Posts Tagged ‘dreaming’
Ancestors Forebears – Dreaming Of
The cause and intricate web of cultural and family influences, physically and psychologically, that your body and personality arose from. If it is a particular ancestor you dreamt of, then the personal associations with that person need to be explored. See Explore Dream Character
For instance an uncle may have been renowned for womanising, so would represent that tendency.
Ancestors can also link with deeply buried tendencies we have unconsciously inherited from the long past. Sometimes they point to the fate/karma we are dealing with – they are the difficulties or wonderful traits that arise in our life, that we cannot honestly see have been developed or collected in this lifetime. See: Conjuring Trick – guardian of the threshold.
Just as a fox cub ‘learns’ how to hunt from its parents without words, so we absorb the deeply etched negative and positive survival strategies of our parents simply by being around them. It is passed on for generation after generations. They never need to talk about it because usually the parents are unaware of it themselves. If genes come into it anywhere, they perhaps create the reflex response that instinctively draws in the survival tactics that perhaps even our parents themselves have never really been aware they live by. In doing this the higher animals learn what cannot be passed on as instinct, what is not ‘hard wired’ into them. This holds in it a tremendous advantage because ‘hard wiring’ takes a long time. Through this faster method we learn what to be afraid of, what to eat, how to hunt, because the lessons learned by pain through many generations are exhibited in our parents behaviour in dealing with events. This is the information we may obtain through dreaming of our ancestors. See The Conjuring Trick
We also have a huge heritage from the seed that grew in our mother’s womb. That seed didn’t suddenly appear, but was the collected experience of life from the beginning of life on Earth. So you as a personality are mostly the memories of this life stored in your brain, but without knowing it, you unconsciously have a huge past.
Example: When I opened the door of the room I was overwhelmed by such a huge awareness of what had been left me as an inheritance by my ancestors that I sobbed for many minutes. It wasn’t pain causing me to weep, but the intensity of what I experienced. The strength, persistence, ability to love, as imperfect as it was, the sharpness of mind, the ability to exist within a modern community, were all gifts hammered out of raw human material by my forebears, enabling me to take the few further steps in life that I have. See House of the Ancestors for a fuller explanation.
Example: One of the things I am seeing at that the moment about symbols and dreams is how beautifully they hold tremendous amounts of information and meaning. I am thinking at the moment about the soil, the garden – they are so rich in meaning. Whatever our forebears did, whether they were deceitful and lying or courageous and strong, whether they had honour or were cowards, whatever they did, and perhaps over time they did everything, their lives were the drama that brought us into being. Their lives have given us the substance of our body and our personality. We are the heirs of that drama. What we grew from is what they left us. It was the heritage from the past. In dreams this is often represented as a piece of land, a garden. It was the piece of land – is the piece of land – that you inherited. Whatever that land might be, whatever its condition, that is what you have. Whether it is beautifully rich with orchards growing on it, or whether it is covered in rocks and brambles, that is your heritage.
Bemoaning the condition or being proud of the condition doesn’t change it. The thing is to take up your tools and develop that land. Let us fertilise it. Let us honour it. We can make it rich. We can enrich it because it is the real stuff and has in it all the potentials of life. Because of that, as rocky or as thorny as it might be, we have all that we need. On that land we can let the tree of life grow.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What am I learning or feeling about the ancestor?
Does the theme of the dream point to a facet of my life my ancestral connection is linked with?
If I imagine myself as the ancestor or ancestral dwelling, what arises in me?
Try Talking As to gain real insight into the ancestor.
It is so important to know the message of your ancestors that it is worth while using Processing Dreams.
Anchor Anchored
Some part of your make-up that holds you firm to a task or code, such as determination, love, etc. But it has a deeper meaning, for the anchor reaches the sea bed, or deepest part of your unconscious self, or inner self. Thus it suggests a power of resolve coming from deep within. Or it might suggest being tied down.
By itself the anchor represents stabilising influences, hope, steadfastness, perhaps attitudes or qualities, or even a relationship, which bring about the ability to ride changes and destabilising influences.
The anchor might also suggest reaching deep into the unknown of the ocean – the unconscious. See: boat.
To be anchored to something is different to anchor. It means to be fixed and in a position of influence. It can mean a relationship or situation to which you are fixed in a powerful way, positively or negatively.
If the anchor is not holding firmly or is not sound in any way, it suggests weaknesses in ones ability to meet changes and currents which influence the dreamer. Influences that are weakening your security, or difficulties in meeting the influences pulling at you.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Is your dream anchor secure or shifting – if it is, try to determine what powerful influences are influencing you?
Has something given me a greater feeling of security?
Is something preventing me from going places?
Try Talking As to gain real insight into the anchor or dream.
Ancient Antique Old
Anything old or ancient suggests it has existed for a long time, so it carries an enormous amount of experience, an enormous imprint of the past. This often links with wisdom or treasures of realisation, perhaps revealed by intuition.
But the dreamt of ancient or old thing may be pointing to a period of your life relating to the period the ‘old’ thing or person represents. It may also depict an attitude or way of life you have seen portrayed in historical drama or in a book or film. It can point to your past and the different lives you have lived – baby, youth, lover, parent, provider, or what is established and well worn, such as tradition and wisdom of folklore.
An old or antique building or place can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage. See The Conjuring Trick; ancestors.
But old can be connected with many things. In looking through a collection of dreams I find ‘old clothes’ which related to old attitudes and behaviour; ‘old shells’ from the war which indicated past difficult feelings and experiences; an ‘old woman’ who turned out to be a mother; his ‘old inadequate self’; ‘old group’ was about confronting my old social values; a ‘lady with big breasts and hips’ who has sex with the dreamer; another ‘old lady’ who is told to start work. This turned out to be an expression of the energies tied up negatively, the female love energies, the emotions, so they are no longer knotted in the problem, can work in ones outer relationships and activities, and so on. So it is important to see if you can feel any connection with the old thing or person. Perhaps using Being the Person or Thing; Talking As will help.
Old building: Past way of life; former life with family or another person. It can also sometimes link with ‘past dwelling places’. In other words old ways of life or even past lives. If it is very old it could be considered a house of the ancestors. See House of the Ancestors.
