INTRODUCTION
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| In ancient Egypt and Greece, dreams were seen as supernatural messages or divine interventions. People believed that certain individuals had special powers to unravel these messages. |
THE IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS
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| C.G. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, developed an influential system known as analytical psychology to help us understand our unconscious mind. He believed dreams were powerful and meaningful, not just random leftovers from the day. According to Jung, our dreams are just as important for understanding our reality as our waking life. |
WHAT ARE THESE THINGS I DREAM ABOUT?
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| Dreams can be a blend of the literal and the symbolic. Sometimes what you see is exactly what it is—like your mother is just your mother, and your girlfriend is simply your girlfriend. But other times, dreams reflect parts of you. For example, dreaming about a house might symbolize aspects of yourself.
It all depends on how deeply you want to dive into the meaning and significance of your dreams. Some people see dreams as having little relevance to everyday life, but others believe that exploring and understanding dreams can boost our creativity, intuition, and overall potential." |
HOW USEFUL ARE DICTIONARIES?
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| They're a great starting point, but eventually, they might hold you back. Your unconscious mind is unique, and the way you communicate with it is through your own special language. As you keep practicing dream interpretation, your 'language' evolves, revealing deeper meanings as you peel back each layer. |
WHAT'S THE PURPOSE OF DREAMS?
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Imagine a vast field of possibilities where countless scenarios exist. When we dream, our subconscious mind picks the ones that feel closest to us to explore and play with. These selected scenarios are then stored in our minds, giving us insights and creative ideas to draw from. |
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| Imagine your dreaming mind as a librarian, stacking the shelves of your subconscious with countless brochures on how to handle different situations and challenges. When you're awake, you pick one and think you've made a decision. But, in reality, those thoughts were already there before you even noticed them.
The fascinating part is, we often feel like we're the ones doing the thinking, but it's more like we're being thought! Our only true free will is choosing which thought catches our attention and taking it off the shelf. |
| Imagine the incredible richness our dreams can reveal if we choose to explore them. It's like stepping into a vast Library of Possibilities, with endless corridors and countless rooms to wander through, giving us the freedom to discover.
Your dreaming self is constantly at work, whether you realize it or not, presenting your brain with a whole package of responses and strategies, ready for you to use.
Even if you're not aware of those unused responses and strategies, they still remain in your unconscious. Your dreaming self offers your brain a wide array of thoughts, just waiting for you to pick. Which ones will you choose?
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PART 1: THE LAZY WAY TO PSYCHIC ABILITY.
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Learning to understand these symbols is a powerful way to develop self-knowledge and psychic abilities. By embracing your dream experiences, you can start to choose new thoughts in your waking life, freeing yourself from old assumptions that keep you stuck.
Becoming aware of your dreams brings incredible benefits. As the barrier between your waking and dreaming self lowers, you'll experience greater choice and free will. You'll start to notice ‘bleed through,' where your dreaming self becomes part of your waking life. This can manifest as visions, intuitions, encounters with other beings, receiving messages, inspirations, and creative breakthroughs. |
PART 2: THE LAZY WAY TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR DREAMS
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This is what I call the 'Gestalt' way. Gestalt means embracing the whole moment, just as it is. Instead of hiding behind logic and rationale, the Gestalt approach focuses on the here and now.
Dreams are seen as projections of different parts of ourselves. For example, if you dream of being chased across a field, in a Gestalt session, you'll recall the dream and in your imagination, turn to 'talk' to your pursuer, asking them questions. Then, you swap places with the pursuer and experience the dream from their point of view. You could even repeat this process from the perspective of a tree in the field, which might give you a new and unexpected realization.
Each symbol in a dream is unique to the dreamer, and only the dreamer can truly interpret it. Gestalt dream analysis eliminates the idea of the analyst as the expert and instead empowers you to understand your own dreams. |
Here's and example of how to go about using this method:
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Take a dream and retell it to yourself as if it's happening right now.
For example: 'I am flying over the bay, and I feel anxious. I look towards the horizon for sharks. Now I'm flying towards the beach and see the bathers there.'
Now, rewrite the same dream in the past tense, as though it all happened a long time ago.
