Dreams of intimacy denote a desire for closeness, and to know and be known. This could be wordplay for into-me-I-See, the desire to have an authentic connection with yourself.
See Sex.
See Sex.
A fragrant, clean bed is symbolic of righteous living, Prov. 7:17 ... bed dream meaning
See Room.... bedroom dream meaning
If it is a house created by the dream: one’s body and personality in all its aspects.
Inside the house: within oneself. Outside the house and garden: extroversion or the relationship with environment. Ground floor: practical everyday life; sexuality, hips and legs. Basement : unconscious: see basement, cellar. First, other middle floors: internal needs, rest, sleep, hungers; the trunk. Top floor, attic: thinking, the conscious mind, memory, the head: see attic above in this entry. Front of house: our persona, facade; social self; face. Things in house: aspects of one’s feelings and makeup. Other people in^ house: different facets of dreamer. Windows : one’s outlook! on life; how you see others: see larger entry on window below in this entry. People, things coming from downstairs: influences, fears, impressions from unconscious or passions, or from everyday worries. People, things from upstairs: influence of rational self. Attackers, intruders from outside: social pressures or response to criticisms. Repairs, enlargement, renovation: reassessment or change of attitudes or character; personal growth. Damage, structural faults: faults in character structure; hurts such as broken relationship; bodily illness. House falling down, burning: big changes in attitudes; leaving old standards or dependencies behind; sickness: see last example in falling. Cramped house: feeling of need for personal change; feeling restricted in home environment or in present personal attitudes. Kitchen: creativity; nourishing oneself; mother role; diet: see cooking. Living room, personal leisure; space’ to be oneself, everyday life. Dining room: appetites, social or family contact; mental or psychological diet. Bedroom: pnvacy, sex; intimacy, rest: see bed under furniture. Study, library: mental growth, mind. Larder: hungers, sensual satisfaction. Toilet: privacy, release of tension; letting go of emotions, fantasies or desire which we need to discharge: see toilet. Nursery, child’s bedroom: feelings about your children; one’s own childhood feelings and memories. Floor: basic attitudes and confidence; what supports you, such as health and good will of others. Ceiling: boundary of ideas or awareness. Row of houses: other people.
See room; stairs; wall; attic in this entry. ... house dream meaning
If the lips are appealing to you, then this can represent that you like what the person has to say.
If the lips are unappealing, then you are not in resonance with the person.
See Kiss.... lips dream meaning
A dog in your dream connects to your own capacity to remain constant in love and affection. Remember to consider what the dog in your dream is doing and add that to this idea of unconditional love and you will understand what this dream means.
The presence of a dog means a need to call this quality into your life, and this image being present in the dream indicates that the quality is readily available. Anything that inhibits this, such as a dog being injured, sick, lost, or challenged in any way, is pointing out your own inhibitions around being loving for love’s sake.
A dog in your dream connects to loyalty and love, which can indicate that issues of commitment and intimacy are being triggered by some event or circumstance.
A positive dream experience could be pointing to places in your life that are sparking enthusiasm or requiring you to become more enthusiastic and joyful. Frightening images involving dogs may be inviting you to investigate unconscious fears around love and connection.
A rabid dog represents inner fears of danger that may befall you if you get too close to an intimate situation. An actual dog bite represents the misuse of kindness or consideration. An obedient dog may point to a sense of control in areas of friendship and trust. Different types of dogs can embody a variety of qualities, from the dog that rescues a person in danger to the harrowing attacker. Dogs range in shape, from something tiny enough to put in your pocket to large breeds that resemble small bears.
The size and attributes of the dog in your dream will inform you of the scope of the unconscious notions being expressed.... dog dream meaning
2. A need for release, usually emotional energy.
3. Need or desire to not take sexuality so seriously. ... pornography dream meaning
If our mother is unable to develop a feeling contact with us, we may lack the confidence to meet our emotions.
Our maturation as a man or woman calls us in some way to meet and integrate our childhood desire, which includes sexual desire for our parent of the opposite sex, and rivalry with, mingled with dependence on, the parent of the same sex. Even a missing parent, the mother or father who died or left, is a potent figure internally.
An absence of a father’s or mother’s love or presence can be as traumatic as any powerfully injuring event. Our parents in our dreams are the image (full of power and feeling) of the formative forces and experiences of our identity. They are the ground, the soil, the bloody carnage, out of which our sense of self emerged. But our identity cannot gain any real independence while still dominated by these internal forces of our creation. Heraclitus said we cannot swim in the same river twice; attempting to repeat or compete with the vinues of a parent is a misapprehension of the true nature of our own personality. Sec individuation.
Family group: The whole background of experience which makes up our values and views. This background is made up of thousands of different obvious and subtle things such as social status; amount of books in the home; how parents feel about themselves; how they relate to life outside the family; whether dominant roles are encouraged; what nationality parents are; what unconscious social attitudes surround the family (i.e. the master and servant, or dominating employer and subservient employee, roles which typified England at the turn of the century still colour many attitudes in the UK). Simply put, it is our internal ‘family’ of urges and values; the overall feeling tone of our family life—security, domination, whatever it was, the unconscious coping patterns of the family.
Parents together in dream: our general wisdom, background of information and experience from which we make important decisions or gain intuitive insights. Parents also depict the rules and often irrational disciplinary codes we learnt as a child which still speak to us from within, and perhaps pass on to our own children without reassessment. These include everything from ‘Don’t speak with your mouth full’ to the unspoken Masturbation is unholy/
Dead parent in dream: the beginning of independence from parent; repression of the emotions they engendered in us, our emotions regarding our parent’s death; feelings about death.
See dead people dreams.
Example: ‘My father was giving me and another woman some medicine. Something was being forced on us. I started to hit and punch him in the genitals and, when he was facing the other way, in the backside. I seemed to be just the right height to do this and I had a very angry feeling that I wanted to hurt him as he had hurt me’ (Audrey V). Hurting, burying , killing parent: in the example Audrey’s height shows her as a child. She is releasing anger about the attitudes and situations her father forced down her throat’.
