Posts Tagged ‘dreams’
Bird Birds
This a big entry and is in three parts, the general information first part. The second Bird Situations – and the third Different Birds.
The life cycle of a bird has so many similarities with important human stages of growth we frequently use birds to represent parts of our own deeply felt experience.
In general the bird in your dream can depict imagination, intuition, the mind, freedom from restraints, thoughts or hidden wishes or hopes, or your longings to move beyond limitations or boundaries, or even love or a lover. Because the word is sometimes used to indicate a woman, it can have that meaning – i.e. a ‘bird’.
The meaning depends on the context in which the bird appears in the dream. So in some dreams, especially if the bird is flying high, or you identify and become the bird, it can show an expanded awareness or a greater insight into your life and the meaning of your life. This type of dream usually appears as a large bird that can fly high. This is because wider – or spiritual – awareness is like a higher, overall view of things.
Meeting this enlarged awareness may be painful or frightening as we approach it. The enlargement of what you experience is a form of growth and brings new possibilities, all of which can strip away old ways of life and relationship. This expansion of our viewpoint, the uplift of our emotions or mind, can be a link between the world we experience with our physical senses, and the deep world of our often unconscious passions, intuitions and insights.
But in some dreams birds are messengers – For instance a swallow is a symbol of spring, a rooster can be symbolic of a new day (or a new beginning), doves can be symbolic of love, a relationship or peace, and so forth. Both crows and vultures are symbolic of a “death” or the ending of something.
A big or huge bird: The power of the collective mind or unconscious. It shows you leaving the limited view of the three dimensional world most of us are trapped in, and enter a world beyond time and space. Imagine you are going to communicate with a part of yourself that has an unlimited amount of information and influence to share with you. What this dimension of yourself gives you will be in direct response to what you ask. So the question, interest or urgent drive in you will be the factor shaping the response.
It may uplift or be felt as threatening; something that can protect or be felt as a threat. If felt as a threat remember that dreams are like computer game, nothing can actually harm you, see Wider awareness – Dream as Computer Game – Personal Unconscious.
Big birds often appear in dreams and the huge bird in the house means contact with a lesser used ability you have, one of being able to have a wider view of who you are and the world you live in. But it is also an invitation to learn to fly with or separate from the bird. You can learn to fly; it is a great way of overcoming fears.
‘During childhood I learned to fly in a long sequence of dreams. Each linked very clearly to the last. I would go to the nearby churchyard and in the beginning I would run along as fast as I could then jump and just manage to extend the jump by a great effort of will. In subsequent practices I managed to gradually extend the jump for many yards; and eventually I could skim along indefinitely. The next stage though was to extend my flight height, and this took enormous effort of will and body. I made active swimming motions and climbed, but only held altitude with great and constant concentration. With further practice still, this clumsy mode of flying was left behind as I learned to use pure motivation, decision or will to lift me into the air and carry me easily and gracefully wherever I wished. At this stage my flying was swift, mobile and without struggle.’ See Flying
Baby bird: It can refer to your children, or to your own childhood memories. Coming out of the shell is a very powerful experience for us as babies. Facing the enormousness of physical experience with all it wonder and dangers is something we have faced. And don’t live with the belief that babies cannot remember such early memories, because it has been shown they do. See Lumpkin – The Baby Who Became Tony
Bird attacking: Fear of ideas, ideals or opinions; verbal or mental (suggestions or suggestive behaviour) attack by others; fear of going beyond ones narrow boundaries. Be daring and face the restrain that holds you back.
Bird descending: A wider view or experience becoming known to you, or becoming available. In practical terms this may be experienced as inspiration or new insights regarding work or creativity, or a bursting of ones previous views or concepts into a wider insight.
Bird in house: Hope that something interesting or new will enter ones life; a wish for new love; a new idea; an intuition or precognition; a new person or event entering your life; or something trapped in you that seeks freedom.
Black or carrion birds: Because such birds often feed on dead animals, they have the association with death or news of death. This may not be connected with someone dying, but perhaps that some project, love or aspect of yourself is being left to die; feelings or fears about death. Or it could be about something you are unaware of but is on the edge of consciousness.
Bluebird: Especially represents the personality or flight of the soul after death. But it can also show the flight of awareness into new or wider experience. The colour gives it a link with the heavens and it is therefore a symbol of your own ability to reach a wider awareness – the spiritual. See Definition of Spirit.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What way am I relating to the bluebird?
Do I feel anything on seeing the bird?
Have I been meditating or doing something uplifting recently?
Dead bird: Threat to ideals or hopes of freedom; feeling life is only material; ones spirit feeling defeated or crushed. Also a loss of sense of beauty or meaning in life; an ideal or hope has died; a flight of imagination or creativity has fallen.
Eggs in a nest: The nest and eggs are saying that you have created inside of you a sort of womb. not for a baby, but for a huge but unexpressed self. You have a huge but latent potential, it is maybe beginning to show in your present life, but will certainly emerge as the eggs are hatched.
Feather: See: feathers.
Fighting birds: Family disputes; arguments about viewpoints.
Flock of birds: Sometimes shows you feeling a deeply intuitive sense of connection with thousands of others, all being moved by life itself flowing through you. Describing his recovery from feelings of being ill at ease within herself, Gloria writes:
As this occurred I had a wonderful sense of being a lovely bird that has been in some way ill all its life. This meant it never flew when the flock took flight. Instead, to deal with its own difficulty it felt feelings of not wanting to fly like the others, of not wanting to be like them and do the meaningless things they do. But with the healing came the realisation I could fly, and I took wing and joined the flock. Now I am a creature of spirit, which I have always been, and I asked the Light to help me learn the ways of ‘flying’ in the spirit.
