APPLAUSE - Desire for acclaim or giving oneself acclaim; something that you feel is worthwhile or praiseworthy - define what it is from the dream events; approval or need for approval. Such a need may be covering a deep personal uncertainty.

Useful questions are:

Am I giving or receiving applause - whatever it is can I define what it is for?

What is it my dream is suggesting is praiseworthy and how does that apply to me?

Do I feel the applause is deserved and why or why not?

APPLE Sexual or material temptation. Also can represent wholeness, knowledge of the world or of yourself, as when it is a golden apple. It can also mean the fruits of your actions, or the consequences of action, the fruit of your labour; pleasure; food or sustenance.

Useful questions are:

Is this linked with an opportunity in my life that is tempting?

What do I feel about apples, and how does that connect with the rest of the dream?

What is the theme of this dream, and how does that relate to the apple? See: theme.

APPOINTMENT Reminder of something we unconsciously feel we are about to meet, or something we need to meet. This can be about the importance of a relationship, or of taking care of a person or situation.

An appointment can suggest the need to 'get together' with someone or that aspect of yourself, or that there are important things to deal with.

See: romantic date for romantic appointment.

Useful questions are:

Is this dream about trying to live up to the imperatives of work, other people's needs or deadlines I have set myself?

Is this about remembering something such as the importance of something in your life?

Have you agreed to do something and forgotten?

AQUARIUM - Your inner world of feelings, thoughts and intuitions. It probably represents the ability to see or understand some of the usually unconscious processes in yourself.

It can also relate to the unconscious processes going on under the surface.

Being empty or full suggests whether you are allowing your inner feelings to become know or remain empty.

See: Fish

Useful questions are:

What am I becoming aware of within myself?

What does the theme of this dream suggest about my inner feelings?

What creatures are in the aquarium, and are there poisonous or dangerous things in me or is it beauty?

ARAB This depends whether you are of Arab or Islamic ethnicity. If you are then it is depicting an aspect of yourself. If not, then you need to define what your feelings and associations you have with Arabs and particularly the dream figure. In general it may represent masculinity, passionate manhood, possessiveness. See: Abroad.

Useful questions are:

If I imagine myself as this person what do I feel? For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.)

What is my relationship with this dream character and what might that represent in my waking life?

What am I doing in the dream - running; waiting searching; bargaining; pleading; looking for love - and can I see that in my life in any way?

ARCHAEOLOGIST/ARCHAEOLOGY - This is primarily about uncovering or discovering your buried past, things you may have long put behind you or tried to forget. Sometimes this links with your far distant ancestors or aspects of your present personality you carry from the far past. But even so it is about finding or becoming aware of aspects of you from the past.

If you are the archaeologist or involved in the work, then it relates to whatever is concerning or interesting you at the moment. But it will still probably have a more interior meaning. It links to the process of gradually bringing your past experience to consciousness. Literally it shows you digging into what are usually your unconscious layers of yourself to unearth personal meaning and perhaps deal with past problems that were buried.

Useful questions are:

What is the archaeologist doing and what does that suggest?

Is something being uncovered or dug up, and if I describe myself as that what do I define about myself?

What are my feelings in the dream?

Have I been 'digging' into myself in any way - if so what have I uncovered?

Have circumstances or events uncovered what was previously buried in me?

What part of my past are my dream images suggesting?

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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ARCHER See: Aim.

ARCHITECT - Here is the image of the process or function in us that plans, that designs in a creative and perhaps considering way. It may be about plans for a better or different living condition, or about business or even a relationship. The architect is also pointing to a process of checking and directing progress.

Useful questions are:

What am I planning to change or build in my life, and does this dream relate to that?

Does this dream reflect or comment on any of my dreams or goals in any way?

What is the architect in my dream doing, and what can I gather from that if I translate it into everyday life?

If I imagine my self as the architect how do I describe myself. For help doing this see Stand in Role under peer dream work.

ARENA This suggests a focus of attention; a mental capability to bring an unimaginable number of associated bits of information and experience together in considering something. It can also suggest an area or focus of conflict or contest. The arena is also a place of drama, where the deepest moments of life are played out or examined. It therefore suggests something being dramatised or considered by you, something being witnessed, or a testing of oneself, as in a sporting event, especially if the area is a stadium rather than an arena; participation with others in life or endeavours. See: Stage

Useful questions are:

Is there a big issue in my life I am in conflict about, examining or rehearsing in some way?

What is my attention focussing on at the moment or my dream is showing as important?

Am I involved with others in a way that is now being felt as important?

ARGUE/ARGUED/ARGUING This could refer to something you are feeling in conflict about and have different but conflicting feelings on. Or it might show you releasing feelings in connection with someone that you do not tell them to their face. It might refer to feelings about parents arguing, so depict the anxiety or anger you felt at the time.

Conflicts can occur between the many facts of oneself such as your body needs and your intellectual ideas about life; your sexual or instinctive nature and your sense of what is right from your upbringing; between your fears, and your appetites and desires emerging from vulnerabilities and neurotic behaviour, and your deep core of life.

Arguing with opposite sex: This might refer to a tension existing between you and your partner, or about a conflict existing between your rational outgoing self and your feeling intuitive self.

