This is a complex symbol, derived at once from that of the house and
that of the enclosure or walled city. Walled cities figure in mediaeval art as a
symbol of the transcendent soul and of the heavenly Jerusalem. Generally speaking, the castle is located on the top of a mountain or hill, which suggests an
additional and important meaning derived from the symbolism of level. Its shape,
form and colour, its dark and light shades, all play an important part in defining
the symbolic meaning of the castle as a whole, which, in the broadest sense, is an
embattled, spiritual power, ever on the watch. The ‘black castle’ has been interpreted as the alchemists’ lair, as well as a rain cloud poised above a mountain-top
(50). Its significance as the Mansion of the Beyond, or as the entrance to the
Other World, would seem obvious enough. In a great many legends, the Castle of
Darkness, inhabited by a ‘Black Knight’, is symbolic of the abode of Pluto; this
is confirmed by Theseus’ mythic journey into hell. Charon has his abode in a
similar castle which is inaccessible to living men (the ‘castle of no return’ of
folktales). In the legendary heaven of Nordic tradition, the same meaning is to be
found. Melwas, the abducter of Guinevere, dwells in a castle surrounded by a
deep moat, the only means of access being two bridges difficult to negotiate.
According to Krappe, it is very possible that the underlying symbolism of all
mediaeval tales and legends about a castle owned by a ‘wicked knight’ who holds
captive all who approach his domain may well be that of the sinister castle of the
Lord of the Underworld (35). On the other hand, the ‘Castle of Light’ is the
‘redemption’-aspect of this same image. Piobb explains that the sudden appearance of a castle in the path of a wanderer is like the sudden awareness of a spiritual
pattern. ‘Before this fascinating vision, all fatigue disappears. One has the clear
impression that treasure lies within. The splendid temple is the achieving of the
inconceivable, the materialization of the unexpected’ (48). The castle, in sum,
together with the treasure (that is, the eternal essence of spiritual wealth), the
damsel (that is, the anima in the Jungian sense) and the purified knight, make up
a synthesis expressive of the will to salvation.

To see a castle in your dream, signifies reward, honor, recognition, and praise for your achievements. You are destined to a position of power, wealth, and prestige. Alternatively, the dream indicates your desire to escape from life's daily problems.

To dream that you live in a castle, represents your extreme need for security and protection to the point where you may be isolating yourself from others. Perhaps the dream parallels a waking situation where it has put you on the defensive.

To dream of being in a castle, you will be possessed of sufficient wealth to make life as you wish. You have prospects of being a great traveler, enjoying contact with people of many nations.

To see an old and vine-covered castle, you are likely to become romantic in your tastes, and care should be taken that you do not contract an undesirable marriage or engagement. Business is depressed after this dream.

To dream that you are leaving a castle, you will be robbed of your possessions, or lose your lover or some dear one by death.

Seeing a castle in your dream means reward, honor, recognition, and praise for your achievements. It foretells that your future will be a happy one, surrounded by the love of your children, generosity of neighbors, and comfort of friends. You are destined to a position of power, wealth, and prestige. Dreaming that you live in a castle means your need for security and protection to the point where you may be isolating yourself from others.

A castle in a dream may be symbolic of the "cavern of the heart." It represents the home of the human spirit (yours) and the natural self. Dreams with castles in them may come from deeper levels of the unconscious, or the collective unconscious. They may represent spiritual transcendence and the mysterious and intangible force that seems to quietly, but firmly, direct our lives. A castle in a dream may also represent feelings of security, protection, isolation or remoteness. You may have a castle dream when you have realised a desire or accomplished a goal. Darkened castles may be symbolic of unconscious or unfocused desires, at times, black castles represent our failures and white, or lighted castles, symbolise achievement and awareness. If you dream that a castle is under siege, you may desire more freedom. If a castle is being destroyed, you may be worried about future dangers.

To dream of women, foreshadows intrigue.

To argue with one, foretells that you will be outwitted and foiled.

To see a dark-haired woman with blue eyes and a pug nose, definitely determines your withdrawal from a race in which you stood a showing for victory. If she has brown eyes and a Roman nose, you will be cajoled into a dangerous speculation. If she has auburn hair with this combination, it adds to your perplexity and anxiety. If she is a blonde, you will find that all your engagements will be pleasant and favorable to your inclinations.