It can also point to how you add your influence to others socially.
Flying: Rising above something; an escape from a feeling of being trapped, or some fear; independence; freedom; self expression; ones love or thoughts winging its way to someone. The sexual act – possibly because during sex we may feel released and uplifted.
Hatching from the egg: Our birth and infancy; rebirth. Something new and uplifting coming into your life, or coming to life in you.
In cage: Feelings of being restricted or trapped; holding back love or inspiration; safety in restriction. If there are positive feelings around the caged bird, it might suggest the need to withhold love or freedom, but it could suggest feeling trapped in a relationship, especially if there are two birds in the cage.
Leaving nest: Gaining independence; meeting change or leaving a dependent relationship.
Making nest: Home building; parental urges; partnership if with another bird.
Nest: Home; family environment; security; even the womb.
The baby bird: Our own childhood, as in the following example. The old lady in the second example is once more reference to the mother, who the bird is first connected with before moving on to the difficulty of independence.
Freud said the bird represents the male phallus, and flying means the sexual act. Many languages use the word ‘bird’ to mean woman. In Italy it alludes to penis. The bird is also used to denote a sense of death and survival.
The example shows Pauline using the bird to depict her own urge to be independent of her mother’s influence, opinions, likes, dislikes and decisions. Later in the dream her mother hands Pauline the ribbon to hold, suggesting an offer of independence.
Example: ‘I was standing outside the house of my teens, with my mother. She had a very young bird on a long ribbon and the bird was flying very high in the sky. As soon as she lets go the ribbon, a huge black bird attacks the ribboned one.’ Pauline.
The ribbons are a reference to Pauline’s own girlhood. When she lets go of her girlhood, moving toward independent womanhood, she feels threatened by her internal feelings of guilt – i.e. a child feels guilty if it acts differently to what its mother wants. This is the black bird. To become independent we have to find a way of doing what we wish despite this internalised mother. (Internalised means all the standards, self controls she learned from her life with her mother, she now carries within her as her own urges even if absent from her mother.)
Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down, but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost it’s mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.
This dream is clearly about Andrew becoming aware that at some time he felt abandoned by his mother, and this part of him needs helping to grow into greater independence.
Wild bird: An untamed freedom of feelings and mind. If it has landed on you it shows how a new and wonderful attitude or ability has opened in you. If you feel love for the bird it is what has brought about the change in you – the love of or ability to free yourself so you can fly – you can let you feelings and creativity become enormously more effective.
White birds: We all have several levels or floors of our awareness. The ground floor is our every day awareness, limited to our brains memories, limited to today and this life. But we were all seeds planted in our mother’s womb, and all seed carry the memory of the past growth in them, and our seed is thelatest that started from the beginning if life on our earth. So at the level if that enormous memory, we have enormous instinctive information gathered over millions of years, but only dreams has access to it unless we have dug deep into our awareness. The white birds represent this wider or huge awareness. But access it you need to explore the image of the bird by using Being the Person or Thing
blackbird or black bird Unconscious urges. At times we may relate to enormous waves of feeling in an anxious way, and this relationship of anxiety may be represented by a black bird. The bird may be shown attacking something or oneself because that is how we relate to the emotions or energies – i.e. we feel attacked by them. The black bird can also link with feelings about death, the negative aspect of mother, or something unconscious that we are becoming aware of.
chicken If being eaten suggests nourishment. Otherwise a female, or the female in a male; being ‘chicken’ or scared.
Example: A large cockerel was amongst them and to my amused pleasure began immediately to chase the hens. They all ran madly away. My father was there now and said the chickens wouldn’t lay with that chicken chasing them. I said it wasn’t a chicken that a cockerel, and they would soon calm down. My mother now came. I said the chickens would stop running eventually because the cockerel was bigger than they. She said, no, it wasn’t the size, but the manner and attitude of his approach. She meant it caused an instinctive responses them.
When I explored the dream I realised that of course. I am a cockerel that is inwardly a chicken. I am chicken because I won’t see my own homosexuality. I am chicken because I have made myself a passive female. My mother says it is not the size, its the – inner – attitude. Of course, my inner attitude, as a chicken, is changing. I have been the size of a cockerel, but with the soul of a chicken – female.
The cockeral: a male or the male sexual characteristics; confidence.
The hen: The female, sometimes shown in male behaviout; mother; motherhood; being immersed in motherhood concerns and perhaps not having a life beyond that.
Chicks: This is a reference either to your own babyhood and feelings or events associated with it, or to external baby or babies. This may at times point to vulnerable people or assets.
Example: ‘An old lady made room for me to sit at the end of one of the three seats of a bus. As we drove away a very large chicken size baby bird flew in. It had short stubby wings and yellow down but flew expertly. I believe it first landed on the lady and chirped squeakily. But in it’s squeaks it actually spoke, saying it had lost its mother. It sounded as if it were crying.’ Andrew.
This dream is clearly about Andrew becoming aware that at some time he felt abandoned by his mother, and this part of him needs helping to grow into greater maturity and independence. See Ages of Love
Idioms: chicken feed; chicken hearted; she’s no chicken; cock of the walk; don’t count your chicks/chickens before they are hatched..
crow rook raven Being carrion birds, and so often seen near corpses, they are linked with death or feelings about death; bad news; fear; unconscious feelings. Some people see them as associated with death, mostly because that is how they are used in films. But crows are a group bird and are supportive of their fellows.
