1. I'm having a paranoid dream, but it's kind of fun in a cinematic 007 style. There are teams of thugs out to get me. I've wandered into an urban trap and there's no way I'm getting out alive. All that's left for me is to choose which particular way I'm gonna die. As the net is closing tighter I get to a hotel lobby: I see the staircase has a railing down the middle but the whole right side is blocked by one of these guys standing there, really obese, waiting. So I step into an elevator instead along with a handful of bystanders who have no idea what's going on.
As we rise, I've already surrendered to my imminent fate. I start to tell a 'fairytale': "Once upon a time there were three courtiers who were so very grateful for everything they had been given..." I am feeling real gratitude, too.
The elevator cable (unsurprisingly to me) snaps. We're plummeting, accelerating. There's a couple of seconds of screamy pandemonium! Then all my fellow passengers faint, mercifully. Before we hit bottom, the feeling becomes way too intense, so I close my eyes and melt awake.
2. Back asleep again, I'm listening to some Shakespearean talk atop a ridge, overlooking a lovely green landscape of rolling British hills, with the woods behind us. A couple of gentlemen in period costume are chortling. Some good natured Falstaffian ribaldry, then the conversation turns to serious politics and a discussion about an aristocratic lad named Gibson...
3. Modern day. I'm taking a long afternoon walk with an American female friend who seems quite familiar to me. We've walked away from a group, and strolled down a very long hill. At the bottom, she is all set to turn and start right back up again.
"I don't know about you," I say, "but I'm in no hurry. I'm going to sit down here and relax for a while."
So we do. It's a rough, scrabbly field. We get into an extended heart-to-heart chat. There's some unrequited chemistry between us, but she's not going to go there. She tells me how she'd always viewed me, or my cock at least, as taken. (And it is.)
Then she says something odd about a woman whom we both know; I'm not sure if it's my mother, or an ex. "She said about you that you're someone that's on the brink of hope." I am not sure what that means...
This scene fades into an image of a couple of pup tents on a soft lawn by a beautiful stream, in front of a forest.
To dream that you are ascending in an elevator, represents a rise to status and wealth. You may have risen to a higher level of consciousness and are looking at the world from an elevated viewpoint. If the elevator is moving upward in an out of control fashion or it crashes through the roof, then it indicates that you are being catapulted to a position of power in which you do not yet know how to deal with. You are afraid of the new responsibilities ahead for you. Descending in an elevator, suggests that you are being grounded or coming back down to reality. It also signifies setbacks and misfortunes.
In general, the up and down action of the elevator represents the ups and downs of your life. It also symbolizes emotions and thoughts that are emerging out of and submerging into your subconscious. Alternatively, the dream may have sexual connotations.
To dream that the elevator is out of order or that it is not letting you off, symbolizes that your emotions have gotten out of control. It may be a reflection of your life or your career. You are feeling stuck in some aspect of your life, whether it is your career, relationship, etc.
To dream that the elevator is moving sideways, means that your efforts are counterproductive. You are going nowhere in your work, relationship or other situation.
To dream of ascending in an elevator, denotes you will swiftly rise to position and wealth, but if you descend in one your misfortunes will crush and discourage you. If you see one go down and think you are left, you will narrowly escape disappointment in some undertaking. To see one standing, foretells threatened danger.
Dreaming that you are ascending in an elevator means that you will quickly rise to status and wealth. You may have risen to a higher level of consciousness and are looking at the world from an elevated viewpoint. Descending in an elevator indicates that misfortunes will crush and discourage you. The up and down action of the elevator may represent the ups and downs of your life go emerging out of and submerging into your subconscious. Dreaming that the elevator is out of order or that it is not letting you off, symbolizes that your emotions have gotten out of control.
Going up and down in the Elevator may symbolise going from one state of consciousness to another. Messages from the unconscious may be accessible. Some believe that the Elevator may be a symbol of a boring and mechanical sex life. On a more pragmatic note, the Elevator may simply represent the "ups and downs" of life. If you are ascending, then you may perceive your current situation as optimistic and moving upward. If you are descending, you may be experiencing some negativity and helplessness.