To see friends in your dream, signify aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to incorporate and acknowledge. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Alternatively, dreaming of a friend, indicates positive news.

To see your childhood friend in your dream, signifies regression into your past where you had no responsibilities. Things were much simpler and carefree. You may be wanting to escape the pressures and stresses of adulthood. Consider the relationship you had with this friend and the lessons that were learned. Alternatively, the childhood friend suggests that you have been acting in a childish manner. You need to start acting like an adult.

To dream that your best friend is dying, suggests that some aspect or quality that your best friend possess is dying within your own self.

To dream of friends being well and happy, denotes pleasant tidings of them, or you will soon see them or some of their relatives.

To see your friend troubled and haggard, sickness or distress is upon them.

To see your friends dark-colored, denotes unusual sickness or trouble to you or to them. To see them take the form of animals, signifies that enemies will separate you from your closest relations.

To see your friend who dresses in somber colors in flaming red, foretells that unpleasant things will transpire, causing you anxiety if not loss, and that friends will be implicated.

To dream you see a friend standing like a statue on a hill, denotes you will advance beyond present pursuits, but will retain former impressions of justice and knowledge, seeking these through every change. If the figure below be low, you will ignore your friends of former days in your future advancement. If it is on a plane or level with you, you will fail in your ambition to reach other spheres. If you seem to be going from it, you will force yourself to seek a change in spite of friendly ties or self-admonition.

To dream you see a friend with a white cloth tied over his face, denotes that you will be injured by some person who will endeavor to keep up friendly relations with you.

To dream that you are shaking hands with a person who has wronged you, and he is taking his departure and looks sad, foretells you will have differences with a close friend and alienation will perhaps follow. You are most assuredly nearing loss of some character.

Seeing your friends in your dream means aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to integrate these rejected part of yourself. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. Additionally, this symbol foretells of happy tidings from them and the arrival of good news. Seeing your childhood friend in your dream means regression into your past where you had no responsibilities and things were much simpler and carefree. You may be wanting to escape the the pressures and stresses of adulthood. Consider the relationship you had with this friend and the lessons that were learned. Alternatively, the childhood friend may be suggesting that you have been acting in a childish manner and you need to start acting like an adult. Dreaming that your best friend is dying, suggests that some aspect or quality that your best friend possess is dying within your own self.

To see a bear in your dream, symbolizes independence, the cycle of life, death and renewal, and resurrection. You are undergoing a period of introspection and thinking. The dream may also be a pun on "bare". Perhaps you need to bare your soul and let everything out into the open.

To dream that you are being pursued or attacked by a bear, denotes aggression, overwhelming obstacles and competition. You may find yourself in a threatening situation or domineering relationship.

To see a polar bear in your dream, signifies a reawakening.

Bear is significant of overwhelming competition in pursuits of every kind.

To kill a bear, portends extrication from former entanglements.

A young woman who dreams of a bear will have a threatening rival or some misfortune.

Dreaming that you are being pursued or attacked by a bear indicates aggression, overwhelming obstacles and competition. You may find yourself in a threatening situation. Alternatively, bears symbolize the cycle of life and death and renewal. It may signal of period of introspection and thinking. The dream may also be a pun on "bare". Perhaps you need to bare your soul and let everything out into the open. Dreaming of a polar bear means a reawakening.

A bear in a dream is a very rich and complicated dream symbol.

Bears are highly regarded symbols in a variety of cultures and traditions. The interpretation of the bear in a dream may be influenced by your perception of it and by the events in the dream. The bear may represent qualities in your character or specific aspects of your personality. Bears are usually associated with danger and aggression, and a bear can represent an adversay, but this is a very narrow view of this powerful dream symbol.

Bears are solitary animals, so a bear in a dream can signify the ability to rely on your own strength to survive. Bears symbolize independence, either in yourself or in someone else.

Females bears are solitary mothers. Therefore,a bear in a dream often symbolizes a mother figure. The behavior of the bear, whether it is uncaring, possessive or devouring, can indicate how you feel towards your own mother.

A bear that is clearly male can stand for a father figure, or just an overbearing person in your life.

A bear can also represent the ability to revive yourself after a period of rest, based on the fact that bears hibernate in winter.