It can at times depict the negative aspect of father. The dark intelligence in underhanded people or animals; forces in life that seem to have intelligent direction yet are not outwardly visible.
cormorant Intellectual ideas that have the power to dig deep and bring up unconscious wisdom. Because the cormorant is used to dive and catch fish, it might suggest you are practising some form of introspection or self examination.
crane Inner feelings about wholeness; good luck. The ability to deal harmoniously with the libido or energy within.
cuckoo Wanting to, or feeling your partner is, having sex outside your relationship; pregnant with child from another man than ones partner.
dove Peace; lacking aggressiveness; awareness of one’s potential; religious experience; relatedness. See: religion and dreams.
duck Because a duck can fly and also dive under water it can represent both your ability to raise your awareness, to expand your mind and horizons, and also to look into what is hidden under the surface of life. And its ability to float and swim on the surface of water shows it can survive in the conscious mind.
Idioms can also suggest other meanings such as sitting duck, like a duck takes to water, dead duck and lame duck.
eagle buzzard hawk Sometimes the hunting, providing parent; dominance; a male figure; an uplifting power of feelings or ideas; a protective influence; a threatening influence. Often the ability to develop an integrated vision or perception out of a wide range of experience. This is because the height of the bird and its steady gaze give it unusual perception and wide awareness.
Idioms: Watch like a hawk; eagle eyed.
feather or feathers See: feather.
goose/geese Freedom; your soul; wanderlust; foolishness or group conformity. In some cases you might use the goose as a symbol for life long relationship.
hawk Often a messenger or a far seeing creature. Because it flies high it had an overview of what it surveys. It can therefore signify the spirit or the flight of the soul.
heron A heron is a very still bird and often stands for ages looking into the water. So in your dream it may signify patience and the ability to look deeply into you. As such it may show you things about yourself that are very important.
It catches fish, meaning it brings up things that are usually hidden and are for your personal growth and nourishment. To explore its deeper meaning see Techniques for Exploring your Dreams
owl Because the owl sees in the dark it represents our intuitive sense that ‘sees’ what is happening in the subtle areas of our feeling and experience. This sense ‘feeds’ by watching or acting as an integrating function with the many dark or hidden aspects of our experience and behaviour. Because this part of our mental process is aware of the hidden activities in the depths of our body and mind, it can initiate our conscious self into the mysteries of life and death. If one can imagine having a council of all living things, we would all have in common the drive to reproduce, and there would be huge links of understanding regarding care and rearing of young and perhaps of love for mate. The unconscious seems to have a sense of this synthesis of all life, and the owl, representing it, speaks with this sort of collective wisdom; a wise advisor.
Because the owl as a dream symbol is an actual doorway to the usually hidden side of life, we may sometimes feel fear or danger in regard to it. In some mythologies the owl was connected with death, and might act as a messenger regarding the death of a family member. For instance in Jewish tradition it is unlucky to dream of an owl, but okay to dream of any other bird.
Example: ‘I was standing with my wife at the end of the garden of the house I lived in as a child. We were looking over the fence to the rising meadow beyond. She said, ‘Look at that bird in the tree there.’ On our right, in a small ash tree, an enormous owl perched. It was at least four feet high, the biggest bird I have ever seen. I recognised it in the dream as a greater hooded owl, which was not native to our country. I was so excited I ran into the house to telephone someone – zoo, police, newspapers? – to tell them about the bird. I cannot remember contacting anyone, but felt the bird was there in some way to meet me. Also it was hungry and looking at next door’s bantams. So I wondered what I could give it to eat.’ David P.
This shows the positive side of David’s relationship with his wife. The garden represents the behaviour boundaries which arose from his childhood. But he is growing – the garden – and looking beyond them through his marriage. The amazing bird is the deep feelings he touches because he has a mate like any other natural creature. Out of his mating he becomes aware of drives to build a home – nest – and give himself to his mate. These are natural and are a part of his unconscious or spiritual nature. The bird is a hooded owl which can see in the dark – the unconscious – meaning David is realising things he had never ‘seen’ before. The bird is masked, because David through loving is learning to put his ego aside, which is a necessity for touching the wider dimension of life or the unconscious. The hunger of the bird shows an intimate detail of what David has learned from his wife. She had been working as a waitress and bringing home pieces of chicken for him, saved from her own meal. The spiritual side of David wants to develop this quality of self-giving, which his wife’s love had helped him see.
Idioms: Wise old owl; wisdom of the owl; night owl; owlish – looking wise or solemn. See aura; spiritual life in dreams.
parrot Repeating without judgement what others have said; accepting or copying something without evaluating it. Ability to speak.
peacock Pride; self display; vanity; the desire to be more attractive; sometimes the same as phoenix.
In some cultures the peacock represent the soul or psyche – ones sense of self with all ones individual memories and characteristics. Because the peacock could shed all its beautiful feathers and then grow them again, early Christians saw it as a symbol of resurrection and immortality.
As the peacock is a male bird displaying for the sake of a mate, it can also obviously represent male sexuality in its proud, ostentatious or displaying mode.
Example: There were trees and a grassy patch of ground. A dog was having puppies. But a great flock of small black birds emerged running and skimming over the grass. I heard myself remark, “They are smaller than the others and there are more of them.” Then, from among the trees emerged a large peacock, tail half raised. The dream left me feeling that from small things could emerge something large and beautiful. Mrs E. E.
penguin The penguin hardly ever appears in dreams, or in fact in literature generally, so I have not been able to gather from people’s dreams how they use this symbol. From common associations however, it is likely to represent foolishness; a difficult life situation; coldness in relationships. Because of recent studies of the penguin and the major National Geographic film, the penguin might now depict lasting love and wonderful care and survival skills.
