Chakeeta's
DREAMS SYMBOLS
F
FAILURE.
= The dream may indicate whether the goal is actually unattainable,
and therefore the aim in life to which it refers should be abandoned altogether,
or if it is being approached in the wrong way, but could eventually be successful
if it were tackled differently.
FALLING
= Insecurity, which is inevidably accompanied by anxiety, and may be a genuine insight
into the failure and misfortune looming ahead. "Being dropped, even into bed,
is terror itself-the first definite form of insecurity, even of death. All our lives
we speak of misfortune as a 'fall'; we fall into the enemy's hands, fall from grace,
fall upon hard times" (Langer).
If the dream refers to falling into temptation, the dislike of falling will signify disapproval, the other side of the inner conflict.
The dream may relate to the fall "from the uterine heaven to the terrestrial abyss",
and so refer to the Fall of Man.
In a woman's dream: = Yielding, therefore sexual intercourse; "the essential feature of
female sexuality-the falling and sinking".
The landing: = Coitus, the earth being a symbol of womanhood. The soft or hard landing being the relative damage the dreamer is doing to himself: for example, if the landing
is softer than he expected, he may be hoping that in spite of his anxieties about this
particular relationship, it may in fact not work out so badly.
Other people falling:
= Unconscious death wishes. Or a man may dream of a 'fallen' woman, and therefore available without too much responsibility attached.
Climbing and falling: = Exaggerated ambition is often put up like a barrier against childhood fears,
but at times the old fear breaks through again.
***Falling asleep, loss of consciousness, loss of ego.
Sleep and death are always associated.
***The firm v. the yielding; the active v. the passive;
awareness and the life v. sleep and death.
The Abyss. = The abyss of inner loneliness and despair, or of death. The underlying void,
the nothingness from which all was made and therefore the source of all life.
Or the open, the receptive, the femine principle.
Being forced into the abyss: = The need to go down into the unconscious and abandon a too-exalted conscious position; to stoop low and plumb the mysterious depths of life. Concentrating
only on the spiritual or the intellectual, to the exclusion of so much else,
can also be a limitation.
FAMILY
= The childhood relationships with the family influence the basic pattern from
which all future relationships develop. Because of the intense involvement
with the family, it's various members may be represented by images and and symbols,
but rarely the other way round. If a member appears in a dream, he almost certainly
represents himself, or the corresponding archetype he has helped to form (that is,
the image of fatherhhod, motherhood, etc.) within the dreamer.
The loves, the rivalries, and the struggles for individuality and independence
which take place first within the family, and later in the wider context of life,
feature in many dreams, which are often distorted to make the dreamer's own
thoughts and conflicts less disconcerting for him.
The Triangle. = The basic pattern of relationships within the family is triangular, involving the mother, the father, and the child: a love for the parent of the
opposite sex and rivalry with the parent of the same sex, often mixed with considerable hostility. This emotional pattern continues throughout life and is reflected in dreams.
The most extreme example is when somebody is attracted only by a person already married
in order to seperate the couple and have one member of it for himself; this is a
symbolical reenactment of the drama of his childhood with a pseudosatisfactory outcome,
and is, needless to say, a situation fraught with anxiety.
Love and transferring that love outside the family. = The intense loves,
and desire for love, often express themselves in dreams as incestuous relationships.
Later transferral of this love between mother and son, father and daughter, or brother
and sister onto a boyfriend or girlfriend is often difficult, and the difficulties
will feature in dreams; if the situation is consciously realised and understood,
it can only help. If the dreamer is enjoying himself with a boyfriend or girlfriend, and is
perhaps getting sexually excited, when a member of his family (or image of that person) interrupts or interferes in some way: = The dreamer is still emotionally involved with that famiily member who is interferring with his new relationship,
preventing it from going as smoothly as it would otherwise. If the family member
crops up (that is, springs to mind) at the moment when the dreamer is getting
sexually excited, it may mean that the new sex partner has been confused in the dreamer's
mind with the forbidden. In this case the defenses and inhibitions, which are no
longer required, will gradually have to be torn down.
Any member of the family who appears frequently in dreams; or, equally, someone who never
appears and so is remarkable for his absence; or occassionally the whole family together,
assembled so that picking out one particular person is avoided. = A continued love for that
person. (And to avoid the incestuous implications; the dreamer could be encouraging
his homosexual tendencies.)
The struggle for individuality. = The child's feeling of being crushed or thwarted by his parents often adds to the antagonism of his rivalries - so much so that not
many children have gone through childhood without wishing one of their parents
dead at one time or another.
The dreamer rebelling against his parents; or his parents dying or being killed.
= The time has come for the child to break away from his parents and
take on his own responsibilities and decisions. Thus, getting rid of the
parent is simply a vividly pictorial image of shedding his own attachment and
dependence.
= Wanting to grow up and break away from family ties Vs apprehension about
loss of security and the hazards of the world, often combined with feeling guilty
about deserting the parents.
Dreams may depict in various other ways this legitamate necessaty for establishing
one's independence, so that at a later stage a new relationship can arise, based on mutual
affection; the dream will discourage this if the revolt is premature or, possibly,
if the rebelliousness has gone on too long.
Discrediting the parents; the father behaving in a drunken or otherwise irresponsible
way (quite unlike him in life):
= The dreamer is hopelessly dependent on his father
as a result of too much admiration and respect, and the dream is trying to
correct this. The unconscious is illustrating the fact that there is no need to feel
inferior - he isn't so perfect. Even though the father may in fact be an exemplary
character, he has ceased to be perfect for the dreamer, and is in fact being
distructive. From dreams we can find out only a personal image or idea of our family,
not what the family is really like. But this idea of them often matters more to the
individual than the facts do. The childhood image of the parents is also exaggerated,
but this image of them is eventually shattered - an event which continues
to crop up in dreams long afterward (a tarnished object or a shattered image
may refer to it).
Killing a parent; = The most drastic expression of the need for independence; it may
indicate either the immense difficulties of attaining it or that a certain mixture
of irrational hidden rage, possibly the result of repressed incestuous longing for one
or other of the parents, is involved in the rebelliousness.
Rivalry between two brothers or two sisters: = This is nearly always founded on the fear of being rejected by one of the parents in favour of the
other brother or sister; it is a manifestation of this underlying insecurity, prolonged
even though the situation is no longer relevant (the parents may even be dead).
An older brother: = Someone else who is at present a powerful opponent.
The family as archtypes and images.Just as the dreamer's first impressions of the father and the mother contribute to the outward forms of the archtypes -
his particular image of fatherhood and motherhood - so the actual father and
mother may continue to be symbols of these various forces and tendencies in the mind.
For example, the parents give life but they also inhibit the child's instincts in
order to make him socially acceptable. thus the actual father may become in dreams
more a symbol of the conscious masculine principle, as well as authority and
conscience, but also of oppression in his negative aspect; and the mother the symbol
of motherhood, nurturing and protecting, but also destructive when overpossessive.
Often this approach to family problems, seeing family members as archtypal, figures
within human nature, lessens the tension of the situation and lends more significance
to the struggle of making the relationships work. For example; A man shouting at his mother in a dream:
= May be seen as doing violence to the feminine principle in himself -
the realm of nature and the unconscious. It might be better to listen to what his
Anima has to say. If he lets the feminine in his nature respond, it may then come to
his aid in solving the problem of the actual relationship. (Once the conscious
attitude is altered it usually doesn't take long for the change to be registered
in later dreams.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~.
~~~
~~~
~~~