Old House or house previously lived in: A previous set of values or way of life, sometimes even a suggestion of influences from lives previous to your present one. If you can date the time you lived there, it probably is about the important developments or experiences that occurred there.
Old people: Wisdom; mother or father; past experience; traditions; old age or feelings about ageing; death. Also to do with what might be old and no longer useful in your life.
Old things or furniture: Past or outworn ways of life or activities. Or attitudes and a way of life lived at the time.
Example: ‘I am standing in a book shop. It is a long established business. As I look at the books I find two which are about the life of Christ. They are leather bound and hand written – quite ancient. Both seem to me to be about the author’s own inner life. I believe one is written from a religious viewpoint and the other from a more occult one. I am not attracted to either.’ Bill O.
Bill is looking back on past attitudes, one religious, one occult, which had been big parts of his earlier life.
Example: I am in an unknown old building with unsafe floors. I vaguely feel it belongs to my long dead father. Around me are rats, which have young. I am hysterical because they keep multiplying. People with me, unknown, although my husband is there, don’t seem to care about them. I usually wake shouting because one of the rats touches me. I am not frightened of rats when awake. Dorothy C.
The age of the building suggests there is some connection from a long time ago. The dream goes on to say the connection is with the long dead father. This is unclear because Dorothy has not yet made it conscious what the fear is that arose in herself from her relationship with her father.
ancient Usually suggests contact with parts of our being older than the development of the conscious self – such as cellular wisdom; life processes; accepted traditions or ways of life; wisdom of the unconscious.
antique Elements of our past experience which might be worth keeping; wisdom of unconscious. See: age.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How did I feel about the old or antique in my dream?
Have I any difficult feelings about my age or getting old?
Where did the antique appear in my dream?
See Being the Person or Thing – The Conjuring Trick – Life Changes – Background
Angel
This can indicate the positive side of relationship with your mother, or it can be about your religious concepts. Sometimes it deals with feelings about or insight into death or even a need for a parent figure to guide or instruct in decision making, such as wisdom arising from your wider awareness. The Hebrew word for angel is malak, meaning messenger. As a symbol it would therefore represent your intuition of a wider truth than that encompassed by your present personal experience.
Traditionally there were many angels, and some of the greatest were said to be messengers for particular things, like the angel of death, or the angel of love. Such old concepts still hold sway in our unconscious, so it is helpful to consider if the angel in the dream has some particular quality, or is communicating a particular message. Also consider whether you are in accord or in conflict with the angel. If in accord it suggests that some deeply felt intuition is accepted by you. If in conflict then something that is powerfully influential deep within you is being rejected and is creating an internal conflict.
In a real way, because dream images arise from our own potential and are in some way expressions of us, angels are about the conscious use of our own faculties without the waving of magic wands. There is no need to attempt conjuring of spirits or angels. We are an expression of life and as such hold all possibilities within us. So the question is, how can we work with ourselves here and now, with our own psychological and biological processes? How can we help our being to heal itself and move further? See messengers
Well, even if we take that point of view, it is still helpful to enlist the help of such dream images. After all, dream link with a very deep part of us, a part not limited by logic, thinking and the past experience. As Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. So use your imagination and follow it where it leads. See Travelling Your Dreams and Using Visualisation.
Example: Then I was involved in the second group and at some point felt that I needed to demonstrate the ability to fly. So I ascended into the air and flew around the room. Hardly anybody took any notice of this except toward the end one small boy with large brown eyes was looking at me out of a large window somewhere above the hall in which the play was taking place. He was leaning against the glass looking at me. So I looked him straight in the eye and rose straight upwards with the most wonderful feeling of exhilaration shared with the child.
Then I became lucid and began to shift the dream in a particular direction. Firstly I brought the man and his wife together with myself in a communal embrace. Then together we lifted off into the air in flight, and in front of the children performing the play we did the most beautiful and colourful aero acrobatics. As we did these we were able to produce coloured lights flowing from us. Then in the end I created a great ball of coloured light that I broke into angels flying in the air and descending to touch the watchers. Then again into the ball which shattered into tens of thousands of coloured and shining pieces that gently fell like snowflakes touching those watching and disappearing into them sharing the wonder and beauty I felt flowing through me.
Example: Dreamt I was dead and was now an angel, but I was asleep. I seemed to be a separate witness to this, watching my sleeping angel self. The angel self also seemed to be neither male or female.
Example: Before I knew I was ill with cancer I dreamt that an angel came to me and explained that before we are born we are all angels and are without limitations. When we are born we take on a life of limitations in order to learn something important to us. Then when we die at the end of that life we return to being an angel. All the limitations of life then disappear again.’
Idioms: Guardian angel; like an angel; on the side of the angels; fools rush in where angels fear to tread. See: religion and dreams.
Useful Questions and Hints:
How does the angel appear and how?
What is my own belief about angels?
Am I aware of receiving a message or information?
Did the angel, even without words, communicate something to me?
Use acting on your dream to explore the wonder of it.
Anger Angry
Whether you show or repress anger in dreams it is important. This is because like any other basic or instinctive response, anger uses tremendous resources of emotional and physical energy. The repression of emotional energy can be a key factor in the breakdown of health, and in the lack of positive and creative self expression. Blocked emotional energy tends to attack your sense of wellbeing and body if it is stopped from external expression.
In some dreams enormous anger is expressed, but it is accompanied by a sense of frustration because the anger brings no satisfaction. This may indicate it is still linked with childhood dependence, when our personal well-being was intricately bound with our parents, and we depended upon them for our good feelings. Of course, in some extreme situations in adult life, such as being a prisoner who is maltreated, our anger may actually be incapable of changing things, but expressing it in a safe way can do wonders.
Anger may be a way of hiding ones vulnerability or real pain. In this case, it is important to feel the anger and discover what is underneath it. Sometimes deep feelings from childhood emerge once the anger has been felt. Such a surfacing of encapsulated emotions usually brings about deep insight into why certain traits are so powerful in your nature.
