The Dream Dictionary from A to Z [Revised edition]

ADVOCATE

See ARCHETYPES.

AFTERNOON

See TIME.

AGE/AGING You may have a dream in which you or someone close to you appears to age rapidly, sometimes becoming an elderly person or even a skeleton. Such dreams can be frightening, reflecting your anxieties and fears about aging, but some people find such dreams comforting as they can indicate that the aging process is not necessarily a negative experience.

See also STAGES OF LIFE.

AIR You can’t see air but it is crucial for your survival and well-being. The element of air is associated with the Zodiac signs Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. For Jungian analysts, air seeks to establish itself in the realm of the intellect; it is through the process of thinking that we develop ideas and communicate. Air contributes inventiveness, originality, creativity, and versatility to the personality. It gives that feeling of freedom and objectivity, and the ability to appreciate the differences between people. In dreams, air encourages you to let your thoughts soar, helping you to realize your full potential.

When air’s influence is exaggerated in a person, we see them as living in a dream world full of unrealistic goals and flights of fancy. Air should seek to maintain practicality and develop consistency in dealing with the real world. You cannot live without air, so when it appears in your dreams, consider its quality. Is it foggy, misty, clear, or polluted? The answer will give you an idea of the atmosphere that surrounds you in waking life. If you are outdoors in your dream and conscious of the clarity and coolness of the air, your dreaming mind may be urging you to give freedom to your thoughts. Or perhaps you feel released from a recent problem or situation. Air may also refer to the way in which you behave. Are you putting on airs and graces, or behaving in a superior way that demeans other people?

AIR-CONDITIONER This image suggests a need to calm or slow down. If the air is cold this may indicate emotional coldness.

AIRCRAFT/AIRPLANE/AIRPORTS In dreams, aircraft represent a desire for new experiences and excitement. According to Freudians, aircraft are phallic symbols associated with new sexual experiences. Because air symbolizes spiritual aspiration, if your dream featured an aircraft or a plane ride, could your unconscious have been encouraging you to explore your spirituality or rise above the limitations of daily life? Do you feel you are on a fast track to success, or do you just really need a vacation?

In dreams, as in life, airports can be busy, noisy, and crowded places, and they can suggest a phase in your life you are trying to leave behind or a transitional phase. If you are looking in vain for a familiar face at an airport in your dream, this suggests there may be aspects of your old way of life or thinking that you are unwilling to leave behind. If you dreamed of being in the middle of a flight, your unconscious may have been commenting on your current progress in life. Are you flying high or being buffeted by turbulence? Or is everything up in the air or beset by uncertainty? Dreams of being hijacked or attacked in a plane can suggest anxieties about flying, but they can also represent a fear of rape in women. A dream of a plane crash can suggest you have set your sights too high; perhaps you are expecting too much and have doubts about your ability to reach your goals?

See also PLANE CRASH.

ALARM Ringing bells, timers, alarms in a dream may be prompting you to move forward with an idea in your waking life. Loud alarms – such as sirens – warn of impending danger or crisis.

ALARM CLOCK The appearance of an alarm clock in a dream indicates the need to get up and do something; it may also be a reminder of someone or something you have neglected.

ALCOHOL Dreams that feature alcohol can be interpreted in two ways. They could be a warning that you need to take it easy or they could be a suggestion that your life needs more stimulation and excitement. If, however, a drunk appeared in your dream or you got drunk and had a hangover, this may suggest that you have been overdoing it recently. It can also refer to the way you deal with difficult feelings by drowning them in drink. On the other hand, do you feel drunk with success and, if you do, is your unconscious warning you to rein in your exuberance as it is unsettling to those around you? Don’t forget the Latin phrase in vino veritas (wine reveals the truth) and pay attention to what you and other people say in your dream over a glass of wine or beer.

To see whisky in bottles symbolizes your alertness, carefulness and protective nature. If you are drinking alone, this signifies a selfishness that is driving friends away. To dream of drinking wine refers to festivity, celebration, and companionship. To dream that you are breaking wine bottles signifies over-indulgence and lack of control.

ALIEN If an alien appears in your dream, this suggests feelings of being an outsider in a group or society. It may also represent something new and not previously experienced. Aliens in dreams can also suggest that something unknown or frightening in waking life needs to be faced. Dreaming of aliens may also indicate dealing with something unfamiliar in yourself. Are you behaving in ways that are alien to you, for example? Aliens are something humans have never encountered, so the dream is urging you to prepare for the unexpected. Sometimes in dreams, aliens suggest evil forces, but more often than not they suggest that you feel different or set apart in some way from others. Perhaps you have started a new job and feel like the odd one out.

