8/12/11
Dream Clip One - In L's (my polarity therapy teacher) house and she is talking to me about polarity. I notice that she and I are about the same height, even though she is a much larger woman. She has three different bags of food - one of goji berries, one of nuts, and one of chocolate covered walnuts. I suggest mixing them together and she starts to mix them all together. I didn't mean all of them, but I'm pleased that she decided to do them all. I feel like it's a really kind gesture on her part. A little while later I'm sitting between two really dusty bookshelves.
Dream Clip Two - I'm working in a department store at a desk in the back corner. I have a drawer full of utensils and chopsticks that I'm organizing. A man with bright red skin (like it had been painted) approaches. He's wearing a business suit. He needs to change into his Santa suit because the children are coming and he's expected to be Santa Claus.
To dream that you are wearing a suit, indicates that you want to be acknowledged and recognized for your abilities and skills. You do not want your power to go unnoticed.
Dreaming that you are wearing a suit, indicate that you want to be acknowledged and recognized for our abilities and skills. You do now want your power to go unnoticed.
To dream that you are on a trail, signifies your progress in life. Consider the difficulty and condition of the trail. The dream may also be a metaphor that you are "trailing behind" on some task, some competition or some endeavor.
To see or use chopsticks in your dream, indicates that you are trying to manipulate some situation. Alternatively, it represents an extension of your reach.
If you are using chopsticks for its unintended function, then it suggest that you are in a sticky situation.
Skin is associated with the ideas of birth and rebirth. In the Egyptian
system of hieroglyphs there is a determinative sign comprising three skins knotted together, signifying ‘to be born’; it comes into the composition of words such
as ‘to engender’, ‘to bring up’, ‘child’, ‘to form’. The amulet which the Egyptians used to present to the newly-born comprised, like the hieroglyph, three animal
pelts which were attached to a solar globe. The number of the skins here refers to
the essentially threefold nature of the human being—the body, the soul and the
spirit—while the globe denotes his incorporation into the All. The symbolism of
skin is borne out by the rite known as ‘the passage through the skin’ which
pharaohs and priests used to carry out in order to rejuvenate themselves; this rite
was later replaced by a simulacrum, and then latterly it became just a panther’s
tail which kings wore knotted round their waist. This notion that an individual
may assume the characteristics of an animal, with its totemic implications, also
comes into skin-symbolism (19). There is a basic analogy here with the sacrificial
rite once practised by the priests of pre-Columbian Mexico in which human
victims were clad in skins; similarly with the wearing of skins by the bearers of
the signum in Roman legions.
To dream of your skin, represents protection or shield of your inner self. It serves as a physical boundary and how close you let others get to you. Alternatively, your skin indicates that you are being too superficial or shallow.
To dream that your skin is covered with rashes or other skin deformities, signifies your fear of facing a harsh reality. You are afraid of making a wrong impression. The dream may also be a pun that you are making a rash decision. If you dream that your skin has been burned, then it implies that you are unwilling let down your guard. Your line of defense has been compromised. This dream may also be a metaphor that you are "getting burned" or humiliated by someone or some situation.
To dream that your skin is orange, signifies self-love. You are content with who you are.
To dream that your skin is different color, suggests that you are not being true to yourself. Look up the specific color for additional meaning. If your skin is darker than your true skin, then it may mean that you are trying to hide or blend into the background. If it is lighter than your true skin, then it symbolizes fear. Alternatively, it may be a sign of sickness. Perhaps a call to the doctor is in order.
Dreaming of your skin, represents protection or shield of your inner self. It serves as a physical boundary and how close you let others get to you. Alternatively, it may indicate that you are being to superficial or shallow. Dreaming that your skin is covered with rashes or other skin deformity means your fear in facing a harsh reality. This may also be a pun to indicate that you are making a rash decision.
To dream that something is bright, represents divinity, a higher consciousness, and spirituality. You need to show your honor toward an important an person or situation. The dream may also be a metaphor for intellect and someone who is smart. If your dream is particularly bright and vivid, then it could indicate a prophetic or epic dream.
If the brightness is blinding, then it suggests that you are not paying attention to some new insights.