Holding the idea that you do not need to restrain your anger in dreams can produce enormous changes in your dreams and in your everyday life. Tests with women who had dreams in which they failed to express anger, and who, in everyday life were passive in situations calling for assertiveness, showed that when they learned to express anger in their dreams, they became more easily assertive in daily life. See: aggression as it has useful information; hostility.
As an example of what anger can do in the body, I quote a piece from a man’s journal.
William massaged at the area and discovered a pea sized nodule. It was like a concentrated lump of pain. When he pressed I started moaning, crying, and that one point, laughing. I realised that not being influenced by anyone was a defence. Underneath that was the laughing. As William continued words started coming up by themselves. The cries of pain were real, but without linking with feelings. I felt this massage method could release the pain, but it would be like a dry labour, long and unnecessarily painful.
Later I found quite few of these nodules of pain on my back, and then I learnt how to really express anger from my past by beating hell out of cushions with a stick. Then slowly the nodules disappeared.
Example: Dreamt I was in the house in which I has lived with my with my ex wife. A toilet leaked out of its back. Beyond it I saw a room I had not known before. There was an old range fire. I thought it would heat the house. The room is cold and dusty, but I felt I could make it into a workroom for therapy.
While exploring the dream about a leaking toilet I discovered the following feelings and memories. For a long time I could get no feeling response about the dream. Then I drifted into a fantasy. In it I remembered times when I had frightened my two young sons by suggestions of my unexpressed violence; like the time I held my sons neck. I looked into his eyes and knew that with a flick of my fingers I could kill him. He looked at me and knew. My children must have known they were dealing with a dangerous animal. Survival for them meant the cunning, bravery or abasement necessary to deal with such a creature.
With these feelings alive I got into the room that was previously unknown and the toilet. The toilet was all the undealt with shit which arose between my wife and I while we lived together. The room immediately reminded me of the way I had described my awareness of my sexual stagnation during the first dream – like a room that had been closed for years and had been unopened. Everything had been left as it was. Perhaps a murder had taken place, and the powerful aura pervaded the whole place.
I had wanted to murder my wife. Unable to leave home because of my strong parental drive to shield the children from the agony of my going – unable to love my wife in my staying – torn between my own urges, I had wanted to kill her – truly a dangerous animal.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Do I satisfy my anger in the dream? (If not it is worth expressing it in some way while awake. Use a rolled up newspaper to hit an armchair or cushion with. See if you can get the feelings in the dream flowing.)
Can I feel what this anger connects with in waking life.
Is there a way I can assert myself without destructive anger?
It may be useful to use Carry the Dream Forward and us Processing Dreams.
It can help to deal with anger and aggression by using The Cushion Technique.
Animal Situations
Below are descriptions of animal situations – like baby animal and fear of animal. But please search for single animals by name – for instance Lion and Dog.
As a baby you were a small vulnerable animal, with all the natural instincts to feed, to survive, and to bond with your mother. This natural and spontaneous part of your nature is the foundation of what you have become now as an adult. Not only were you born with an enormous natural instinctive wisdom gained through millions of years of evolution, but your newborn self also carried protective responses such as fear, anger, and sexual longing. These are all built into your nature without any recourse to a self-aware personality. But our animal self has the inherited wisdom about survival and relationships, parenting and finding a mate. There is a lot to learn from it, and it is a wonderful resource. See Animal in your Brain.
But what many people find is that they are frightened of their dream animal, or have never learned to help it evolve into the human world. This means that many people have a great lack in themselves and in their dreams they have to meet and work with the animal in them. As a child we are often told not to do things that would allow to mature with our animal self intact. Dream images are our fears, angers, love and thoughts clothed in pictures and drama. If you are frightened of a dream animal it is your fear clothes in the image of an animal. See What do You bring to Your Dreams?
These inbuilt traits are represented or depicted in your dreams by various animals and the situations your dream process places them in. Without feelings of fear for instance, you would, especially during childhood, enter into situations that could be life threatening. These dream animals illustrate the many natural responses you have to events and people you confront. Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in your dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning.
Useful questions:
What feelings are connected with my dream animal – fear, anger, love, wisdom – and in what way is that entering my life?
Is this an animal I know in life – if so what are my feelings or experience of it?
What is the dream animal doing, and metaphorically, wha is that suggesting?
Perhaps try the suggestion here – Talking As
Animal with its young: Parental feelings; your basic childhood needs; your childhood experience of being parented.
Animal you love killed or died: This can often suggest great emotions being faced, Sometimes the shock is almost as if you have lost a child.
The difficulty might be trying to balance the mass of experiences of sharing you had the the loved animal. Suddenly you are faced by a complete contradiction, the living and the dead animal you are no faced with. It might be helpful to sit quietly an remember what feelings you had inside you as you hel or were near to each other, and then dwell in them.
Love can change the way dead pets experience their life after death, as this example illustrates.
Example: It involves my dad and his English bulldog, Chauncey. They were big buddies. Chauncey even went to work with Dad. Several years after Chauncey’s death, I dreamed of a female English bulldog who was very pregnant! A few weeks later, she appeared to me again, smiling proudly at two adorable puppies. One was brindle and the other was brindle and white. She showed me her house and street sign. The name of the street was Rosebud Lane. Then Chauncey appeared in the dream and told me he was returning and he would be the puppy that walked to me first! The next day I got the classifieds and started calling. It didn’t take long, the second call was located on Rosebud Lane. When I arrived, the mother dog looked just as she had in the dreams. She even acted like she knew me. I stood back and waited. Shortly, the little brindle and white puppy waddled to me. Dad cried when I handed the pup to him. Reincarnated bulldog…why not? By the way, Chauncey had a nickname…it was Rosebud!
Attacked by an animal: See: Wild animal(s) attacking.
Attacked sexually by an animal: This might be showing you feelings about sexual assault. If it does the animal side of the person who attacked you is probably indicated in some way. If you can meet it with your own anger it might have a healing effect.
Baby animal: A baby – sometimes connected with pregnancy; yourself when young; feelings or memories concerning your experience of babyhood; desire for babies; vulnerability; fundamental survival behaviours such as dependence, crying and bonding.
