DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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ARMS (Such as weapons - See: Arm for body limb) Guns, spears, usually symbolise aggressiveness and destructive urges and wishes. Or male sexuality. If you are being attacked they depict your own fear of being hurt or dominated, either by your own emotions or those of someone else. See: weapons

ARMY This suggests some form of conflict, internal or otherwise. The army might be depicting the forces or qualities you muster to deal with difficulties - i.e. courage, information; aggression or anger. They might be attitudes necessary to face anxieties.

The army is also an organisation and the dream might be about how you are relating to being organised, being told what to do, being under orders, or working within an organisation amongst many others. So it is important to recognise how you feel in the dream. Do you feel trapped, part of something, alone in a crowd, a meaningful part of something bigger than you?

Sometimes army dreams occur when you are ready to confront the internal traumas and conflicts you carry. The important aspects of such dreams are about what they show of your attitudes or feelings about the army.

But it is often necessary to read the entry on war, as the army dream might be mostly about the fighting.

Example: I had a series of dreams about being a soldier marching to the front with an army. Then came a day when I dreamt we were in the trenches waiting for the signal to go over the top. It came, I leapt up out of the trench and ran through the flying bullets to meet the foe. The dreams came at a time when I was getting nearer facing internal traumas I had carried since childhood. After the last dream these broke through into waking life very dramatically, and I relived a tonsil operation experienced as a six year old. Anthony.

See: Battle; Soldier; War

Useful questions are:

What are my feelings about the army, or being in the army?

Is this army fighting for something, if so, what?

How does that link with myself?

Am I avoiding or being part of the group?

ARRESTED/ARRESTING It often suggests a restraint of your natural expression by moral judgements or questions of right and wrong.

Depending upon the rest of the dream it can also depict restraint of your anger or sexuality, or other 'unlawful' feelings. Because such dreams often include the police it can be about feeling that circumstances or social pressures are holding you back; or that your development or growth is held back.

If you have difficult feelings about police or social authority, the dream could point to the way you restrain yourself due to those feelings. Such dreams are often experienced by people who have survived harsh political regimes and know the terror of being arrested. See: police under roles.

Useful questions are:

What of my feelings or motivations does my dream suggest I am 'arresting'?

If it is someone else being arrested, what do they depict of my own urges or traits?

Does my dream indicate I am feeling guilty about something - is so what?

Do past experiences with authority lie behind this dream?

ART/ARTIST The exteriorisation of some inner idea, feeling or direction. The expression of inner content, and thus a source of self realisation. The artist may represent the urge toward fruition, toward self-realisation. The art object however, can depict some meaningful realisation within yourself, that is as yet not clear enough to put into words. This may be because it is pre-verbal experience, or is still barely conscious.

The aspect of oneself that is in contact with the irrational, creative side of the unconscious. The desire or ability to be creative; the drive to express something of oneself, that may be repressed. Maybe the desire for public recognition - or a chance to demonstrate your skill or quality; the impractical aspect of self. For some the artist represents somebody who is impractical and out of touch with real work or life

Meeting an artist: Becoming aware of a creative idea or an aspect of self that is creative.

Watching an artist at work: Recognising artistic or creative ability, but being passive about it.

If you are an artist: This might well be showing you another facet of your artistry, or be exploring in a creative way, or looking at problems you have, depending on dream theme. See: Painting; art in dreams; archetype of artist.

Useful questions are:

What is the artist doing in my dream, and what might that represent in my life?

What is my relationship with the artist and what can I understand from that? See key words for help with this.

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

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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ARTERY - The flow of life giving process in you. It could indicate what you are seeing or realising about the process of life and how it upholds your existence without you being aware of it.

An artery also can indicate vulnerability, because if it is injured you may die. So the dream might be pointing to such a vulnerability that could lead to your feeling hopeless and without purpose.

If the artery is bleeding it suggests a situation that needs urgent attention. This is not usually physical, but about emotional traumas that drain your motivation, joy of life and sense of purpose.

Useful questions are:

What am I aware of that is life giving and how can I care for it?

If my dream shows injury, what in me depletes my energy to live and thrive?

What in waking life brings these feelings that I meet in the dream?

ASCENDING/ASCENT There are several possibilities for this in your dream. One is that passion, excitement, energy or enthusiasm is rising. Getting higher is often linked with the ability to see further, and therefore to become aware of a wider experience or more inclusive viewpoint. It also involves change, the leaving of one place and the attempt to arrive at another. So there may be the leaving behind of what was in the lower place.

Whether the ascending is in a lift, flying or climbing a hill, it can link to the rising feelings of passion or sexual pleasure, or the transition from expressing energy genitally to expressing it in self awareness. Such a shift from a lower mood or sensation to one felt as exhilarating or lighter is often shown as ascending.

The term 'upwardly mobile' also links ascent with success or a change toward greater fortune; moving toward achievement.

In many past cultural traditions ascent was associated with purification or refinement - as in the ascent to heaven, or a holy mountain. It also suggested becoming more detached, or finding a different perspective. Because we often move to a wider view of things, becoming more aware of our situation or surroundings as we get higher, ascending is often linked with change, and perhaps leaving things behind, the dropping away of what occupied you below. It can also be an attempt to remove yourself from the difficulties or experiences of the world - there may be a link with losing touch with reality.