For example: 'I was once flying over a bay, and I felt kind of nervous. I was looking for sharks on the horizon. Then I was flying back towards the beach, and I saw some people in the water. |
Now try this:
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Take a dream and after each thing, adjective or action, put the phrase 'Part of me'. Example using the Bay Flyer dream: 'The I (part of me) flies (part of me) over the bay (part of me) while looking (part of me) for sharks (part of me)…'
Pick one of the parts of the dream that have some feeling or puzzle for you. In my example I'm going to choose the 'sharks' and the 'bay'. I am going to pretend I am the shark and then I am the bay:
'I am the Shark and I lurk unseen in the dream. I could swoop in at any moment and eat the bathers and yum, how good they would be too! I make the flyer nervous because I cause him
to worry about things over which he has little control. But I give him a purpose too. All the dream flyer can do is watch, watch, watch. I like the unseen waters I swim in and hope the flyer gets a little closer to the water too!”
“I am the bay. I am shallow and deep, friendly and dangerous. My waters flow out to the deep sea and up against the beach were people play. The dream flyer soars above me and sees both these parts of me, but he seems afraid of entering me himself. I am cold and liquid and bounded only by dry and structured things. I provide passage for many ships and fish.” |
| Try this for as many parts of the dream as you can. Notice how this changes (or doesn't) your feelings about the dream images and the way they fit together. |
SOME COMMON DREAMS INTERPRETED
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Show/Hide Being Chased in a Dream
Dream: "I was on holiday in the mountains. My wife and my kids were with me at first but after we set up camp I wandered off on my own and found a waterfall. Something began to chase me and I tried to run back to the camp but I couldn't find the camp and hid behind a bush. I heard the footsteps and was terrified. At first I thought it was a bear, but saw it carrying a gun and I ran, though I was sure I was going to be shot. It felt like it knew where I was"
Being chased in a dream is very frightening for us all, and very common. Children seem especially vulnerable to being chased in dreams by animals and monsters. Adults are usually chased by dangerous men, but can also be chased by animals and monsters.
Taking these dreams metaphorically and asking ourselves what large, uncontrollable events and situations in our life are like the dream can be very revealing. The dream may be reveal threat by some person in waking life or by a feeling. Occasionally this dream is a replay of an actual event.
We can't always deal with threats in our waking so we do so in our dream. The great thing about a dream is we don't get actually hurt when we confront the threat! This also put the suggestion in our minds that the next time in a dream we are pursued there are creative options to fleeing. The Senoi tribe teach their children to confront the monsters in their dreams, and to call for the help of heroes and parents if it really gets too scary. Usually the monster backs down. |
Dream: "I was driving to work and my teeth began falling out! At first I thought they were just loose, but soon I easily pushed them out with my tongue. I was horrified and nearly wrecked the car. Then I woke up and my teeth were fine, but I recalled the dream very vividly."
What, we can ask ourselves, do teeth do? They hold, cut, grasp and generally are the first way we had to do these things. But then we lost our first set, just as we were gaining in self-control and power. And yet, shortly thereafter, a new and larger world and set of teeth appear! And so, if I have a tooth lose dream, I can ask myself, "What parts of my world and life are slipping away?"; What new larger world will this lead me too? Lose a tooth, gain a world! |
Show/Hide Examination Dreams
Dream: "The adjudicator is passing out a final exam. To my horror I realize that I haven't come to this class all term and haven't any idea what the questions on the test mean."
Being unprepared for a test in a dream is quite common. But only rarely do these dreams come about during a real test. Lawyers often have test dreams, and are often leading stressful lives. In other words, the dream test might be seen as an expression of our feelings of fear related to being unprepared for tasks and relationships in life. When the test dream occurs, we can then ask ourselves what in our lives is like this, where are we feeling tested and unprepared, or where we are expecting such a situation.
There are many variations of this dream, including not being prepared, not being able to read the test questions, having our pencils and pens not work, and realizing we skipped the class too many times. Sometimes we arrive too late for the test or can't find the place where the test is being held. But these dreams are also related to all kinds of dream where we have difficulty performing or recalling, such as having to give a talk or forgetting one's lines in a play.