To be free of the introverted restraints and ready made values gathered from our parents, at some time in our growth we may kill or bury them. Although some people arc shocked by such dreams, they are healthy signs of emerging independence. Old myths of killing the chief so the tribe can have a new leader depict this process. When father or mother are dead’ in our dream, we can inherit all the power gained from whatever was positive in the relationship. Seeing parent drunk, incapable, foolish: another means of gaining independence from internalised values or stultifying drives to ‘honour’ or admire father or mother.
father
Generally positive: authority; ability in the external world; family or social conventions, how we relate to the ‘doer’ in us; physical strength and protectiveness; the will to be. Generally negative: introvened aggression; dominance by fear of other people’s authority, uncaring sexual drive; feelings of not being loved.
See father under archetypes; man.
mother
Generally positive: feelings; ability in relationships; uniting spirit of family; how we relate to feelings in a relationship; strength to give of self and nunure; intuition. Generally negative: will based on irrational likes and dislikes; opinion generated by anxiety or jealousy; domination by emotions; lack of bonding.
See Great Mother under archetypes; woman.
siblings and children
Whether brother, sister, daughter or son (see below in this entry), the most general use in our dreams is to depict an aspect of ourself. However it is almost universal to believe with great conviction that our dream is about the person in our dream.
A mother seeing a son die in her dream often goes through great anxiety because there lurks in her a sense of it being a precognitive dream. Vinually everyone at some time dreams about members of their close family dying or being killed—lots of mothers dream this, and their children live till 80. But occasionally children do die. Is the dream then precognitive, or is it coincidental?
Example: ‘I was walking along a rather dusty track carrying my younger son who would be around 10 months old and I was feeling rather tired. Suddenly I met a man who stopped to talk to me and commented I looked rather weary carrying the baby. He said, come with me and look over this wall and you will see such a sight that will gladden your hean. By standing on tiptoe I could just see over the wall and the sight I beheld took my breath away, it was so beautiful’ (Johan E). Here Johan’s son depicts the weight of responsibility she feels.
The beauty is her own resources of strength in motherhood.
Example: ‘I have just given binh to twins and they lay on the floor. We started to care for them. My mother took them to the doctor for his advice while I went to see my married sister who has two children. I met them there with the twins so that my sister could give her opinion on the babies. She had recent experience of childbirth and could tell us if the babies were good specimens’ (Miss E). Miss E has no children of her own, so she is uncertain of her own capacity to have and raise them.
The mother depicts her own mothering abilities, which seek confidence from an authority figure. Her sister is her own nearest experience of childbirth. So out of what she has leamt from observing her sister, she is assessing her own qualities.
Most often the family member depicts the qualities in ourself which we feel are part of the character of the person dreamt of. So the passionate one in the family would depict our passions; the intellectual one our own mind, the anxious one our hesitations. Use the questions in dream processing to define this. Having done this, can you observe what the dream depicts? For Miss E it would be questions regarding motherhood.
Example: ‘My daughter told me the only positive part of my work in a helping profession was with a woman who had turned from it to religion. There followed a long and powerful interchange in which I said she had as yet no mind of her own. She was dominated by her mother’s anxiety, and the medical rationalism of her training. When she had dared to step beyond her own anxieties to integrate the lessons of her own life, then I would listen again’ (Desmond S). Desmond was divorced and struggling with his own pain and guilt about leaving his daughter while still a teenager. His daughter depicts this conflict between his feelings and his rational self.
brother
Oneself, or the denied pan of self, meeting whatever is met in the dream; feelings of kinship; sense of rivalry, feelings about a brother. Woman’s dream, younger brother: outgoing but vulnerable self; rivalry. Woman’s dream, older brother, authority, one’s capable outgoing self. Man’s dream, younger brother: vulnerable feelings; oneself at that age. Man’s dream, older brother: experience; authority, feelings of persecution.
See boy; man. Idioms: big brother, brothers in arms; blood brother.
sister
Feeling self, or the lesser expressed pan of self; rival; feelings about a sister. Man s dream, younger sister: vulnerable emotions; rival for love of parents. Man’s dream, older sister: capable feeling self; feelings of persecution. Woman’s dream , younger sister: one’s experiences at that age; vulnerable feelings, rival for parents’ love. Woman’s dream, older sister: capable feeling self.
See girl; woman. Idioms: sisters under the skin.
daughter
One’s relationship with the daughter, the daughter, or son, can represent what happens in a marnage between husband and wife.
The child is what has arisen from the bonding, however momentary, of two people. In dreams the child therefore is sometimes used to depict how the relationship is faring. So a sick daughter might show the feelings in the relationship being ‘ill’.
In a mother’s dream: often feelings of suppon or companionship; feelings of not being alone in the area of emotional bonds; or one’s feeling area; responsibility; the ties of parenthood; oneself at that age; one’s own urges, difficulties, hurts, which may still be operative. Also a comparison; the mother might see the daughter’s youth, opportunity, and have feelings about that. So the daughter may represent her sense of lost opportunity and youth—even envy, competition in getting the desire of a man.
In a father’s dream: one’s feeling self, the feelings or difficulties about the relationship with daughter; the struggles one’s own feeling self goes through to mature, how the sexual feelings are dealt with in a family—occurs especially when she starts courting; sister, parental responsibility; one’s wife when younger. Someone else’s daughter: feelings about one’s own daughter, feelings about younger women.
Example: 1 am standing outside a supermarket with heavy bags wearing my mac, though the sun is warm. My daughter and two friends are playing music and everyone stops to listen. I start to wnte a song for them, but they pack up and go on a bus whilst I am still writing. I am left alone at the bus stop with my heavy burden of shopping, feeling incredibly unwanted’ (Mrs F). Such dreams of the daughter becoming independent can occur as soon as the child starts school, persisting until the mother finds a new attitude.
See child; woman.
son
Extroverted self; desires connected with self expression; feelings connected with son; parental responsibility. Mother’s dream: one’s ambitions; potential, hopes; your marriage—see example.
