Thread: "A hanged man means only 2 things, what are they?"

You are worried about a friend going down a bad road. They have met someone new and that someone seems dangerous.

Maybe.

Although The Hanged Man would once most likely have been interpreted as [1] a punishment, somewhere along the way it came to symbolise [2] a change of perspective, new points of view and spiritual revelations – the card shows physical immobility and restrictions, but freedom and power of the mind. http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Hanged_Man

If you want to know where I've been hiding all these years
Follow the tears
....
We'll be there for you
I believed and I can tell you it's not true
....
The consequence of conscience
Is you'll be left somewhere
[1] Swinging in the air

Heaven and Hell - Follow The Tears - YouTube

Just a babe in a black abyss
No reason for a place like this
Walls are cold
Souls cry out in pain
An easy way for the blind to go
A clever path for the fools who know
The secret of [2] the Hanged Man
The smile on his lips
....
The time has come to close your eyes
And still the wind and rain
For the one who will be king
Is the Watcher in The Ring
It is You

Iron Maiden- Revelations (with lyrics) - YouTube
Watcher in the Water - Lord of the Rings Wiki

Ugly, distorted imagery, but with that qualification, I think its the truth, and that's the two things

I think it often helps to think of other people in one's dream as oneself, so maybe that's why they were strangers but seemed familiar: parts of your own mind you have not explored yet? A hanged man means two things could be murder or suicide - now dreams usually exaggerate, so we are probably not talking literal murder or suicide, more like a bad situation and needing to decide whether it is your or someone else's fault maybe? One possibility: if the interpretation of the other people as unexplored parts of your mind is correct, then maybe the hanged man is a part of your mentality that has recently been done away with by you or is about to be done away with (for example: if you stop pursuing a goal, or change your values to no longer include one, or give up on some idea, or change from optimism to pessimism, or break up from a relationship and are wondering whether it was your fault or the other person's).

Thanks a lot guys, you have different perspectives/views on the matter but they're all very helpful and insightful. Again thank you so much for taking the time to respond to this thread, this really does seem like a great forum. (:
If anyone else has more opinions about this dream I'd be glad to hear them.

Welcome to the forum Noctis!

I have a question for you: what, at this point, do you think it meant?

And if your first response is something like, "I have no idea, that's why I started this thread!" take another minute and see if you can find some meaning in the various symbols you were given in this dream. Your own interpretation, if done thoughtfully, might just be the best.

Interesting dream, BTW!

Originally Posted by JoannaB

I think it often helps to think of other people in one's dream as oneself, so maybe that's why they were strangers but seemed familiar: parts of your own mind you have not explored yet? A hanged man means two things could be murder or suicide - now dreams usually exaggerate, so we are probably not talking literal murder or suicide, more like a bad situation and needing to decide whether it is your or someone else's fault maybe? One possibility: if the interpretation of the other people as unexplored parts of your mind is correct, then maybe the hanged man is a part of your mentality that has recently been done away with by you or is about to be done away with (for example: if you stop pursuing a goal, or change your values to no longer include one, or give up on some idea, or change from optimism to pessimism, or break up from a relationship and are wondering whether it was your fault or the other person's).

Another little detail, I don't know if it helps, but I remember the whole group and I were around a bonfire and it was late at night.

JoannaB, my God, I didn't realize until now but yes, I actually just decided, a few days ago, that I should stop trying to do what other people think is the right thing for me. I studied a short career, 1 year, because some people would tell me that it would be great after graduating but, now that I did and found a job that correlates with that career I realized that is not what I want to do, that is not what I see myself doing for the rest of my life, so I stopped pursuing that goal, I decided there's something else I want to do, a different goal I want to pursue and,somehow, I feel more relaxed, I feel free to do whatever I want to, and yes, I have been feeling very optimistic and just happy with the decision that I made and the new path that, I know, awaits me.

Thank you, just thank you. All you guys are amazing. God bless you all. (:

You know a bonfire is a great way to celebrate, maybe you were celebrating the hanging of that undesired goal. I am glad to hear that you are relaxed and optimistic and happy about your decision. It is funny what kind of weird associations our subconscious minds come up with at times. I bet your conscious mind would be unlikely to think of a hanged man in this situation. However, our subconscious' job is to find correlations where our conscious mind does not. I am also thinking our subconscious has a weird sense of humor at times - gallows humor, only turned upside down: instead of making light of a serious situation, it will show murder or suicide to make light of a situation that is not dire at all. All the best, and God bless you, too!

