is acting for life as whole, not just personal self.

Self giving – this can be a very positive action, or a sort of self punishment out of guilt. It can also represent standing before what you feel is of immense importance in life. Altars can link with a place of death, but also of rebirth, and thus a meeting with the universal life of which you are a part, and an connection with it through self sacrifice or surrender. The altar may be used to represent your feelings about other people sacrificing you to their needs. In which case you need to define what your needs are.

Standing before the altar is something we do on special occasions such as getting married, communion, birth or dying. So depending on the contents and context of the dream, there may be a reference to one of these. In this sense the altar is a link between the visible and invisible, conscious and unconscious elements of you. Like the sarcophagus it can also represent death and rebirth. As such it is a place of change, and may be a play on the word ‘alter’.

What is on the altar: As the altar is basically a point of transformation and sacrifice, what is on the altar may suggest what you give the highest value to in your life, and what you worship; perhaps what you are sacrificing.

See: death and rebirtharchetypes; church.

Gradually my being became quieter and quieter. My breathing slowed down so much it seemed almost non-existent. I had a feeling of my peripheral, changing self, slowly dying in ashes to reveal what all the world is seeking. I felt that as my peripheral self died, there was the possibility of this other part of my being shining through more brightly. Brenda was still beside me, and I had the sense of my body being an altar on which the exterior me had burnt away, revealing an eternal quality, and Brenda, other people, receiving it, worshipping it. There was nothing personal or worthy of self praise about this, because all had this central being. But I never really seemed to experience this thing. It never shone out. In the end I wondered if what I was experiencing was yet another cul-de-sac one is led to believe the Self is found through – that is by letting the outer self die.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I ‘giving up to God’, or some higher power?

Does this represent something I hold in the most high esteem?

Is there a transforming influence in my life?

What is being altered?

Do I feel I am sacrificing myself in some way?

See Processing Dreams.

Ambush

If you are being ambushed: Anxieties about how other people are relating to you. It could be you are suffering paranoia about being a victim; or possible difficulties in relationships or work. Certainly it seems as if you feel you are in a difficult situation and maybe surprised. You can try using the following to change the situation: Carry the Dream Forward.

If you are staging an ambush: Desires to get the upper hand of a situation, or trying to outwit or take advantage of some aspect of yourself or someone else.

 

Useful Questions and Hints:

Do you feel trapped or compromised in any way?

Do you feel somebody is trying to get the better of you in some way?

Are you in some sort of battle with someone or an organisation?

Perhaps this is a time to look around carefully and access the situation?

Try using Processing Dreams.

Native American

Natural wisdom; self acceptance and wisdom based on this awareness of ones links with the world and the intuition or wisdom of the irrational or unconscious. It can represent realisation of tribal wisdom and the link with intuitive initiations into stages of growth and entrance into the house of the ancestors. For some people it links with feelings of being dispossessed.

If you live in America, you may have all the above associations of being touch in with nature, but some people dream of being attacked and threatened. And this is probably an expression of meeting the alien in you, or a fear of strangers. The Indian can also be a guide and a wise person. See See alien – Reaction to the unconscious

Example: Dreamt that a young modern Red Indian was talking to me while walking in London. He said he would show me one of the secret nerve blocks used by the shamans. He pressed quickly the right side of my throat and tapped my forehead. Then he walked backwards away from me a few paces, and he appeared to shrink in size and diminish in age. I immediately thought this must have been the physiological method used in their magic. I seemed to remember having been shown it before by another Red Indian. He didn’t have to walk away, but looked young and small anyway. To end the effect, the Indian tapped the base of my neck in the thyroid area, and tapped my buttocks.

 

Useful questions are:

What are my feelings about the Indian or being an Indian?

What am I gaining or getting from the Indian?

See The Iroquoian Dream Cult – Native American Beliefs – Secrets of Power Dreaming – Being the Person or Thing – Spirit Child

Amethyst

Common beliefs about the amethyst is that it has an influence connected with healing; and dreams. Moses described it as a symbol of the Spirit of God. It is also said to offer protection against drunkenness – in fact the Greek word ‘amethystos’ mean ‘not intoxicated’. See: jewels.

Like any jewelery it can have a lot of personal associations, such as who gave it, what associations with family, etc.

It is said to be a bringer of dreams and visions and protection against being carried away by spiritual elation or inner influences. Also a healing influence.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I feelings about the amethyst in the dream, and how can I translate that into my waking life?

Can you define what you believe the jewel’s influence is before you dreamt of it?

Does it have anything to do with wealth?

