Hello everybody. I am new here and I find some of the threads really interesting and some of the answers really sound professional (especially Mr.Anonymous' in "a very strange dream, possibly precog."). I had a strange dream abotu a month ago and I would appreciate some opinions on the meaning or reason of it all. I remember the dream as clearly as if it were yesterday, since I couldn't fall back to sleep that night and wrote it down pretty detailed that day. I remember it began in a hospital. The images were sometimes really blurry, fast-paced, as if the dream was a movie and the camera was shaking, frames changing rapidly. There was a doctor in an operation room, somebody laying on the table. The atmosphere was that heaven-blue, light blue that you know from all the hospital-movies. There was a fine mist and a lot of reflected light everywhere. The doctor put handgloves on and then suddently there was a lot of blood, dark red blood flowing. Then, the scene changed and somebody (face and gender undistinguishable ) woke up in a patients-room, dressed in a patient's robe. the camera was still shaking, as if in panic. The person turned around laying face-down now, touched its chest/breasts, then wanted to get out of the bed. Right in that moment, as it pulled the covers, a horrible ugly pig-face (something like the one in SAW) appeared underneath them. Then the camera changed to the fridge in the room, on which there were pictures of faces of dead children and of children-skulls Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! . Then the camera changed back to the patient, who ran towards the door and opened it. Right outside of his room there was a children playground. There stood only one child, but it was the most beautiful child in the world. It hand an incredible aura. And it smiled the most beautiful and innocent smile. It looked at the patient. The next moment the patient fell on its back and was pulled towards the playground and cut in two vertical (from behind legs up to head) pieces (a lot of blood) by a metal bar. The beautiful smile of the child turned into an bloodlusty, evil grin. Then, I see an old school-mate of mine (a girl whom I havent seen or had any type of contant with for more than 5 years) saying "And all because of the beauty OP" to a psychologist. Then, the whole dream is being played all over again in fast-motion, only this time at the beginning the doctor has silicon in his hand and I could see now the patient was a woman. This was about it... my really strange dream. I couldt fall back asleep that night, since I kept seeing faces of dead children in the dark, eitehr with my eyes open or closed. It was really scarry. I never had any nightmares like this before and I was wondering if "children" or even "dead children" symbolise anything (couldnt find this in any book and Freuds theory can hardly be used here, right? I doubt the fact that I could have a hidden, primitive lust to see dead children...
Since my experience Hi: Since my experience with dreams i now that symbols in dreams only have a meanning to the dreamer. I´ve had very, very crazy dreams, but muchhh times i could find the symbols asociated, i think symbols only have a meanning for the dreamer ´cause all we like humans asociate words and objects in a differente way than other of our kind. It requires some work, but ask yourself? Whats the meanning, for example in a hard time of my life i dreamt about a great white bird and a great magician both trying to rescue a boy kidnaped by bandits, i didnt knew what was the meanning i didn appear in the whole dream, later asking my self and thinking in my situation i understood that i was led my self astray and conscience and subconscience was trying to bring my self to the ligth again. Since my experience and others like me, dead in dreams is not bad, it means change, its a symbolic dead. Recently i had an very horrible nigthmare with the corpse of an uncle, to me and my situation is clear there´s unclosed situations (that i thougth closed) in my life to resolve and i fear that, may be that are your dead childs, only ask your self, you´ll find interesting responses............... See ya
Woah, scary. I'd guess it's about loss of innocence (innocent child/murderer), and that kind of "selling out" when you change your appearance to fit the group of people you hang around with, when you don't want to change the way you look but they pressure you to do so. The breast enhancement could be a metaphor for that.
Wow, the ideea about the peer pressure is ingenious. I thought about meaning related to appearence myself, but I can't understand why the child is grinning evily... shattered perfection of beauty... would that be a view of myself or of someone else? I noticed lately that i was not quite satisfied with my lack of the perfect model body, but I mean... almost nobody has one... would this represent jealousy over someone I know that has what I don't? And what is with the dead woman, split in half... ? If she represents change, is this the wish to get rid of the group pressure?
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! .... Hello. Sorry to but in here. Have to say, you're kind of on the right track, but your dream per say isn't specifically about peer pressure so much as your personal distaste regarding certain aspects of what you consciously acknowledge as being your more favoured personal reaction to such... That's probably very awfully stated, but before making a monkey out of m'self any further, there is a question I need to ask which requires a candid, honest response from yourself, which is thus: if asked to describe yourself, physically speaking, and being bluntly honest in your assessment - would you or would you not describe yourself as being, in no sense of actual vanity here just plain, honest speaking, matter-of-fact, as-it-is candour - attractive? ie. If the question came up: who, in your opinion, if considered by most peoples minds do your know who would come closest to being described possibly as somewhat reminiscent of The Creature from The Black Lagoon? - your hand, not automatically inclined to want feel the necessary urge to volunteer oneself for the part... In short, generally speaking, you acknowledge yourself as being a not at all unreasonably attractive, qualified, competent, professionally minded woman - correct?