It can also represent something the rare and unusual.
phoenix The ability to find a new impulse, new strength, new growth even in death; the power in oneself to transform the dying, depressed, dark and desperate into new endeavour and growth.
sparrow The ordinary but living parts of you that are special.
stork The soul; symbol of birth or babyhood, and perhaps parenthood; the beauty of the wider awareness of the unconscious.
swallow It promises the ability of a mind that can easily move and shift perspectives and so see different peoples view points, and alo a mind that is intuitive.
swan Grace; beauty; dignity. In mythology often represents the psyche or soul and its connection with a spiritual world; the side of human nature usually hidden because unconscious, often referred to as the spiritual – meaning the consciousness of connection with all life.
The swan in your dream may be linked with an ending of something due to the association with ‘the swan song’ – a final act. It can also suggest amorousness, or the ideal of love in sexuality, and as such may represent virginity or a blend of male and female.
vulture A relative waiting for you to die – or vice versa; people around you trying to live on you – or vice versa; difficult feelings about dependants; an environment of ill will or hopelessness.
white bird Anything white usually depicts thoughts and feeling that are inspirational or uplifting. They are often shown as similar to the white Pegasus, the lower sexual energies lifted into a power of wider awareness.
Wren or very small bird: A vulnerable but exciting intuition – something unusual and valuable entering your awareness.
Example: My dog looked keenly passed me, excitedly. I began to feel a build-up of excitement and “presence”. This feeling of presence became very intense, so that I knew the woman was now here in spirit. It was unmistakable. At the height of this a tiny bird, like a Wren, flew out of a wall or hedge, and I knew this was the spirit of the woman reborn. I knew that all was well, as she was now spiritually reborn.
Useful Questions and Hints:
Idioms: A bird; Charm the birds from the trees; a bird told me; the bird has flown; bird in the hand; bird of ill omen; free as a bird; odd bird.
Is the bird in my dream expressing any of the important stages of growth such as babyhood, leaving the nest, or making a nest?
What quality or attitude is the bird expressing and how does that relate to me?
What is the rest of the dream indicating about the bird?
Definitely try using Talking As and Processing Dreams.
Birth
When we were born, one world of experience ended for us and another began. When we witness the birth of a new child, we see a new beginning, the emergence of a new being and life. Birth is about the possibility of infinite potential expressing some of its qualities. Birth in a dream has the same meanings. So it can indicate the beginning of a new way of life; a new attitude; new ability; new project. But also the death of the old. See: first example under woman.
The birth can be about our own physical birth, its difficulties and trauma. But most difficult birth dreams are about coming to terms with our existence. Many of us are still wondering whether we wanted to be, or want to be, born. ‘To be or not to be’, that is still the question for many of us. Lots of us live at a remove from life because of this. If there are connections with our own birth, any negative feelings, fears and pain may need to be met before one can continue real development and growth in life.
This is not an easy process as birth experience is deeply primal and existing at the very foundations of our identity. Even if one manages to let this material rise into consciousness in the form of present day fears – such as loneliness, feelings of vulnerability etc – it usually takes a long time to move through them. To help with this process see the features on Life’s Little Secrets; active imagination; compensation, processing dreams. But if one had a very difficult birth in which one nearly died, life and death can get very mixed up in you, and need at some time to be met.
Example: I realised during this that I had gone back to birth because my fear of death was inherent in birth. I was afraid I was dying as I was born. I also felt that my chest pain could not be healed or got out of my being. Death was in us from birth, working away like corruption. We cannot heal death, we cannot get it out of us. Perhaps what I could do would be to open the rest of my being to it instead of fighting it. Maybe it was like my weakness and failure I had so long fought out of consciousness. If we admit our weakness, failure, our germ of death, perhaps death enriches as like our failure humanises us. Example: Ever since childhood I had a nightmare dream of being in a very confined bag and being suffocated, I try to get out of a small and seemingly impossible outlet. I used to dread this awful dream. Then, at the birth of my daughter, I realised my dream was of my birth. I never had a recurrence since. D. R. Hobs
This is very clearly a dream about her difficult birth. When the birth in your dream depicts a new phase of your maturing process, a new stage of growth, see the feature on individuation for clarification. In such cases your birth dreams may be an expression of huge changes in your life that are occurring over quite long periods of time.
The birth might have come after much has ‘died’ or been lost. Birth is also the moment of our coming into a particular set of circumstances. These include everything from the relationship, social status, financial wealth, education and background of our parents, to the physical environment in which we grew, the social customs and culture in to which we are born. So birth can also depict a sort of destiny, the taking on of a set of influences, burdens and opportunities. In the East this is all placed under the one word karma – the situation of ones birth, its working out in the present, and the streaming influences from the past. See: karma and past lives.
Example: I was in a room apart from friends and family, they were unaware I had the child but I knew they were expecting it with joy. I was trying to name the baby. It was a baby boy, but the name that came to mind was “June”. It wasn’t right and I kept trying to consider other names but none of them felt right. Just..”June”. The baby was a lovely blond boy with a wide smile, very happy. I am a single mother unable to have more children (I have no sons) and living a chaotic life but moving forward with help of friends and family. I have professional and moving plans for late summer but nothing in the pipe line for June.
This is the interpretation given for the dream in March – “What does giving birth to a lovely baby boy mean – and I take it no man was involved – it means that you, like any mother, can dream and create something that wonderfully adds to you. You create it from all that you have gathered of life, as if you have reached up to the sunlight, the clouds in the blue sky, and added the moon and stars, and pulled them into you and brought forth this little man.