Example: ‘My wife and I were walking out in the countryside. I looked around suddenly and saw my four-year-old son near a hole. He fell in and I raced back.
The hole was narrow but very deep. I could see water at the bottom but no sign of my son. I didn’t know whether I could leap down and save him or whether it was too narrow. Then somehow he was out. His heart was just beating’ (Richard H). Richard had argued with his wife in such a way he feared the stability of their marriage.
The son represents what they had created together —a child, a marriage.
The marriage survived, as his dream self-assessed it would. Death of son: a mother often kills off her son in her dreams as she sees him make moves towards independence. This can happen from the first day of school on. Example: T am on a very high bridge over an extremely wide and deep river with steep banks. My son does a double somersault over the railing, falls into the water. I think he is showing off. I am unable to save him. My son is 18 and has staned a structural engineering course at university’ (Joyce H).
The showing-off suggests Joyce feels her son is doing daring things with his life, and the relationship in its old form dies.
Father’s dream: yourself at that age; what qualities you see in your son; your own possibilities, envy of youth and opportunities; nvalry. Someone else’s son: feelings about one’s own son; feelings about younger men. Dead son: see dead people dreams. Sec boy.
See also man; first example in falling.
wife
Depicts how you see the relationship with your wife; your relationship with your sexuality; sexual and emotional desire and pleasure; how you relate to intimacy in body, mind and spirit; your feeling, intuitive nature; habits of relationship developed with one’s mother. Example: ‘My wife was trying to get me out of her life, and out of the house. It was as if she were attempting to push me into a feeling of tension and rejection which would make me leave’ (David P). Out of childhood experience, in which his mother repeatedly threatened to give him away, David was finding it difficult to commit himself emotionally to his wife. In the dream his wife represents these feelings, so he sees her—his anxiety and pain —pushing him to break up the marriage.
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 4 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 is the boundanes which arose from his childhood. But he is growing—the garden— and looking beyond them in connection with his marnage.
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 pan of his unconscious or spiritual nature.
The bird is a hooded owl which can see in the dark—the unconscious—because David is realising things he had never seen’ before.
The bird is masked, meaning putting the 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 learnt 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 selfgiving, which his wife’s love had helped him see.
Example: ‘1 have been a widower since January 1979, having married in October 1941. I continually dream I am in London where my business was. I am walking the streets with my wife and suddenly I see her ahead of me in a yellow raincoat and hat. I call her and try to catch up, but suddenly she vanishes. In spite of calling and searching I cannot find her’ (Douglas G). This is a common theme dreamt by widowers or widows, disappearance of spouse. Douglas has ‘lost’ his wife. His dream shows the paradox of love after death of panner. His love is still there, years after her death. He is possibly still trying to love his wife as an externally real person. so his feelings can make no connection.
To meet what actually remains of his wife, within himself, he would need to face his own internal grieving, emotions, and all the feelings, memories, angers and beauty which make up the living remains of his wife within him. ... family dream meaning
See Condom.... glove dream meaning
The man was subservient to the woman who holds the keys and keeps control’ (Carol J). There are five aspects to holding.
To control, as in controlling or holding one’s breath’; to be able to manipulate, kill or do something with what is held; this includes holding on to something for support or protection.
Ownership—this is mine, to share or not.
In touch with, knowing; having a grasp’ of.
Responsibility, left ‘holding the baby’; one’s situation.
Intimacy, taking to oneself, taking hold of oneself, as in masturbation; as in the following example: ‘I was in a large removal van with a woman sac on my lap. I held her breasts with pleasure1 (Tony C).
Idioms: Get hold of; have a hold over someone; hold back; hold in. ... holding dream meaning
See castle under house, buildings. ... moat dream meaning
Example: ‘My recurring dream—some disaster is happening. I try to contact the police or my husband. Can never contact either. I try ringing 999 again and again and can feel terror, and sometimes dreadful anger or complete panic. I cry, I scream and shout and never get through! Recently I have stopped trying to contact my husband. I managed once to reach him but he said he was too busy and I would have to deal with it myself. I woke in a furious temper with him and kicked him while he was still asleep’ (Mrs GS).
The husband here depicts Mrs S’s feelings of not being able to get through’ to her man. This is a common female dream theme, possibly arising from the husband not daring to express emotion or meet his panner with his own feelings.
For Mrs S this is an emergency. Although the dream dramatises it, there is still real frustration, anger, and a break in marital communications.
Example: There were three of us. My husband, a male friend and 1, all nding small white enamel bikes. My husband proceeded slowly, first, with his back to us. Then my friend followed. Suddenly my friend ahead of me turned and gazed fully at me. He gave a glonous smile which lit up the whole of his face. I felt a great sense of well-being surge through me’ (Joan B).
The triangle: the example shows typical flow of feeling towards another male.
The other male here depicts
Joan’s desire to be attractive to other men. This is a danger signal unless one fully acknowledges ihe impulse.
Example: ‘I was with my husband and our three children. About 2 or 3 yards to our right stood my husband’s first wife —she died about a year before I first met him. I remember feeling she no longer minded me being with him, so I put my arms around him from the back, and felt more secure and comfortable with him’ (Mrs NS).
The first wife: the dreamer is now feeling easier about her husband’s first relationship.
The first wife represents her sense of competing for her husband’s affections, even though his ‘first woman’ was dead.
Example: ‘My dead husband came into my bedroom and got into bed with me to make love to me. I was not afraid. But owing to his sexual appetites during my married life with him I was horrified, and resisted him with all my might. On waking I felt weak and exhausted.
The last time he came to me I responded to him and he never came back again. This happened three times.
