DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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AMBULANCE It depends very much upon what the ambulance is doing in your dream. In general though, the ambulance expresses your feelings that something is wrong, or anxiety about health, or the health of someone near. Such dreams often depict life threatening situations, and so are dealing with your anxieties.

Most dreams about an ambulance involve feelings of emergency, or panic. Often the dream involves some injury or life threatening situation to someone, so therefore concerns the stress felt by some part of your personality.

See: accident.

Useful questions are:

What has happened, or is happening, to make me need external help or feel in an emergency situation?

Am I feeling anxious about a family member of someone close?

What emergency or injury is shown in the dream, and how might this relate to my daily life?

Is it easy to get help in the dream - if not am I feeling alone and unsupported?

AMBUSH If you are being ambushed: Anxieties about how other people are relating to you; paranoia about being a victim; possible difficulties in relationships or work.

If you are staging an ambush: Desires to get the upper hand of a situation; trying to outwit some aspect of yourself or someone else. You may be feeling angry about what someone is doing, or be using underhand methods to gain your ends.

Useful questions are:

Am I feeling trapped or compromised in any way?

Do I feel somebody is trying to get the better of me in some way?

Am I in some sort of battle with someone or an organisation?

Perhaps this is a time to look around carefully and access the situation?

AMERICA - If the you do not live in America and are not American: Could associate with opportunity; material wealth; dreams to do with success, whether in love or business; recognition; extremes. See: abroad.

If you are American: This is the background to who you are and what has shaped you. The skills you have and the way of life has developed out of the environment that is America. See if you can define what that is.

Useful questions are:

What do you associate with America?

What is my view or experience of it?

What are the events and setting of the dream saying about my relationship with America?

If I take out the word America from the dream and write down what my feelings are, what would I say? See: abroad.

AMERICAN INDIAN - Natural wisdom; self acceptance and wisdom based on this awareness of ones links with the world; the intuition or wisdom of the irrational or unconscious; tribal wisdom and the link with intuitive initiations into stages of growth and entrance into the house of the ancestors; feelings of being dispossessed.

See: American Indian Dream Beliefs;; Spirit Child; Iroquoian dream cult.

Useful questions are:

What are my feelings about the Indian or being an Indian?

What am I gaining or getting from the Indian?

If I identify with the Indian how do I feel and describe myself? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

AMETHYST - Common beliefs about the amethyst is that it has an influence connected with healing; and dreams. Moses described it as a symbol of the Spirit of God. It is also said to offer protection against drunkenness - in fact the Greek word 'amethystos' mean 'not intoxicated'. See: jewels.

Useful questions are:

What am I feelings about the amethyst in the dream, and how can I translate that into my waking life?

Do the events of the dream suggest a quality or influence of the amethyst?

What part is the amethyst playing in the dream, and what does that suggest?

AMMUNITION - This may indicate pent up feelings that if expressed could be harmful to yourself or someone else. Or it could suggest information or feelings of being 'armed' against someone else's attack or as protection against the world. As such it points to attitudes or strong feelings that you use to protect your own feeling or vulnerability.

Useful questions are:

What am I using or planning to use the ammunition for or against?

Am I using the ammunition in the dream - if so what against, and how does that relate to my waking life?

What do I feel about the ammunition in the dream, and when do I experience those feelings in waking.

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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AMNESIA - The example below says only too clearly how one may often forget things that are so important, and fall into old habits.

The woman David was sleeping with was someone from his past he was unhappy with. A dream may often show this forgetfulness as the experience of sudden recall after a long period of not remembering. Both the loss of memory and the recall illustrate very real ways the mind works. Things that may have been of great importance to us, or caused powerful feelings at one time, are subsequently forgotten. Such experiences may not even be taken into account when making present decisions, and so literally one has a sort of amnesia regarding them.

Example: 'I am sleeping rough in a garden with a woman I do not love. I think I should try to make the best of the situation, but my feelings against it are too strong. Then I decide I don't ever want to live like that again and tear up the mattress we slept on. As I do this I realise, as if waking from amnesia, that Pat lives just across the road. She has specially moved there because of our love. I realise with horror I had forgotten and may have lost her.' David H.