What happened in the dream that might give clues to the dream meaning?

What part is the amethyst playing in the dream, and what does that suggest?

Use Processing Dreams to aid in doing that.

Ammunition

This may indicate pent up feelings that if expressed could be harmful to yourself or someone else. Or it could suggest information or feelings of being ‘armed’ against someone else’s attack or as protection against the world. As such it points to attitudes or strong feelings that you use to protect your own feeling or vulnerability.

If it is something someone else has: Things that you feel others can use against you, such as lies, criticism, anger, etc.

If it is something you have: Attitudes or thoughts you use to bolster your confidence; things you feel or think that could be used to wound other people or even yourself; ways you defend against other peoples attack.

Lacking ammunition: Feeling without hope regarding a difficulty you are involved in, perhaps an emerging conflict with a partner or at work.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What part does the ammunition play in my dream, and can I identify what that reflects of my daily life?

What do I feel about the ammunition or bullets, and where does that feeling arise in my life?

What might this do to me, or how am I reacting to it?

What am I using or planning to use the ammunition for or against?

Am I using the ammunition in the dream – if so what against, and how does that relate to my waking life?

What do I feel about the ammunition in the dream, and when do I experience those feelings in waking.

Use Talking As to help define the dream meaning.

Amnesia

The example below says only too clearly how one may often forget things that are so important, and fall into old habits. The woman David was sleeping with was someone from his past he was unhappy with. A dream may often show this forgetfulness as the experience of sudden recall after a long period of not remembering. Both the loss of memory and the recall illustrate very real ways the mind works. Things that may have been of great importance to us, or caused powerful feelings at one time, are subsequently forgotten. Such experiences may not even be taken into account when making present decisions, and so literally one has a sort of amnesia regarding them.

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

And here is another example of forgetting the awful things we have done.

Example: I was in a large house – probably the kitchen. I discovered a lock, bright and sparkling, that had its keyhole covered up. On it were drawn pictures of a young woman. I felt it was a part of the puzzle regarding the big house, and belonged to a room that was now so locked, and even the keyhole covered, that it had been forgotten and lost. Finding the lock was rediscovering the mysteries of the house. The room and lock associated with love for the young woman depicted on the lock – a very sentimental love. I felt very emotional just looking at the pictures. This part of the dream is very difficult to remember clearly, but there was a wooden snake and a rat that were eating breadcrumbs. I felt that the snake would have swallowed the rat if it could have moved faster, but it was hindered by its woodenness.

Then I was looking in a big cupboard, and found a clue to where the room of the lock was. This was to the number of salt sellers or something in the cupboard. A young man came in, he was Lord Montague, a homosexual. He said something like, “Hello, been up all night?” I couldn’t understand at first, then saw that the curtains were drawn, and it was daylight outside. I was surprised, and thought I must have been in unconscious, or in amnesia, and not known what I was doing. There was also something about having had homosexual relationship while unaware of what I was doing. The next thing was that I, as someone else, entered the “lost” room, with Montague. In it a young refined and lovely woman was kept prisoner by myself. This was because of a supposed adultery, of which she was in all likelihood innocent. I treated her as a prisoner, a thing, a coarse animal, to be hurt and belittled emotionally in every way my sentiments could. The servants were told that she had chosen to live the life of a nun. I made her strip off her clothes in front of the other man, and washed her, roughly. She was terribly sensitive about this, but endured it. Montague apologised to her again and again for the part he was playing in this. She told him not to feel too guilty. He also asked her how she did not go mad. She said not to talk of madness, as it was always a threat, but she had developed a true religious outlook and patience, that protected her.

One of the easiest ways
To find out who is a psuedopod
And who is a real person
Involves a simple memory test.
Ask the person if they
Can remember their childhood.
If they say, “Oh yes, I remember
My aunt Nellie telling me how I
Used to wet the bed.
I remember that.”
Well that is not real memory.
It is more like having photographs
That you are acquainted with.

Ask them if they remember being a baby.
Ask if they remember being in the womb.
Ask them if they remember their life in eternity.
The real self remembers all this.
After all it emerged from eternity,
Lived in the womb,
And experienced all those years until the present.

If you are suffering amnesia,
You are probably a psuedopod.

As for me, I was desperate to find my way back.
I saw the signs of my maladjustment
Everywhere I looked.
It was difficult to accept those signs.
Painful!
They were like being stabbed
With a hot knife.
They were in places
You don’t want to be dug.
They hurt too much – old wounds.
That is my story.