See also STRANGER.

ALLEY If you appear in an alley within a dream you may find yourself facing a dilemma in the near future. The image suggests that you feel you have little choice regarding a certain situation.

ALLIGATOR

See REPTILES.

ALPHABET The alphabet in dreams may refer to childhood or to basic lessons in life. To see letters of the alphabet in your dream symbolizes any object, animal, place, or person associated with or resembling that particular letter. For example, the letter ‘T’ may refer to a type of intersection in a road or a person you know called Tom. Or, you may still be trying to understand some concept or emotion that is still in the primitive stages.

See also LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET.

ALUMINUM

See METAL.

AMBITION According to Adler, dreams are an expression of our ambitious desire for power and success, a way of overcompensating for shortcomings in our waking life. For example, if a person is unable to stand up to their boss, they may safely lash out in anger at them in a dream. Thus dreams offer some sort of satisfaction that is socially acceptable.

Although some dreams can be interpreted as wish-fulfillment, most modern dream researchers believe that dreams have another purpose, to periodically present us with reports on our progress to date. Sometimes these updates are purely expressions of wish-fulfillment, and therefore easy to interpret: for example, those fantastic dreams in which you win the lottery, or audition successfully for the lead role in a Hollywood blockbuster. Sometimes, though, dreams are harder to interpret because the dreaming mind speaks in the confusing language of symbols. Understanding such dreams is, however, important because they often contain pertinent observations and warnings – not yet registered by the conscious mind – that can help us achieve our goals in waking life.

AMBULANCE The appearance of an ambulance in a dream typically suggests feelings of panic and emergency about a specific situation or person.

AMBUSH Dreams in which you ambush or abduct someone reflect your desperation in waking life to ward off potential humiliation. If the person you are ambushing is someone you know, you also need to consider if you are secretly envious of this person in waking life. If this is the case, your unconscious may have been expressing your desire to capture or kidnap the qualities you admire and make them your own. Alternatively, you may have a hidden desire to control that person. If, however, you were ambushed, abducted, or kidnapped in your dream, this suggests that someone or something in your waking life is trying to take control of you. Your dream expresses your surprise and uncertainty about losing control.

AMETHYST

See GEMSTONES.

AMMUNITION Bullets or ammunition can suggest verbal attacks in the context of dream conflicts. If the ammunition belongs to someone else, this represents things that you feel other people can use against you, such as lies, anger, and so on. If you have the ammunition, it can represent assets you have that can build your confidence, things you could say or do to wound others if you had to. If you run out or don’t have any ammunition, you may be feeling hopeless about a situation and unable to defend your position.

AMNESIA Typically a sign of avoidance or repression of something or someone in your waking life, but can also suggest unfulfilled potential.

AMUSEMENT PARK Dreams in which you are visiting an amusement park may be a sign that you may need to incorporate more enjoyment within your life. They can also be symbolic of things that can easily distract you from your tasks. If the amusement park is empty or seems shut down, it signifies the need to stop taking yourself so seriously. Consider also how everything in the park is an expression of some aspect of yourself.

See also FAIRGROUND.

ANCHOR

See ABANDONMENT.

ANESTHETIC If you dream that you are having an anesthetic or are being put to sleep for an operation, this suggests that you may be trying to escape reality in some way in waking life or attempting to deaden some emotional pain. There may be something in life you don’t want to face or simply want to forget about for a while. The answer may be simple as taking a much-needed vacation.

ANGEL Angels are celestial messengers sent to guard over us. To imagine one appearing is a symbol of spiritual protection and inspiration. If angels give you advice in a dream, what they tell you should always be taken very seriously. Nowadays, with a greater acceptance of the appearance of angelic figures, they are once again accepted as messengers of enlightenment. If you are religious, visions of an angel in your dream may be taken as validation of belief, but if you are not religious, you can take solace in the thought that you have a spiritual protector watching over you. Another interpretation suggests that dreaming of an angel suggests you are searching for this unconditional love and support in waking life, and the dream is urging you to find these qualities within yourself.

See also ARCHETYPES.

ANGER In a dream scenario, anger may express the tension between your conscious and unconscious urges. The aggressor in the dream will often represent the part of you that is demanding to be acknowledged. Freud spoke of an aggressive drive which he believed revealed itself in all walks of life and in all types of people. He believed that the aggressive drive was just as much present in sex as in war. Alfred Adler, an early disciple of Freud, believed that anger was the most fundamental force of the psyche and, if repressed, it could express itself in dream images of anger and aggression. Whatever may be the trigger, anger is one of the most common emotions to express itself in dreams, either by physical violence or by using symbols of anger such as weapons. Such dreams are likely to continue until the trigger for your anger is discovered and dealt with.

