Although in order to provide an accurate interpretation it would usually be best to have some general background information about you as well as a description of recent events just before the dream, it’s possible to try out a few ideas because there are two unusual, non-everyday aspects to your dream, namely, the presence of an elephant and the appearance of a huge pile of poop that you feel you have to clean up.

These out-of-the-ordinary images point to the fact that your dream came from a deeper layer of your psyche in order to get across an especially important message and such images usually have a more “collective” and less “personal” meaning attached to them.

So in these cases, it’s valuable to look at what people over the ages have thought and believed about the images that appear in a given dream. These ideas appear in myths, folk tales, art, songs and other artistic expressions.

For example, the elephant has many associations connected with it such as extraordinary longevity, deep-seated wisdom, knowledge, steadiness and imagination.

The idea is that these and other “elephant-like traits” exist in every person though they are “hidden” and need development.

This is where the poop comes in because this “disgusting substance” symbolizes the undeveloped parts of ourselves which need work and “cleaning up” in order to gradually reveal the more complete and “wise” personality within.

So excrement and pee also symbolize the results of having to “absorb” and “digest” various unpleasant realities regarding our own lives and those of others.

The “by-products” of having to go through this process include such things as anger, resentment, jealousies and grudges etc. etc. which somehow have to be “gotten rid of” (“eliminated”) and “cleaned up” in a regular way.

Similarly, giving up pride, fear and wanting to control others etc. can equally be part of the “elimination” that needs to happen or the “clean-up” that has to be done.

A part of the method to encourage this process is usually to allow into our minds any unpleasant feelings and thoughts etc. (the “excrement”) so that they can be accepted for what they are, that is, as being part of the gradual movement towards being more complete and mature.

This idea is represented in folk tales as well as in dreams. For example, feces changes to gold in a miraculous way.

Also, many young children conceive theories about childbirth being related to feces and therefore see their own excrement as proof of their own creative magic.

This represents the chance for “new birth” that can come out of seeing the “disgusting side of things” and learning to accept it reasonably well.

If this way of looking at your dream appears to make any sense in your own situation, you might like the book “Meeting the Shadow”, edited by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams. It covers the concept of the earthy, emotional and instinctive side of human nature that we may not be very comfortable with, and covers how to deal with it in detail. It's easy to read, being composed of many short articles by various authors inside and outside the psychological community.

Other books to choose from on this subject include “Owning Your Own Shadow” by Robert Johnson, “Romancing the Shadow” by Connie Zweig and Steven Wolf, “Make Friends with your Shadow” by William Miller, “Your Shadow” by Robin Robertson, and “A Little Book on the Human Shadow” by Robert Bly.

Anyway as mentioned, without knowing anything about you, this interpretation might not fit your personal circumstances very well but I hope these ideas can be helpful in some way.

Please feel free to make any comments or to ask any questions that you may want to about this particular way of looking at your dream.