We also often have the opposite of this kind of dream, where we do extremely well at some task or performance, such as at an athletic event or giving a great piano recital. Occasionally we seem to have a dream skill that bears no resemblance to waking abilities, such as the woman who can't carry a tune dreaming she is singing a magnificent opera aria. Such dreams might be seen as bringing the dreamer's attention to abilities in a symbolic or metaphorical way, as in her case "finding her voice" in writing. |
Dream: "I went to get some extra milk and realized while I was in the shop that I was naked. I wondered how to get home barefooted. "
Being naked in public can be very embarrassing, but is quite common in dreaming. There are many variations. Sometimes people see and make fun of us. Other times we find it quite odd that we are naked and others don't even seem to notice. This nakedness can be full nudity, or partial, such as being barefoot, being in pyjamas, or just having forgotten to wear a tie to the office.
Clothes are often a metaphor for the public self (or the "Persona"). From this view, the absence of clothes requires that the dreamer look at how they present themselves to the world and how we feel vulnerable. Some people feel vulnerable if they have not clothed themselves with possessions, such as nice cars and jewelry. Others feel the need to clothe themselves in academic degrees or with large insurance policies. Our personalities can also be worn like clothing, and these dreams allow us to explore the difference between our inner and outer selves.
Look at how we feel naked, revealed, and vulnerable or exposed in our lives at the present time. Sometimes the dream may reveal superficial nakedness, and other times it may be something quite fundamental that is exposed, such as our morals or values. We can ask ourselves who is in the dream with us at the time, what everyone is feeling and where in waking life this is similar.
There is an ancient Babylonian Myth about this kind of dream, where a princess, to find her true self, must descend into the underworld. At each level she descends, a piece of clothing or jewelry is removed, until she eventually stands before the lord of the underworld fully naked. Naked dreams offer us much the same possibilities. |
Usually sex in dreams is not something people bother to interpret, since it's enjoyable and doesn't require further attention. However, we often find ourselves in dreams sleeping with the most unusual people, animals and monsters and this may stir up our curiosity about what dreams and sex might mean in general.
Sex in our dreams can be seen as an opportunity to examine the symbolism of fusing two parts of our personality together that had previously been kept apart.
When people have sex with taboo others, such as straight people with gays, or children with parents, or normal people with animals, the best interpretations are not often literal. Feeling that this is just a secret desire only revealed in dreams is a shallow interpretation. Rather the symbolic approach is called for.
If I dream of sleeping with Sally, I can ask myself what characteristics of Sally I am trying to fuse or add to myself? Is it her get-up-and-go personality, or her ability to function so well in crisis?
The same technique can work just as well in reverse. Perhaps I don't like Sally and can't in waking life imagine having sex with her. My dream of sleeping with her may reveal to me that I am becoming like Sally in ways I don't want to, such as being overly self critical or getting out of control with drugs. This symbolism is not really so removed from our use in everyday life of saying "They are in bed together" when we talk about industrial mergers and political partners in waking life. That is, it means they are connected in some deep and much entwined ways. Likewise, we all know what it means when someone says, "He's trying to screw me!" Other times when we feel abused and intruded upon or ripped off, we talk about how we were "raped."
Women tend to like dreams where men are trying to please them, know how to do this and take their time. Men tend to like sexual dreams where women are entirely uninhibited and eager to do anything. We might be advised to watch our sexual dreams for new ideas and suggestions for improving our sexuality. |
How often have you heard that if you fall and hit the bottom of a cliff in a dream you will really die?
"I was falling and falling off a cliff down into a deep crevasse. I knew if I hit the bottom I would die."
We all get a little frightened when we loose control over what is happening to us. The Hitting-Bottom theory is a popular folk-tale and all kids seem to talk about this on the playground. But many, many people have hit and lived to tell about. The falling dream itself is one of the most popular and early remembered of all dreams. While some theories talk about falling having to do with how easily we used to fall as children, and other theories talk about the falling indicating a fear of loss in security or of a relationship. The best and most recent ideas take another approach. Falling is very close to ...flying! By telling ourselves before we go to sleep that we would prefer to fly than fall, we can often take control of the fall and turn the dream into a flying dream, which is exhilarating in contrast to fear-filled. Both of these can be converted into questions.