Why are you asking other people to interpret your dream? The only one whose interpretation of your dream is important is you. There are no universal symbols that can be decoded from your dream. The dream is like a rorschach test. What do you think it means? Anyone else interpreting your dream has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with them. Interesting, I suppose, but not relevant to understanding yourself in a deeper fashion. And perhaps counterproductive if you take their interpretations to heart.
Glad you did. Umm, first of all I'm an 18-year-old guy. And plain, honest speaking, matter-of-fact, as-it-is... I do consider myself attractive Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! (at least the looks and the smile, dunno about the character and the somewhat lack of an eye-jumping muscular system, I'll let others be the judge of that). And about the other adjectives... qualified pretty much, competent yes, professionally minded... not sure, haven't been there yet, I guess so also. Sorry if you were expecting the opposite answer... but I'm actually pretty satisfied with all of these aspects. At least when I (e.g.) go out with a girl. But if I go out with a bigger group of people, then yes, I may sometimes feel less confident compared to others. ...but why would someone read or not read something like this out of a strange dream like that? Oh, and are you in some way a psychologist? Your answers are really astonishing. Please continue.
Yeah, you're most probably right, but I'm not only interested in what the different person thinks about the meaning of the dream, but what similarities between the different opinions arise. I'm curious if there really are any "universal symbols", as you call them. This would lead us one step closer to understanding the human brain. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What better way to do this then ask all kind of people about their opinion? I'll gladly be the so-called "test-subject" for something of this kind. Luckily, people here seem to give these things a thought Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! . Where I live most of them only have one opinion about this kind of dream: "strange". Big deal. I could have figured that out m'self...
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ... I shouldn't worry, old chap. Happens to us all at some point and, actually, as to that latter - strictly between ourselves, personally I'm rather relieved. Makes things a lot more straightforward, just my bad really for not getting a handle on your gender. Oddly hard thing to do with dreams, remarkably bisexual thing the subconcious.... Anyway, the main part of the asking was all about wanting to establish your attitudes towards yourself, physically speaking. It's predominantly one of the main over all themes running throughout your dream. Fundamentally speaking you are a person with a generally and, more importantly, actually genuinely positive healthy attitude towards your own physical appearance and self esteem. Despite a dream replete with images of disturbing, non specified surgical procedures gradually resolving themselves into what can only be described as definite cosmetic enhancements - you yourself remain remote, distant, dissociated from the gruesome, movie like quality of drama that plays out before you. You're the camera man and director here, not the movie star (on the surface, at least) - what we are seeing with this hospital stuff is your emotional response to the idea and practice of someone electing to submit themselves to what amount to purely superfluous physical changes. This doesn't necessarily mean surgery to you in the literal sense - this is just your minds way of representing what the forepart of your brain, basically the larger part of you, considers unnecessary, superfluous changes to ones appearance. The vain desire to physically change ones appearance. No physical need for it what so ever - pain and physical change just because someone desires the vacuous expedience of the results, not the actual process. You say to yourself, this isn't me, this isn't who I am, I don't need to put myself through that kind of stuff - therefore you stand apart. The camera man, not the patient. The onlooker, audience and, to an extent, judge. However, at the same time as this, here is where the dead children come in. In life you find yourself in what you would, if asked, describe as a competitive arena. As much as your dream discloses that you have a very good, positive self image towards yourself physically, this isn't about concerns regarding ones appearance towards members of the opposite sex - this entire thing is all about ones own sense of how well one measures up in comparison to those of the same gender as oneself within the environment in which one competes. This isn't to be confused with notions of sexual attraction. Both men and women, universally, check members of their own sex out - not in a sexual sense, but one of comparison regarding what one perceives as demonstrated by the other and how what they see matches up with ones own sense of gender statement - and, of course, a little bit of what one assumes this means to members of the opposite sex. Basically, you're in an environment where there are plenty of others of your own gender and although you know yourself to be successful with regards to your ability to attract members of the opposite sex, for you this has never been a problem and still isn't - but nevertheless a part of you can't help but wondering.... "Yes, but if I had abs a bit more like so-and-so, or butched up in the bicep department... what real harm would that do?" And although ostensibly the answer is non, no real harm whatsoever - that fact that you're even thinking in this way to begin with cuts against the grain of the actual type of person it is you perceive