Dreaming that something is bright, represents divinity, a higher consciousness, and spirituality. You need to honor an admirable person or situation. The dream may also be a metaphor for intellect and someone who is smart. If the brightness is blinding, then it suggests that you are not paying attention to some new insights.
Man comes to see himself as a symbol in so far as he is conscious of his
being. Hallstatt art, in Austria, shows fine examples of animal-heads with human
figures appearing above them. In India, in New Guinea, in the West as well, the
bull’s or ox’s head with a human form drawn between the horns is a very common
motif. Since the bull is a symbol for the father-heaven, man comes to be seen as
both his and the earth’s son (22), also, as a third possibility, the son of the sun and
the moon (49). The implications of Origen’s remark: ‘Understand that you are
another world in miniature and that in you are the sun, the moon and also the
stars’, are to be found in all symbolic traditions. In Moslem esoteric thought, man
is the symbol of universal existence (29), an idea which has found its way into
contemporary philosophy in the definition of man as ‘the messenger of being’;
however, in symbolic theory, man is not defined by function alone (that of
appropriating the consciousness of the cosmos), but rather by analogy, whereby
he is seen as an image of the universe. This analogical relationship is sometimes
expressed explicitly, as in some of the more ancient sections of the Upanishads—
the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya for instance—where the analogy between the human organism and the macrocosmos is drawn step by step by means
of correspondences with the organs of the body and the senses (7). So, for
example, the components of the nervous system are derived from fiery substance, and blood from watery substance (26). These oriental concepts first
appear in the West during the Romanesque period: Honorius of Autun, in his Elucidarium (12th century) states that the flesh (and the bones) of man are
derived from the earth, blood from water, his breath from air, and body-heat from
fire. Each part of the body relates to a corresponding part of the universe: the
head corresponds to the heavens, the breath to air, the belly to the sea, the lower
extremities to earth. The five senses were given analogies in accordance with a
system which came to Europe, perhaps, from the Hebrews and the Greeks (14).
Thus, Hildegard of Bingen, living in the same period, states that man is disposed
according to the number five: he is of five equal parts in height and five in girth; he
has five senses, and five members, echoed in the hand as five fingers. Hence the
pentagram is a sign of the microcosmos. Agrippa of Nettesheim represented this graphically, after Valeriano, who drew the analogy between the five-pointed star
and the five wounds of Christ. There is a relationship, too, between the organic
laws of Man and the Cistercian temple (14). Fabre d’Olivet, following the Cabala,
maintains that another number closely associated with the human being is nine—
the triple ternary. He divides human potentialities into three planes: those of the
body, of the soul or life and of the spirit. Each of these planes is characterized by
three modes: the active, the passive and the neutral (43). In the Far East, also,
speculation about the symbolism of man began very early. The same kind of
triple ternary organization is to be seen in the ancient teachings of the Taoists
(13). It is also interesting to note that there is a relationship between the human
being and the essential or archetypal animals (the turtle, the phoenix, the dragon
and the unicorn) who appear to bear the same relation to man—who is central—
as the tetramorphs do to the Pantokrator. Now, between man as a concrete
individual and the universe there is a medial term—a mesocosmos. And this
mesocosmos is the ‘Universal Man’, the King (Wang) in Far Eastern tradition,
and the Adam Kadmon of the Cabala. He symbolizes the whole pattern of the
world of manifestation, that is, the complete range of possibilities open to mankind. In a way, the concept corresponds to Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’. According to Guénon, Leibniz—perhaps influenced by Raymond Lull—conceded
that every ‘individual substance’ must contain within itself an integral reproduction of the universe, even if only as an image, just as the seed contains the totality
of the being into which it will develop (25). In Indian symbolism, Vaishvânara, or
the ‘Universal Man’, is divided into seven principal sections: (1) The superior,
luminous spheres as a whole, or the supreme states of being; (2) the sun and the
moon—or rather, the principles to which they pertain—as expressed in the right
and the left eye respectively; (3) the fire-principle—the mouth; (4) the directions
of space—the ears; (5) the atmosphere—the lungs; (6) the intermediary zone
between earth and heaven—the stomach; (7) the earth—the natural functions or
the lower part of the body. The heart is not mentioned, because, being the ‘centre’
or dwelling-place of Brahma, it is regarded as being beyond the ‘wheel’ of things
(26). Now, this concept of the ‘Universal Man’ implies hermaphroditism, though
never specifically. For the concrete, existential human being, in so far as he is
either a man or a woman, represents the dissected ‘human’ whole, not only in the
physical sense but also spiritually. Thus, to quote the Upanishads: ‘He was, in
truth, as big as a man and a woman embracing. He divided this atman into two
parts; from them sprang husband and wife.’ In Western iconography one sometimes finds images which would seem to be echoes of this concept (32). A human
couple, by their very nature, must always symbolize the urge to unite what is in
fact discrete. Figures which are shown embracing one another, or joining hands, or growing out of roots which bind them together, and so on, symbolize ‘conjunction’, that is, coincidentia oppositorum. There is a Hindu image representing the
‘joining of the unjoinable’ (analogous to the marriage of fire and water) by the
interlinking of Man and Woman, which may be taken to symbolize the joining of
all opposites: good and bad, high and low, cold and hot, wet and dry, and so on
(32). In alchemy, Man and Woman symbolize sulphur and mercury (the metal).