1. What in my life seems to be falling out of control?
2. How can I turn this out-of-control part from falling into flying?
Often, like in the dream, just being aware that you can is enough to make the switch from falling to flying. |
Show/Hide Cannot Find The Toilet
Dream: "I can't find a place to pee. I wander all around looking for a bathroom. Finally I'm in an old tree house above the family garage, and I urinate down into a hole in through the roof. "
Looking for a place to go is as frustrating in dreams as it sometimes is in life. However, in waking life we usually don't look for deeper meanings.
Often when we have to urinate in a dream, we really do have to urinate! But other times we have to urinate during sleep and don't dream about it at all. So a second set of answers may be necessary. Maybe urination in dreams reveals a part of the way the dreaming mind works in general as well. When the urge comes into the dreaming mind, the mind deals with this request like all others, it begins to play with it, to match it to earlier experiences that are similar and to unfold the metaphorical aspects of the urge.
On the symbolic level, we can look at the dream images of urination and defecation in terms of getting rid of something that is causing us pressure. And the thing we need to give up may not be social sanctioned in all quarters. Go somewhere private and write down on a piece of paper all the things you really want to do, being completely honest with yourself and then burn the paper. This way we can allow expression of the most noxious of our desires without making ourselves too vulnerable. |
Show/Hide Excrement and Defecation Dreams
Dream: "I'm waking down a country road. I am covered with excrement and feel quite miserable. I come upon a farm, a kind of bed and breakfast where a man and his daughter are outside. I approach them for mercy, to get a room, and they run inside. "
Being vulnerable and exposed is always a messy and hard situation. Though unpleasant at times, it is not uncommon to have dream about excrement. The meaning varies from person to person, but some famous psychologists have suggested some meanings that can be borrowed and if applied, used to enhance and improve our lives.
Freud nearly a century ago, wrote the Interpretation of Dreams and commented on how shitting and holding shit was the first ways as babies we really get to produce something and control that production. Thus, as our production in later life of money is similar, dreams about shit may be about money. Are we constipated and full of it or does it, like Midas, cover us and soil everything we touch?
It could also be a metaphor for all the crap we have to work on. But it is a divine and sacred crap, which he called "prima materia" after the alchemical base substance that would eventually be transformed into a finer material. What this means psychologically is that we get to look at all our crap, all the things that stand in the way of our living empowered, whole and liberated lives. Thus the worse the excrement, the better the chance to move on to higher ground, to make gold. To attempt to move to higher places without having dealt with the crap means that no matter how high we go, we'll have that crap lubricating our slide back down. |
Cheating boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, and other lovers.
Dream: "I was just getting back from the shop when I looked in my bedroom window and saw by boyfriend in bed with my best friend."
Dreams of cheating partners are very common and often give us a jolt. Since we have all heard that dreams might predict the future or reveal deeper meanings, the fear arises that our lovers might be cheating on us. Usually this is unfounded. Here are some questions I ask myself:
1. How likely is this to be literally true? If it is likely, I would confront my lover, not by saying I had caught her in a dream, but that I had a dream about it and tell the lover my fears.
2. If its not likely, I would see the people in the dreams as parts of myself. My partner, who is a very thoughtful type, was in bed with my friend Bill, who is very emotional; I might ask myself what would happen if I joined my own thoughtful side with my emotional side. These unexpected unions in dreams can lead some very positive growth once we get over the belief that they might be literally true. |
Show/Hide Abandoning the Baby
Dream "I had a dream that my baby wandered off while I was washing the clothes, I had completely forgotten about her! I ran outside looking everywhere but couldn't find her. My grandmother said (in waking life) this means I'm going to have to watch my baby more closely, or she will get away. Now I'm going crazy all the time looking and watching over her."
Being responsible for those under our care is always a hard task, and there always seems to be someone who is better at and sometimes people who are critical of our care-taking. This dream often happens to people who are the most responsible in life, and have, in a sense earned the right to see a little farther than most, even though we don't at first have any desire for this gift.
It is interesting that in mythology many of the heroes are first abandoned by the parents, on hillsides, in rivers, in caves and fields. What this indicates to some is that our dream children are really metaphors of our higher self. In other words, from the point of view of the dreaming mind, what is emerging is something new and world shaking. What we are doing in losing our charges is neglecting it or allowing it to develop on its own. The neglect then is self-neglect. How many projects, for example, have I left abandoned on the hillside? How to give ourselves time for self growth in the modern world is a real challenge.