This is ground zero.
I am a reporter on the scene.
It’s rough going at the moment.
Maybe we are both pseudopods,
But I hold out my hand to you.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What is my dream suggesting I have forgotten?

What has led me to forget this?

Is there someone or something I want to forget – and if so why?

The technique Talking As may help.

Amoeba

May relate to blind urges; basic cellular processes in your body; fundamental levels of awareness – i.e. being barely aware of something, but acting instinctively, or it could relate to sperm or ovum or reproduction. This might also relate to feeling your way instinctively in what you are doing. Amoeba’s engulf their prey, and if you know this it might figure in your dream in some way.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What am I sensing from my body that links with the dream action?

Are there clues in the theme and drama of my dream as to what part in my life the amoeba is playing?

If I imagine myself as the amoeba what do I feel or experience? For help doing this see Processing Dreams.

Amputate Amputation Amputee

To lose the use of, or cut off by repressing, whatever the limb or body part represents. It can also suggest a loss of skill, ability or adequacy, sexual or otherwise. The amputation could also depict a fear of losing or of having lost whatever the limb or body part suggests. In some cases a depiction of old trauma that has left one less than fully capable

The dream might also express a desire to be inadequate in order to have an excuse to withdraw from the demands of life.

Amputation dreamt after having a broken limb or the cast removed: Fears regarding being inadequate after having only one good limb; the difficulty of having to adjust to being healthy – more can be demanded of us when healthy.

Example: This is not a dream, but is a powerful example of how the unconscious can produce very real sense of experiencing something as physically true, that is a mental phenomena. The account is by Phillip Zimbardo in the book Psychology and Life, published by Scott, Foresman and Company.

It was my first day back to work after recovering from a traumatic automobile accident. I was lucky to be alive with only torn ligaments in my leg and a concussion: the driver had been killed by the impact of a head-on collision. As I hobbled up the three flights of stairs supported by a crutch, my initial joy of returning to school was suddenly suspended. With each step I took a strange sensation occurred: I could ‘feel’ myself BECOMING my younger brother, George. Not IMAGINE ‘as if’ I were George, but being transformed physically to be him.

I perceived my face changing to be his face and my body doing likewise. My limp became more pronounced, and it took great strength to climb the last flight. In a panic, I shut myself in my office, not wanting anyone to witness this strange transformation. I avoided looking at my reflection in the window for fear I would see his face and not mine. Had I really become my brother or was I MERELY hallucinating?

Time passed during which I tried frantically to relax, ‘to pull myself together,’ and make sense of my distorted sense impressions. After all, I was a normal, serious scientist type not given to such flights of fancy. I lived by the reality principle.

My secretary and colleagues knocked and came into the office before I could say I was busy. They were worried by my abrupt disappearing act. They were relieved to see I was ‘my old self again,’ and I was relieved to see them responding to me as if I were Phil and not George. A glance at my reflection confirmed my hope. I had changed back, ‘or was no longer George….or George was no longer manifesting himself in me.’ Whatever? Weird, no? But why?

When we were children, George had infantile paralysis and for a time had to wear leg braces and walk with crutches. I would accompany him to therapy sessions and observe his frustration, embarrassment, and anger at not being able to function normally. Since we were only eighteen months apart in age, I could readily empathise with his feelings. I may have also felt guilty at being glad I too was not crippled. Once I recall volunteering to exchange places with him in the swimming pool exercises, but the nurse chided me, ‘being crippled is not fun and games young man.’ I was about four at the time.

As I hobbled up the stairs to my office some twenty five years later, the pattern of feedback sensory stimulation reactivated this pre-recorded motor action plan. Memories of George’s posture and movement were enacted. I had retained mimicry responses of his motor activity that I had observed so intensely. Now I was changing places with him, but not consciously and not volitionally. The suddenness and vividness of the hallucination was frightening because it was so real, yet at the same time contradicted my knowledge of reality. See: Body.

Amputating someone else’s body part: The other person could easily represent a facet of yourself you are denying full expression. If so define what you associate with that person by using the amplification method or role playing. It could also suggest a desire to injure someone; or a way you cut off their ability to interact with you or communicate.

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I denying or repressing an important facet of myself?

Do I have any sense of not being adequate in any way suggested by the dream?

Am I angry or hurt about something enough to deny my full expression?

Have I made a decision at any time never to allow certain things in my life again?

Use Talking As to help.

Amulet

This may indicate something like the placebo effect, in which your belief acts as a healing and powerful support. The amulet focuses your feelings of confidence and gives you power to live and act more fully.