yourself as being. Your not a vain person, you view other qualities as being far, far more important on the predominantly main part of your perception of self - nevertheless, a tiny nagging part of you wonders about doing something to perhaps change what, in your own assessment, you would describe as nothing more than wholly superficial qualities. Irrespective of how you view such things, intellectually speaking - despite of it actually, still part of you is drawn towards entertain such notions as doing something to physically alter your appearance - for no real need, just so as you feel to your own sense of self appraisal you compare equally favourably to those you see around you. And you basically really don't want to like that part of yourself. And so you don't Go back to your dream. You witness surgery (the undertaking of unnecessary physical change), you witness the aftermath (irrevocable consequence). As you do that you cut to the photograph of the school children - the first such experience of the competitive arena you find yourself in today. And the children are all dead. Childhood is the past. Death means an end, no going back. The message here is simple: its saying to you, you managed to get through this first experience of this competitive arena, and school is nothing but, simply by being you. It was enough. You got by. Now look at you. Still, you don't want to associate this patient character directly as being you- so the children in the photograph appear dead. Acquiescing to this want is fundamentally destroying everything one personally has ever felt regarding the sort of person one feels oneself has always been in all the essential ways that matter the most. I'll wager quite heavily here, you've always had fair bit of contempt for the sort who work out simply for the iron pumping - sports is one thing, a sportsman should be fit, they're basically doing a job of work - but the sort who doesn't particularly partake in physical sports and just builds the body for the sake of looking "good" - that certainly isn't the sort you've ever been. Nevertheless, you're thinking about joining a gym. I know, given the visceral horror of your dream, it sounds an almost ludicrous degree of drama concerning such a simple thing - but what this is really all about is the conscious awareness of that, on some level, where you are, the environment you are currently in, is changing certain of your attitudes in a way your not at all entirely positive about. Go back to where your dream continues - patient runs in to a play yard. There is a child of stunning, natural beauty. No artifice no guile about them. Something pure and wholesome - yet the patient becomes split literally in two (text book representation of ambivalent feelings) and the child reveals itself to be evil, leering and monstrous all along. This is a double layered thing: the child is the recognition of self, how one feels about oneself. On the one hand this transformation from almost angelic state to devil is recognition and acknowledgement of truth regarding seeing something in ones self one doesn't personally entirely like, purely on an emotional level. All this time, and it was there all along... I never knew, etc... But, at the same time, your more intellectual response is to recognise that actually its the child in one that is forever wanting things: fundamentally, despite all the emotionally charged imagery and overblown metaphors, your intellectual self is still very much in control of you here - and even in dreams, the part of you that actually matters to yourself can still look at a the proposition of you acquiescing to this feeling of possibly wanting to do something more about your physical appearance and still find the notion of it rather funny. Immediately afterwards, you review the procedures previously seen this time with no ambiguity and clear recognition of what the purpose for the surgery is all about. Clearly, with no ambivalence whatsoever. Yes, its purely superficial - you end up actually agreeing with yourself, but so what, is essentially what your mind is saying to you here. Therefore, you may elect to go to the gym more, you may choose to work more on your abs or biceps or whatever but in truth you'll do it rather for fitness reasons and not the spray-me-orange-and-watch-me-clench-at-the-beach kind of reasoning which really isn't, and as your dreaming here is confirming to you, never has actually been you. At the time of having this dream, you fundamentally had some degree of ambivalence towards either taking steps towards working out more in this way or actually doing it. Either way, I'd say you'd pretty much made your mind up one way or the other that night - its just the disturbing imagery which stayed with you more. Either way, relax. You're perfectly healthy and actually have a very well balanced sense of proportion. Despite the Saw 3 overtones. Once again, sorry about the gender confusion specifically at the beginning, but the process underlying what sparked the dream off in the first instance really is extremely interchangeable between males and females, nigh on impossible to delineate between either gender based on what you describe. Hope that was of some help to you at anyrate, and sorry for the length. Goes without saying. Best regards, and thanks for the positive sayings, A Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
IMO This relates a family problem that is troubling you your conscience is needling you, you have knowingly or unknowingly betrayed a confidence or taken some action reuslting in an injustice to someone in your circle (a family member) and you are afraid it will come to light. You want to put right the wrong but are afraid of the consequences. You are feeling overwhelmed and need to seek help for resolving this problem. The difficulties involve overcoming hostile forces.