To see a couple in your dream, symbolize marriage, your parents, or a relationship. Consider what the couple are doing in your dream for additional clues about their significance. It may point to something that is lacking or missing from your life.
To dream of woods, brings a natural change in your affairs.
If the woods appear green, the change will be lucky.
If stripped of verdure, it will prove calamitous.
To see woods on fire, denotes that your plans will reach satisfactory maturity. Prosperity will beam with favor upon you.
To dream that you deal in firewood, denotes that you will win fortune by determined struggle.
To see the woods in your dream, represent life, fertility, rejuvenation, and spring. Alternatively, the woods symbolize the unknown and the unconscious. You need to open yourself up to discovering your potential and your instinctual nature.
To dream that you are walking through the woods, signify your return to an aspect of yourself that is innocent and spiritual. If you are walking out of the woods, then the dream may be a literal depiction of being "out of the woods" or being in the clear of some situation.
To dream that you are lost in the woods, indicates that you are starting a new phase in your life. You are expressing some anxiety about leaving behind what is familiar to you.
To dream that the woods are dry or dying, suggests that there is a situation in your life that has not yet been resolved. You are overwhelmed with a problem or issue.
Seeing the woods in your dream, represents life, fertility, rejuvenation, and spring. Alternatively, it symbolizes the unknown and unconscious. You need to be more open-minded to discovering your potential and instinctual nature. Dreaming that you are walking through the woods means your return to an aspect of yourself that is innocent and spiritual. Seeing dried up, dying woods in your dream, suggests that there is a situation in your life that has not yet been resolved. You may also be overwhelmed with a problem or issue.
Symbolically, death represents the end of an epoch, particularly when
it takes the form of sacrifice or the desire for self-destruction in the face of
unendurable tension (as with Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan and Isolde). The hero
dies young for this same reason: Siegfried, Achilles or Balder for example. The
public necessity for a sacrifice of this kind was what lay behind the ‘ritual
assassination of the king’ in which the possibility of his survival was sometimes
left open, should he prove victor in combat. As an example of this rite, Frazer
cites a festival called ‘The Great Sacrifice’ in which the king of Calicut was made
to hazard his crown and his life. It took place every twelve years, at the time the
planet Jupiter turns back towards the constellation of Cancer, since there was a
supposed relationship between the planet and the king’s destiny (21).
To dream about the death of a loved one, suggests that you are lacking a certain aspect or quality that the loved one embodies. Ask yourself what makes this person special or what you like about them. It is that very quality that you are lacking in your own relationship or circumstances. Alternatively, the dream indicates that whatever that person represents has no part in your own life anymore. In particular, to dream about the death of your parents, indicates that you are undergoing a significant change in your waking life. Your relationship with your parents has evolved into a new realm.
To dream that you are faking your own death, suggests that you are looking for a new start. You need some change in your life.
To dream that you die in your dream, symbolizes inner changes, transformation, self-discovery and positive development that is happening within you or your life. You are undergoing a transitional phase and are becoming more enlightened or spiritual. Although such a dream may bring about feelings of fear and anxiety, it is no cause for alarm as it is often considered a positive symbol. Dreams of experiencing your own death usually means that big changes are ahead for you. You are moving on to new beginnings and leaving the past behind. These changes does not necessarily imply a negative turn of events. Metaphorically, dying can be seen as an end or a termination to your old ways and habits. So, dying does not always mean a physical death, but an ending of something.
On a negative note, to dream that you die may represent involvement in deeply painful relationships or unhealthy, destructive behaviors. You may feeling depressed or feel strangled by a situation or person in your waking life. Perhaps your mind is preoccupied with someone who is terminally ill or dying. Alternatively, you may be trying to get out of some obligation, responsibility or other situation. You are desperately trying to escape from the demands of your daily life.
To see someone dying in your dream, signifies that your feelings for that person are dead or that a significant change/loss is occurring in your relationship with that person. Alternatively, you may want to repress that aspect of yourself that is represented by the dying person.