Useful questions are:

What is it the amulet is protecting me against?

Do I feel the amulet has any power – if so what is it protecting me against?

What is the action of the dream suggesting?

Amusement Park Carnival or Arcade

The playful or childlike exploration of experience. But it also has elements of the unknown or dangerous hidden behind a colourful exterior. In some dreams it might suggests the escapism we enter into sometimes in a relationship or in general, immersing ourselves in the noise and colour of life. The fairground can also be a testing oneself to define self image. This because some rides need a certain amount of courage or ability to face new experiences. There is also great variety here, and so might point to the varied experiences we are meeting and trying to find our way through or understand. See: fairground.

Particular rides:

Things like the merry go round might suggest a whirl of events, or even things spinning out of control. The dodgems or bumper cars involve the way we interact with others and avoid or bump into them. The rollercoaster might depict thrilling or dangerous risks you take or are exposed to, or point to sexual excitement. The ghost ride is to test your courage and to seek a partner.

Fear arising: You have a sense of the pervading dangers underlying the surface impression of events. Perhaps there is a fear of the unknown emerging even in what appears to be pleasurable.

If enjoying yourself: Enjoyment of the varied experiences being met at the moment.

Example: For the past year I have had recurring dreams about fairground rides. Occasionally members of my family, including my father have died on the rides. When I’m on the ride I’ve survived, but I can sense danger all around me. This dream is beginning to bother me. I am 15 years old. Laura

In the dream Laura is most likely trying to develop her own independent stance in life. About the age of seven through our teens we confront the realities of the external world. We realise family will die at some uncertain time as we age. The stance needed is one that enables us to live life fully, without being crippled by fears and insecurities. The fairground represents the ups and downs of life, its variety and uncertainties. There IS danger in almost everything we do in life. But there is also opportunity and the possibility of deep satisfaction. The challenge is what YOU will make of it? How will you play your part? Will you forever feel surrounded by danger, and thereby not fully express yourself? Or can you laugh and love while the ride goes on?

Useful Questions and Hints:

Are there situations in my life that I take seriously, but may only be superficial?

Is there a menacing aspect in my life that appears harmless on the surface?

What am I doing or looking for in this place?

Do I have a satisfying relationship with what I experience, or can I improve it?

What is happening in my life that connects with its up and downs and variety?

Use to Acting on your dream explore the many possible meanings.

Anaesthetic

This suggests an attitude or experience that is making you unconscious of what is going on. Something is deadening your feelings and sensitiveness.

This might indicate an experience of what it is like to die, or show an avoidance of painful emotions. Or it may depict you are deadening pain, or that there is great pain to deaden.

Being anesthetised can also be a way a dream illustrates the shifting from waking awareness to meeting the very different world of your unconscious inner world.

The reason anaesthesia may be linked with death is that the ego feels itself overwhelmed and thrust into the unknown or unconsciousness by the action of the drug. This may be felt as pleasant or unpleasant depending upon how well you relate to the loss of your waking power or will. See the two powers.

Films often use chloroform or an injection of an anaesthetic in a scene where the person is overpowered, and it can have the same meaning in your dream.

Useful questions are:

Am I ignoring feelings and emotions, or feeling emotionally numb?

Is something leading me to feel overpowered?

Does my dream give me an experience of what it is like to die?

Did this lead me into a shifted awareness – an entrance into my unconscious?

Try using Processing Dreams to understand your dream more fully.

Analyst

If someone who is helping you analyse your dreams appears in a dream, they usually represent the wisdom of your unconscious, or the difficulties you face in yourself.

An analyst, psychologist, psychiatrist in our dream depicts our self assessment. Depending on the dream, the self assessment may be supportive or self destructive. Our mind can transform itself in a number of ways. Sometimes one new piece of information, or a new mental discipline, can change the quality of all mental life. The analyst represents such power to transform, as well as the often avoided self awareness. Can also suggest fear about ones own mental strength and health; a source of wisdom; insight.

But it depends on what you feel about an analyst. Do you feel your relationship with the analyst it good; or is it a lot of money for a lot of talk; or is it paying through the nose for having someone listen to you? See: Psychoanalyst

Useful Questions and Hints:

Am I getting real insight from my inner analyst?

Could I use him/her to give me more information by having a dialogue with my dream analyst. See Dream Dialogue.

Can I use any information to my advantage?

What is the subject of the dream – i.e. what aspect of life or behaviour?

Am I in conflict with the analyst – if so what is it I am fighting against?

Use Processing Dreams for more information.