Wow, thanks a lot, your answer is really worth a thought, since things have happened that match your description. Though it would be helpful if you could please point out the parts (symbols) of the dream from which you have derived your statement/theory, since I can't quite follow your line of thought there. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The problem here Tenshi is that largely the interpretation is intuitive, but I did consider certain specific dream elements and then put it together to conclude the analysis. The dream details I was looking specifically at were: hospital blood pig face (and the context of that face) children and childrens faces (and context of those faces) hostility split in two plus the intuitve element which forms a large part. Hence not easy to explain! Sorry. These are the elements that stood out to me as relevant. I have been doing dream analysis for years and my answer is nearly always something that seems unrelated to the dream (hence people can't follow my train of thought) but relevant to the dreamer none the less. I havea website (got a lot of flack here when I set it up! http://dreamanalysis.bravehost.com/ but gives a little more info re what I do) If you find this analysis sits with your situation I have one piece of advice for you and that is simply to address the problem and don't be afraid to seek the help of others. Let me know how things work out and good luck.
I thank everybody for the replies. There's still a long way to go but I seem to understand (at least partially) how you see some of the dream symbols. The symbol that was obviously shared by everybody was the "split in half" representing uncertainty and the need for a decision. Sadly I could not figure the meaning of the dead children, which could represent, as already mentioned by Mr. Anonymous (thx again) and probably shared by many, a change. If you have got any/other interpretations for the words pointed out by Theoryofrelativity (hospital, blood, pig face, children, hostility, split in two), please do so. Oh, and one more question: What does "dying" in a dream mean for you? Some say it is luck, some say it is bad luck. This is probably the most discussed dream symbol. I have dreamed my death 3 times in the past, always from the 1st person perspective. One time falling from a bridge, one time drove over by a bus, one time killed by the stab of a cow's horn (don't laugh Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ). Please, DO keep on discussing.
Life is getting on top of you my friend, Meanwhile it is not the death that is relevant in the examples you cite but the method of death. ie falling from bridge bridge needs examing on its own falling on its own then put them together to get: you are trying to make a connection but were not successfull at that time (bridge = connection, falling = lack of success in that endeavour) drove over by bus, driving bus driving represents control but you were not driving hence someone else is in control, they drove over you, so they controlled you it was a bus....large vehicle all this together would mean someone you respect and see as being 'higher' than you in status is controlling you but not in a way you like. you feel overcome and overwhelmed and 'crushed'. Do you begin to see how this works? you do not look at the scenario as a whole except with regards to the 'feeling' the scene invokes but look at each element seperately then add it all together for meaning I would guess being stabbed by cows horn, relates to your mother or other dominant female figure wounding you emotionally. Note this is only relevant at the dream period of your life. Re the dead children which seems to disturb you (understandably) don't worry too much about this. What I looked at seperately re this was: dead, face, children, and hostility (change of expression you noted), the fact that together this adds up to dead children does not mean the dream has anything at all to do with dead kids. The dead kids in your dream (in context of that dream) merely represent troubling times, hostile forces, negative energy. It just adds to the overall picture which is one reflecting your emotional state at that time. The change of expression on the childs face is your realisation and recognisiton that what you did (to this family member) is having negative repercussions.
