Common Dreams # 1

From time to time, most people remember a dream. Some people are lucky and they remember a dream or a dream fragment each week, and some even more frequently than that. Hard psychological research on dreams is almost nonexistent. Most scientists will tell you that people dream and that dream activity might be a result of random brain activity; other researchers might tell you that there appears to be some connection between content of dreams and the activities of the preceding day. Almost everyone would agree that stress, anxiety, and trauma effect sleep and dreams.

HOWEVER, there is a rich, deep, and abundant amount of literature on the meaning of dreams that can be discovered in psychoanalytical and analytical psychology. Freud, a psychoanalyst, published his first book in 1900 and it was called "The Interpretation of Dreams." Jung, Freud's contemporary, developed his own ideas about the human psyche and established analytical psychology. In Jung's framework, dreams are profoundly meaningful; they provide data about the emotional, psychological, and sometimes physical health of the dreamer. Understanding dreams brings about a greater amount of self understanding, which ultimately may lead to a happier, less stressful and more fulfilling life.

After approximately 15 years of analysis, hard academic work, and after reading hundreds upon hundreds of dreams sent to me by people from all around the world, I decided to write a series of articles about the meaning of most common dream symbols. This is what I often tell people before I attempt to interpret a dream: Dreams are messages from the unconscious. They are pathways through which we communicate with ourselves and with the collective. Dreams speak to us in symbols. They are never wrong, but we are often not able to understand their meaning because we don't know the language of symbols, and sometimes our conscious minds are unwilling to hear and see the message (Amar, 2007). The language of symbols is well established and goes back to the beginning of time.

One way that we can understand dream symbols is to look at what they mean collectively. A symbol represents a similar type of a thing for each dreamer. However, our own psychological, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs are specific. Therefore it is important to understand the collective meaning of a dream symbol and then to connect it to our own personal life and to our life's journey. Not all dreams are created equal; some are more important and more meaningful than others.

Each article will discuss the possible meaning of a group of related dream symbols. Please don't expect that I will tell you exactly what your specific dream means. Nobody can do that for you, without knowing a lot about you and without spending time with you on decoding the dream. If you have a desire to know what you dreams are telling you, then you must have the patience to think it through; the patience to get general information and then to apply it to your specific situation. This is really not that hard to do, once you get the idea you will be able to get more meaning out of your dreams than you did before. (After all of these years, I still need help understanding some of my dreams, and for this I turn to my analyst.) The information that I am going to share with you is really good and very helpful. This time we are going to discuss animal dreams in general, and specifically the meaning of snakes, spiders, bears, and cats.

Animals: it is very common for people to dream about animals. We dream about domestic animals and our own pets, we dream about wild animals, such as lions, and we dream about animals that we rarely if ever think about or see in our daily lives. Animal mythology is common and for culturally specific symbolic meaning of your dream animal, look to your own cultural traditions (Native American, Chinese, Judeo-Christian traditions, etc.). We associate animals with specific characteristics. For example if in the US you call someone a pig, it is usually an insult because you are saying that they are messy or gluttonous.

When interpreting dreams about animals you should: 1) make a list (mental or actual) of the animal's characteristics, and see how the animal is symbolically represented in your culture, local mythology, or religion. 2) Then try to think about how the animal that you were dreaming about might represent some of your own qualities (good or bad), and 3) think about how those qualities are most relevant to you at the current time.

For example: Last night you dreamt that a frog hopped on your bed and then jumped on your face. You were startled and woke up. To understand this dream, break down ideas into the three steps mentioned above: 1) a frog is able to live in many different environments and some are able to survive a long winter without food and without coming up for air, 2) you, the dreamer, are typically resilient and able to maximize your resources, and 3) at the moment you are unemployed and are having problems in your marriage. Now that I told you, I am sure that you can see the simple beauty of the frog dream. The dream might serve to remind you that you are resourceful and adaptable, which might reduce your current stress and possible fearfulness, so that you can begin to solve your problems energetically and with optimism.

Snakes: one of the most common dream symbols. Depending on the cultural backdrop, they might represent, fertility, nurturance, a journey into the private unconscious, and divine healing, and according to Freud, might be a phallic symbol. On the other hand, the snake in your dream might represent temptation, evil and envy. OK then, how do you know what the snake in your dream represents and which symbolism is the one that you should pay attention to? The way to begin every dream interpretation is to be honest about what is going on in your daily life, and to try to apply the three steps that I mentioned above. Most people are not neutral or indifferent about snakes. Snakes tend to evoke strong feelings, and a dream about a snake or snakes tends to be remembered for a while by most of us. Most people will have a dream about a snake from time to time. If you are one of these people, try to remember what was going on in your life the last time you had a snake dream. As in the story of Adam and Eve, large snakes seems to be associated with big changes and of new awareness; the snake dream might ultimately be a dream about having to transition through an important phase or situation in life, which may serve you to become a more conscious person.

Spiders: they are complicated and common dream symbols. Often the spider's web contributes as much to the meaning of the dream as does the spider. Jung thought that the spider's web was a beautiful symbol for the web of life and our personal and collective existence. It is true that all of us are connected via intricate relationships, which are sometimes personal, but most of the times are not personal at all. When interpreting a dream about a spider, think about how you are functioning in the framework of your family, work environment, classroom, community, etc. This dream might be about the way that you are connecting to others and about your personal contribution to how well things are. Also, this dream might be about the web of thoughts and emotions that you experience and that define your current reality. A frightening spider dream might be a call for you to pay better attention to what is going on in you and around you. It might be an unconscious push to become aware of a deficit or a threat in your internal or external environment. A spider dream can be a spiritually meaningful dream, and understanding it might lead to greater levels of integration and feelings of wholeness.

Bears: it is true that people who have never been in the forest and seen a bear in its natural environment have dreams about bears. Bears are a subject of many children's books, are associated with hibernation, and are known to be dedicated and extremely protective parents. For these and other reasons, bears in dreams are believed to symbolize very specific things, namely melancholy or depression (because of hibernation in caves) and issues with our mothers or with parenting. Your dream about a bear suggests that you look at your own mood and check if you are experiencing feelings of sadness and depression that interfere with daily functioning. The bear dream might also be asking you to think about your mother or mother figure, and to see how early experiences continue to affect your life, or how they influence your own parenting style.

Cats: some cultures value cats more than others do, and in the US cats are common household pets, they are loved and appreciated by their owners. Regardless of culture or their relationship to people, all cats (from lions to house cats) are wild animals. They are border keepers, and even the most docile house can, can never be fully controlled, trained, or tamed. Cats are associated with a territorial and independent spirit, and in the pop culture sometimes with femininity and sexuality. As a dream symbol, a cat might be pointing to your own tendency to be territorial, with actual physical or mental and emotional space.

Amar, S. (2007). The Bedside Dream Dictionary. NY: Skyhorse Publishing.