Useful questions are:

What is my dream suggesting I have forgotten?

What has led me to forget this?

Is there someone or something I want to forget - and if so why?

AMOEBA May relate to blind urges; basic cellular processes in your body; fundamental levels of awareness - i.e. being barely aware of something, but acting instinctively; sperm or ovum or reproduction.

This might also relate to feeling your way instinctively in what you are doing.

Amoeba's engulf their prey, and if you know this it might figure in your dream in some way.

Useful questions are:

What am I sensing from my body that links with the dream action?

If I imagine myself as the amoeba what do I feel or experience? (For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

Are there clues in the theme and drama of my dream as to what part in my life the amoeba is playing?

AMPUTATION To lose, or cut off by repressing whatever the limb or body part represents; loss of skill, ability or adequacy, sexual or otherwise.

The amputation could also depict a fear of losing or of having lost whatever the limb or body part suggests. In some cases a depiction of old trauma that has left one less than fully capable.

The dream might also express a desire to be inadequate in order to have an excuse to withdraw from the demands of life. See: Limbs, loss of, and Foot and feet, loss of: under body.

Amputation dreamt after having a broken limb or the cast removed: Fears regarding being inadequate after having only one good limb; the difficulty of having to adjust to being healthy - more can be demanded of us when healthy.

Example: This is not a dream, but is a powerful example of how the unconscious can produce very real sense of experiencing something as physically true, that is a mental phenomena. The account is by Phillip Zimbardo in the book Psychology and Life, published by Scott, Foresman and Company.

It was my first day back to work after recovering from a traumatic automobile accident. I was lucky to be alive with only torn ligaments in my leg and a concussion: the driver had been killed by the impact of a head-on collision. As I hobbled up the three flights of stairs supported by a crutch, my initial joy of returning to school was suddenly suspended. With each step I took a strange sensation occurred: I could 'feel' myself BECOMING my younger brother, George. Not IMAGINE 'as if' I were George, but being transformed physically to be him.

I perceived my face changing to be his face and my body doing likewise. My limp became more pronounced, and it took great strength to climb the last flight. In a panic, I shut myself in my office, not wanting anyone to witness this strange transformation. I avoided looking at my reflection in the window for fear I would see his face and not mine. Had I really become my brother or was I MERELY hallucinating?

Time passed during which I tried frantically to relax, 'to pull myself together,' and make sense of my distorted sense impressions. After all, I was a normal, serious scientist type not given to such flights of fancy. I lived by the reality principle.

My secretary and colleagues knocked and came into the office before I could say I was busy. They were worried by my abrupt disappearing act. They were relieved to see I was 'my old self again,' and I was relieved to see them responding to me as if I were Phil and not George. A glance at my reflection confirmed my hope. I had changed back, 'or was no longer George....or George was no longer manifesting himself in me.' Whatever? Weird, no? But why?

When we were children, George had infantile paralysis and for a time had to wear leg braces and walk with crutches. I would accompany him to therapy sessions and observe his frustration, embarrassment, and anger at not being able to function normally. Since we were only eighteen months apart in age, I could readily empathise with his feelings. I may have also felt guilty at being glad I too was not crippled. Once I recall volunteering to exchange places with him in the swimming pool exercises, but the nurse chided me, 'being crippled is not fun and games young man.' I was about four at the time.

As I hobbled up the stairs to my office some twenty five years later, the pattern of feedback sensory stimulation reactivated this pre-recorded motor action plan. Memories of George's posture and movement were enacted. I had retained mimicry responses of his motor activity that I had observed so intensely. Now I was changing places with him, but not consciously and not volitionally. The suddenness and vividness of the hallucination was frightening because it was so real, yet at the same time contradicted my knowledge of reality.

Amputating someone else's body part: The other person could easily represent a facet of yourself you are denying full expression. If so define what you associate with that person by using the amplification method or role playing. It could also suggest a desire to injure someone; or a way you cut off their ability to interact with you or communicate.

Useful questions are:

Am I denying or repressing an important facet of myself?

Do I have any sense of not being adequate in any way suggested by the dream?

Am I angry or hurt about something enough to deny my full expression?

Have I made a decision at any time never to allow certain things in my life again?