For each child, whether a dream child or one taking on the weight of a body, is a birth of the whole of creation. For aren’t we ourselves, our very bodies, formed out of the mystery of the universe, and the bodies of old stars?
But in another way your son is a new aspect of you, something that hadn’t been known to you so far, with infinite possibilities. It is still young and vulnerable, so needs your love and care for it. But it will grow quickly, and then you will see traces of it in your everyday life – the new happy you.I think you should watch for signs of this little man growing into your life in June and flowering. Such signs are not usually very materialistic, but are new awareness and abilities that will be seen as you look back.” Then from the dreamer again in June – “I wanted to update you on developments that have been connected to my dream. Dates and times moved around and I find myself moving this month. A new start! On a very fun note, I also have begun a relationship with a man who looks very much like the little baby I cradled. I actually “recognized” him! It was really unusual and regardless of how the relationship turns out, it’s been a great awakening to have a bright, positive experience with a good man. Thanks again.”
Birth – even from a man – of a shining, talking or holy child: The beginning of awareness – not intellectual knowledge – of how the conscious self is interwoven with the processes and beings of the cosmos. This includes any unusual features straight after birth, such as being able to walk or sit.
Example: “Was in a basement where my wife and a woman I loved was giving birth to a baby, but I was somehow the one who gave birth to it without a doctor being there. It was a lovely boy. Its lower face was covered by a tight caul, but I pulled this off and it began to breathe. It opened its eyes and looked about, fully conscious; then said something about Jesus, and, “It is gone!” I asked what had gone, and it replied, “The other ego; where has it gone?” I explained that the spirit self it knew before birth was now gone so it could live in the body. The baby was then taken upstairs, and I felt it was a holy and wonderful baby. I was going to rest from the rigours of the birth, but on looking around saw how dusty and dirty the basement was. I began to clean it, and felt I would go upstairs and rest afterwards.”
The man who dreamt this said that he felt afterwards that at the time of the dream he had given birth to the very best of him. This became more and more obvious as years went by. Also he realised that his inner life, his unconscious needed cleaning.
Boasting about birth of child: Difficulty about responsibility of parenthood, but coming to terms with it.
Childrens view of birth: Many dreams of birth are symbolic attempts to come to terms with the fact of birth. It is difficult to accept accept. For children it felt that one was not born at all; one always was. Really it’s no theory but an instinctive spontaneous conviction.
“Recently my four-year-old son was inspecting a copy of a Raphael Madonna. He scrutinized it meditatively for a minute or so, then, pointing to the Christ child, announced, “That’s Michael Caldwell.” “Oh,” I responded. Then he pointed to Mary. “That’s Mama.” I nodded acceptance. Then he went on to bigger things. “He came out of her belly?” A little rise of intonation at the end showed he was looking for reassurance. I thought we were getting along fine. “Mama kept you in there cozy and warm until you were ready to come out.” He took it all in, puzzled it over, and then let fly: “Why did she eat me?” It was utterly incomprehensible that he had been made out of nothing, and most infants, could they communicate, would laugh at the proposition. However, as it must to all men, the serpent of knowledge appears in this Garden of Eden. Other children appear, little boys and girls talk about it, and slowly the uncomfortable knowledge grows that one had to come from somewhere.
Giving birth or Birth pains: The creative process; pain of arriving at a wider vision. Giving birth to a more mature self is a struggle. The NEW in our life is sometimes born out of such pains. If you are pregnant at time of dream this is probably about working out of anxieties about birth. See: birth dreams during pregnancy.
The mouth can also give birth: People often dream of giving birth from the mouth. The shape of the mouth is similar in some ways, and can also discharge things. This usually happens when the person has something important they want to say, and is a way of allowing lifein us to give thanks and birth to something new.
Recurring dreams of giving birth: The drive to have a child doesn’t stop just because one has one or more children. Many women, even past childbearing age, dream this over and over as in the example below. The urge to care, to love, to give birth, exists despite one’s age, and the dream may be a way of trying to satisfy that. The dream may also be, as with Pamela below, an urge to have a child of the sex dreamt of. It might of course be that you are incredibly creative and constantly ‘giving birth’ to new ideas or conceptions. See Woman’s Creative Power.
Woman’s dream: Desire to have a baby. Giving birth to a new aspect of yourself. Man’s dream: Envy of the creative ability of women. Giving birth to a new aspect of self.
Example: Thinking about the young monk – Hare Krishna – I met yesterday. I realise how much I still have to learn. I gathered hardly anything about him. He told me a dream that he had given birth to a baby out of his rectum. It was quite bloody, but he said he didn’t feel any pain. Just with this image in mind.
Example: For years I have dreamt I am pregnant. I go into labour in different surroundings, not always hospitals, with different people. I never see the child but I think it might be a girl, and the labour is different each time. I stop dreaming as the birth is completed. I have one 33 year old son – my only pregnancy. Pamela B. Example: I am on a table giving birth to a baby. It was very small and very ugly, with a hawk like nose. I am walking down a corridor carrying the baby, who is smoking a cigar. I must have had some feeling for the baby as somehow I lost it and was very concerned about its whereabouts. I must have found it again because I was walking down a street and passers by would stare and condemn me for allowing the baby to smoke. I awoke with stomach pains. Mark M.
