Reoccurring dreams about being eaten

Hey everyone,

First thing first I’m not the one experiencing this dream. I’ve been with my partner for a few years and he recently opened up to me about his reoccurring nightmares. I noticed things over the years and had asked but he felt uncomfortable telling me so I waited until he was ready.

Anyway he told me he has had this reoccurring nightmare since he was very young, but it comes and goes and he’s never told anyone about it because it makes him feel weird.

The contents of the nightmare started out with him being chased by vampire creatures and this lead him to being scared of the dark especially when he was alone. One night the dream changed (he wasn’t sure when it happened). He was still being chased by vampires, but this time a monster (sometimes a snake) appeared and killed all the vampires. Then it would turn on him and eat him alive. However when the monster turned on him he didn’t experience fear but relief. A calm relief when he was eaten. This latter part of the dream is what freaks him out.

To counter the dreams when they happened he’d stay up really late and/or read stories similar on the subject of being eaten alive. The stories he said helped calm him.

Obviously it is not my dream so I can’t fully comprehend what he is going through. We’ve only spoken about it once which is something that will probably have to change because I still feel puzzled and still don’t fully understand.
However this is why I’m making this post. I wanted some help understanding what this dream could mean. And maybe a way of helping him. Again I know since it is not my dream so any help might be vague because I’m not the one experiencing it. But any help on interrupting it and any advice would be very much appreciated.

All the best

BlueForest

Hello, BlueForest.

I can see this post is three years old, so I don't know if it's still relevant in your life, or if you'll be notified that I've replied. But on the off chance that it is relevant, and you have email notification set up, I wanted to offer up my attempt at an interpretation.

When I was reading your description of your partner's dream, I was impressed by how disconcerting it must be to have something like that appear in dreams, especially as a child. I can understand why he's felt reluctant to share this dream.

It's my opinion that people have recurring dreams or nightmares because of some kind of unresolved issue in their waking lives. This issue could be anything. Struggling with a relationship, learning a skill - a dream can even recur if there's something in our lives which makes us unusually happy.

If it's a recurring nightmare, the issue often seems to be revolving around something unpleasant or not understood in waking life, and once it is understood and addressed to resolution, the dream either changes, or it goes away entirely. If I knew a little more detail about the dream, or your partner's waking life, I might be able to be a little more specific in my interpretation - but even though I'm going to have to remain a bit vague there - maybe once he gets the idea of the interpretation, it will all fall in to place for him without my specific identification of the issues that have been troubling him. I hope I make it clearer, within the interpretation.

The setting of the dream is a chase.

I can not tell you exactly what the vampire creatures represented to him, as a child. I can tell you that because the dream led to him being afraid of the dark in waking life, my suspicion is that his fear had something to do with dishonesty. It could be his own dishonesty, as children often reflect on this topic with guilt as they mature. Or it could be that he noticed someone else was being dishonest with him, or asking him to be dishonest, and he struggled with those issues. This is just a guess, though, and he might have a better idea of what he was afraid of, originally. The reason I suspect dishonesty is because darkness symbolizes dishonesty. I understand this was a symptom of the dream, and not an image in the dream, but sometimes that's how the mind operates, and the symbolism of the dream seems as if it could support this guess.

Being chased by a mob of vampire creatures as a child conveys feelings that there is a chance of being overwhelmed. In this case, being overwhelmed by something that might "suck the life out" of you. He felt he might be overcome by a lot of unpleasant things that felt draining to him. He was under a lot of pressure. Not from one source (vampire), but a multitude of issues (vampires), possibly issues related to dishonesty.

When the dream changed, it's very likely that his thinking about these issues changed in waking life. The monster, sometimes represented by a snake, arrives and kills all of the vampires. A monster snake represents an even bigger lie. Like kills like. He was exploring the possibility that maybe one big lie would eliminate all of the little ones.

He knows that a big lie isn't easy to control though, and that's why it turns on him.