This losing of those we care about, whether they are babies, older relatives, friends or other people we love and are responsible for can be used as a wake up call. After all, it's hard to really find something and appreciate it until we see that we might lose it. |
Show/Hide Dreams Predicting the Future
"I dreamt last night that my long lost friend wrote me a letter and the very next day I got a letter from this person!"
There are many testimonies and written examples of dreams that seemed to predict future events. Some may have been due to coincidence, trick memory, or a creative re-assembly of known information. A few laboratory studies have been conducted on predictive dreams, as well as clairvoyant and telepathic dreams with nothing conclusive. But then again, these kinds of dreams are difficult to study in a laboratory setting. Some folks in the dream field feel that there is more telepathy going on than we realize, and so we may hear more about this in the future. But at this time, it seems that telepathic dreaming - and more specifically here, clairvoyant and future-telling dreaming, is quite rare.
What usually happens is that dreams create a wide variety of possible connections. Many of these connections turn out to be true. But more of them don't. Quite a lot more of them don't. So many do not turn out true that believing in telepathic dreaming is more a way of becoming superstitious than a path of knowledge.
Another approach that sees dreams as forward looking has led to a whole host of techniques that appreciate the dreams ability to see vital potential paths for us and even warn us that certain of our behaviours can lead to ruin & success, but this is not quite the same thing as warning someone not to take a jet flight. It's more like being aware that dreams about being reckless are a kind of predictor that I may be behaving recklessly.
However, if you do dream of some lotto numbers, can you send them in to me? |
Show/Hide Unable to flee or diminished capacities
Dream: "I had just turned the corner when I saw I was still being chased. But my legs were frozen. Not cold, just stuck. It was kind of like being in mud or having a magnet in the ground draining all my leg muscles."
Being paralyzed in some way in a dream is often reported, as well as losing other faculties such as sight, sense of direction and other capacities. These dreams are very frustrating for the dreamer and bring up all sorts of fears and insecurities we have about being in control of ourselves, our lives and our environment. There is no scientific explanation that is accepted by the whole dream community, but some ideas have been suggested.
Every 90 minutes or so we enter REM sleep for about 20 minutes. If awaken from REM, a person is likely to report a dream. You can usually tell when someone is in REM sleep because there eyes will be moving very rapidly back and forth, hence it is called REM or Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. During REM, the body is in a state of slight paralysis. The brain is operating as it normally would, but all the messages are stopped from traveling to many parts of the body.
Yet in dreams, we can sometimes be partially aware of our surroundings outside the body. Alarm Clocks, cars going by and the kids playing in the next room can all cause partial awakening. These events can be partially taken into the dream, or incorporated in many unusual ways.
The interesting thing about this incorporation is that even though the event may have had nothing to do with the dreams initially, it can become a significant part of the dream story.
Dreaming about being paralyzed at work, in a relationship, how to choose a career? Perhaps you first talk about how you feel paralyzed and then assess if this feels like being paralyzed in other parts of your life. You can find a parallel situation, it may be further helpful to imagine a way to mobilize yourself to take appropriate actions and liberate yourself from a fear or someone else's control. Close attention to the type of paralysis, the way it feels and how it functions can be important. For example, how does the paralysis in the dream function to keep the dreamer from fleeing a particular situation, or relieve them from moving on to a new situation?
Dreams where we are paralyzed and otherwise unable to reach our goal can be very frustrating, but also contain the possibilities of new directions in life. These frustrating nightmares are really one of our most precious gifts. |
While animal dreams are very common among younger children, it is not uncommon for adults to have them as well.
The most popular idea is that the animal in the dream is the animal in us. That is, our instincts and animal selves that we are not usually conscious of in waking life emerge at night in dreams as natural animals that may be similar. It is felt that the more problematic or sick the dream animal, the more likely we are at odds with our own instinctual selves. Being able to recall the dream is a positive sign that we are ready to work on this part of ourselves. The type of animal may also indicate a path for finding a creative, positive & responsible way to channel our drives.