Jung points out that the theme of ascent is part of many ancient religious rituals and beliefs. In most cases the ascent is, like the rising sun during the day or the summer, linked completely with the descent in the evening, night, or winter. Ascent is therefore part of a spiral which also descends, the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Christianity tends to speak of a one time resurrection however. See: flying; up-upper.

In some dreams or out of body experiences, the clear awareness of OBE is sometimes preceded by a feeling of rapidly moving upward. In such cases there is a sort of awakening, and ascending may in fact be an expression of nearing wakefulness. So ascending would be a move to waking, and descending moving toward deeper sleep or unconsciousness.

Example: Genesis 028:010 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed.

Ascending a hill or mountain or tree: Often shows having a more inclusive view or understanding of ones activities and place in the scheme of things; purification or personal evolution; ascent of a hill often appears in dreams of people in or approaching middle age, and depicts their life so far as an ascent. Usually there is a descent following. See: hill;Descent

Ascending into the sky: Upliftment in some form; attaining a wider view of ones life situation - where you are in life; death, as in ascending into heaven. It can occasionally depict a manic state.

Climbing stairs, going up in an elevator or lift: Movement toward waking or becoming more aware; the mental; or an escape from anxiety or being ?down to earth?; sexual pleasure, or mounting feelings of love and attraction; going up in the world, so may link with ambition or achievement; overcoming difficulties such as anxiety to reach a goal; in some stair dreams there is a tremendous amount of anxiety and feeling of insecurity. This may link with the babyhood fear of falling down stairs, and not yet having the skill to deal with stairs easily. See: example in lift under house and buildings.

If the lift goes out the top of the roof, or the connection with base is missing: Can show a critical situation of the mind being split from body awareness; schizoid or manic.

Watching something ascend - such as an object - or something emerging from the sea: Something you are becoming more conscious of; something emerging from unconsciousness.

Useful questions are:

What am I feeling as I ascend, and where does that feeling appear in my waking life?

Is there a particular situation or difficulty I am moving away from, and is that in my life also?

What method or attitude am I using to ascend? Is it will power or some other influence?

ASCETIC Restraint of physical desires, usually in an attempt to realise inner self, but often from inner personal conflicts with such things as sexual urges or anxieties.

Conflict with natural drives; desire to be less dominated by same; avoidance of sex; an attempt to find the spiritual, that may be an inverted fear of one's unconscious or a bid for power to control; development of will. See: ascetic under archetypes; religion and dreams. See: Roles.

DREAM INTERPRETER

Dream meanings - enabling you to interpret your own dreams

Tony Crisp

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ASH/ASHES What remains in your experience, perhaps as memory or wisdom, after the event or person has gone; purification; something that once moved you or troubled you, but the feelings have burnt themselves out; death or fear of it; ashes also fertilise after a period of decay, death or destruction; empty of life; an endeavour, relationship or dream that nothing came of it or that has ended.

Ash filled air: Enormous changes going on; great emotion, or emotion filled events, creating confusion and perhaps danger.

Ashes of someone or something: Something or someone that existed in your life and were a living part of it, but have now gone. Perhaps feelings have burnt out and left only a shadow, ashes of what existed before. The ashes in the case of cremation suggest the loss of the physical body, and what is now living is the influence of that person still existing in your life.

Ashtray: The way you get rid of old feelings, habits, memories; collection of past burnt out feelings or results of relationships; connection with smoking habit.

Cigarette ash: Connection with smoking; old feelings or anxieties.

If connected to cricket: Victory - or defeat if losing them.

Idioms: Rake over the ashes; reduced to ash; ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Useful questions are:

What is it that is now ashes, and how does that link with what has gone from your life?

With what feelings are you relating to the ashes?

Is there something that has been burnt out of your feelings or purified?

ASH TREE - See: tree.

ASS See: Ass/Donkey.

ASSASSIN - This might link with hidden desires in you to kill certain parts of yourself. For instance sometimes a person destroys their own best interests or creations. The assassin might also show the feelings you hide about someone else or their achievements.

Useful questions are:

What is my dream showing that the assassin is aiming to kill, and what does this point to in my waking life?

Am I surreptitiously undermining my own or someone else's activities?

Have I killed out some aspect of my own feelings, love or creativity?

ASSISTANT See: Helper.

ASTHMA If you suffer asthma then the dream will probably be illustrating something about the physical or psychological cause of your condition. See: Air

Otherwise it probably depicts feelings to do with struggling to survive, or being smothered in a relationship or situation, or maybe some form of anxiety. This dream experience can arise from powerful fear or anxiety and not due to any physical problems. A response to anxiety is sometimes that of holding the breath, but it can also cause difficulty in breathing. See the dream work under nightmares.

Useful questions are:

Am I experiencing heightened stress or fear about something?

Am I meeting a fear of death or illness that I am not really allowing to be felt or expressed?

If I imagine myself struggling for breath what emerges; what am I seeking or facing?

ASTRAL BODY - See: astral body.

ASTROLOGER, ASTROLOGY The dream astrologer often represents your intuition or unconscious insights into yourself and others. There may also be a link with a sense of destiny or direction. But perhaps you associate astrology with hocus pocus, in which case your dream might be suggesting you are being misled.

Useful questions are:

Does the astrology give any information about your character or future - if so can you say what it is?

Do I have particular concerns about my future - if so what are they?

Did I seek help from the astrologer - if not why not?

He or she represents your intuition and might hold important and useful insights.

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