Domestic animal: Urges in yourself that you have learned to meet and direct with reasonable success. They still have to be cared for though, or they may react against what you ask of yourself. A horse for instance is broken in, or socialised, when it is young, as we are. But if we are keeping a horse, we must still make sure it has proper food, exercise and rest, as well as an expression for its herd instinct and sexual needs.
Eating the animal: Integrating your natural wisdom and energy; absorbing strength from sources other than your conscious personality; sensual pleasure and nutrition.
Fear of animal: This shows a fear of your natural impulses, or that you have been trained in childhood to repress your anger or curiosity. But some people have phobias about animals in waking life, perhaps through never relating to an animal when young, or from being attacked.
Herd of domesticated animals: The domestic animal depicts the urges in yourself and society, such as the sexual drive, aggression and self interest that have been directed socially for thousands of years, and is usually amenable to finding some level of social integration.
Herd of wild animals: The wild animal depicts your own urges or feelings that you are uncertain about controlling or directing. A herd of them therefore suggests you are meeting aspects of yourself you have not yet learned to direct or usefully integrate, and the herd might refer to your relationship with your own ‘herd’ or people around you.
Hiding from or trapped by an animal: Feeling controlled or threatened by your urges or emotions. See the wolf entry.
Killing an animal: This shows you killing urges or needs you have that are natural. Mostly this is injurious to your wholeness, but occasionally has to be done to deal with special life situations. The killing might also point to feelings of pain and conflict, as when we kill out something in us that is natural or even beautiful.
Licking: If an animal is licking you in some way it is an indication of love and even healing or a blessing. But if it is an aggressive type of animal it might suggest anger is being transformed into love, or strength being expressed as love or care.
Making love with an animal: This is usually about a meeting with your most primal and natural feelings, outside of social programming.
Neglect, mutilation or killing our ‘animal’: A common theme. In the example below, Lynda’s feelings show how she senses what she is doing to her inner nature, but she dismisses this by convincing herself such feelings are not ‘true’. But we have a responsibility to care for our animal drives, to see our sexual, nutritional and body needs are met, and the neglected animal shows us failing in this.
Example: ‘I am given an animal to look after, usually somebody’s pet while they are away on holiday. I then completely forget the animal, go away and when I return the animal is either dead or very dried up or has been got at by another animal and is in the throws of dying. When I wake from the dream I feel most dreadful and it is only when I am fully awake and realise it is not true do I feel better.’ Lynda E.
There are often dreams of mutilation or burned, starved, frozen, or beaten small amimals. They may not be things you have done to yourself but are things done to you by others, even parents. If you explore these dreams it gradually makes clear who perpeptrated the damage. You may need help in facing this.
Running away from or chased by an animal: If you are chased or running from an animal you are almost certainly feeling or exhibiting anxiety. If you take time to consider what an anxiety is, it is part of your own natural responses. Every animal feels anxious or afraid; it is its instinct to survive.
So the dream dog or animal is an image that clothes your feelings of anxiety. This may be difficult to grasp because the dream is an explanation of what you are facing in your self or life. It is chasing you because it is part of you and you are running away from your own feelings.
To make this plain, the animal IS your feelings of anxiety. You see yourself running away from the animal because you are scared of your own feelings. Most of us don’t like feeling scared, so we run away from such feelings.
What can you do about this? Well you can imagine making friends with the animal, getting it some food, and direct its aggression or energy to be on your side. Or you can face your anxiety instead of running away from it. This, if you can do it, can radically change you.
Talking, white, shining, holy or wise animals: This shows important intuitive information; a meeting with the gathered wisdom we have unconsciously. This is one of the sources of religious inspiration, and many older cultures represent their origin of great learning or holiness as animals or animal headed beings. This is most likely because a great deal of innate information is held unconsciously. Our animal or instinctive self holds much of this, so communication with it can lead to enlightenment.
Taming or loved by a wild animal: Learning to relate to urges and energies in yourself that were previously unavailable to your will or needs. For instance some people face difficulties and their mind and body does not appear to support them. Instead emotions of anxiety rage within and they become ill. Other people have such a good relationship with their emotions they manage good health even when meeting stressful events.
Sacrificing animal: For long ages in human history animal sacrifice was practised. In a dream it might suggest the offering of ones sexuality or instinctive urges and needs to the influence of the life process within. It can also indicate, depending on the feelings in the dream, that you are killing a natural and innocent part of yourself. In a wider sense, life sacrifices itself to life. To exist, living forms devour each other. So the sacrifice is toward, and part of, the flow of life.
The traits, power or wisdom of the animal concerned; the instincts – for example yogis are often depicted sitting on an animal skin. This means they have mastered their instincts and gained the wisdom and power latent in them.
Skinned animal: The maltreatment of your supportive instincts and the life processes that give life to your body and supports your personality. Feeling vulnerable at the basic levels of your being, and having no protection against the things touching or impinging on your life.
Wild animal: Urges and spontaneous feelings that may not respond in the way you, or your social training, may wish. Wild animals in dreams are not something ultimately different to your personality. They are an expression of energies and needs that you have not previously related to in a co-operative or mutually helpful way.
Wild animal(s) attacking: The wild animal represents your unrepressed instinctive reactions such as sex and anger. In the attacking mode however it shows unleashed aggression. In some dreams being attacked depicts what we feel in relationship with other people. The attack, the criticism and malign emotions directed at us by others are frequently shown as an animal attacking or biting us. Sometimes we may be aware of this, but often remarks are made which we miss, yet are sensed as an attack by our unconscious.
Wounded animal: A hurt that has caused instinctive reaction, such as unreasoning reactive anger or fawning submission.
Animals – dealing with dream animals To understand your dream animals, it is helpful to imagine that you are the keeper of a prehistoric type of human animal. As such you would need to be aware what the correct diet is for this big creature; what type of dwelling it needs; what are its sexual and emotional needs; what frightens it or causes it stress; what amount of exercise keeps it healthy, what its stages of growth are and how it can best develop through those stages; and what satisfies it in relationships with others of its kind? Your animal dreams are showing you exactly those issues. They are giving you insight into how to care for the instinctive, the spontaneous and natural in you.
Therefore ask yourself the following questions about your animal dreams, and write down any responses. If the answer is no to a question, move on the next one:
- Is my dream animal struggling to survive?
