Odd on a number of levels

[Alias]

I don’t usually remember dreams and when I do it generally slips away except for one recently that I found to be quite bizarre. It is so vivid and clear. From reading the separate descriptions in the dictionary it seemed to have a theme. I’d be interested to see what people thought. There are 3 sections, two of which flowed into each other. I then became partially aware I was dreaming and was able to revisit certain sections that shed more light on the dream? It starts with commuting down a local road I know with a Scottish friend I liftshare to work with (not towards work though). The road then appears to be passing by hills, we’re now out of the local area, more in the wilderness and throughout the dream the sky is overcast. Out of the corner of my eye I see the silhouette of a grey wolf against the sky looking down at us. It has 3 eyes, the central one being much larger. It was really creepy but we couldn’t stop because we were on dual carriageway. The road becomes single track and we pass a number of marquees and tents, horses are penned in. There are no people as if it’d been abandoned. Now I am more aware of dreaming and turn the car around. We go back down the road to investigate the horses and it appears it is a horse circus set up and we see two horses on their hind legs fully dressed up (in horse attire) and they appear to be dancing/performing. We end up back on the dual carriageway (the other side) and pull over to climb the hill where the wolf was. It is now a statue and although we are not afraid to be there, there is an air of fear about the situation. We comment on how freaky it’s third eye is. The third part of the dream is separate but it seemed to make perfect sense at the time, I can’t remember where it fits in but I think it was last. I was shaving a ladies leg. Just a small patch on her shin. The hair is dark and sparse but fairly long, her skin is pale. My wife is there just watching, no one says anything. It’s the leg of a neighbour that I find attractive, though I don’t see the rest of her. Nothing seems weird about it, at least in the dream. (I’ve never cheated and never would) The room is pitch black except for my hand, the razor, the leg and my wife, which are all in perfect colour. Odd right? I’ve never knowingly dreamed of anything like this before. The third part seemed to be a part of the other two though it’s never questioned on how I go from the car to the room. Significant Life Events: Marriage, two children. I have a deadline at work which I know cannot be met though I don’t feel overly stressed. In the process of moving house. Will be living with in-laws for a month or two before buying our 1st house. Growing my 1st Mo at the moment. Went through a low point with wife recently where we argued for a couple of weeks but seems to have passed now. Background: 28, Male, Mental Illness Or Depression: No. Location: Oxford , UK When And How Often: 3 nights ago. This is the first time that I have had this dream.

[Athanor]