The last time I don’t think it was a dream. I was not asleep. I think it was his ghost’ (GL). Dead husband: in any experience of an apparently psychic nature, we must always remember the unconscious is a great dramatist. It can create the drama of a dream in moments. In doing so it makes our inner feelings into apparently real people and objects outside us. While asleep we lightly dismiss this amazing process as a dream’. When it happens while our eyes are open or we are near waking, for some reason we call it a ghost or psychic event. Yet the dream process is obviously capable of creating total body sensations, emotions, full visual impressions, vocalisation—what else is a dream? On the other hand, the dream process is not dealing in pointless imaginations. Many women tend to believe they have little sexual drive, so it is easier for GL to see her drive in the form of her husband. But of course, her husband may also depict how she felt about sex in connection with his ‘sexual appetites’.
It is a general rule, however, that our dream process will dramatise into a past life, or a psychic’ experience, emotions linked with trauma or sexual drive which we find difficult to meet in the present.
Example: ‘I dreamt many times I lost my husband, such as not being able to find the car park where he was waiting, and seeing him go off in the distance. I wake in a panic to find him next to me in bed. These dreams persisted, and then he died quite suddenly. He was perfectly healthy at the time of the dreams and I wonder if it was a premonition of me really losing him’ (Mrs AD). Cannot find husband: many middle aged women dream of ‘losing’ their husband while out with him, perhaps shopping, or walking in a town somewhere. Sometimes the dream ponrays him actually killed. Mrs AD wonders if her dream was a premonition.
It is more likely a form of practising the loss, so it does not come as such a shock.
The greatest shocks occur when we have never even considered the event—such as a young child losing its mother, an event it has never practised, not even in fantasy, so has no inbuilt shock absorbers. As most of us know, men tend to die before women, and this information is in the mind of middle-aged married women. Mrs AD may have unconsciously observed slight changes in her husband’s body and behaviour, and therefore readied herself.
Other woman’s husband: one’s own husband, feelings about that man, desire for a non-committed relationship with less responsibility. ... husband dream meaning
A love seat is a comfortable seat for intimate sharing and conversation. It may also express a desire for intimacy or compensate for loneliness.... love seat dream meaning
It is a socially acceptable behavior that is designed to escalate toward intimacy and sex. Even dancing alone is a sensual experience that celebrates the ability to move in space. This results in a sensual experience of one’s body, signaling a readiness for sexual expression. In group dancing, such as ballet or modern dance troupes, the symbolic conversation expands to the idea of poetry in motion.... dancing dream meaning
This dream predicts that the sleeper will marry a beautiful woman or a good looking man.... garden dream meaning
The challenge with prostitution lies in the judgments we place on selling something as intensely personal as one’s body and the act of performing sex for money. This makes prostitution something intensely impersonal.
If you dream of being a prostitute, you may be experiencing something in your waking life that is pointing toward a sense of selling out or taking the easier, softer way through some challenge.
If you are hiring a prostitute, you may want to look at that part of you that is willing to sell yourself short.
If there is prostitution around you in the dream, notice your sense of connection to the concept.
If you are in judgment or fear, consider the idea that there is a lack of integrity in the way that you are handling some person or situation.
A more open attitude toward prostitution might point to a need for a more careful appraisal of your self- judgment, whether it be too severe or whether you might benefit from utilizing more discretion with your choices. No matter what your belief system, on some level prostitution leaves a legacy of shame, which is really the essence of this symbol in the dream. Is the price you are paying for your freedom worth it?... prostitute dream meaning
This element of being prepared for exposure also relates to the shame associated with our most private experiences of being human.... underwear dream meaning
2. Good fortune and happiness. ... flirtation dream meaning
2. A need for the attributes of whatever gets caught by the hook being used.
3. Feelings that a preoccupation with something or someone is not a good or helpful idea (as in “get hooked”).
4. Possible issues regarding intimacy or intimate relationships, trust. ... hook dream meaning
2. Sense that sadness and difficulties will soon end.
3. Intimacy, openness, communication. ... lavender dream meaning
2. A desire to be noticed, admired.
3. A desire or need for intimacy. ... negligee dream meaning
2. A withdrawal for the purpose of healing—sometimes from difficult relationships, usually from intense emotional situations. ... recluse dream meaning
2. Shyness, afraid of intimacy (to watch). ... voyeurism dream meaning
If one puts something in a closet in a dream, it means that he will find it there when he needs it.... closet dream meaning
If we are hurt or threatened we tense the pelvic and abdominal area. Vanessa wakes to just such tension, with a sense of her body being fragmented.
The opposite is to dream of waves of pleasure moving within us, which gives us a sense of integration within ourself and with the world.
In general the abdomen represents the potential of our fully active natural drives—hunger, longing to be held; desire to give of ourself.
If these are hurt, we tend to hold ourself back from active social expression or intimacy of feelings in relationships. Our abdomen is also our digestive ability, both physical and psychological. Stomach or abdominal dreams may refer to some dis-ease in the actual organs. We might not be able to stomach something we have met in the everyday world.
To vomit: a discharging of unpleasant feelings resulting from ingesting (hearing, reading, being told, experiencing) something unpleasant.
In her dream Vanessa was re-enacting the Hungerford disaster, and feeling the fear it engendered. Shot in the belly, sex; painful response to relationship. Idioms: bellyaching; have a bellyful; eyes bigger than one’s belly, have a strong stomach; turn one’s stomach; butterflies in stomach. ... abdomen dream meaning
The threshold is a great tester of confidence and daring. It also confronts us with the vastness of life processes, space, eternity, which we stand on the brink of. How we deal with changing from one environment—school, work—to another such as parenthood or retirement.
The beach might be the place where aspects of the unconscious meet us, out of the sea.
See sea. ... beach dream meaning
The contact is pleasant and undemanding, but I feel more and more ill at ease. I feel Jane is not having any respect for my relationship with my wife and stan to tell her so’ (Mr BS). In the example the bed is the environment in which the action takes place.
The bed is an opportunity to explore the dreamer’s decisions about sex.
