Dream Imagery from Around the World

The entire concept of symbols and images that appear in the dreams of someone raised in Peoria, Illinois acting strictly in concert with the symbols and images that appear in the dream of someone having a nightmare in a small village in Thailand is beyond ludicrous. The fact is that your culture and the society in which you live will have much to do with not only what specific objects you dream about, but the meaning with which you can imbue them. Make no mistake, dream imagery is no chicken and the egg; first comes the dream and then the meaning of the imagery. Odd how representation of certain concrete items vary according to cultural custom.

Elephants

Okay, Mr. Freud, please to explain how anyone who has never seen an elephant can even dream of it and make it have a meaning? Those who live in places without zoos, moving or television thus rarely if ever have seen an elephant probably rarely if ever dream of them. By contrast, those who live in parts of Africa and India where elephants are a daily sight have endowed this majestic animal with dream imagery based on its symbolism of the authoritative sovereign. In addition, dreaming of an elephant could lead an educated dream therapist down a road in which he assures the dreamer that the animal represents certain intangible aspects like intellect, dignity and peace. Those who have only witnessed an elephant in a zoo may be surprised to find that their dream of this animal leads to the concept of dignity.

Fan

Anyone who dreams of a fan where your author comes from is merely trying to escape the oppressive heat by sneaking out through the back door of the unconscious. But if you are living in China or Japan, the fan is a symbol of so much more than utilitarian comfort in the presence of overbearing warmth. Fans in those and other Asian countries represent attributes such as a bottomless sense of charity and good-heartedness. Further down the continent when you get to the Hindu civilizations, the fan extends to become a marker of good fortune. By the time you reach Africa and the oppressive heat there, the fan has taken on a sense of empowerment and class and so is characterized within a dream as representing the monarchy or kingship.

Emu

The emu is a funny looking bird found only in very remote areas of the globe. Chances of the average American ever dreaming about an emu is pretty much dependent on what he watched on the Discover Chanel that night. And the symbolism contained therein may well be eschewed as unimportant or misunderstood in comical terms. When a member of the Aboriginal tribes of Australia dream of the exact same animal, however, it becomes endowed with the much greater and significant symbolism that is related to the bird's part in that civilization's creation myths. To dream of killing an emu in Alabama may somehow relate to that state's long history of bad race relations; to dream of killing a emu if you are an Australian aborigine is to unwillingly flirt with the bad luck associated with destroying a vital piece of the creation of the world.

Ears

Modern society has almost made the sense of hearing verge on the obsolete. A finely attuned sense of hearing certainly isn't as important as it used to be thanks to the plethora of amplification found all around us at any rate. Now think how important the sense of hearing probably is in Africa where extraordinary distances separate tribes and people even today. The ear has over time risen to become a dominant symbol through Africa as the centerpiece of wisdom and longevity. Just think of what it used to mean in Africa's long unindustrialized past to have the sharpest hearing. What you heard was directly related to what you knew so those who heard the most became those who knew the most. A keen sense of hearing out in those lands filled with stealthy beasts also ensured a longer life than those suffering a lack of auditory acuity. To dream of ears in Africa therefore means to dream of seeking wisdom and ways to ensure a long life. Dreaming of pierced ears brought with it the symbolism of the importance of holding to a pledge one has made.

Clearly, then, where you are and the culture in which you life and the history you share has great impact on the meaning of those things that inhabit your dreams. All of which points to an inescapable conclusion: dream interpretation is a crapshoot at best and pure crap at worst.