To dream of seeing any of your people dead, warns you of coming dissolution or sorrow. Disappointments always follow dreams of this nature.
To hear of any friend or relative being dead, you will soon have bad news from some of them.
Dreams relating to death or dying, unless they are due to spiritual causes, are misleading and very confusing to the novice in dream lore when he attempts to interpret them. A man who thinks intensely fills his aura with thought or subjective images active with the passions that gave them birth; by thinking and acting on other lines, he may supplant these images with others possessed of a different form and nature. In his dreams he may see these images dying, dead or their burial, and mistake them for friends or enemies. In this way he may, while asleep, see himself or a relative die, when in reality he has been warned that some good thought or deed is to be supplanted by an evil one. To illustrate: If it is a dear friend or relative whom he sees in the agony of death, he is warned against immoral or other improper thought and action, but if it is an enemy or some repulsive object dismantled in death, he may overcome his evil ways and thus give himself or friends cause for joy. Often the end or beginning of suspense or trials are foretold by dreams of this nature. They also frequently occur when the dreamer is controlled by imaginary states of evil or good. A man in that state is not himself, but is what the dominating influences make him. He may be warned of approaching conditions or his extrication from the same. In our dreams we are closer to our real self than in waking life. The hideous or pleasing incidents seen and heard about us in our dreams are all of our own making, they reflect the true state of our soul and body, and we cannot flee from them unless we drive them out of our being by the use of good thoughts and deeds, by the power of the spirit within us.
This indicates long life. But a sick person dreaming of death has the positive results.
Dreaming about the death of a loved one, suggests that you are lacking a certain aspect or quality that the loved one embodies. Ask yourself what makes this person special or what do you like about him. It is that very quality that you are lacking in your own relationship or circumstances. Alternatively, it indicates that whatever that person represents has no part in your own life.
Dreaming about death is very common and it can be interpreted in many different ways. Death is usually a symbol of some type of closure or end. It implies an end to one thing and a beginning of another. Death dreams usually have positive symbolism. If you are the dead person in your dream, it could imply that you would like to leave all of your worries and struggles behind and begin anew. Dreaming about someone that you care about may express your fear about losing them. Dreaming that one of your parents died may express fear of loss, but it also may be an unconscious valve through which you release anger and other negative feelings. In some cultures dreaming about death and dying is a very good omen that represents longevity and prosperity.
Astrological Sign: Scorpio.
Positive associations with this tarot card:
endings, transformation, clearance, sweeping change.
Negative associations with this tarot card:
stagnation, loss of opportunity, loss of friendship, fear of change.
Without a doubt it is this card that causes most fear in a reading and yet it rarely, if ever, symbolizes actual death, more a time of absolute endings and absolute beginnings.
Whilst The Death card can represent rather shocking or unexpected events or changes, they usually clear the way for a brand new start and a greater value for life itself.
Out with the old and in with the new, a time of transformation is another way of looking at this card.
Negatively there isn't much difference, other than you may have a greater sense of fear and dread. when this card appears it's time to show what you're made of.
Another negative aspect of The Death card is stagnation, resisiting change when change is essential which may lead to lost opportunities.
To dream that you are reading Shakespeare, signifies your literary aptitude. You are well-read and knowledgeable. Consider which Shakespeare novel you are reading and how the plot line may parallel a situation in your waking life.
To dream of Shakespeare, denotes that unhappiness and dispondency will work much anxiety to momentous affairs, and love will be stripped of passion's fever.
To read Shakespeare's works, denotes that you will unalterably attach yourself to literary accomplishments.