[Just to mention that, before posting it, I’ve added a few comments to my reply which was written before reading your latest post about going along with other people and ending up in a job which you didn’t like. You now feel optimistic about your future goals and this is very positive.

However, if this dream actually FOLLOWED your decision to leave your current job, in my experience, it probably is still trying to balance out an overall attitude, perhaps saying in effect that you may not yet be prepared enough in some basic way to move ahead with your new goals in an effective enough way.

If the dream happened BEFORE you actually decided to leave your job, then it was probably showing that a change in your “suspended state” was about to happen which would allow you to move ahead more productively overall.

In this case, you can probably skip the interpretation below!]



Although it would usually be best to have additional general background information about you as well as other recent events just before this upsetting dream in order to provide an accurate interpretation, a few additional ideas can be tried out to see if they might fit your personal circumstances at least to some extent.

Dreams communicate with us by using metaphors and similes that move us emotionally in some way.

For example, being outside mostly in the dark in a place you don’t know which is illuminated by only a bonfire, and being surrounded by people who you sort of half-know would usually tend to symbolize that the dream is taking you to an area of your unconscious mind and to aspects of yourself (as JoannaB noted) with which you’re not very familiar in waking life.

This probably already creates an uneasy tone in the dream which is then of course greatly heightened by the brutal picture of the hanged man in the newspaper.

Each image in a dream is chosen very specifically to convey a message to the dreamer. To begin to unravel a given image’s meaning, it’s useful to clarify for oneself what the actual attributes of the object being shown are in outer life.

For instance, on one level, a newspaper is created by a collective entity and it provides a broad range of “good and bad news”, including currently useful and/or interesting information to large numbers of people.

Symbolically, a lot of “energy” and “interest” is also tied to the image of a newspaper because a large amount of energy and money is expended in tracking down stories, creating the physical output of a newspaper etc. etc. And until recently, very large amounts of money (energy) were received by newspapers in the form of advertising revenue.

Also to follow up this idea even further, in your dream, a newspaper appears, and not, say, a parchment on which strange letters are written, nor is it a holy scroll containing spiritual wisdom etc.

So by reflecting on these and other ideas about what a newspaper is, one conclusion could be that the newspaper in your dream might mostly symbolize information being provided by the dream about outer, everyday ways in which you interact with the world in general in a practical way.

But in this case, the information provided is unfortunately very upsetting in the story of a man who committed suicide by hanging himself.

Naturally, it’s the dream itself which is posing you the question "A hanged man means only 2 things, what are they?", and then the dream ends, suggesting it’s really up to you as an ego to unravel this knotty question (no pun intended).

And of course, you’ve started on your way by seeking out some advice about dreams on this website.

So everything seems to hinge on what the image of the hanged man symbolizes.

One thing (or two?) that a “hanged man means” is that he is “dead and suspended”.

Therefore, as JoannaB touched on, some important aspect of yourself could be “dead/suspended”; that is, something crucial to your well-being may be in a “suspended state” and is not “alive” in everyday life at this time.

The darkness and unpleasantness of the basic image possibly shows that the absence of this something that should be “active” and “alive” in you could apparently cause very negative consequences on your overall life if not “resuscitated”.

In this connection, apparently one underlying “reason” or “cause” for suicide is a kind of desperate, unconscious and misplaced desire to find “renewal” and “rebirth” so that one could leave a distressing situation and “start again”.

In this approach to your dream, the idea of the wholeness of your life possibly being affected adds to and raises the symbolic meaning of the hanged man to a higher level.

For example, “hanging” has been connected with various religious practices and gods. For instance, Christ was crucified or “hung” on a cross, and in ancient times, Germans hung up their prisoners in honor of Wotan.

But of course there exists a tone of “negative deification” in these particular images because, for instance, the Romans said something along the lines of “If you want to be King of the Jews, here you go!”, but in an obviously cruel and negative way.

Although I’m probably not making this very clear, to sum up “hanging”, it symbolically can mean that one has been sort of elevated into an ethereal “spiritual realm” but therefore has lost touch with earthy reality too much of the time, or could do so if certain attitudes and practises aren’t changed over time.

In a practical way, there is a kind of “suspension in airy space” where little is actually worked at in down to earth terms on a day to day basis regarding the development of various innate skills and abilities as possibly symbolized by the various people in the dream who were in the man’s “group”.