- Is the animal domesticated or wild?
- Is there any concern about the animal’s health?
- Is there an indication the animal has been injured?
- Does love, caring or affection enter into the dream?
- Are sexual feelings involved?
- Does the animal show unusual intelligence or ability to speak?
- Is the animal giving advice or showing you something?
- Are baby animals involved?
- Is the animal attacking or being attacked?
- Is there a herd or group of these animals?
- Has the animal been neglected or mutilated?
- Are you trapped by or running away from an animal?
- Try Using Dream Yoga.
Depending upon how the animal in your dream is presented, and what it is doing, dream animals represent your fundamental drives such as the fear reaction, anger, need for food, urge to breathe, sex or procreative drive, parental urges, drive for recognition or dominance in groups; survival drive; love of offspring; spontaneity; home building. They depict these drives perhaps stripped of their social forms of expression.
As such the animal can portray your relationship with the fundamental life processes in you. Dreams depict these processes as intelligent and responsive, not just as chemical actions and reactions as modern medicine so often does. Therefore your conscious attitudes influence these fundamental living processes in you – processes that maintain health, digest, beat your heart, rebuild damage and fight infection. Negative feelings or attitudes can cause these ‘animals’ is you to despair or lose motivation, and thus lead to depression or illness. Remember that in looking at the animal in your dreams you are yourself an animal. You as a person are a tiny spark of consciousness, a little bit of self awareness riding an incredibly ancient animal you call your body. Remember that your body has formed from cells and genetic information that has gradually developed over millions of years. It holds that information in it unconsciously. The animal in your dreams depicts this ancient wisdom and how you relate to it. It shows you how you are dealing with the urges in you that are natural, but might need to be helped into modern life or transformed in some way, not killed out, maimed or tortured. See: The Rock Beast.
Animals are one of the most frequent of symbols that appear in dreams. Because we see them in so many ways, such as the cunning of the fox, the strength and mystery of the elephant, the loving fierceness of a lioness with her cubs, and the almost unconditional love dogs give us, the animal in our dream can express a very wide spectrum of meaning.
As we project these characteristics onto animals, we may dream of an animal to represent the feelings we have about a person. An attacking dog for instance may be used to depict how we see someone who is being aggressive toward us.
Thus dream animals are complex symbols, and they portray many shades of meaning. Some animal dreams for instance display personal need for affection, desire to be touched, or the need to care for another creature and thus feel needed. Sometimes they depict pregnancy and parental caring. Because of these huge variations, the long commentary at the end of the individual description of animals has been added to help awareness in looking at such dreams. Each animal is also given an entry, as the character of the various animals suggests different things to us. Pets, for instance, have given to each of us very different experiences. We therefore have personal associations and feeling responses to pets we might dream about. See excellent example of this in the example under ferret. See: ape; birds; creatures; pet; reptiles and snakes; the unconscious.
Ankle Ankles
This might relate to the ankle or to the Achilles tendon, both of which are vulnerable areas. In some dreams this is where one is bitten by a creature or hit, suggesting being got at in a vulnerable area. But it is also a part of the body near to the ground and so open to either being out of sight, bitten or injured.
Having a damaged ankle would not be incredibly disabling, and would certainly make it more difficult to get around, and this is probably the meaning in a dream of injury.
Looking through all the mentions of ankle in the dreams I have collected, the mentions of vulnerability is tops, but there are many others. People often mention stepping into ankle deep water or mud, so perhaps a measurement of difficulty. Or they have their ankle taped or roped to imprison them. Perhaps they overcome the vulnerable ankle problem and so show their problem solving ability; or else they wear jewellery around their ankle like a slave girl.
Useful Questions and Hints:
If this is disabling in the dream, what does it suggest about my daily life?
Is this just a little thing saying that there is an influence that has entered my life, but it is not serious?
In what way am I vulnerable, and what is effecting that vulnerability?
What does it mean to me to have jewellery around an ankle?
What did I feel when I stepped out into water or mud?
Try using Processing Dreams.
Antique
Anything old or ancient suggests it has existed for a long time, so it carries an enormous amount of experience, an enormous imprint of the past. This often links with wisdom or treasures of realisation, perhaps revealed by intuition.
But the dreamt of ancient or old thing may be pointing to a period of your life relating to the period the ‘old’ thing or person represents. It may also depict an attitude or way of life you have seen portrayed in historical drama. It can point to your past and the different lives you have lived – baby, youth, lover, parent, provider, or what is established and well worn, such as tradition and wisdom of folklore.
An old or antique building or place can sometimes relate to the incredible age of your mind. There is in each of us an intuition or sense that shows us or reveals to us if we care to be aware, that our mind is not simply new with our birth. Its contents, through language, inherited customs, and genetic material, are incredibly old. Exploring such dreams of antiquity can often bring to awareness this ancient heritage.
Old building: Past way of life; former life with family or another person.
Old people: Wisdom; mother or father; past experience; traditions; old age or feelings about ageing; death.
Old things or furniture: Past or outworn ways of life or activities. See: old house example under age.
Example: ‘I am standing in a book shop. It is a long established business. As I look at the books I find two which are about the life of Christ. They are leather bound and hand written – quite ancient. Both seem to me to be about the author’s own inner life. I believe one is written from a religious viewpoint and the other from a more occult one. I am not attracted to either.’ Bill O.
Bill is looking back on past attitudes, one religious, one occult, which had been big parts of his life.
ancient Usually suggests contact with parts of our being older than the development of the conscious self – such as cellular wisdom; life processes; accepted traditions or ways of life; wisdom of the unconscious.
antique Elements of our past experience which might be worth keeping; wisdom of unconscious.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Are there any lessons from my past hinted at here?
What is the old thing or person and what ties or links do I have or had with it?
If it is a person it would be helpful to use Talking As to clarify what it is about.
In any case using Processing Dreams can be of great help.
Ants
Like many insects, the ants might depict small irritations or criticisms things that have got into you in some way. Ants have been used in dreams to suggest sperm also. Also when we look at an ants nest we see massive work going on, so it can reflect our work.