Mother-symbols are characterized by an interesting ambivalence:
the mother sometimes appears as the image of nature, and vice-versa; but the
Terrible Mother is a figure signifying death (31). For this reason, Hermetic doctrine held that to ‘return to the mother’ was equivalent to dying. For the Egyptians, the vulture was a mother-symbol, probably because it devours corpses
(19); it also stood for the means whereby Hammamit (the universal soul) was
split up into separate parts to form individual souls (19). For the same reason, the
maternal sentiment has been said to be closely bound up with the nostalgic
longing of the spirit for things material (18), or with the subjection of the spirit to
the unformulated but implacable law of destiny. Jung mentions that in Jean
Thenaud’s Traité de la Cabale (of the 16th century) there is a mother-figure
actually represented in the form of a god of destiny (32). He mentions further that
the Terrible Mother is the counterpart of the Pietà, representing not only death
but also the cruel side of nature—its indifference towards human suffering (31).
Jung also notes that the mother is symbolic of the collective unconscious, of the
left and nocturnal side of existence—the source of the Water of Life. It is the
mother, he argues, who is the first to bear that image of the anima which the man
must project upon Woman passing from the mother to the sister and finally to the
beloved (32). A predominantly maternal social pattern—a matriarchal society—
is characterized, according to Bachofen, by special emphasis upon blood relationships, telluric allegiances, and the passive acceptance of natural phenomena.
Patriarchies are distinguished by a respect for man-made laws, the favouring of
works of art and craft, and obedience to the hierarchy (23). Even now that
matriarchal societies, sociologically speaking, no longer exist in the West, psychologically man is nevertheless passing through a phase when he is in all essentials dominated by the feminine principle. To come triumphantly through this
stage and to reinstate the masculine principle as the guiding-rule of life—bringing
to the fore the characteristically patriarchal qualities noted above—would signify
an achievement of the kind that was once symbolized by the transformation of
the ‘lunar work’ into the solar, or by the transmutation of mercury into sulphur.
To quote Evola: ‘Symbols of the earth-mother are: water, the mother of the waters, stone, the cave, the maternal home, night, the house of depth, and the
house of strength or of wisdom.’
To see your mother in your dream, represents the nurturing aspect of your own character. Mothers offer shelter, comfort, life, guidance and protection. Some people may have problems freeing themselves from their mothers and are thus seeking their own individuality and development.
To dream that you are having a conversation with your mother, denotes a matter that has preoccupied your mind and you are not sure how to deal with it in your waking life. It indicates unresolved problems that need to be worked out with your mother.
To hear your mother call you in our dream, suggests that you have been negligent in your duties and responsibilities. You are pursuing down the wrong path.
If you dream that you see your mother and converse with her, it indicates that you
will have prosperity in life. To dream that you have lost your mother indicates her sickness.
To see your mother in dreams as she appears in the home, signifies pleasing results from any enterprise.
To hold her in conversation, you will soon have good news from interests you are anxious over.
For a woman to dream of mother, signifies pleasant duties and connubial bliss.
To see one's mother emaciated or dead, foretells sadness caused by death or dishonor.
To hear your mother call you, denotes that you are derelict in your duties, and that you are pursuing the wrong course in business.
To hear her cry as if in pain, omens her illness, or some affliction is menacing you.
Seeing your mother in your dream, represents the nurturing aspect of your own character. Mothers offer shelter, comfort, life, guidance and protection. Some people may have problems freeing themselves from their mothers and are thus seeking their own individuality and development. Dreaming that you are having a conversation with your mother indicates a matter that has preoccupied your mind and you are not sure how to deal with it in your waking life. It indicates unresolved problems that still need to be worked out with your mother. Hearing your mother call you in our dream means that you have been negligent in your duties and responsibilities. You are pursuing down the wrong path. Hearing your mother cry in your dream indicates some illness or affliction.
The relationship that we have with our mother is the most psychologically significant relationship of all. Rarely all good or all bad, our mothers always invoke powerful emotions. We may dream about our mothers in many different forms. She may be disguised in our dreams, and it is our job to find her in there. If you are dreaming about your mother, you may be addressing some issues or concerns in your dream, or your dream may be based on a valuable memory. The general image of "mother" in a dream may symbolise a variety of feelings and ideas: caring, nurturing, love, acceptance, hard work, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc. The mother in your dream could also represent the "collective unconscious," the source of the "water of life," and the yin. The woman is that force, or current, inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and the knowledge that in not necessarily attached to words. Men, on the other hand, represent the active part of us that use the information received to create the physical reality of our lives. When the two are working together well, we have balance and experience awareness leading to peace and productivity.