In psychology, level-symbolism is often brought to bear upon the members of the
body, so that the right side corresponds to the conscious level and the left to the
unconscious. The shapes of the parts of the body, depending upon whether they
are positive or negative—whether they are protuberances or cavities—should be
seen not only as sex-symbols but also in the light of the symbolism of levels. The
head is almost universally regarded as a symbol of virility (56). The attitudes
which the body may take up are of great symbolic importance, because they are
both the instrument and the expression of the human tendency towards ascendence
and evolution. A position with the arms wide open pertains to the symbolism of
the cross. And a posture in the form of the letter ‘X’ refers to the union of the two
worlds, a symbol which is related to the hour-glass, the ‘X’ and all other symbols
of intersection (50). Another important posture is that of Buddha in the traditional iconography of the Orient, a posture characteristic also of some Celtic gods
such as the so-called ‘Bouray god’ or the famous Roquepertuse figure. This
squatting position expresses the renunciation of the ‘baser part’ and of ambulatory movement and symbolizes identification with the mystic centre.
To see a man in your dream, denotes the aspect of yourself that is assertive, rational, aggressive, and/or competitive. Perhaps you need to incorporate these aspects into your own character. If the man is known to you, then the dream may reflect you feelings and concerns you have about him.
If you are a woman and dream that you are in the arms of a man, then it suggests that you are accepting and welcoming your stronger assertive personality. It may also highlight your desires to be in a relationship and your image of the ideal man.
To see an old man in your dream, represents wisdom or forgiveness. The old man may be a archetypal figure who is offering guidance to some daily problem.
To dream of a man, if handsome, well formed and supple, denotes that you will enjoy life vastly and come into rich possessions. If he is misshapen and sour-visaged, you will meet disappointments and many perplexities will involve you.
For a woman to dream of a handsome man, she is likely to have distinction offered her. If he is ugly, she will experience trouble through some one whom she considers a friend.
Seeing a man in your dream indicates the masculine aspect of yourself - the side that is assertive, rational, aggressive, and/or competitive. If the man is known to you, then the dream may reflect you feelings and concerns you have about him. If you are a woman and dream that you are in the arms of a man, suggests that you are accepting and welcoming your stronger assertive personality . It may also highlight your desires to be in a relationship and your image of the ideal man. Seeing an old man in your dream, represents wisdom or forgiveness.
All different kinds of people clutter our dream landscape. The men in your dream may include family members or total strangers. You may dream about your father, son, husband, or friend and should interpret the dream according to its details. A man, particularly the father figure, may represent collective consciousness and the traditional human spirit. He is the Yang and his energy, when mobilised, creates the earthly realities. Depending on the details of the dream, the masculine figure could be interpreted as the Creator or Destroyer. At times, women dream about men that are strangers to them. These men may represent the women's unconscious psychic energy. At times, a strange and ominous man in men's dreams could represent their "shadow" or their negativity and darker sides of personality.