Just to start off by saying that dreams generally try to balance out a dreamer’s belief or attitude etc. which could tend to lead over time to a too narrow point of view for example. In this case, a clue might appear in the fact that “work” is led away from into a “wilderness” and to animals, suggesting perhaps the need to explore parts of yourself more fully that are related to your natural instincts and feeling life. You could see what characteristics about your Scottish friend spring to mind in order to determine if he has an attitude similar or different to yours on some basic level. This might provide a direct or indirect hint about some habitual way of looking at things (the daily commute). If for instance he’s much the same as you, then this might indicate that you generally “go along” too often with a certain way of looking at things, whereas if he is different in some way, it may be helpful to “explore” this equivalent “different” area inside yourself. In any case, the country setting, the overcast sky and the creepy grey wolf suggest a need to look at your earthier, instinctive side instead of staying on the largely collective path (the dual carriageway) and bypassing this aspect of yourself. The dream is “elevating” the importance of this side of you by having the wolf high up and looking down on you as well as giving it a third eye which is usually associated with higher consciousness and understanding. The presence of such an unusual image which comes from the deep layers of your psyche also emphasizes the importance of taking the dream seriously over time. The way that outer wolves live and interact is probably being suggested as a useful model in coming to learn more about how you should probably relate to the inner instincts. For example, as Valerie Harris writes in “Dreaming of Animals”: “Contrary to the false negative beliefs [about wolves], in some cultures wolves have been sacred. Indians, for instance, viewed wolves as an embodiment of the Great Spirit. Just as Indians learned from wolves, so too may we allow wolves to help shape our character… When you dream about wolves, single out which qualities of the wolf – such as liveliness, fight, hunger, sagacity, or perceptiveness – are being emphasized. Consider how you can increase any of these in your life… Through inner dialogue with the wolves during the course of your life, you could bring their knowledge about strategy, play, bonding, or fight to bear on your problems. Wolves can teach us how to face the dangers of life and keep moving even while injured. Their strong resolve can help us attack our culture’s wrongs and cruelties. Their presence in our consciousness can aid us in eluding nay-sayers or those who throw water on our creative fires. They encourage us to explore, loop back and circle around, defend ourselves with ferocity… The ability to strategize and lead offenses when necessary is one of the wolf’s talents. Yet, wolves have such mastery that when they return home, tired and worn, from an all night’s hunt for food, they become completely gentle as the pups greet them, hit on their bodies and frolic.” In the dream, you come upon an unusual abandoned circus but don’t stop to investigate until you become more aware of dreaming, perhaps suggesting the need to more often trust and listen to this one example of the various ways in which the wise instinctive life expresses itself. Outer circuses are related to “shows”, “acts”, and “glitzy entertainment”. In addition, they are more recently being criticized for how the animals in them are being treated. On analogy, it’s possible that sometimes your instincts are unconsciously and automatically put on display (horses performing with no people around) but deeper levels of instinctive understanding aren’t being striven for. Horses in dreams have many important symbols linked to them, one of these motifs being that they are very closely related to our natural bodily life and its overall health. But this aspect often also appears in combination with a certain deep instinctive wisdom, e.g. a talking horse which provides good advice etc. This idea even comes out in the British practice of members of the legal profession wearing wigs which traditionally were made of horse hair in order to help transfer some of the horses’ “wisdom” to the activities of the court. In the dream, you then go back to investigate the wolf but it has been changed to stone, probably symbolizing the danger that what it represents could be shut out of conscious life altogether. Doing so is likely what is to be feared (the air of fear surrounding the situation) because instincts which are ignored tend to become “angry” and this can lead to being “torn apart” in a practical way by sudden inexplicable outbursts of anger or in feeling bored or down too often etc. etc. Physical symptoms can appear such as persistent headaches, high blood pressure or any number of other possibilities depending on the person’s hereditary medial weak spots. The part of the dream which involves shaving the attractive neighbour’s shin probably is pointing to a core cause of any problem you may have in interacting with the instinctive, earthy, feeling side of life. For example, the action takes place in a pitch black room, suggesting that this is an area of yourself which is really “in the dark” and unconscious. The two females present in the form of the attractive neighbour and your wife point to your emotional life and values. The neighbour is pale, that is, not earthy, “ruddy” and healthy looking as if fully engaged with her natural side. Apparently, you have reached the end of the “cosmetic process” of removing hair from her legs (only a small patch left to do on her shin). The dark colour of the hair suggests the earth and the darker areas of the instincts where things are just “known” as opposed to being “thought about”, but whatever sparse connection to this side of things is removed. The image of hair often appears in dreams and in general terms, ties in with innate, instinctive reactions and fantasies etc. as opposed to “rational thinking” because, for instance, we can’t control the growth of hair on our bodies and it is also an echo of the hair which covered our entire bodies in the very distant past at the origins of our species. Any such spontaneous fantasies and ideas etc. can be our great strength as symbolically seen in the stories of Samson and other heroes and heroines who have long hair growing on their heads for example. As long as their hair isn’t cut off, all is well because the thoughts and intuitions etc. as symbolized by the hair in general can be crucial in helping us to control our inner and outer “enemies”. That’s because these intuitions etc. can provide inspiration for new projects and undertakings which can advance our lives in a positive individual way, and they can also warn us if things are heading in the wrong direction such as dreams also can and do. In our society, listening for such instinctive intuitions etc. is hampered, for example, by the constant attention paid to endless outer text messages and other media which tend to block out the quiet and subtle inner voice of instinct. So it’s possible that your dream is trying to illustrate in this section that it’s as if you’re already currently “cheating” and showing more “loyalty” and “interest” in a certain way of life which relies on the attractive “pale and rational” approach (the neighbour) as opposed to supporting a more earthy, sometimes difficult reality which also needs instinctive wisdom to succeed (being married to your wife who is present). Anyway, to sum up one possible interpretation of your dream, it’s possible that the nature of your work and its inherent pressures, which of course are generally very common in today’s society, could lead over time to a detrimental cutting off of a living, healthy contact with your natural instinctive side, potentially leading to some unsatisfactory outcomes in personal relationships for example. Please feel free to make any comments you wish to about this particular way of looking at your dream.