Bears in dreams may represent a period of introspection and depression. However, this may be a part of a healing cycle, where the dreamer has retreated into himself in order to regenerate and in order to create something new and valuable in his life.

Bear Meanings from Native North American Views

When we walk the Path with the bear, this animal will inevitably tell us about its long history with the First People of North America.

As a Native American symbol, the bear is as free in spirit as the great wind; and grander than its mass. To match that magnitude is the quality of unpredictability in the bear. A massive animal who forages seemingly peacefully in the woods on berries and bush. when provoked in certain ways, the First Peoples witnessed a ferocity expressed from the bear that (understandably) could elicited terror.

Because of this potentially furious storm brewing just under the surface of bears spirit, our native forebears were extremely cautious and respectful of this animal. Even tribes inclined to peace honored the spirit of a warrior, and witnessing the bear seemed to embody that kind of blind, powerful surge of courage and strength that every warrior is want to tap into.

Bear meanings were enhanced by observations made tribal sages. These vital tribal figures were inclined to pensive and deeper understanding of how nature communicated intent in all her forms. These sages found connections between human and beast and from these associations would interpret profound meanings that propelled the community into direction, action, and wisdom.

One such connection to bear meaning comes from a Shoshone sage who, set about bridging worlds in a manner of trance walking. During his trance walk, he was gifted with the site of a clan of bears who were performing what seemed to be a ritual dance.

These were not spirit bears, but real bears, on their hind legs, dancing in the golden rays of the sun. The Shoshone sage understood this to be a dance of gratitude as well as a prayer for the healing and protection of their young. From that point further the Shoshone have instigated their own Sun Dance where the bear is a central figure of the ritual symbolizing protection, strength and continuation of the progeny of the tribe.

Native American Bear Meaning - A quick list of keywords summoned by the tribal mind:

Protection
Childbearing
Motherhood
Freedom
Discernment
Courage
Power
Unpredictable

We see a lot of connections with bear and man in the Native mind. We can intuit these bear meanings to come from the human-like appearance of the bear when it’s posed on hind legs. Further, the natives observed the bear looks remarkably human when skinned of its fur.

Bear meanings of motherhood and child protection continue in the Aleut and Haida minds where legend indicates the bear would take a tribal woman as its wife. From this union, man and bear strengthened their greatest aspects, combining the best (and sometimes worst) traits.

As a Sioux symbol, the bear also has healing symbolism. Sioux legend indicates mother bear was weary from carrying her heavy babies in her belly. She was having trouble walking and feared she could not make the journey to the great foraging fields to feed during her final days of pregnancy. She rested against redwood sorrel plant and the plant spoke to her, telling her that if she ate of its leaves her body would be able to sustain her load. Mother bear did as the sorrel advised to discover the treatment worked. She knew her Sioux sisters would have the same troubles when they were heavy with their own babies, so she shared the medicinal advice with the Sioux medicine woman.

The bear is a strong Native American symbol to the Cree who are powerfully connected with the bear. Recognizing its girth, and amazingly effective teeth and claws, the Cree adopted the bear as a symbol for successful hunt. Intricate preparations were made prior to a hunt. These preparations featured the bear as the guest of honor. Every aspect of pre-hunting ritual was designed to honor the bear. Even after the ritual bear skulls would hang in the lodge overnight to induce dreams of bears that provided good luck in the hunt. That is, if the bear was pleased, the dreams would come, and the hunt would be a success.

Above all, bear meaning holds incredible influence and magnitude to the North American tribes. And although the bear is a profound Native American symbol of majesty, freedom and power it is far more. The spiritual connections made with the bear makes it a brother to the First People.

As a brother, the bear imparts this advice to both our ancestors and us today:

Because the bear is cautious, it encourages discernment to humankind.
Because of a fierce spirit, the bear signals bravery to those who require it.
Because of its mass and physical power, the bear stands for confidence and victory.
Because it prefers peace and tranquility (in spite of its size), Bear calls for harmony and balance.

Hibernation is a key attribute of the bear. Having a bear as your power animal indicates the need to go within yourself - to withdraw from the world to find your answers. Your dream time is extremely important.