He doesn't feel fear, but relief when he's eaten by the monster snake. That doesn't mean that he would actually enjoy being eaten alive, and he's profoundly disturbed. He just would be relieved if all of the lying would stop somehow, even if it means telling one big lie, and even if that big lie kills him in the end.

That's actually a positive, healthy attitude for a young boy to adopt, and he shouldn't be embarrassed, or feel like it's something he has to hide. Your partner values honesty.

What might help him to eliminate these dreams entirely is if he tries to recall what exactly were the "issues" which were represented by vampires in his original dream. My guess is it has something to do with dishonesty, largely because he developed a fear of the darkness, and because the later monster was a snake, which can also symbolize dishonesty.

However, he may remember that there was something else that he felt overwhelmed by at that age. Maybe he was involved in too many extracurricular activities, and that's what the vampires would represent to him. He can adjust my "guess" that the vampires and snake represent lies, to whatever he remembers was causing him to feel pressured and overwhelmed at around the age he first recalls having this nightmare. That is what the monsters really represent.

Once he's identified the meaning of the monsters, and if he's still experiencing this nightmare, he should understand that it means that the issue remains unresolved, and there's a good chance the nightmare will go away or change if he addresses the issue in waking life.

For example: if he realizes that what was driving him crazy when the dream started was that his brother was always fibbing to him, and he knows that his brother still constantly fibs to him, then he might get relief from the nightmare if he can work it out with his brother in waking life. If he thinks that the vampires represent little family secrets he was asked to keep, and he still keeps those secrets, then the nightmare might go away if he divulges those secrets with someone he trusts, or if even if he explains to his family that he felt overwhelmed by that from an early age, and it threatens to "consume" him to this day.

I hope that this helps.

Take it easy.

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...a monster (sometimes a snake) appeared and killed all the vampires. Then it would turn on him and eat him alive. However when the monster turned on him he didn’t experience fear but relief. A calm relief when he was eaten.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorarephilia


also, nice necro

What the heck - I'll jump on the necro train as well real quick (wow - necro, vore and vampirism all in one thread! :holycrap:)

I haven't made it all the way through Amateur's novella (but the part I read sounds on point). And in relation to zoob's response, I think maybe vorarephobia would be closer to the point - not the love of being eaten but the fear of it.

I think it can also be put under the Jungian/Neumannian heading of the devouring mother - a special subset of the terrible mother archetype. This is a phenomenon observed from very early primitive times - it includes fear of the dark (which devours the earth and everyone on it each night before they are reborn into the light each morning) and the idea of being eaten or subsumed into something. Keep in mind, as always with Jungian symbolism, the term mother does not refer at all to a person's actual mother but to an archetypal idea - in this case the endless void from which the universe was born; the Nothingness we all emerged from at birth and will sink back into at death, and more relevantly I think, the void of absolute unconsciousness from which we gradually struggle throughout childhood and adolescence to reach full independent adulthood (conscious awareness).

Now I'm not sure vampires really qualify as devourers, so that part isn't what I'm referring to. Really what sparked me to think of the devouring mother archetype was the reference to vorarephilia, and then I realized it also fits in terms of the fear of the dark - because that primitive atavistic fear was also the fear of the terrible devouring mother of darkness - a representative of our unconscious primitive beginnings when we lived in terror of darkness and what lurks there (some of which absolutely could devour a puny human!)

Generally a person suffering from these kind of terrible devouring mother dreams is not consciously aware enough and still lives in a primitive and immature level of fear that should be dealt with as they grow up. It's related to what existential psychotherapists refer to as a shutting down of one's being, meaning that a person deliberately shuts down their own being (liveliness, power, life force, joy, what have you) out of a dread or fear, when they should instead face it boldly and live out loud. It shows itself in things like social anxiety or just a general anxiety or fear that causes people to shut themselves up indoors and not deal with people or circumstances - to hide from life. Or to shut up verbally - to repress what they need to express.