Bed is one of the commonest symbols in dreams. It represents, depending on the dream context, marriage; sex, rest, giving up and taking to one’s bed, passivity; sensual rather than sexual contact; sickness, intimacy, privacy. Sometimes it represents sleep and meeting or unconscious—or torture, because in bed we may be tortured by insomnia, worries, physical pain. Also our lives—you’ve made your bed, now lie on it. Bed is an important symbol to understand. It so often shows exactly what we are doing in our subtle areas of relationship. In the example, the man is wrestling with his desire for pleasure and his sense of commitment; but also, whether he will keep his pleasure for himself, or share it with his wife.
See example in contraceptive. Idioms: bed of nails; bed of roses; go to bed with; make one’s bed and lie on it. ... bed, mattress dream meaning
In general they indicate the stance or attitudes we use to meet other people or special situations such as work or danger, protection, such as might be given by our feelings of reserve, shyness, anxiety or aggressiveness in fending off sexual or other advances, clothes depict self respect and how we see ourselves in society—the difference between what we want and what we feel others want of us; our clothes, especially when we consider their colour, can also express our emotional condition and moods. Constance Newland gives the example of dressing in violet symbolising being inviolate sexually. Overdressed , unable to get clothes off: too cautious in relationships, difficulty in changing attitudes or self image; self protectiveness; avoiding intimacy.
Naked or see-through clothes: example: ‘I am at the doctor’s being examined.
It is always the same. I have all my clothes off and he examines me from the roots of my hair down to my toenails. I am just at the point where I am going to ask him for his diagnosis when he fades away’ (Miss L). Desire to be attractive and noticed, as in the example, where Miss L is enjoying an acceptable form of intimacy; being open about what you really feel; fear of other people seeing what you really feel, think and desire; anxiety about not being adequate socially, lacking ability to conform to social norm.
See nude. Ragged or inappropriate clothes: feelings of inadequacy depressed feelings; rebellion against authority or society. Armour, protective clothing : defences against internal anxieties, past hurts and external intimacy. Other people’s clothes: the social attitudes and responses we have adopted from others. Children’s, teenage clothes in adult’s dream: youthful or immature attitudes or behaviour. Undressing: revealing one’s real character; move towards intimacy. Dirty, untidy clothes: difficult or grubby feelings; one’s inner condition, such as an untidy mind, or grubby feeling values. Worn out or old clothes: attitudes ready to be left behind; old habits no longer useful; feeling worn out, old or tired. Tight clothes: being too restricted in attitude; being tight emotionally. New clothes: change in attitudes; new feeling about self. Someone else’s clothes: could be feelings from that person; their attitudes, memories. Man in woman’s clothes: unacceptability of male role, with its connection with breadwinning, aggression, being cannon fodder in war, homosexual tendency; desire for mother. Woman in male clothes: unacceptability of female role, motherhood, housewife; lesbian tendency; desire for father figure. Clothing inappropnate to dream surroundings: attitudes or behaviour inappropriate to one’s situation. Changing clothes: altering one’s mode of behaviour, role or mood. Idioms: dress to kill; dress up. ... clothes dream meaning
The doctor might give us advice, for instance; anxiety about health; desire for intimacy or to be looked at. Idioms: doctor something, have an animal doctored; doctor the accounts. ... doctor dream meaning
If one succeeds in touching the feelings and memories usually connected with a dream image, this becomes apparent because of the depth of insight and experience which arises. Although ideally the Freudian analyst helps the client discover their own experience of their dream, it can occur that the analyst puts to the client readymade views of the dream. Out of this has occurred the idea of someone else ‘analysing or telling us about our dream.
Carl Jung used a different approach. He applied amplification (see entry), helped the client explore their associations, used active imagination (see entry) and stuck to the structure of the dream. Because amplification also put to the client the information and experience of the therapist, again the dreamwork can be largely verbal and intellectual, rather than experiential.
In the approach of Fritz Perls (gestalt therapy) and Moreno (psychodrama), dream analysis is almost entirely experiential.
The person exploring the dream acts out or verbalises each role or aspect of the dream.
If one dreamt of a house, in gestalt one might stan by saying I am a house’ and then go on to describe oneself just as one is as the particular house in the dream.
It is important, even if the house were one existing externally, not to attempt a description of the external house, but to stay with the house as it was in the dream. This is like amplification, except the client gives all the information. This can be a very dramatic and emotional experience because we begin consciously to touch the immense realms of experience usually hidden behind the image. When successful this leads to personal insights into behaviour and creativity.
See dream processing; amplification; gestalt dream work.
dream as a meeting place Any two people, or group of people who share their dreams, particularly if they explore the associated feelings and thoughts connected with the dream images, achieve social intimacy quickly. Whether it is a family sharing their dreams, or two fnends, an environment can be created in which the most profound feelings, painful and wonderful, can be allowed. Such exposure of the usually private areas of one s feelings and fears often presents new information to the dreamer, and also allows ventilation of what may never have been consciously expressed before. In doing so a healing release is reached, but also greater self understanding and the opportunity to think over or reconsider what is discovered.
Herbert Reed, editor of the dream magazine Sundance, and resident in Virginia Beach, Va., initiated group dreaming experiments. It started because Reed noticed that in the dream groups he was running, when one of the group aired a problem, other members would subsequently dream about that person’s problem. He went on to suggest the group should attempt this purposely and the resulting dreams shared to see if they helped the person with the problem.
The reported dreams often formed a more detailed view of the person’s situation. In one instance the group experienced many dream images of water. It aided the woman who was seeking help to admit she had a phobia of water and to begin thinking about learning to swim. In another experiment, a woman presented the problem of indecision about what college to transfer to and what to study. Her group subsequently said they were confused because they had not dreamt about school. Several had dreams about illicit sex. though, which led the woman to admit she was having an affair with a married man. She went on to realise that it was the affair which was underlying her indecision. She chose to end the affair and further her career.
Whatever may be underlying the results of Reed’s expen- ments, it is noticeably helpful to use the basic principles he is working with. They can be used by two people equally as well as a group—by a parent and child, wife and husband, businessman and employee. One sets out to dream about each other through mutual agreement. Like any undertaking, the involvement, and therefore the results, are much more pronounced if there is an issue of reasonable importance behind the experiment. It helps if one imagines that during sleep you are going to meet each other to consider what is happening between you. Then sleep, and on waking take time to recall any dream. Note it down, even if it seems far removed from what you expected. Then explore its content using the techniques in dream processing.