In anthropology, woman corresponds to the passive principle of
nature. She has three basic aspects: first, as a siren, lamia or monstrous being who
enchants, diverts and entices men away from the path of evolution; second, as the
mother, or Magna mater (the motherland, the city or mother-nature) related in
turn to the formless aspect of the waters and of the unconscious; and third, as the
unknown damsel, the beloved or the anima in Jungian psychology. In his Symbols
of Transformation, Jung maintains that the ancients saw Woman as either Eve,
Helen, Sophia or Mary (corresponding to the impulsive, the emotional, the intellectual, and the moral) (33). One of the purest and all-embracing archetypes of
Woman as anima is Beatrice in Dante’s Commedia (32). All allegories based upon
the personification of Woman invariably retain all the implications of the three
basic aspects mentioned above. Of great interest are those symbols in which the
Woman appears in association with the figure of an animal—for example, the
swan-woman in Celtic and Germanic mythology, related to the woman with the
hoof of a goat in Hispanic folklore. In both cases the woman disappears once her
maternal mission has been completed and, similarly, the virgin qua virgin ‘dies’ in order to give way to the matron (31). In iconography it is common to find parts
of the female figure combined with that of a lion. The Egyptian goddess Sekhmet,
characterized by her destructiveness, had the body of a woman and the head (and
therefore the mind) of a lion. Conversely, a figure with a lion’s body and a
woman’s head appears in the Hieroglyphica of Valeriano as an emblem of the
hetaira (39). The inclusion of feminine, morphological elements in the composition of traditional symbols such as the sphinx always alludes to a background of
nature overlaid with the projection of a concept or of an entire complex of cosmic
intuitions. In consequence, the Woman is an archetypal image of great complexity
in which the decisive factor may be the superimposed symbolic aspects—for
example, the superior aspects of Woman as Sophia or Mary determine her function as a personification of science or of supreme virtue; and when presented as
an image of the anima, she is superior to the man because she is a reflection of the
loftiest and purest qualities of the man. In her baser forms as Eve or as Helen—
the instinctive and emotional aspects—Woman is on a lower level than the man.
It is here, perhaps, that she appears at her most characteristic—a temptress, the
Ewig Weibliche, who drags everything down with her, and a symbol comparable
with the volatile principle in alchemy, signifying all that is transitory, inconsistent, unfaithful and dissembling. See also The Loved One and Sophia.
To see a woman in your dream, represents nurturance, passivity, caring nature, and love. It refers to your own female aspects or your mother. Alternatively, a woman indicates temptation and guilt. If you know the woman, then it may reflect concerns and feelings you have about her.
To see an old woman in your dream, indicates your concerns about aging and growing old. Alternatively, the old woman may be an archetypal figure to symbolize feminine power.
To see a group of women talking in your dream, refers to some gossip.
To see a pregnant women in your dream, symbolizes abundant wealth.
Seeing a woman in your dream, represents nurturance, passivity, caring nature, and love. It refers to your own female aspects or may also represent your mother. Alternatively, it may indicate temptation and guilt. If you know the woman, then it may symbolize the concerns and feelings you have about her. Seeing an old woman in your dream indicates aging and growing old. Seeing a group of women talking in your dream, refers to some gossip. Seeing a pregnant women in your dream, symbolizes abundant wealth.
A woman or women generally represent intuition, creativity, nurturing, and love. At times they can also represent the negative attributes that are given to women and include physical and emotional weakness, gossip, martyrdom, passivity, moodiness, temptation, and guilt. The content of the dream is to be considered, as well as the emotional tone. If the dream is sexual in nature, look up sex. If the woman in your dream was a stranger and you are a man, she could be symbolic of your feminine side or your attitude about women. If you are a woman, this stranger may be symbolic of different parts of your character or personality. The woman is that force or current inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and the knowledge that in not necessarily attached to words.