See Woman’s Creative Power. Useful Questions and Hints: Also see: baby in your dream. What have I given birth to – i.e. what quality or potential? If I imagine myself as the baby what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role. Is there any suggestion of problems that might point to my own birth? Try Acting on your dream.
Birthday
Good feelings about yourself; feeling recognised and warmth regarding friends. Depending on the activities and theme of the dream it might also suggest a change happening; a special time when good things or favours can come to you. Of course no birthday can cause feelings of not being appreciated.
But celebrating your own birthday in a dream does not necessarily mean the same as it does in waking life. For birth means a new you, a new opportunity to express and realise the immense potential you have. It is a time to recognise what you want to do with that potential; it does not mean an opportunity to get drunk or to go out to a posh restaurant. It is an opportunity to decide what you want to make of your life.
Someone else’s birthday: Reminder of social obligation to another person; showing of affection or otherwise; relaxed feelings. Or perhaps purposely forgetting it.
Example: I dreamt that no one, including myself, remembered my birthday – I was thirteen in December. My family were all celebrities from TV. Then one of my friends phoned to wish me happy birthday. Then my Grandma kept cuddling me and telling me how sorry she was no one had remembered. I felt very disappointed but kept saying it was OK as I also had forgotten. B – Teletext.
For B. dreaming about her birthday obviously deals with her need for affection and also a feeling of not being appreciated.
Birthday cake: The reward or gift of sensual pleasure.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What feelings are involved in the dream, and how do they relate to me at the moment?
If this is a happy dream, what makes it so?
If this is a sad dream, what happens to make it so?
Birthright
The innate qualities you are born with, but may never receive, or unfold in life.
Biscuit
Pleasure, perhaps connected with childhood. If you are making the biscuits, it might suggest caring for your own needs or those of other people. See: Cookie.
Black
This is the colour of the night, and so because it links with absence of light, opens us to what we can’t see or deal with in the dark – in what is ‘in the dark’, unconscious – within or around us. It is the experience, like sleep, in which the ego diminishes or melts back into unconsciousness. This relates to all those things you repress or avoid feeling or lack full awareness of in yourself and life. So the dream will probably include threats of some sort, or what is unknown, hidden or avoided. So this relates to your hidden fears or past hurts that have been buried and remain unconscious. In African traditions black is the colour of night, death, excrement, and illness. But our universe began in darkness, and light in dreams represents conscious awareness.
Black can depict what we feel is evil – in other words the unaccepted side of yourself, the parts of your nature you don’t want others to see, and you don’t want to admit even to yourself. It also may indicate depression, what is negative within you or from an outside influence. This includes feelings of secrecy, fear or things we fear, and anxious feelings about death. See The Con About Evil
Writing about the meeting with the darkness, Jung says, “The battle between the hero and the dragon is the more active form of this myth, and it shows more clearly the archetypal theme of the ego’s triumph over regressive trends. For most people the dark or negative side of the personality remains unconscious. The hero, on the contrary, must realise that the shadow exists and that he can draw strength from it. He must come to terms with its destructive powers if he is to become sufficiently terrible to overcome the dragon. I.e., before the ego can triumph, it must master and assimilate the shadow”.
Example: ‘Black and grey – outpouring of thoughts and feelings I have pushed down, refused to look at or acknowledge, for most of my life.
Last year I got into the habit when doing JKZ’s Body Scan Meditation, of doing the following: there is a part at the end of the meditation where you imagine you are breathing in through the top of your head, through your body and out your toes, and then reversing the process: in through the toes etc. I liked to imagine the air and the energy I was breathing in was full of colourful sparkles – it made me feel good. Towards the end of December last year I almost stopped in my tracks when I did this and realised that I was breathing in thick blackness – in through my head, and filling my body. I thought “Why is this happening?” and then made an effort to start again whilst imagining clean air coming in.
A few days later I was wondering though – perhaps I should have just let the blackness fill me and see what happened. I thought of how most of us only want to experience what we see as the ‘good’ things in life – always pushing away the ‘bad’ – but we need to experience everything – to integrate it all. On New Year’s Day I woke up feeling so low and empty – life seemed so meaningless, and I resolved to breathe in the blackness during my meditation…’ This is what set in motion a process of change, which over the months since then, has led me to a deep acceptance of myself and my life – I feel transformed. Helen Black
Things like a black animal or black vehicle usually indicate that you are dealing with feelings or fears that you have previously kept buried or repressed. Their appearance in your dream shows you are ready to meet such feelings by allowing them to be experienced and acknowledged.
Example: I dreamt last night that a black Spanish fighting bull charged me. I climbed a high wire mesh fence, like that surrounding tennis courts. There I was safe, as the Bull charged again. It charged people. I came down from the fence trying to help divert the bull’s destructiveness.
Here the dreamer is meeting sexual feelings that he had always avoided in the past and still feels threatened by. As the dream shows, he tries to avoid facing these feelings, but in the end has to deal with them. The forgetfulness or repression of parts of ones experience is very clearly shown in the next dream.
I felt very close to the girl. She said, “Do you remember when they made you black all over?” I said I couldn’t, and she reminded me of being a film extra, when, to cover up my bad skin, I was covered in black make-up to look like a slave. I then said, “You know, there are parts of my life I can’t remember.”
The connection in some dreams between feelings about death and the colour black are shown in the next dream.
Mike is dying. He is taking care of the old folks to gain merit because he knows he may soon be joining them wherever they are. He wants to be sure that they remember him kindly. The black road (death road=death row) has been incorporated into President Bush’s speech and is declaimed as death road or death highway in some of his speeches – as in ‘we want to protect you from death road or highway’. Of course, no one believes him as everyone knows that it is impossible to save oneself from death’s road. We all have to travel it eventually.