In some dreams there is a play on the idea of the ant representing the small and insignificant and the giant who apparently rules the world. It might also show how the small and insignificant can bring great changes or catch the attention of the dreamer – the giant.
Our life does not depend upon any wrinkle cream, or “we deserve it” shampoo. Our life depends upon the tiny creatures of this world and their health. It depends upon the tiny bacteria, the tiny lichens, the small lives in the billions and trillions upon which the edifice of our life is built. And they in turn depend upon sex – upon that open receptiveness that the earth has with the sun. The big needs the small.
“I dreamed I saw an army of ants. There were millions and millions of them marching in columns. And they were carrying a noodle. Then they came to a short brick wall, but instead of going over the wall as I expected, they went through it. I cried “EEK! ANTS!” and grabbed a can of insecticide and sprayed them. But the spray turned out to be a foam and foamed up all over them. It killed them just the same.
Then the scene changed and I was looking into a pool of water. There was a kitten suspended halfway between the top and the bottom of the pool and I had a strong feeling that it was neither dead or alive. Strangely enough, I felt sorry for having killed all the ants and immediately the kitten rose to the surface and cried. And its fur was orange!
This was followed by another dream: “I met a friend. She asked me how I had “got my baby”. I told her it was easy, I got it out of a vending machine. Then I told her, “I’ll show you” and I put a quarter in the machine. But instead of a baby coming out, a kitten appeared!”
This dream was something of a puzzle at first. Fortunately, the Ant Dream arrived soon afterward and it became immediately clear that its main purpose was to set a precise meaning on the symbol of the kitten, which also figures prominently in the Ant Dream.
In the Vending Machine dream, the meaning of “kitten” (for this dreamer, in this dream) is well established when the dreamer goes through the motions of expecting a baby to appear from the vending machine and is instead presented with a kitten. In other words, Kitten = Baby.
The ants are symbolic of sperm cells and the wall represents the egg. The noodle is a phallic symbol, representing the male gender. To continue with this line of thought, the insecticide is seen to represent commonly used foam contraceptives. The pool of water, with kitten, is symbolic of the womb, filled with amniotic fluid and containing an infant. Since Ruth felt that this kitten, or infant, was neither dead or alive, this is seen as an infant not yet born. Perhaps not yet conceived. When Ruth felt sorrow for having killed the ants, or in other words regretted using a contraceptive, the kitten comes to life and cries. Symbolic of the cry of an infant being born, of the moment of birth. This kitten had orange fur, the same color as her husband’s hair. This identifies the infant-to-be as her and her husband’s unborn child. My feeling on this, and it is quite strong, is that “The Ant Dream” is a direct communication from the spirit of the unborn child depicted in the dream to the person who could become his mother. Quoted from Sundance Magazine, written by Aurelius,
Useful Questions and Hints:
What part do the ant or ants play in my dream, and what does that suggest?
Is there any suggestion of size in the dream?
Try being the person or thing as it may well open doors within you.
Anus
The area of our nervous system around the anus and genitals is highly sensitive in babyhood. So it may link with the self expression, the pleasure, and the feelings of deep connection the baby feels in this area. As it also links with the huge experience of learning self control, and how ones parents dealt with you going to the toilet, so it can also connect with holding on or letting go; control or relaxation; pleasure or guilt. This in turn could involve feelings of success or failure. Therefore it associates with your WILL. feeling punished and treated like a child, to feelings or arousal and sexual pleasure.
The anus also deals with what we get rid of that our body does not use. So it can link with the experiences or the attitudes that we want to or need to get rid of. These are the waste products of our life. But our dreams often see what we pass out of our body as ‘waste’ is a wonderful enriched gift we are giving the earth.
Example: The therapist encouraged him in the fantasy, and soon he was joyously lost in the slime—and the mussels had turned to excrement. No longer repelled, he abandoned himself to a search for a treasure he felt must lie within the darkness. When he came up he held in his hand a pink pearl that glowed like the clouds of dawn. Then he remembered how he and his brother had fought over a pink pearl which was to be given to their mother. The pearl stood for her. Those children, wallowing in the mud beside the willows in the hot summer sun, had been performing an ancient and sacred rite, returning to the source of life and their beginnings under the sun.
These things help to explain the great importance of the anus to the psyche, and why the sexual fantasies of most children center on the anus rather than the vagina or the penis. Later, with more specific knowledge of their origins, children replace the image with the vagina and penis, and a new series of sexual theories appears. Most patients deal with their birth fantasies at this level, and there is much dealing to be done before the simple animal facts can be accepted. Quoted from LSD Psychotherapy by W V Caldwell
If relaxed: Easy self expression.
If tense: Not letting go of feelings you might be judging as ‘shitty’; feelings to do with being hurt or holding back. The holding back might link with sexual pleasure or performance.
If playing with or being entered by penis or finger: Introverted sexuality; self pleasure; narcissism. Perhaps self examination.
Excrement: The negative emotions and ideas we might not want to let go of; sometimes money; worry over something judged unclean; a cleansing or need for cleansing of inner feelings, such as guilt, inhibitions, resentments, hate, worry, or fear.
Holding or letting go: How we give of ourselves; whether we can ‘let go’; our generosity or lack of it.
Idioms: Talking out of arse; pain in the arse; an arsehole; head up the arse; disappears up; all tits and arsehole – no ability to reason. See: excrement.
Useful questions are:
Does this in any way relate to childhood feelings, and if so what are they?
Is there any connection with sexual pleasure in the dream?
Is anything emerging from the anus, and if so what does it suggest I am discharging?
Anxiety
One of the most frequent dream themes is that of anxiety in some form. This may not be because most dreams are about things we fear, but simply because we remember those more than bland dreams. In our dreams, all that can possibly disturb us are our memories, disturbing images and our own emotions. Our dream may be about a snake, or car accident – frightening things that in the dream appear to be exterior to us.
Freud (1) in the early years of the last century pioneered explorations into man’s unconscious life and drew the attention of an organically minded profession to the role of inner unconscious conflicts in determining the sources of neurotic anxiety.