If I had an animal dream of a sick eagle, for example I would first come up with some metaphors to describe what "eagle" means to me - attacker of snakes, protector of its nest, far seeing, fights in a non-human manner, beautiful yet I fear being attacked, and so on. I might add to these personal associations some cultural ones, like mythological images of the eagle, such as eagle as Father of the Gods, Zeus. If my dream eagle was sick, I might look at how these symbols might manifest more in my life - how I might protect my own children - or my own baby projects, or how I might soar above the crowd. With children, this may give us a clue as to what aspects of impulse control they are struggling with. As adults, we are offered a doorway into wider vision of living.
It might be a totem or shaman guide. In this sense, we don't assume that the animal is an image of our unconscious drives, but is here to lead us into an unknown territory that can't be decided upon before we go there. With this approach, we treat the dream animal like bird watchers from behind a duck blind, carefully observing the nuance of the image of the dream animal, how it looks in detail, how it moves, how it reacts. The key here is in how long we can stay with the image and follow its lead.
Animals in dreams, no matter how problematic, offer us an opportunity as guides to contact and explore both the parts of ourselves that we have shut away and parts that we have never know. |
Show/Hide Floods & Natural Disasters
Dream:" The water from the ocean is rising and threatening to flood the town I'm living in. There is this impending feeling of doom and helplessness, like right before something really big is about to happen."
Impending doom, especially from elemental sources like water, land and air are particularly disconcerting. These events inhabit not only the physical world, but the world of imagination, religion, mythology and dreams.
Early people recognized water and watery things as belonging to their own domain and this was know to the Greeks as the Realm of Poseidon, Lord of Oceans, Earthquakes and other fluid movements that were seen to be what all the land rested upon.
Psychologically, we rest on our emotional world. All the reason in the world is useless when we panic, when we are furious, when we despair. To move into that realm and not be drowning is the work of a lifetime, the place to create a great masterpiece.
To dream of an approaching tidal wave may indicate that I have an apprehension about the emotions that are welling up inside of me—I fear being overwhelmed, or "drowning" in the feelings and being unable to control my world and all I have achieved. Floods are also a mythic way to re-fresh and create something new. Many mythic kingdoms were flooded and drowned by their gods to make way for something new. The reason I am casting this in such mythic terms is due to the opportunity that large scale doom and disaster dreams bring to us. Rudolf Otto coined the term "Numinous" and it means the terrifying, awe-inspiring, experience of the Sacred Up Close. The feeling right before a major natural event can provoke this sense of wonder and awe. Dreaming about floods affords us a channel into making some major changes in our lives.
If I am dreaming about this watery doom, I am also now conscious of this water and can learn to take the full impact & force of my emotions. I can learn to "swim". As we become even more conscious, we can even learn in dreams to breathe water! This will often happen after the acceptance of a new way of being occurs.
Remember that each elements realm is magnificently large and holds a whole universe of meaning. |
Dream: "Several years ago I kept having a dream of falling in love and I was extremely happy, even when I woke up. I never did see the man's face. Sometimes we even got married and had a whole dream life together, but I never saw his face."
When the faceless lover comes to us in dreams, it is most profoundly seen as part of ourselves that we desire most, and see as (often) the opposite sex. If we just go along with the game, we continue to live in the rich castle of Eros and, according to the Jungians, endlessly chase after these people in real life. Sometimes it works, but usually the pattern just repeats and gets stale. It is said that eventually we either get tired of this game or something tricky happens and we see the faceless lover directly. The common path of growth is to see these figures qualities in ourselves and develop them. For example, I could write a short series of qualities that come to mind that remind me of that person; Fast, Handsome, Playful, Analytical, Self-Assured, or whatever, and then try to develop those qualities in myself. Who, after all, can love me more intimately than my higher Self? |
Dream: "I was climbing up a ladder behind by brother (I don't even have a brother in waking life) to get to the top bunk bed and I put a knife in his back. Even in the dream I was shocked by my behaviour. I'm a very non-violent person and was upset that this occurred, even in a dream!"
Find ourselves behaving in dreams like criminals is very upsetting, even though it is quite common. For any upsetting experience, it's often useful to write the experience down in a journal as clearly and detailed as possible.
Though not an every day (night) experience, act of killing and being killed in dreams is common, even among those who would never hurt a fly?