Black also sometimes indicate what is earthy, the source of life and growth. What is hidden in the unconscious or body can be powerfully transformative. Like compost, it is full of potentially life enhancing energy. Such black or hidden things often take time to clarify. They have remained in a condition of never having been felt or known fully, and so are unclear and pre-verbal. Knowing them means gradually understanding through experiencing them, and being able to describe and integrate them. There is often a complication here in ones progress, in that consciously you may have hidden or repressed, or been unwilling to accept, anything that was not judged good or positive. In this way the so called ‘bad’ is repressed and you become one sided and lacking wholeness. Therefore meeting the ‘black’ is important. Out of this fundamental earthiness the new person you can become can emerge. See: For blackbird, black hole, blackberries, black-tie, see respective
Black and white: The opposites appearing together. In ourselves the good and bad coexist, and one balances the other. So this would suggest such coexistence and balancing.
Black clothes or under garments: This usually points to hidden or unconscious feelings or sexuality. Black is also associated with a priest or the clergy, so might depict a religious or moral influence in some dreams.
A person dressed in black: This may represent your shadow, or less accepted characteristics. See: shadow.
Black people: If this is a true black person, see black people.
Shiny black: Rather like a crystal ball, this suggests looking into your intuitive perception of what lies usually unconscious within you, looking into the depths of yourself, perhaps beyond the boundaries of your personality.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What is it I am on the edge of being aware of, or have been unaware of previously?
Are there anxieties o feelings I usually do not allow myself to feel fully – perhaps using defences such as smoking or alcohol to help push away?
Is there something emerging out of the blackness that offers new growth – if so what do I notice in waking that is new and living in me?
See Resistances and meeting things I fear or dislike in my dream.
Blackbird
Something, perhaps intuition, emerging from the unconscious. Bad news. Sometimes thought of as messengers of the dead. See: Birds.
Black Magic
This usually suggests you feel another person is thinking badly of you, plotting against you, or trying to undermine you in some way. Consider who this might be. Awareness of the situation most often robs it of its power. It is only when it is affecting you unconsciously that it has power, or if you give it power by being frightened. It is being unaware, or your fear, that gives such things any power over you.
The black magic in the dream can also either suggest you wish to harm someone, if you are the magician, or that you are frightened of hidden things influencing you. Fear is the thing to overcome.
Although thorough investigation of claimed injury or death attributed to black magic has shown the real cause to be malicious aggression or murder, scientific research into the deaths of people who were said to have died as the result of a curse or a voodoo ritual, has shown the victims to have died of fear.
Death through fear is fairly common, and is reported by some doctors in connection with surgical operations, especially in the past. In 1887 Dr. Crile had watched helpless as his friend, William Lyndman died of shock after amputation of both legs. My uncle also died of the shock of losing his arm. My uncle, like William had lost little blood, and no vital organs were injured. Crile went on to develop anaesthesia and blood transfusion to counteract death through shock. But some forms of shock appeared to be outside any physical cause. In 1898 Crile was on an army transporter off Cuba and examined a young officer who was delirious with fear due to facing his first battle. He was as deep in shock as if his legs had been crushed by a wagon as William Lyndman’s had. This led Crile to become interested in exopthalmic goitre, an illness which produces a similar type of anxiety condition. Despite the use of anaesthetics, no one had successfully operated on such a goitre condition. Every patient died. Crile discovered why when he attempted such an operation in 1905.
While under anaesthesia the patient’s heart rate rose to 218 and the body temperature rose to a dangerous level. Despite no physical injury or infection, the patient died that night with a temperature of 109.6 F. Crile realised from his previous observations that it was fear that had killed the patient. Therefore he told his next patient, a young woman who needed the goitre operation, that he was going to give her a simple inhalation treatment. When she breathed in the anaesthetic, she therefore thought she was having a ‘treatment’ not an operation. She was the first person to survive the operation for exopthalmic goitre. Crile called it “stealing the goitre”, and was so impressed by the influence of emotion on the body he constantly stressed the importance of self control, and taught that calmness is strength.
Crile’s experience illustrates what can occur through threat of a curse or black magic. In our dreams we often portray something we deeply fear as an evil influence or person, or as an awful monster or ghost. Such fears usually relate to our own urges, such as anger or sexuality, but can be about any urge or thought that we have been led to feel is not permissible, or that we feel is downright evil. A demonic figure or environment might also be connected with very early babyhood experiences. The pain of birth is often depicted as hell or demonic influence in our dream symbolism. See: evil; witchcraft; The Con About Evil
Because the unconscious will use any belief system or cultural symbols we have absorbed to express a theme, the powerful images of witches or evil characters we see on films or in fiction are often used to depict important experiences. For example a dream in which a spell or curse is placed on one can portray the influence a painful experience has left on ones emotions. If you had been deeply hurt while in your mother’s arms, your unconscious would equate pain with being held close by a woman. This ‘cross wiring’ of associations could meaningfully be portrayed as a ‘spell’ which makes one feel frightened in the apparently loving situation. See: Victims; Dream Like a Computer Game; self hypnosis; spell.
Blacksmith
This might be connecting you with your deep creative powers and masculine strength, in shaping the metals of life, the possibilities of your nature. Forcefulness, material creativeness. See: Iron.
Blamed Blaming
Most likely a direct expression of feelings one has about being blamed or blaming someone else. Therefore the things to watch for in the dream are:
Blaming: What are you blaming someone or something else for? If you can clarify what it is, ask yourself if you are doing that in waking life, and how deeply you feel about the issue. How valid is the blaming? Is the blaming a way of avoiding responsibility or efforts to change?