Especially in a woman’s dream, this “suspended man” would tend to mean that her so-called “masculine” intelligence and intellect were not active enough in making personal decisions.

Also, there might be a lack of initiative, assertiveness, focus and perseverance in going after what she really wants in life, possibly resulting in various important potentials not being realized in actual outer life.

So if you’re a female, your “inner man” might be at the breaking point from not being paid enough attention to and could effectively “disappear” as a potentially helpful figure in your unconscious mind.

A male having such a dream might have “abandoned” a vital part of his life in order to avoid giving up, for example, a cushy job at the long term expense of not becoming who he really could become overall as a person.

Although both females and males can benefit from the work of analyst Marion Woodman, she’s especially helpful in clarifying the role on the “inner man” in the dreams of women. A very good overview of her work which is valuable for both sexes can be found in “Body and Soul: Honoring Marion Woodman”.

If by chance, a lack of overall assertiveness might be an issue, books like “Asserting Yourself” by Bower and Bower and “Your Perfect Right” by Alberti and Eammons would be very helpful.

Anyway, I hope that these additional ideas can be helpful in further unravelling the personal message contained in your dream.

Originally Posted by Athanor

[Just to mention that, before posting it, I’ve added a few comments to my reply which was written before reading your latest post about going along with other people and ending up in a job which you didn’t like. You now feel optimistic about your future goals and this is very positive.

However, if this dream actually FOLLOWED your decision to leave your current job, in my experience, it probably is still trying to balance out an overall attitude, perhaps saying in effect that you may not yet be prepared enough in some basic way to move ahead with your new goals in an effective enough way.

If the dream happened BEFORE you actually decided to leave your job, then it was probably showing that a change in your “suspended state” was about to happen which would allow you to move ahead more productively overall.

In this case, you can probably skip the interpretation below!]



Although it would usually be best to have additional general background information about you as well as other recent events just before this upsetting dream in order to provide an accurate interpretation, a few additional ideas can be tried out to see if they might fit your personal circumstances at least to some extent.

Dreams communicate with us by using metaphors and similes that move us emotionally in some way.

For example, being outside mostly in the dark in a place you don’t know which is illuminated by only a bonfire, and being surrounded by people who you sort of half-know would usually tend to symbolize that the dream is taking you to an area of your unconscious mind and to aspects of yourself (as JoannaB noted) with which you’re not very familiar in waking life.

This probably already creates an uneasy tone in the dream which is then of course greatly heightened by the brutal picture of the hanged man in the newspaper.

Each image in a dream is chosen very specifically to convey a message to the dreamer. To begin to unravel a given image’s meaning, it’s useful to clarify for oneself what the actual attributes of the object being shown are in outer life.

For instance, on one level, a newspaper is created by a collective entity and it provides a broad range of “good and bad news”, including currently useful and/or interesting information to large numbers of people.

Symbolically, a lot of “energy” and “interest” is also tied to the image of a newspaper because a large amount of energy and money is expended in tracking down stories, creating the physical output of a newspaper etc. etc. And until recently, very large amounts of money (energy) were received by newspapers in the form of advertising revenue.

Also to follow up this idea even further, in your dream, a newspaper appears, and not, say, a parchment on which strange letters are written, nor is it a holy scroll containing spiritual wisdom etc.

So by reflecting on these and other ideas about what a newspaper is, one conclusion could be that the newspaper in your dream might mostly symbolize information being provided by the dream about outer, everyday ways in which you interact with the world in general in a practical way.

But in this case, the information provided is unfortunately very upsetting in the story of a man who committed suicide by hanging himself.

Naturally, it’s the dream itself which is posing you the question "A hanged man means only 2 things, what are they?", and then the dream ends, suggesting it’s really up to you as an ego to unravel this knotty question (no pun intended).

And of course, you’ve started on your way by seeking out some advice about dreams on this website.

So everything seems to hinge on what the image of the hanged man symbolizes.

One thing (or two?) that a “hanged man means” is that he is “dead and suspended”.

Therefore, as JoannaB touched on, some important aspect of yourself could be “dead/suspended”; that is, something crucial to your well-being may be in a “suspended state” and is not “alive” in everyday life at this time.

The darkness and unpleasantness of the basic image possibly shows that the absence of this something that should be “active” and “alive” in you could apparently cause very negative consequences on your overall life if not “resuscitated”.