Example: My wife and I decided to attempt to meet in our dreams. I dreamt I was in a room similar to the back bedroom of my previous marnage. My present wife was with me. She asked me to help her move the wardrobe. It reminded me of, but did not look like, the one which had been in that bedroom. I stood with my back to it, and reached my hands up to press on the top, inside. In this way I carried it to another wall. As I put it down the wood broke. I felt it ought to be thrown away’ (Thomas B). Thomas explored the dream and found he connected feelings about his first marriage with the wardrobe and bedroom. In fact the shabby wardrobe was Tom’s feelings of shabbiness at having divorced his first wife. In his first marriage, represented by the bedroom, he always felt he was married for life. In divorcing, he had done something he didn’t like and was carrying it about with him. He says ‘1 am carrying this feeling of shabbiness and second best into my present relationship, and I need to get rid of it.’
dream as a spiritual guide Dreams have always been connected with the spiritual side of human experience, even though today many spiritual leaders disagree with consideration of dreams. Because dreams put the dreamer in touch with the source of their own internal wisdom and certainty, some conflict has existed between authoritative priesthood and public dreaming.
A lay person finding their own approach to God in a dream might question the authority of the priests. No doubt people frequently made up dreams about God in order to be listened to. Nevertheless, despite opposition, Matthew still dreamt of an angel appearing to him, Joseph was still warned by God to move Jesus; Peter still dreamt his dream of the unclean animals.
The modern scientific approach has placed large question marks against the concept of the human spirit. Study of the brain’s functions and biochemical activities have led to a sense of human personality being wholly a series of biological and biochemical events.
The results of this in the relationship between doctor and patient, psychiatrist and client, sometimes results in the communication of human personality being of little consequence. It may not be put into words, but the intimation is that if one is depressed it is a biochemical problem or a brain malfunction.
If one is withdrawn or autistic, it is not that there is a vital centre of personality which has for some reason chosen to avoid contact, but that a biochemical or physiological problem is the cause—it’s nothing personal, take this pill (to change the biochemistry, because you are not really a person). Of course we have to accept that human personality must sometimes face the tragedy of biochemical malfunction, but we also need to accept that biochemical and physiological process can be changed by human will and courage.
In attempting to find what the human spirit is by looking at dreams, creativity stands out.
The spiritual nature may not be what we have traditionally considered it to be.
An overview of dreams and how dreamers relate to them suggests one amazing fact. Let us call it the ‘seashell effect’. When we hear sounds in a shell that we hold to our ear, the noises heard seem exterior to oneself, yet they are most likely amplification of sounds created in our own ear, perhaps by the passage of blood. Imagine an electronic arcade machine which the player could sit in and, when running, the player could be engulfed in images, sounds, smell and sensation. At first there is shimmering darkness, then a sound, and lights move. Is it a face seen, or a creature. Like Rorschach’s ink blots, the person creates figures and scenes out of the shapeless light and sound.
A devil appears which terrifies the player. People, demons, animals, God and angels appear and fade. Scenes are clearcut or a maelstrom of movement and ill-defined activity. Events arise showing every and any aspect of human experience. Nothing is impossible.
If, on stepping out, we told the player that what occurred was all their own creation due to unconscious feelings, fears, habits, thoughts and physiological processes occurring within them, like the seashell effect, they might say ‘Good God, is that all it was, and I thought it was real. What a waste of time.’
Whether we can accept it or not, as a species we have created out of our own longings, fears, pain and perhaps vision, God, with many different names—politics, money, devils, nationalism, angels, an, and so on and on. All of it has flowed out of us. Perhaps we even deny we are the authors of the Bible, wars, social environments. Responsibility is difficult.
It is easier to believe the source is outside oneself. And if we do take responsibility for our amazing creativity, we may feel ‘is that all it is—me?’ Yet out of such things, such fears, such drives, such unconscious patterns as we shape our dreams with, we shape our life and fonune, we shape our children, we shape the world and our future.
The shadow of fear we create in our dream, the situation of aloneness and anger, becomes a pattern of feelings, real in its world of mind. We create a monster, a Djinn, a devil, which then haunts and influences us. Or with feelings of hope, of purposiveness and love, create other forces in us and the world. But we are the creator. We are in no way separate from the forces which create our existence. We are those creative forces. In the deepest sense, not just as an ego, we create ourselves, and we go on creating ourselves. We are the God humanity has looked so long for.
The second aspect of the human spirit demonstrated by dreams is consciousness.
The unconscious mind, if its function is not clogged with a backlog of undealt with painful childhood experience and nonfunctional premises, has a propensity to form gestalts. It takes pieces of experience and fits them together to form a whole. This is illustrated by how we form gestalts when viewing newsprint photographs, which are made up of many small dots. Our mind fits them together and sees them as a whole, giving meaning where there are only dots. When the human mind is working well, when the individual can face a wide range of emotions, from fear and pain to ecstasy, this process of forming gestalts can operate very creatively. This is because it needs conscious involvement, and if the personality is frightened of deep feeling, the uniting of deeply infantile and often disturbing cxpcrience is cut out. Yet these areas are very rich mines of information, containing our most fundamental learning.
If the process is working well, then one’s expenence is gradually transformed into insights which transcend and thereby transform one s personal life.
For instance, we have witnessed our own binh in some manner, we also see many others appeanng as babies. We see people ageing, dying. We see millions of events in our life and in others.
The unconscious, deeply versed in imagery, ritual and body language, out of which it creates its dreams, picks up information from music, architecture, traditional rituals, people walking in the street, the unspoken world of parental influence.
The sources are massive, unbelievable. And out of it all our mind creates meaning. Like a process of placing face over face over face until a composite face is formed, a synthesis of all the faces; so the unconscious scans all this information and creates a world view, a concept of life and death.