While we are blaming someone or something we lose the power to direct our own life. This is because blaming is like saying, ‘What has happened to me is all due to ‘so and so’ or ‘such and such’. Each time this happens it does this to me.’ If we stop the blaming and wonder whether we can take charge of the situation, then we gain more power to change. For instance a child who blames its mother when it falls over its shoelaces, might never stop to learn how to do up its own shoelaces. It might continue to blame its mother for not doing up its shoelaces properly. In adult life that is a very incapacitating habit to have. See Victims.
Accepting responsibility for what occurs in your life does not mean self blame. Blaming oneself is as negative as blaming someone else. Seeing that effect follow cause is simply a way of learning how to bring about real and satisfying change in your life. It is a way of seeing result as a feedback of information as to how well your attitudes, activities and efforts worked. With that feedback you can change the attitudes or activities and gradually get better results.
Blamed: Do you accept the blame and feel guilty or a failure? If so it may show that you are taking on feelings of failure that will create guilt and conflict in you. There may also be excessive self-criticism arising. Perhaps there are things you have failed to see or accept, but feeling guilty isn’t the best way to learn and improve ones performance. Better to look at events as learning experiences.
A long-term study on the effects of pessimism and self blame was started in 1946 with 100 Harvard graduates. It showed an ‘impressive’ relationship between pessimism in twenty year olds, and poor health in middle age. With another study it was found that people who blamed poor performance on personal failings in general died younger than people who accepted slumps in performance as part of normal life.
Idioms: lay the blame; shoulder the blame; take the blame; to blame.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What part does blaming others or myself play in my life?
Can I begin to learn from experience rather than play the blaming game?
What can I learn from this dream and the blaming taking place?
Can you learn anything from the Plot of the Dream or even Easy Dream Interpretation.
Blanket
Physical or emotional comfort or warmth, or an attitude we can hide under/behind; an attitude or experience we are wrapped/rapt in. In this case the colour of the blanket would give a clue to what the feeling or attitude is. See: colours; bed.
Covered in blanket: Injury or feelings about death or withdrawal. A way of hiding what you are feeling or doing, or feeling a need to comfort yourself. It might even suggest a return to childhood feelings.
Electric blanket: Instant warmth. Fear of electricity for some people. A feeling of relaxation.
Red blanket: Often used in emergency situations so could have the associations of injury, accident or ill health; passion or anger. Sometimes it could indicate warmth.
Sharing a blanket: Intimacy; feeling closely connected with someone; sexual connection; wanting to be close to the person.
Wrapped in blanket: Slightly withdrawn or vulnerable; relaxed or passive; self comfort; feeling cold – lacking warmth; feeling injured, infirm or weak; hiding ones feelings or vulnerability.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What am I using the blanket for and what does that say about the way I am dealing with life at the moment?
If I am sharing the blanket am I easy with the intimacy indicated?
What colour is the blanket and what does that say about the attitudes or feelings I am wrapped up in? See colours.
Perhaps Acting on your dream will help, or Being the Person or Thing.
Blasphemy
A denial or cursing or your own innate self or latent possibilities. A turning of the will away from the possibility of direction from within.
Bleeding
Most often relates to emotional or psychological hurt, but can also depict physical injury, or presentiment of it. Emotional hurt could mean hurtful remarks, for instance being told we are not loved – these can sap our motive to live and may be depicted as blood. The bleeding might show a psychological injury, often from past trauma, which is causing you to lose energy or motivation.
Sometimes the blood can be a sacrament. As such it is not shown as emerging from an injury or wound but as nourishment, wine or bloody meat. See blood.
Blood flowing from a crack: Possibly menstruation or loss of virginity.
Blood on the ground: Someone hurt or dead.
Bloody clothes: Personal emotional hurt or injury, perhaps even death of someone.
Blood Sample: This can represent many things depending upon the rest of the dream. It could suggest an illness, a way of tracing your identity with DNA, or it could be a drug test. It needs to be explored to be sure. Try using Talking As or Processing Dreams
Blood sucked from you or sucking from another: Feeling that you are losing your very life force to someone, or taking energy and life from someone else. Sometimes sex is felt as this. The umbilical connection in the womb is sometimes felt as the life giving connection that if cut off prematurely, is such a loss that expenditure of energy in sex may be felt as vampirism.
In sexual dreams: May refer to loss of virginity, menstruation or fertility; or hurt to sexual drive.
See archetype of blood.
Idioms: After ones blood; bleeding heart; bleed someone white; blood boil/run cold; blood brother; blood is thicker than water; blood letting; blood money; blood on ones hands; blood out of a stone; blood relative; blood sucker; blue blood; cold/hot blood; draw blood; fresh blood; in the blood; in my blood; ones heart bleeds; out for blood; sweat blood; taste blood; young blood.
Useful Questions and Hints:
What part of my body – or the body – is the blood coming from, and what does that suggest about any hurt I may be suffering? (Look up part of body).
What is my relationship with the blood in terms of what I feel, my interaction or how I deal with it?
What can I understand from the theme and drama of the dream in terms of my life giving processes?
See theme; drama. Also Processing Dreams.
Bleach
Perhaps a healing process of cleansing old hurts or feelings; an attempt to ‘clean up’ ones emotions or attitudes, especially if applied to clothes; pain.
Bleak
Unfeeling, difficult emotionally. This sometimes connects with past times of pain..
Blessing
A release of the positive energies into outer life.