Arguing with authority or police: Might show a struggle you are experiencing between the pressure you feel from society or expectations of others and what you want or feel.

Useful questions are:

What or who am I arguing with in my dream, and what connections can I make with that?

Do I resolve the argument, and if so what are the key factors of the resolution?

If I do not resolve the argument, how can I resolve it in my mind and feelings now I am awake?

ARID - Little or nothing growing in your life or activities. It may refer specifically to your relationship(s). On occasion it might refer to attempts to conceive. See desert.

Useful questions are:

Am I feeling empty or meaningless at the moment?

Am I questioning what is emerging from my life?

What would I say are the fruits of my life?

ARK An area of yourself that has been shaped by following your innermost urges and intuitions, as opposed to those arising from fear, passion, ambition. Or something can come out of the ark and thus be old fashioned. For some people the ark represents a survival aid in times of stress. So it might depict a means of escape from a difficult situation.

Useful questions are:

Am I feeling threatened or anxious about life at the moment?

Does the future seem uncertain for me?

What is linked in my feelings with the urge to survive or intuitions about my future?

Am I seeking safety in some way?

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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ARM Arms represent your power to express emotions, desires and ideas, to construct or destroy. They might also be referring to your ability to love, give, take, create, defend, or reach out. Your active and dominant arm can depict the long struggle in your life to deal with difficulties, your sense of failure, or low self-esteem, or the struggle one faces with sexuality and relationships. Along with this it represents perseverance and strength, the skills and tools learned and developed through meeting those difficulties. It is what you put into the world through your activities and efforts, such as the things you have worked at, and what you have done with people. It is what you have grasped of the world and taken from it.

Right arm: If you are right handed this indicates your active outgoing self, your conscious and capable skills such as you express with this hand and arm. It is the part of you obvious to others and yourself, your strength or lack of it. Injury or malformation of this arm indicates inability to be creative and productive in the outer world. It shows problems regarding manifesting or making real, what you wish or will to do. Reverse if you are left handed.

Left arm: The left arm is those supportive qualities, those strengths and traits that express in daily life underlying and making possible the action of the right arm. In other words they are the loyalties, the care and strength of support, almost unconscious energy we put into what we do with our right hand and arm - our outer activities. The left arm is the qualities that support outer activities and relationships. In a certain way it represent confidence, the absence of which would undermine all the external things we would be trying to accomplish. Reverse if you are left handed.

Injury to an arm: Loss of power to do or to support action. Inability to reach out or create. The left arm is the supportive feelings if you are right handed. The right arm is your extroverted activity if you are right handed.

Arms tied: Imposed or self-imposed restriction to activities.

Bicep: Your strength or sense of being able. See: Left; Right; Body.

Idioms: Chance one's arm; give one's right arm; arm twisting; keep at arms length; with open arms; one arm tied behind back, babe in arms; strong arm tactics.

Useful questions are:

If my arm is injured, what in my life am lacking or I feeling inadequate in?

What am I doing with my arm(s) and how does that link with waking life?

If this is a positive dream, what of myself is it bringing my attention to?

ARMCHAIR - Usually associated with rest or relaxation. A particular armchair might link with certain memories, such as courting or love-making. It might link with a person because of where a family member or friend sat. But any item or furniture can also associate with likes or dislikes, or a particular relationship or time of life.

Useful questions are:

What are my memories or associations with the armchair?

If I don't not know this armchair, what do I feel about it in the dream?

What would I say is the function of an armchair, what is it for, and does that define it in the dream?

ARMOUR The rigid emotional or intellectual barrier you might sometimes put around yourself as protection from being hurt, frightened or influenced by others.

It can depict muscular tension which blocks free flowing sexuality and feelings; our defence systems, such as frantically arguing for our beliefs, or killing out our feelings in a relationship; fear of getting hurt - but also ability to protect oneself from hurt or attack; barrier to stop other people 'getting through to you'; hardness or rigidity of attitudes; defensive attitudes; self doubt; inner conflict.

If the armour is seen as defensive, it may point to deep anxieties in regard to what is suggested by the dream action - such as relationship, work, health.

Shining armour: Idealism; the strength of ones beliefs or resolve. In a woman's dream, feelings of romance about finding a male who is strong enough to care and help her meet the difficulties of life.

Example: I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin's hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenseless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Charles Kingsley, from Alton Locke, 1850.

Kingsley's description is a magnificent picture of the softness and vulnerability we use our 'armour' to defend against. But the next dream gives an entirely different use of armour. The dream shows how new life can arise out of the death of the old, and how failure can become victory when we find our golden armour arising from awareness of our core self beyond death.

While heavily pregnant 11 years ago I dreamt I and thousands of Japanese-like soldiers had been at war and lost. Our punishment was beheading. Not wanting to see my comrades killed I went to the front. I was dead, outside my body. Dressed in golden armour with a lion symbol. I told my comrades they outnumbered the enemy. They won and took my baby from my dead body. BMW.

Useful questions are:

What use is being made of the armour, and what do I gather from this about myself or my attitudes?

Am I using the armour as an intellectual or emotional barrier?

If I am wearing the armour how do I feel without it, and how does that reflect in my life?

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