[Alias]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will try to reply in more details later. It has given me a lot of food for thought, it has certainly helped me put the dream into perspective. Before I would never have said there was anything in a dream, but has really stayed with me. Even parts that I didn't think were even a "thing" have been taken into consideration. I'm still a little foggy on how the horses interact with the dream though. Is it possible to delve a little more into this? Thank you.

[Athanor]

Just to briefly summarize that the presence of animals in a dream usually points towards the issue of the dreamer’s overall attitude toward natural instinctive reactions, emotions, drives, gut feelings, intuitions and similar inborn earthy traits as opposed to a more airy, rational and intellectual approach to life. Dreams choose each specific detail in order to reflect the actual, objective situation of the dreamer, so a given animal, for instance, is chosen because of certain metaphoric analogies which can clarify the current state of affairs regarding the dreamer’s life. While it’s very important to gather the spontaneous memories, thoughts and feelings of the dreamer in relation to a given image, it’s often very helpful to look at the image from the point of view of traditional beliefs, folk tales, mythology and artistic representations etc. That’s because it’s the psyche itself which produces both dreams and these many other ideas and images etc., so the latter can be looked at as being part of the complex web of meaning that surrounds a given dream symbol. It’s also safe to say that virtually all dream symbols can morph between a positive and a negative meaning, depending of their context and the actual appearance of the symbol. A simple example would be the positive image of the dreamer safely riding a powerful horse as opposed to his or her being carried along out of control. So the symbol of “horse” can’t be rationally nailed down as “meaning this and nothing else” because its meaning depends on the individual context of the dreamer’s life. But on the whole, while it’s a very complex symbol, firstly, it does relate to the basic idea of being an animal, and therefore to the “non-human, automatic part of the psyche”, the “subhuman”, the body and the impulses that arise from there, and the overall animal life of the body as well as an autonomous, intuitive side of the unconscious mind. Symbolically then, a rider can be “carried away on a surge of instinct”, or the horse can “panic” etc. when operating at the level of the instincts without much conscious control. But this “animal side” also does “know” things about life as it really is, so therefore the “mind” and “understanding” side comes into the equation, unlike interpretations that might emphasize only the blind-drives side of the horse symbol. For instance, in folklore horses sometimes see visions, hear voices and even speak, resulting in the hero or heroine of the story usually gaining very valuable, life-saving information. In your dream, the horses are “penned in” and are performers in a circus. As mentioned, this could possibly mean that the true worth of your deep instinctive side could at times tend to be a little “trivialized” and not be paid much attention to beyond surface manifestations. That is, while important in many ways to succeed at work, certain usual manifestations of abundant energy, “power”, “training” and so on (the rearing horses) should perhaps be looked at in more depth to avoid “overusing” them too much because they might be tending to operate “mostly on their own” at times. For instance, the horses are also apparently currently not being tended by humans, that is, they are being ignored in some way by conscious awareness and could suffer from this lack of attention overall. For example, you mentioned that arguments occurred between you and your wife for a couple of weeks. Maybe it’s possible to view the anger you felt as an example of a “panicked horse” who felt itself threatened and in some kind of danger. This automatic instinctive impulse can be “humanized” and understood better by trying at some point to stop and ask yourself “What’s really behind this anger?” A spontaneous thought, feeling or memory should be allowed to come to mind and then be looked at no matter how “off the mark” it may seem to be. This is like “allowing the horse to speak” and to provide some valuable insight unlike the horses in your dream which have only been “dressed up” and allowed to perform in a certain way. As a very general example, maybe the pressing deadline at work (along with perhaps the upcoming move) would have come to mind in some way if this method had been tried during one of the regrettable arguments. If so, you would have had to accept the unpleasant reality that everything was bothering you much more than your were consciously willing to admit, but at least a chance to apologize might also have appeared on the scene to help return the situation to a more harmonious one. This process represents how instincts erupting from the unconscious (e.g. anger) can be compared to a rider controlling a horse with a bridle so that they can both move forward more powerfully and effectively towards short and long term goals. I hope that these additional ideas about the symbol of horses can be helpful.