On the physiological side, Cannon (2) brought the holistic view of the organism into the situation and recognised that “anxiety may be produced by a variety of events, which have one common element. There is always a discrepancy between the individual’s capacities and the demands made on him which make self-realization impossible.” Cannon did outstanding work in the field of homeostasis and more recently other writers have enlarged our concepts although clearly there is marked discrepancy between their basic philosophies except for the recognition of the supreme importance of emotional factors in human adjustment.
But whenever we dream its images are not like real life, because a dream is nothing like outer life where things could hurt you, but is an image like on a cinema screen, so that even if a gun is pointed at you and fired it can do no damage – except if you run in fear; so, all the things that scare you are simply your own fears projected onto the screen of your sleeping mind. In the early days of moving pictures, a film was shown of a train coming fast toward them; the viewers all fled in terror, fearing the train would crush them. That is exactly the same response if you are terrified of any thing you dream of. See Masters of Nightmares
Even so, it is our emotions about the image of the snake or situation that disturbs us, and these can be changed. The image is only a mask on the surface of our emotions to enable recognition and enhancement of the raw feelings. If we can recognise what an enormous power our imagination has on our emotions and body, this can start the process of lessening anxiety. Many anxieties can be met by imagining changing the dream, confronting the fear, challenging what oppresses us.
Some of the clearest examples of what stress or the causes of anxiety are, however, can be seen in looking at the body in stress situations. For instance if we fall into or swim in icy cold water, this places the body in stress. What this means in plain language is that because the body needs to maintain it’s temperature at about 98.4 F, being exposed to cold for too long could be fatal. The condition between easy maintenance of body temperature and death through exposure to low temperature is stress.
Therefore, some causes of physical stress could be exposure to extreme heat; taking poison into the system; lack of oxygen; high levels of carbon monoxide (car exhaust fumes) etc, in the air we breath; lack of food; lack of vital nutrients such as iron, protein, etc; insufficient sleep; and so on can lead to enormous anxiety.
When we fall into cold water our body attempts to deal with the stress through its self-regulating or homeostatic processes. The glandular system will probably secrete adrenalin into the blood stream, causing the heart to speed up. But many other activities try to meet the emergency, even to such small things as the liver releasing more vitamin A to deal with the shock to the immune system. See Fear – Self-regulation
Example: It was only after my return to live in a block of flats in London that I realized how infrequently one hears a baby crying in India, how frequently in Britain. I have already suggested that the early weaning of our babies may be responsible for the slight bias towards pessimism which colours our outlook. Among the Hindus whom I studied, the opposite bias prevailed; they seemed to live in constant expectation of a stroke of good fortune. Each new acquaintance was scanned hopefully as if he might be the agent of their material and spiritual salvation; and in spite of many disappointments, these hopes would rise again.
Pessimism is closely allied to anxiety and clinically these two character traits merge into one another. It is not suggested that basic anxiety and its multiple psychosomatic manifestations are the direct sequence of our breast feeding habits but that cultural patterns in infant care contribute towards the tension and anxiety which is frequently accentuated by their experiences and by parental attitudes.”
Melanie Klein (8) has also clarified our outlook by stressing the importance of identification with the parents which is carried into adult life. At every stage the ability to identify makes possible the happiness of being able to admire the character or achievements of others. The ability to admire another person’s achievements is one of the factors making successful team work possible. Klein’s work with children has shown that even from babyhood onwards the mother, and soon other people in the child’s surroundings, are taken into the self, and this is the basis of a variety of identifications, favourable and unfavourable.
An Aspect of Anxiety
Any attempt to stress the nature of anxiety must incorporate the contention that anxiety is a natural phenomenon which the individual experiences when values essential to his existence, his sense of being and his identity are threatened. It is to be distinguished from fear in which the threat is peripheral, the intactness of the sense of being is not being threatened, the danger is objective and the individual can evaluate it and can act either in terms of flight or fight in coping with it.
Useful questions:
Can I recognise that the frightening dream is simply an expression of my emotions and has no power to harm?
What emotions am I frightened of, and do I want to continue to run from them?
What I run from controls me, can I therefore imagine turning around and facing the scary images?
See Secrets of Power Dreaming – Avoid Being Victims – Facing Fear – The Slow Breath
Apartment Flat
Suggests your basic needs such as shelter, warmth, nourishment – but usually in the sense of what you have created as your basic way of life; the values, standards, goals you have accepted as normal, or are ‘at home’ with. Also your private and personal place of comfort and ease – unless there is stress associated with it.
This will have a slightly different significance if this is a dream flat, and is one you have lived in in the dream. Therefore the questions need to be asked as to whether you lived/live alone in the dream apartment or the real apartment? Did you share the apartment with others? What was living alone or sharing like? These form the associated feelings connected with the dream apartment. See: Associations Working With; house.
Living alone: This suggests you have achieve a level of personal independence. It is a first level, but shows you have mastered the ability to earn your own way, to function as an individual in society.
Living together with another: Shows you moving toward independence but need the support of others to manage it. It might also mean you are learning the lessons of sharing and adult behaviour.
Block of Flats: Communal living but with personal space. An atmosphere created by a group, as in second example. Meeting with and dealing with or failing to deal with your relationship with others.
Example: I am in a block of flats. Lee from college has run off owing me money. Old flats I am on 4th floor; there are a few kids and dogs playing on. The roof is the same level. I realise that I can live in any of the block as they are all empty. I tell myself that I will not take any more shit from no one as I return to 3rd floor flat. As I enter I hear movement from behind door. I shit myself. I wake up and think of the c*** who robbed my cottage. I felt I had no power.
Example: I was walking near big, old, blocks of flats. I noticed one was called Matins, and thought they were for Roman Catholics. They were very worn, almost slums. I then noticed that it was all black people in these blocks. Really jet black. One called out from a balcony asking what I wanted. There was a slightly hostile feeling as they all looked at me to see what I would do or say. I was then partly my father, and said I had come for a blow, (i.e. on the saxophone or clarinet). Everybody was now friendly and crowded around. They asked me if I had my brushes with me – that is, drum brushes. I said no, and then started playing the clarinet. It was completely spontaneous, moved by the spirit, and was wonderful music.