The archetypes Jung talks of are perhaps the resulting synthesis of our own expenence, reaching points others have met also.
If so, then Chnst might be our impression of humanity as a whole.
If we dare to touch such a synthesis of experience it may be seanng, breathtaking.
It breaks the boundaries of our present personality and concepts because it transcends. It shatters us to let the new vision emerge. It reaches, it soars, like an eagle flying above the single events of life. Perhaps because of this the great hawk of ancient Egypt represented the human spirit.
Lastly, humans have always been faced by the impossible.
To a baby, walking and not wetting its pants is impossible, but with many a fall and accident it does the impossible.
It is a god in its achievement.
To talk, to fly heavier-than-air planes, to walk on the Moon, were all impossible. Humans challenge the impossible every day. Over and over they fall, back into defeat. Many lie there broken. Yet with the next moment along come youngsters with no more sense than grasshoppers, and because they don’t know what the difference is between right and left, do the impossible. Out of the infinite potential, the great unknown, they draw something new. With hope, with folly, with a wisdom they gain from who knows where, they demand more. And it’s a common everyday son of miracle. Mothers do it constantly for their children—transcending themselves. Lovers go through hell and heaven for each other and flower beyond who they were. You and I grow old on it as our daily bread, yet fail to see how holy it is. And if we turn away from it, it is because it offers no certainties, gives no authority, claims no reward.
It is the spiritual life of people on the street. And our dreams remember, even if we fail.
For this is the body and blood of the human spirit.
dream as a therapist and healer There is a long tradition of using dreams as a base for both physical and psychological healing. One of the earliest recorded incidents of such healing is when Pharaoh’s ‘spirit was troubled, and he sent for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men; and Pharaoh told them his dream, but there was none who could interpret it’. Then Joseph revealed the meaning of the dream and so the healing of Pharaoh’s troubled mind took place (Genesis 41).
The Greek Temples of Asclepius were devoted to using dreams as a base for healing of body and mind (see dreams and ancient Greece).
The Iroquois Amerindians used a social form of dream therapy also (see Iroquoian dream cult).
The dream process was used much more widely throughout history in such practices as Pentecostal Christianity, shaktipat yoga in India, and Anton Mesmer’s groups (see sleep movements).
Sigmund Freud pioneered the modern approach to the use of dreams in therapy, but many different approaches have developed since his work. Examples of the therapeutic action of gaining insight into dreams are to be found in the entnes on abreaction, recurring dreams, reptiles.
The entry on dream processing gives information about using a dream to gain insight and healing.
See also dream as meeting place.
A feature which people who use their dreams as a therapeutic tool mention again and again is how dreams empower them. Many of us have an unconscious feeling that any important healing work regarding our body and mind can only be undertaken and directed by an expert, the expert might be a doctor, a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, or osteopath. Witnessing the result of their own dream process, even if helped by an expert, people feel in touch with a wonderful internal process which is working actively for their own good. One woman, who had worked on her dream with the help of a fnend (non expert), said It gave me great confidence in my own internal process. I realised there was something powerful in myself working for my own good. It was a feeling of cooperating with life.’ One is frequently amazed by one’s own resources of wisdom, penetrating insight and sense of connection with life, as met in dreamwork. This is how dreams play a pan in helping one towards wholeness and balance.
The growing awareness of one’s central view of things, which is so wide, piercing and often humorous, brings developing self respect as the saga of one’s dreams unfolds.
There may be no hint of this, however, if a person simply records their dreams without attempting to find a deeply felt contact with their contents.
It is in the searching for associated feelings and ideas that the work of integrating the many strands of one’s life begins. Gradually one weaves, through a co-operative action with the dream process, a greater unification of the dark and the light, the painful and transcendent in one’s nature.
The result is an extraordinary process of education. ... dream analysis dream meaning
Hallway: the way one meets other people or allows them into one’s life or intimacy, the receptive female reproductive function, connecting link with aspects of oneself. Example: ‘I find myself in the entrance hall of a very large house.
The hall is very large with curved staircases at either side meeting at the top to form a balcony. There is nobody about and I am frightened. I stan to walk up the stairs but then find myself hiding in the roof with very little space above my body’ (Mrs B).
The hall is probably Mrs B’s childbearing ability and her image of herself as a woman.
The words ‘little space above my body’ suggest her main area of life has always been her childbearing function or physical attractiveness as a woman, and she had not developed her mental self.
See also corridor; white under colour. ... hall dream meaning
Face: self image; concerns about how others see you; expression of or hiding of inner feelings and attitudes. Idioms: above one’s head; over one’s head; enter one’s head; get something into one’s head, go off one’s head, swollen or big head; head above water, head in sand, face the facts; face the music; face value; flat on one’s face; facelift; long face, poker face; blue in the face.
Ears: subtle information, rumours. Idioms: an ear for, all ears; reach one’s ears; flea in the ear, gain the ear of; ears burning; long ears; lend an ear, hear from; will not hear of, hearing things.
Eyes: how we see the world and ourself. Although eyes are not mentioned much in the collection of dreams used for data in this book, saw, see. seeing, look and looking, constitute the highest number of mentions. In a computer word count of 1,000 dreams, these words were mentioned 1,077 times. Feel, feeling, felt, came second, with 855 hits. So dreams are predominantly a looking at and seeing activity, in the sense of insight and awareness.
Eyes are used in many ways in dreams. As these quotes show, eyes can represent the soul or psyche in its many moods-—dark deep eyes; desperation in its eyes; shining eyes; impersonal eyes; staring eyes; eye to eye. Example: 4I saw a young soldier with a gun, but as our eyes met we were attracted to each other, and he put his arm round me’ (Pauline B). As the example shows, eyes can represent the state of a relationship. Lack of eye contact: avoidance of intimacy. Closed eyes: introversion or avoidance of contact; not wanting to see. Example: I was dimly aware of a biggish black bird that came down close beside us on the step and pecked at the baby’s eye, then it flew olf.