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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AMULET - This may indicate something like the placebo effect, in which your belief acts as a healing and powerful support. The amulet focuses your feelings of confidence and gives you power to live and act more fully.

Useful questions are:

What is it the amulet is protecting me against?

Do I feel the amulet has any power - if so what is it protecting me against?

What is the action of the dream suggesting?

AMUSEMENT PARK OR ARCADE - The playful or childlike exploration of experience. But it also has elements of the unknown or dangerous hidden behind a colourful exterior. In some dreams it might suggests the escapism we enter into sometimes in a relationship or in general, immersing ourselves in the noise and colour of life. The fairground can also be a testing oneself to define self image. This because some rides need a certain amount of courage or ability to face new experiences. There is also great variety here, and so might point to the varied experiences we are meeting and trying to find our way though or understand. See: fairground.

Particular rides: Things like the merry go round might suggest a whirl of events, or even things spinning out of control. The dodgems or bumper cars involve the way we interact with others and avoid or bump into them. The rollercoaster might depict thrilling or dangerous risks you take or are exposed to, or point to sexual excitement.

Fear arising: You have a sense of the pervading dangers underlying the surface impression of events. Perhaps there is a fear of the unknown emerging even in what appears to be pleasurable.

If enjoying yourself: Enjoyment of the varied experiences being met at the moment.

Example: For the past year I have had recurring dreams about fairground rides. Occasionally members of my family, including my father have died on the rides. When I'm on the ride I've survived, but I can sense danger all around me. This dream is beginning to bother me. I am 15 years old. Laura

In the dream Laura is most likely trying to develop her own independent stance in life. About the age of seven through our teens we confront the realities of the external world. We realise family will die at some uncertain time as we age. The stance needed is one that enables us to live life fully, without being crippled by fears and insecurities. The fairground represents the ups and downs of life, its variety and uncertainties. There IS danger in almost everything we do in life. But there is also opportunity and the possibility of deep satisfaction. The challenge is what YOU will make of it? How will you play your part? Will you forever feel surrounded by danger, and thereby not fully express yourself? Or can you laugh and love while the ride goes on?

Useful questions are:

Are there situations in my life that I take seriously, but may only be superficial?

Is there a menacing aspect in my life that appears harmless on the surface?

What am I doing or looking for in this place?

Do I have a satisfying relationship with what I experience, or can I improve it?

What is happening in my life that connects with its up and downs and variety?

ANAESTHETIC - This suggests an attitude or experience that is making you unconscious of what is going on. Something is deadening your feelings and sensitiveness.

This might indicate an experience of what it is like to die, or show an avoidance of painful emotions. Or it may depict you are deadening pain, or that there is great pain to deaden.

Being anesthetised can also be a way a dream illustrates the shifting from waking awareness to meeting the very different world of your unconscious inner world.

The reason anaesthesia may be linked with death is that the ego feels itself overwhelmed and thrust into the unknown or unconsciousness by the action of the drug. This may be felt as pleasant or unpleasant depending upon how well you relate to the loss of your waking power or will.

Films often use chloroform or an injection of an anaesthetic in a scene where the person is overpowered, and it can have the same meaning in your dream.

Useful questions are:

Am I ignoring feelings and emotions, or feeling emotionally numb?

Is something leading me to feel overpowered?

Does my dream give me an experience of what it is like to die?

Did this lead me into a shifted awareness - an entrance into my unconscious?

ANALYST If someone who is helping you analyse your dreams appears in a dream, they usually represent the wisdom of your unconscious, or the difficulties you face inn yourself.

An analyst, psychologist, psychiatrist in your dream can also depict your self assessment. Depending on the dream, the self assessment may be supportive or self destructive.

Our mind can transform itself in a number of ways. Sometimes one new piece of information, or a new mental discipline, can change the quality of all mental life. The analyst represents such power to transform, as well as the often avoided self awareness. Can also suggest fear about ones own mental strength and health; a source of wisdom; insight. See: Psychoanalyst

Useful questions are:

What am I understanding about myself in the dream?

Am I in conflict with the analyst - if so what is it I am fighting against?

What is the subject of the dream - i.e. what aspect of life or behaviour?

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