If a person has recurring dreams in which they are assaulting, raping, or attacking someone, this suggests deep-rooted sexual problems that they might want to talk over with a doctor. A single dream in which aggression, sexual or otherwise, occurs is not so worrying and is actually quite common. Such a dream will be expressing negative feelings of anger, hostility, rejection, embarrassment, or envy that have probably been repressed in waking life. Dreams of assassination or murder have the same interpretation. Dreams in which you are evicting someone from their home or your home suggests that there is something in your life you are angry about and of which you desire to be rid. This may be some characteristic within yourself or another person. Dreams that focus on ambushing may have the same theme, but in this case there may be something about the person or thing being ambushed that you want to possess yourself.

Libel dreams in which you are attacking someone verbally may suggest that you are spreading vicious rumors or someone is spreading them about you. Any dream in which you have a feud, dispute, or attack suggests either a disagreement with someone in your waking life or inner conflict with an aspect of your character. Dreams in which you are rebelling against someone or something have the same interpretation. Pay attention to the atmosphere of your dream as it may reveal much about your emotional state at present. The dream may also be describing your feelings of being threatened.

ANIMA/ANIMUS A part of our persona is the role of male or female we must play. For most people, that gender role is determined by their physical sex. But Jung, like Freud and Adler and others, felt that we are all really bisexual in nature. When we begin our lives in the womb, we have undifferentiated sex organs that only gradually become male or female, under the influence of hormones. Likewise, when we begin our social lives as infants, we are neither male nor female in the social sense until society molds us into men or women.

In all societies, the expectations placed on men and women differ, but in our society today we have many remnants of traditional expectations. Women are still expected to be homemakers and nurturers; men are still expected to be strong breadwinners. But Jung felt these expectations meant that we had developed only half of our potential.

The anima is the unconscious female aspect present in the collective unconscious of men, and the animus is the unconscious male aspect present in the collective unconscious of women. The function of the anima/animus is to help the dreamer establish a good working relationship with their male/female counterpart. This is an important step in the development of the personality.

The anima or animus is the archetype through which you communicate with the collective unconscious generally, and it is important to get into touch with it. It is also the archetype that some researchers believe guides our choice of partner. We are, as suggested by an ancient Greek myth popularized by Plato in the Symposium, always looking for our other half – the half that the gods took from us – in members of the opposite sex. When we fall in love at first sight, then we have found someone that ‘fills’ our anima or animus archetype particularly well!

If someone of the opposite sex played a leading role in your dreams or aroused feelings of deep yearning, attraction, and fascination, then your dreaming self has witnessed the appearance of the anima/animus, the opposite of your conscious personality. This is why if you are an indecisive, shy man your anima may take the form of a party-loving woman who is resolute – or if you are a cautious, rational woman, your animus may take the form of a spontaneous, passionate man. The anima/animus may be either positive or negative, and both can be symbolized by people you know or don’t know in waking life, as well as mythical, symbolic, and legendary characters, or by objects that somehow represent the masculine or feminine to you. Typically, the anima is personified as a single-figure image – for example a young girl, a witch, or an earth mother. It is likely to be associated with deep emotionality and the force of life itself. The animus may be a plurality of figures, for example a band of robbers or a council passing judgment, although it is also often personified as a wise old man. It is likely to be presented as logical, rational, and judgmental.

By introducing the anima/animus, your unconscious is urging you to seek balance and compensate for those attitudes or behaviors that dominate your thinking and being in waking life. Heeding the promptings of your anima/animus can help you become a more content and rounded personality, and perhaps strengthen your relationships with the opposite sex.

ANIMALS Animals in dreams represent primitive drives and desires, such as fear, lust, and anger that can only really be understood on an instinctual level. Thus, to dream of a certain animal could suggest an aspect of your personality that is instinctual, hidden, or striving for recognition. It could also represent a part of yourself you find hard to control. And because we often assign characteristics or personality traits to animals, dream animals may also symbolize gut feelings we have about others. An attacking lion, for example, may depict how we see someone who is being aggressive toward us.