According to Piobb, the Graeco-Roman conception of the ocean
encompassing the earth was a graphic representation of the current of energy
induced by the terrestrial globe (48). Setting aside its grandeur, the two most
essential aspects of the ocean are its ceaseless movement and the formlessness of
its waters. It is a symbol, therefore, of dynamic forces and of transitional states
between the stable (or solids) and the formless (air or gas). The ocean as a whole,
as opposed to the concept of the drop of water, is a symbol of universal life as
opposed to the particular (38). It is regarded traditionally as the source of the
generation of all life (57), and science has confirmed that life did in fact begin in the
sea (3). Zimmer observes that the ocean is ‘immense illogic’—a vast expanse
dreaming its own dreams and asleep in its own reality, yet containing within itself
the seeds of its antitheses. The island is the opponent of the ocean and symbolic
of the metaphysical point of irradiating force (60). In keeping with the general
symbolism of water, both fresh and salt, the ocean stands for the sum of all the
possibilities of one plane of existence. Having regard to its characteristics, one
may deduce whether these potentialities are positive (or germinant) or negative
(destructive) (26). The ocean, then, denotes an ambivalent situation. As the begetter of monsters, it is the abysmal abode par excellence, the chaotic source
which still brings forth base entities ill-fitted to life in its aerial and superior
forms. Consequently, aquatic monsters represent a cosmic or psychological situation at a lower level than land-monsters; this is why sirens and tritons denote a
sub-animal order. The power of salt water to destroy the higher forms of land-life
means that it is also a symbol of sterility, so confirming the ambivalent nature of the ocean—its contradictory dynamism (32). The ocean is also to be found as a
symbol of woman or the mother (in both her benevolent and her terrible aspects)
(56). As Frobenius comments in Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes: ‘If the blood-red
sunrise is interpreted as the “birth” of an astral body, then two questions arise:
Who is the father? And how did the mother come to conceive? And since she, like
the fish, is a sea-symbol, and since our premiss is that the sun plunges into the sea
and yet is born in it, the answer must be that the sea previously swallowed up the
old sun and the appearance of a “new sun” confirms that she has been fecundated.
The symbolism here coincides with that of Isis whose twin lunar horns embrace
the sun.’ This appearance of the sun and its disappearance back into the deeps of
the ocean confirm that the ‘Lower Waters’ signify the abyss out of which forms
arise to unfold their potentialities within existence. Thus, the ocean is equated
also with the collective unconscious, out of which arises the sun of the spirit (32).
The stormy sea, as a poetic image or a dream, is a sign of an analogous state in the
lower depths of the affective unconscious. A translucent calm, on the other hand,
denotes a state of contemplative serenity.

To see an ocean in your dream, represents the state of your emotions and feelings. It is indicative of spiritual refreshment, tranquility and renewal. Alternatively, the dream means that you are feeling empowered and unhindered. You have a positive outlook in life and are not limited by anything. If you are sailing across the ocean, then it signifies new found freedom and independence. You are showing great courage. If the ocean is rough, then the dream represents some emotional turmoil. You are doing your best to handle life's ups and downs.

The state of life will be as the ocean is perceived to be in dream, viz., calm and
peaceful life when the ocean is calm and troublesome life when the ocean is stormy, etc.

To dream of the ocean when it is calm is propitious.
The sailor will have a pleasant and profitable voyage.
The business man will enjoy a season of remuneration,
and the young man will revel in his sweetheart's charms.
To be far out on the ocean, and hear the waves lash the ship, forebodes disaster in business life, and quarrels and stormy periods in the household.

To be on shore and see the waves of the ocean foaming against each other, foretells your narrow escape from injury and the designs of enemies.

To dream of seeing the ocean so shallow as to allow wading, or a view of the bottom, signifies prosperity and pleasure with a commingling of sorrow and hardships.

To sail on the ocean when it is calm, is always propitious.

Seeing an ocean in your dream, represents the state of your emotions and feelings. It is indicative of some spiritual refreshment, tranquility and renewal.

It traditionally represents our great unconscious, memories, emotions, and individual soul and collective experiences. Look at all of the details in this dream. Is the water clear or murky? Is it calm or turbulent? Are you catching fish, or are you stranded and afraid? Look, listen, and try to comprehend the messages in this dream. No one is in a better position to give meaning to your dreams than you can. Concentrate and learn for yourself.