The most useful way to approach these dreams is to first see that the deaths and slayings are not meant to be taken literally, but rather symbolically. This becomes especially clear when we kill figures that don't even exist in waking like. The image of death taken symbolically can mean many things, one of which can be the death of an old attitude or personality trait or behaviour pattern. In this way the whole sense of the dream is reversed, and death becomes a doorway to a new way of living. As you can see, the meanings shift according to who is being killed. Killing our parents may be giving up values they gave us that no longer work for us, while killing a sibling may be getting beyond relationships that involve useless rivalry and competition. It is always interesting to note how far away the murdered figures are from you, either physically or in terms of blood relations. An unknown person or distant cousin may indicate that the personality trait or habit that is dying or being done away with is rather distant from your core personality. Killing oneself or an intimate other offers the opportunity to make key changes in your life or attitudes.
The key here is to approach the elements in the dream metaphorically, and then to apply these metaphors to ourselves and our life. In this way the most adverse dream conditions become our allies in personal growth & self empowerment. |
Dream: "My friend had a dream and she killed herself in it. She was sitting on a cliff at Beachy Head and threw herself off. She is a very up and cheery person and I had no idea what to say when she told me this dream".
Of course, whenever we or our friends talk about suicide, we need to act responsibly and even consider contacting a professional or call a local suicide help line. However, death and suicide in dreams are not all that uncommon and if there is no depression or despair noticeable in the waking person, the dreams are best taken symbolically.
The key symbols here are Death and the Self. When death is seen literally, the focus is on the loss and absence, but when taken metaphorically, the emphasis is on loss of the old to make way for the new. Death, in this sense, is the great transformation. If someone distant in our dream dies, we often say that characteristic in our personality is changing. If we die in a dream, it may indicate a radical change in the core self, and this could manifest itself in personality, attitude, behaviour or other actions. |
Dream: "While running from a mugger I began to fly! I found I could control the flying and began flying all around the city, then out above the countryside. I thought I might be able to fly to the moon. "
Flying in dreams is the number one fun activity that people like to do dreaming, when they realize that they can. Because there are so many kinds of flying and reasons for flying, there also many different meanings.
Dream flying can easily lead to another wonderful dream activity, dream lucidity. Once you realize that you are flying, it may occur to you that it is not something one can do in waking reality. Ah, hah—so this must be a dream! At the point you become lucid (aware you are dreaming while you are dreaming) you then have some really fun options with dream flying. Some people like to test their skill, seeing high or low, how fast or slow they can fly. Others like to visit far away places or see friends.
This dream sport is so popular, there is even an on-line club devoted to flying and other activities in dreaming called the Fly-by-Night Club. |
Show/Hide Losing things, burglary, robbery
Dream: "I was just about to get in my car when I noticed my purse with my keys was missing. I was sure I had it right with me and began to panic that someone had my wallet and keys."
It's frustrating enough when we lose our essentials in waking life, why do we have to go through this again once we go to sleep? The old assumption was that since it is our dream, we are punishing ourselves in some way. This would be followed by the observation that good people punish themselves more than bad people, so it shows a strong and good conscience to be punishing yourself in a dream. Hardly solace to the dreamer. Ask what is going on when these and other tricky things happened. There is often a trick, loss or theft right before a person gains a great gift or piece of wisdom. The Native Americans had names for this tricky character, often called Coyote. Jung simple called this the Trickster. We don't always see the trickster in the dream, but we can often feel his effect. He steals something visible and returns something invisible. When something essential in our lives appears to be missing, we gain a perspective that we wouldn't achieve on our own. Who, for example, would lose their own keys or allow a wallet to be stolen? Thus we are thrown into a situation larger than our usual selves would chose and must draw upon resources out of the depth of anxiety and fear.
What are we really losing, and where in life are we feeling robbed? For example, if I lose my wallet, I might say that I've lost my social identity. Where in my life do I feel a loss of identity?
Who is being neglected or whose time has come. In these instances, it may be productive to set aside time for oneself. |
Show/Hide Destruction of Houses and Other Possessions
"I just couldn't believe that my house had burned down while I was at work. I kept going through the ashen rooms looking to see if anything had survived this fire and found an old book from my childhood about Robin Hood."