Example: I went up to a place – either a room or cliff top – where two old women lived. They were supposed to be insane, and I was a little apprehensive, but felt I could cope if things went wrong. In the place were too large packing case things like rabbit hutches – the women were in these. I just stood about, and felt I was company for the women. I noticed a hole in the sacking that covered one box, and saw an eye looking at me through the hole. Then both the women were out, and were completely naked. One of them came up to me and looked at me. She was short, old, with a funny little face, but brown live skin, not repulsive. She said something to me, which may have been a request to be attached. I said, “What, you want to be attached here?” And put my hand on her vagina. Then she came close to me and I felt like having intercourse with her, but refrained. It seemed as if her vagina was a black void. I then went away. Later, I came back. Everything had changed. It was now distinctly a block of flats they lived in, on the top floor. I climbed up, very worried that they had gone, or been misunderstood, or something. When I saw them I realised how much had altered. They were dressed, sensible, more intelligent and generally sociable than before. I was so relieved to see this that I ran forward into the old woman’s arms, and we wept uncontrollably to be reunited in this way.
Here the dreamer is probably dealing with his feelings connected with his mother – the old woman.
Useful questions and hints:
What is the atmosphere of the apartment or what am I doing in connection with it?
Am I involved with other people, and if so in what way?
Is this apartment one I have lived in – if so what were the major experiences or life I experienced there?
Try Being the Person or Thing or Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Ape
Impulsive unreasoned urges such as self centred grabbing of food or sexual expression without concern for the other person; mischievousness; mimicry; instinctive or intuitive wisdom about relationships, social interactions and life; folly or foolishness or feeling an idiot.
Can represent a world of experience human beings have lost and feel sorrow at its absence. Many humans have also lost the wonderful directness and ability to express their wide range of responses to life and people. In developing self consciousness, with its labyrinth of ideas and decisions, humans lost a sense of oneness with life around them. Animals have enormous remembered wisdom; remembered through instincts and complex social codes. Without it humans can feel alone in the world, a meaningless existence in the midst of uncaring circumstance. They are confronted by choices which, because they have lost an awareness of their instinctive wisdom, they often feel inadequately equipped to deal with. This wisdom is still accessible to humans who know how to listen to the unconscious, and thus discover the enormous wealth of information they have about such things as social behaviour and body language. The ape can depict this wisdom, especially if it is white haired. Or it might show the personal folly of trying to let instincts dominate us now we have self awareness. Idioms: He is just aping.
Animals have enormous remembered wisdom; remembered through instincts and complex social codes. Without it humans can feel alone in the world, a meaningless existence in the midst of uncaring circumstance. They are confronted by choices which, because they have lost an awareness of their instinctive wisdom, they often feel inadequately equipped to deal with. This wisdom is still accessible to humans who know how to listen to the unconscious, and thus discover the enormous wealth of information they have about such things as social behaviour and body language. The ape can depict this wisdom, especially if it is white haired. Or it might show the personal folly of trying to let instincts dominate us now we have self awareness. See mammal brain; animals.
Idioms: He is just aping.
The following is taken from a man’s dream journal, in which he describes how he feels when he identifies with the image of an ape.
EXAMPLE: I feel like a powerful ape at the moment. I am not holding myself back in regard to my fellow creatures. I am ready to fight, play, love, laugh. All the different bits of me are available. The question I am asking myself is how do you get people to feel it – that basic animal experience of oneself. The wonderful experience of existing, of being alive with all the powers of a living creature – physical strength, emotions of anger, tenderness, passion and sexual excitement, curiosity, awe and wonder in meeting life and the stars.
Useful questions are:
What is the non verbal, spontaneous and responsive part of me doing in this dream and in my life?
Am I on good terms with this natural part of me?
What does my dream ape want, or what is it expressing?
What can I bring to my daily life from it?
See If you use Talking As it may help you discover the natural part of you. Or – Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
Aphrodisiac
Stimulating someone or being stimulated sexually. If taking an aphrodisiac, possibly showing that you have been sexually stimulated by an event or meeting with someone. This may be something like going to a party and seeing someone who arouses you, or watching a film or reading a book – or possibly that ones imagination is doing the stimulating. It could also suggest you are feeling you need stimulus or that your natural sexual drives are lacking or low.
Useful questions are:
Is my dream about feeling turned on or needing external stimulus?
What is it in the dream that is the aphrodisiac, and what does that suggest?
Am I meeting something new sexually here?
Apocalypse
The end of the world, and the fears that go with it, depict the powerful and threatening inner and outer changes that accompany major transitions. The transition from childhood to adolescence for instance is the end of the world that existed for the whole lifetime of the individual up until that point. Such points of transition occur several times in the life of anyone who dares to grow and adapt. Menopause for women, the leaving home of children, the loss of a job, retirement, can all be represented by the end of the world – or a world.
Social changes also bring enormous stress and the ending of a way of life to many individuals. Some changes, such as the end of social welfare would be the end of the world for that individual.
Useful questions:
What is it that is radically changing in myself or my environment?
How am I meeting the changes going on in my life and circumstances?
What is the dream showing me about these changes?
See: end of world.
Apologising-Apology
Remember that apologising is different to saying sorry.
Nearly always when people dream about someone they know they automatically believe the dream is about that person. But when we think of our friend or partner our thoughts are not them – just our thoughts and feelings about them.
Your dreams are not a good indication about what other people think and are usually a reflection of your own feelings and desires. We desire to have our difficult feelings justified or acknowledged, so maybe that is what your dream depicted.
Dreaming of apologising: This suggests a feeling of inadequacy in some department of life; feelings of having acted against, or thinking of acting against your own strongest drives; a sense of not having lived your best; a sense that you are not living up to other people’s expectations, or that you are not liked by, or not as good as, other people; realisation of a mistake or lack.
Being apologised to: A recognition that some aspect of a relationship or experience has been, or is, unjust or unwarranted according to yourself. Your dreams are not a good indications about what other people think and are usually a reflection of your own feelings and desires.
Useful questions are:
What am I apologising for and does this apply in any way to waking events?
Is this an apology I am giving or receiving, or is it an expression of guilt?
If being apologised to are you accepting or rejecting the apology?