Animal dreams rouse special interest because they contain images that are familiar to us, but at the same time we recognize something that is unfamiliar and obscure. Traditionally, the characteristics of the dream animal are applied to the world of humans, often seeing the animal as a harbinger of misfortune or good luck; for example, a wolf is often thought to predict thieves or misfortune. According to Freud animals in dreams are not predictive of future events but a classic expression of repressed or unexpressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. Jung, however, argued that animals in dreams should be analysed individually, depending on the character they portray in the dream and the association the dreamer has to them.

Jung believed that animals are sublime and, in fact, represent the ‘divine’ side of the human psyche. He suggested that animals live much more in contact with a ‘secret’ order in nature itself and – far more than human beings – live in close contact with the ‘absolute knowledge’ of the unconscious. In contrast to humankind, the animal is the living being that follows its own inner laws beyond good and evil – and is, in this sense, superior and a source of inspiration and guidance.

Although animals are one of the most common dream symbols, dreams that feature them can be complex and hard to interpret. Perhaps the simplest way is to first think about how you feel about the specific animal in your waking life. You may, for example, adore cats and think of them as lovely creatures because you have a much-loved pet cat, or you may associate cats with feeling unwell because you are allergic to them. Thinking about how that animal makes you feel within the context of your dream should help you recognize if that feeling is struggling to the fore, or is already expressing itself in daily life.

If, on the other hand, you have no feelings in particular about the animal in your dream, you need to think about the quality you typically associate with it: for example, a fox with cunning and stealth, an elephant with strength and mystery, or a dog with unconditional loyalty and love. Because animals are thought to represent unedited feelings and drives, it’s possible that your unconscious used the symbol of the fox in your dream to alert you to your own or someone else’s cunning. Thinking about that aspect of yourself – again within the context of your dream – should tell you whether you need to nurture and develop it, tame it, or be on your guard against it in someone else.

If you still feel puzzled, it may be that the hidden meaning lies in archetypal, traditional, legendary, mythical, or magical associations. Dream animals may also embody a pun. For example, if you dream of a badger, are you feeling badgered or aggravated in some way? If you dream of a zebra, could this refer to your black-and-white viewpoint?

Dream animals, no matter how problematic, offer us an opportunity to contact and explore both the parts of ourselves that we have shut away and the parts that we have yet to discover. In general, researchers believe that animal dreams mean that the subconscious has woken up and has come to life.

Our dreams will be selective and personal in the choice of animal used to portray our life situation, but as you interpret never forget that animal symbols in dreams typically represent a fundamental push toward life and living it with passion.

See also BIRDS, FISH, PETS.

Animal Scenarios

Agricultural Animals

Neither pets nor wild creatures, agricultural animals often represent personal traits that you may have tamed to a certain extent, although there is always the risk that they will escape conscious control and run wild. It’s important to reflect on the context of the dream involving a working or farmyard animal, as it may reflect how you feel about the burdens and responsibilities of your daily life.

Animal Noises

If you hear animals making sounds in your dream, you need to consider what these sounds mean to you in waking life and then to make a symbolic link. For example, if you hear an animal barking, wailing, or whining for attention, these sounds could be calling your attention to the qualities that that particular animal represents to you. If you hear ominous growling, roaring, or cackling, it could reflect pent-up anger either within yourself or another person. If you hear braying, it could indicate a need to overcome basic animal instincts. If you hear bleating, you may be taking on new cares and responsibilities that could be positive or negative depending on your attitude toward them.

Animals in Pain

To dream that you are rescuing, caring for, or saving the life of an animal suggests that you are successfully acknowledging certain emotions and characteristics represented by the animal. A wounded animal can mean a pain you need to come to terms with that has caused an instinctive reaction, such as reactive anger or terrible fear. To find yourself in the waiting room of an animal hospital suggests a desire to avoid a responsibility or commitment you have in your waking life. To see lab animals in your dream suggests that an aspect of yourself is being repressed. Alternatively, it suggests that you need to experiment with your fears, choices, and beliefs. Try not to limit yourself.

Animals in Water

Dreams about animals in water are symbols of our emotions. Water is a symbol of emotion because water, like emotion, constantly moves and flows. How the animal moves within the water reveals our emotional mood. For instance, if the water is calm and beautiful then it shows our emotions are good.

Animals with Their Young or Baby Animals

Maternal and paternal instinct; your basic childhood need for love and protection or your own experience of being parented. A baby animal can refer to yourself when young and vulnerable; feelings or memories concerning your childhood; desire for babies; vulnerability; fundamental survival instincts such as crying out for protection and comfort and the need for dependence and bonding. If the young animal is injured or dying, this could suggest problems with maturing or dealing with adult life.