Losing personal possessions in destructive acts is somewhat akin to having them stolen. When they are stolen, we look for the thief and call for the police. When they are destroyed, we abandon hope of finding them again and have to deal more directly with the loss. In theft, the sense of justice is related to the social level, but with destruction it is more elemental. We ask, "Why me?" When a friend or neighbour's house or possessions are destroyed instead of our own, we often feel guilty and ask "Why not me?" (Survivors guilt).
What did this possession represent to us and how would its absence change my life? For example, if I lose my car, I might say that I've lost my main vehicle. Metaphorically this vehicle might be anger, manipulation, charm or looks. What might it mean if I lost my charm or favourite way of getting what I want and need?
With a house, we can ask similar questions and perhaps larger questions. What was the house really holding for me? What was the life I live that this house holds?
If this is too large a question, we might see the dream house as our inner personality, and ask how our personality sometimes burns itself up, or gets flooded, or just disappears when we need it most.
Whatever approach you use to exploring the meaning of lost and destroyed property be sure to note the feelings that come with this loss. There is likely to be hurt and anger, feeling of being victimized and other complex feelings. Don't ignore these just because it was a dream and not really true. You may be feeling angry or victimized about some other aspect of your life that is best represented by the dream house. |
Show/Hide New Rooms, Houses, Places
Dream: "I'm in a kind of orphanage and several of us go down a hallway and find a door that we have never seen before. I open the door and find a room full of treasure; it's like an Egyptian tomb. I feel quite amazed that I've never seen this room before and feel exhilarated. "
Finding new things is often a delightful experience and one of the fun things about being human. This delight is often found in dreams as well. Though we can find things we wish we hadn't, usually the experience is a positive one.
Houses in dreams often represent our personality. Finding new rooms would be like finding new parts of our personality. We can further look at what kind of room has been discovered or is being explored and have this reveal more about the part of our personality at play. Kitchens might be a place where raw material is turned into nurturing substances. Bathrooms might mean we are dealing with elimination or letting go. To find out for yourself, describe how the room in your dream best functions, how it works for the whole house or the inhabitants. Is the room a place to wash dirty laundry, an attic to put away things we no longer use or a living room where everyone can meet and interact on an equal basis? |
Show/Hide Meeting Famous People
Dream: "I was so happy that Russel Crowe had invited me to his private party. I saw him across the swimming pool getting the dinner ready and was very proud when he called me over and other people saw this."
Encountering famous people in dreams is a popular dream theme. Movie stars, great teachers, world leaders and even famous ancient history heroes can appear in our dreams. These are usually very pleasant dreams and the dreamer often feels the glow of being "star struck" or chosen. What qualities these stars have (smart, popular, and emotional) and then ask do you want these qualities for yourself. If you can dream it, then you can more easily have it.
More globally, dreaming of famous people may be a way of expressing larger social and cultural issues and being in contact with these larger feeling. |
Show/Hide Drowning, quicksand and mud
"I thought I could swim back to shore, but I can't seem to say afloat as waves keep swirling me underwater. Finally I am so far down I realize I will never get to the surface in time and wake up."
Dreamers often find themselves helpless in water, quicksand and mud. The situation is often just annoying, but sometimes feels life-threatening. The general approach is to see this as a metaphor of where in life we ourselves feel helpless and out of control. That is, what pools and lakes are we swimming around in that feel out of control? Sometimes it may be our job or relationships, other times our whole life.
But why water and not some other form of being out of control like a car or plane, which can also occur? Water can be a symbol of emotions and the unconscious. Drowning is more of a metaphor of our fear of feelings being out of control than behaviour or thoughts. Damned up feelings during the day may break out and flood at night. Others simple see the water as the "sea of difficulties" that we all face.
Water can also be a metaphor for the unconscious. Small pools might be like the personal unconscious, or the things we don't really want to face and so control us in everyday life. Larger lakes might be issues that affect the whole family or society. The ocean would represent issues that affect all humankind.
Drowning dreams can also mean, "I feel overwhelmed by this situation," "My emotions are swamping me." If we become lucid or conscious in our dreams, we may learn to do unexpected dream manoeuvres, such as breathing water. This is a skill that dreamers can learn and is reported as being very exhilarating. |
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@2019 David A Leach | Designer: David A Leach (david@davidaleach.net)
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