Wow, haven't thought about this kind of "symbol splitting" before. I think the ideea is ingenios since I can quite well imagine the brain actually working like this, adding details as it goes, unrelated to the other parts of the dream. Maybe this is even the reason why most dreams are so strange... Because the brain doesnt look for a relation other than the visual one to the dream, but for a relation to the feelings, which sometimes doesnt fit in, not even visually, not to mention the logic of the dream. Thanks a lot for an insight to your work and your methods Theoryofrelativity, I really appreciate it.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ... Tenshi, think less Freud here, more just regular narrative. The mind simply doesn't think linguistically. I know you're looking at this in terms of symbolism, however generally speaking the mind really isn't that convoluted it particularly needs to conjure forth an elaborate lexicon of iconography just for the hell of doing it. If you want an accurate analogy between the way the mind represents things in dreams - consider the differences between regular a Latin based script (as is used here in talking in English) and that represented by pictograph's, say Mandarin Chinese for example. In much the same way as the Chinese "alphabet" is far larger than that of English, being as how pictographs carry with them a visually representative meaning each of their own where as English doesn't do that with individual letters more by inference conveyed by individual strings of letters arranged into specific words - dreams seem, of the face of it, massively complex affairs consisting of apparently very loose structural rules and impossible to follow syntax. Nevertheless, dreams are language in its purest form. You're looking at, and feeling here, sub-linguistic communication. Not the words themselves but the idea's, thoughts and feelings that exist before actual words are first formed. In much the same way as, undoubtedly through the course of today I may elect to address other subjects elsewhere on the board - even though many of the words I'll use in those responses you'll find contained within this response you are reading now, I won't be saying at all the exact same thing - even though using many of the same words to convey meaning. You're finding your imagery of dead children still puzzling? Probably my fault for lack of concision: put in the broadest possible terms Death = Fear & Change. Put in context of your dream specifically it means literally Death = Change and fear of what that change means to you on an emotional level. Childhood is recognition of the past. Strictly speaking, simply conjuring up the image of school children under normal circumstances would of itself be enough to convey the idea of times past - however, much as a word in written English has specific meaning, each word used also carries with it an implied emotional component, the specific meaning of which becomes apparent through looking at the context in which the words are used. The image of children = the past. The image of these children being dead - a literal, visual representation of ones emotion response to the idea of these times (as represented by the kids) having gone - irrevocably, forever. You're head really is a very, very literal place and all its really concerned with is working its way through whatever is on your mind, usually sponsored by the events of the actual day as they occurred before you went to sleep - there's nothing either strange, mysterious or else in anyway otherworldly going on here. You're a little bit concerned that your interest in the notion of wanting to do something about your body shape by working out smacks a little of a degree vanity you yourself are simply uncomfortable with - it goes against you're preferred idea of self image and in your dream you're simply worried about what that is saying about you as a person. You're not in the slightest anywhere near vain at all, as I've said, you've actually got a very healthy, objective attitude towards your own appearance - nevertheless a part of you worries how you actually doing something more than just thinking about working on your physique speaks to others, not least yourself. That's really all this dream has been about. It gets as Jungian as that.... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You'd have to look at that in context of what was going on elsewhere in each dream. There are no cyphers to crack here, only what happened and why.
You are very welcome In terms of the brain and dreams Not every aspect of the dream is relevant, so another thing to learn is what to notice and what to neglect. You detailed your dream very well, in terms of recalling the colours and sensations. These are very important aspects. Note Anon said children in dreams relate to the past, this is not necc the case. It depends how they appear in the dream, the context. They can in certain contexts symbolise good times ahead (probably due to the association of good times had in childhood etc). your brain will make associations that may bear similarity to those other people make BUT there will many that are 100% unique to you and have a symbolic meaning in your dream that would not mean the same to another poster. This is where looking at the overall scene and examing the 'feeling' it evokes for a clearer understanding of what that symbol may mean within the context of your dream is important. In this regard Invert is right in that only you know the dream meaning - in that it makes good sense, BUT in reality for me this is not the case. I analyse others dreams very well, can I analyse my own? No. I am too close to the problem. I have a million things going on in my life how do I know what one symbol means within that context? However when I analyse a strangers dreams I know exactly NOTHING about them or their life to interfere and pollute my analysis. My analysis is either right or wrong. No grey areas. good luck
.... Erm, kind of was referring to them actually in context there, old stick... It was the meaning of imagery concerning death I was generally generalising. If your looking for the reason why, specifically, its school children in Tenshi's dream - the idea of school is what happened to be the closest representation of Tenshi's current environmental situation as currently living it in relation to what's actually sparking off his dream in the first place. It isn't related to domestic environment on any level - school is the first area in which we generally first experience the process of learning to compare ourselves to others exterior to family members. This is an environment Tenshi currently finds himself, similar environment, similar associations but significantly different enough to warrant the necessity to differentiate it as such: hence the image of school children and not students. The connotation is all past tense. This is comparison between present and past. Tenshi reinforces this immediately after the business in the playground when the child he see's transforms into something evil and leering - immediately after initially recoiling from the image Tenshi calls to mind the recollection of an old school friend, again someone firmly associated both with similar environment and equal past tense, but someone whom to Tenshi's experience represents someone typical of clear, objective thinking - a quality Tenshi feels he shared with this specific person. Immediately there after, Tenshi begins to review where he started regarding surgical procedures illustrating the notion of bringing about superficial cosmetic changes specifically to the body - no other area. Instead of viewing them in disquieting terms he see's them clearly in unambiguous terms, unencumbered by overly disturbing emotional responses. Equally, sorry to disagree here, but a dream is rather like a painting - there's really no such thing as an irrelevant element, everything present is there for a reason - it doesn't just appear simply because its a dream. Like marks on paper or canvas, if they're there they're there for a reason.