The eye was gone completely’ (Heather C). Heather’s dream shows the eye depicting the T or identity. In fact her sense of self was damaged in infancy.
In many dreams the eyes represent our understanding, or how we ‘see’ the world, our view of things or other people; also intelligence; our attention; our boundaries of awareness. Blindness: not being aware, not wanting to see something— usually about oneself. Loss of sight in right eye : not seeing what is going on in the outside world. Loss of sight in left eye: not seeing what you are really thinking or feeling; not aware of self, motives, behaviour, no ‘in-sight’. Idioms: I see; can’t you see; you must be blind; I saw it with my own eyes; all eyes, eye opener, evil eye; sheep eyes; one in the eye; turn a blind eye.
Mouth: pleasure area; our hungers, sexual pleasure. Also, because we speak with our mouth and tongue, they can represent what we say; a dream of our mouth being buttoned— button your lip—or sewed up could suggest that inwardly we regret having said cenain things and need to hold our tongue. Chewing: considering; mulling over something. Idioms: all mouth; a big mouth, nasty taste in the mouth; mouthwatering.
Nose: curiosity; intuition, as with ‘smell a rat’; penis. Idioms: have a nose for, nose out of joint; rub nose in it; up one’s nose.
Teeth: the ageing process as it relates to maturity. This is because we lose our first teeth as we leave childhood behind, and lose our adult teeth as we leave youthfulness behind. Also aggression; ability to ‘chew things over’. Bad tooth: a painful or rotten part of one’s feelings, life or relationships, angry or regretful words. Teeth falling out: example: ‘1 felt a tooth was loose and staned pushing it with my tongue. Then I took hold of it between thumb and forefinger and pulled it out. I felt okay about this, but then another tooth was loose, and another, and I pulled them out. Running to the bathroom I looked into the mirror, horrified and frightened. All my teeth were coming out. Not knowing how to deal with this I ran to my mother, showing her my mouth, empty now except for two teeth. My mother appeared not to see my lack of teeth, or notice my fear’ (Eve). Eve was 18 at the time of the dream. She explored it and found a fear of ageing and death. Also apprehension about maturing and facing independence and responsibility, loss of attractiveness. 1m Tofeeq, a Palestinian woman, told me that among the Arabs it is believed that if you dream of losing teeth it means your brother or son is in trouble. She had a dream in which three of her teeth fell out.
The next day she received a call from America to say her son had been shot in the head three times by a gunman.
A woman swallowing teeth: the throat and Eustachian tubes are like the uterus and Fallopian tubes, so can depict conception or fear of it. False teeth: lies told; false face; not keeping spoken promises. Idioms: show one’s teeth, get one’s teeth into; gnash one’s teeth; grit one’s teeth; teething troubles.
Tongue: speech, expression of what we feel; saying what is deep inside us, perhaps unknown to ourself; penis. Idioms: find one’s tongue; tongue in cheek; lose one’s tongue; sharp tongue; hold one’s tongue; forked tongue. ... head dream meaning
2- Any place connected with food is to do with our need for emotional sustenance. There is feedback to be received from eating in a public place. Our social needs our met. We mav be conscious of the need for a ‘relationship’ with the place we arc eating at, as much as with the person with whom we are eating.
3- Spiritually a restaurant symbolises our need to belong to a group of people who all have the same habits and perhaps a diversity of beliefs.... restaurant dream meaning
The condition of the building can reveal the condition of your health, a relationship, or a situation.
What does the building hold? If it is just an empty shell, consider if you’re living superficially, without gaining any real spiritual substance.
Of what is the building constructed? Just like the story of “The Three Little Pigs,” you want your hopes to be based on good foundational material if they’re ever going to materialize in reality.
Are the doors and windows of this building open and accessible? If so, this shows a very open-minded person who may be too exposed. Similarly, a building that appears locked up tight indicates narrow views and large obstacles to intimacy.
What type of building is it? Certain structures carry fairly direct meanings.
For example, hotels, motels, and mobile homes represent temporary conditions, change, movement, and transition, sometimes literally in our living space.... buildings dream meaning
Tilings that you fear about yourself, a situation, or others, and have been unwilling to face directly.
Some type of obscured threat (e.g., the “wolf in sheep’s clothing”). In Freudian analysis, this threat is construed as sexual intimacy.
The loss of innocence and naive outlooks.
In fables, the emblem of evil craftiness that threatens to devour all goodness.
AJchemically, a symbol of duality; the light and dark aspects of all things.
Howling at the moon: Discovering and announcing a secret alliance or treacherous plan. Alternatively, acknowledging the lunar / feminine aspect of self.... wolf dream meaning
The left eye represents the moon and the right eye the sun. This could also be symbolic of the self, as in ‘I.’ If you can see the inside of your head, then you should pay more attention to your internal perspective. You may need to look to yourself for the answers.
To dream that you have something in your eye indicates the roadblocks in your way. It can also be indicative of the way in which you look for the negative aspect of others.
To dream that you have one eye suggests that you are reluctant to accept other opinions.
To dream that you have a third eye represents being introspective and clairvoyant, which you need to do more of.
To dream that your eyes are closed indicates you will not accept the reality about another person or may simply wish to steer clear of intimacy. You could have been caused pain and anxiety.
To dream that your eyes are crossed suggests that you are unable to view something clearly. You may not have all the data you need to understand a situation.... eyes dream meaning
If you dream of unbuttoning your clothes, then you are opening yourself to intimacy and are removing your armor.
If you dream of buttoning up your clothes, then you are hiding or defending yourself.... button dream meaning
The cactus can also represent good karma and your ability to survive extreme circumstances.
See Boundary and Desert.... cactus dream meaning
An outdoor café represents intimacy, romance and stimulation.
See Starbucks and Restaurant.... café dream meaning
If you normally have a hard time setting limits or boundaries, then this extreme archetype might be helpful for you to call upon. However, if you are normally cold and able to chop people out of your life without caring, then this dream is suggesting that sensitivity and empathy is necessary for you to achieve intimacy in relationships.... butcher dream meaning
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