In this connection, apparently one underlying “reason” or “cause” for suicide is a kind of desperate, unconscious and misplaced desire to find “renewal” and “rebirth” so that one could leave a distressing situation and “start again”.

In this approach to your dream, the idea of the wholeness of your life possibly being affected adds to and raises the symbolic meaning of the hanged man to a higher level.

For example, “hanging” has been connected with various religious practices and gods. For instance, Christ was crucified or “hung” on a cross, and in ancient times, Germans hung up their prisoners in honor of Wotan.

But of course there exists a tone of “negative deification” in these particular images because, for instance, the Romans said something along the lines of “If you want to be King of the Jews, here you go!”, but in an obviously cruel and negative way.

Although I’m probably not making this very clear, to sum up “hanging”, it symbolically can mean that one has been sort of elevated into an ethereal “spiritual realm” but therefore has lost touch with earthy reality too much of the time, or could do so if certain attitudes and practises aren’t changed over time.

In a practical way, there is a kind of “suspension in airy space” where little is actually worked at in down to earth terms on a day to day basis regarding the development of various innate skills and abilities as possibly symbolized by the various people in the dream who were in the man’s “group”.

Especially in a woman’s dream, this “suspended man” would tend to mean that her so-called “masculine” intelligence and intellect were not active enough in making personal decisions.

Also, there might be a lack of initiative, assertiveness, focus and perseverance in going after what she really wants in life, possibly resulting in various important potentials not being realized in actual outer life.

So if you’re a female, your “inner man” might be at the breaking point from not being pad enough attention to and could effectively “disappear” as a potentially helpful figure in your unconscious mind.

A male having such a dream might have “abandoned” a vital part of his life in order to avoid giving up, for example, a cushy job at the long term expense of not becoming who he really could become overall as a person.

Although both females and males can benefit from the work of analyst Marion Woodman, she’s especially helpful in clarifying the role on the “inner man” in the dreams of women. A very good overview of her work which is valuable for both sexes can be found in “Body and Soul: Honoring Marion Woodman”.

If by chance, a lack of overall assertiveness might be an issue, books like “Asserting Yourself” by Bower and Bower and “Your Perfect Right” by Alberti and Eammons would be very helpful.

Anyway, I hope that these additional ideas can be helpful in further unravelling the personal message contained in your dream.

Thank you Athanor, that was a very interesting opinion, you got some great points in there. You have definitely given me more to think about and I thank you for taking the time to help me out, Athanor, I really appreciate it. (:

My sister sent me a dream about a hanged man the day before your post, but I've been tired and didn't notice the similarity. Here's her dream, in case it casts any light on your dream. I find her dream to be a bit cryptic, and haven't put much thought into it yet. At least now I know it can only mean two things.

I'm mostly an observer. There is a group of us, friends and family. We travel through time, usually to the past, to fix things. We go in groups of 2 or 3. To travel, we clear our minds, and then step through a mirror. This time I have difficulty going through the mirror and have to try twice. When we come out, we realize we are off target. We are in the future a few hundred years. It is unhappy and skewed, people are worshipping idols from the past, like tv shows, there's ritualistic suicide and murder. There's a small woman in our group, smart but shy. She starts composing music on a board in front of here, placing the notes just so. We are hoping to find a way home. Through the air bursts a young man- a friend we know well, but he did not go on this trip. He is in extreme distress and tells the woman that no matter what, she must not use a number- he rattles off multi-digit number that had a 5 and 6 in it and ended in .23. He tells us that it will cause some sort of explosion/time warp and end the world. Somehow he's from even farther in the future. A group of fanatics found him and forced him back to this moment to stop us. The woman pays half attention, lost in her own mind. She smiles, realizing she's fixed the puzzle, the music she was composing to get us home. "I can create a new world." It's an equation she uses and the answer is another number, but it's not the one the man warns us of, so we think it is OK. She starts to make adjustments to the equation, adding in all of us so we can be a part of this new world. Meanwhile the rest of us tease the man and woman. Back home they are friends, and secretly love each other, but have never told each other. Finally during the teasing they both realize their feelings, and that they are soul mates. She smiles as she adds him in to the equation, but the new answer is the number he told us not to use. He start sobbing when he sees this. In the future the fanatics had hung him on a rope and tortured him before they sent him back. In the future he is strangling slowly, with wounds in his stomach and will take days to die in agony. The woman cries too, she knows she will have to leave him.