The snake symbol is very interesting, because the snake has always been a symbol of transformation (they shed their skins and emerge in a fresh new form continually). Being swallowed by a snake could be seen as the first step of a personal transformation - exactly the transformation your partner needed to make - into the bolder more lively person he needs to become. In dreams we have to undergo a symbolic death (the death of the insufficient person we were) in order to be symbolically born again, into a person who can deal with these problems - our potential self. This symbolic death and rebirth cycle is related to the day/night cycle I already mentioned, as well as the procession of the seasons (spring being birth and winter representing death) and also represented by countless gods and demigods who undergo death and rebirth, such as Jesus, Dionysus, and countless others. In order to be born anew you must face the terrors involved in symbolic death. AKA you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette. The transformation doesn't occur until you find the courage to face what you're afraid of and deal with it honestly.

EDIT - I've now finished Amateur's epic post and I largely agree, though I went farther back to our extreme primitive beginnings rather than to a more Biblical interpretation of the snake as liar/seducer. I think multiple interpretations can help to sort out what a dream or sequence of dreams might actually mean to the dreamer.

Thanks for the edit, Darkmatters, and for your take on this dream.

I agree that dream symbols can have more than one meaning, and that the meaning of symbols are very individualized in dreams. I also think that a single dream or dream symbol can work on multiple levels all at once, so it's not unusual for something like a snake to represent both dishonesty, and death. The two don't necessarily conflict, as they might in waking life.

My dream interpretations tend to be very mundane, and circle back to what a dreamer might have been ruminating about in waking life. The reason I end up with that is because I place a lot of importance on the setting, and let that guide my interpretation of the following symbols and plot. Your interpretations are very Jungian, and you've amassed an impressive lexicon of ancient symbolism. Zoob maybe is more familiar with Freud . . . ha ha.

Perspective is everything!

What's really important is discovering what the symbolism means to the dreamer.

I agree that dream symbolism can often refer to more than one thing, even if those things seem to directly contradict each other - it's amazing what can be contained in a seemingly simple dream image! I also agree that our interpretations aren't really very different. In a sense mine includes deception, but on the part pf the dreamer himself - the deception of hiding his true nature behind a facade of harmlessness and cowardice. Often people (usually the dreamers themselves, when presented with an interpretation) jump immediately to only a single very reductive idea of what the interpretation means, and completely reject it. This is largely because most people aren't trained in what's known as amplification - something used extensively in dream interpretation. It involves coming up with a whole cluster of ideas centered around a symbol and not rejecting any of them. The average ordinary Joe or Jane immediately thinks of only one possibility and then either accepts or rejects it immediately.

But I have to argue with you about this one: "the meaning of symbols are very individualized in dreams."

Actually I would agree - SOMETIMES. But when archetypal material from the Collective Unconscious emerges, that is in no way personal or individual. By its very nature it is collective and impersonal. Like for instance the Devouring Mother symbolism above. One of Freud's big mistakes was in assuming everything in dreams is entirely personal - and this is also one of Jung's greatest discoveries, that often it is just the opposite.

I must also argue with you on this point:"you've amassed an impressive lexicon of ancient symbolism"

That would be Athanor. I am just a humble beginner at this point! Only been studying all this Jungian stuff and related epehmera for a few months now, though I have been devouring it voraciously (to bring this in line with the original thread! :mwahaha:)

Well ok, to be fair, I did read a few Jung books many years ago, but sort of put it on a back burner ever since, except for whatever effect it had on my worldview and my thinking process, which I'm sure was pretty profound actually. So ok, yeah, I guess in a way you're right.

Yeah, you're right . . . the "sometimes" is important.

My line of thought was that a spider in waking life represents something very different (a different feeling, and a different perspective) to a dreamer who is terrified of them, than it does to a dreamer who just adores them, and that's often represented in the symbolism of dreams.

But just because I'm generally startled by spiders in waking life, doesn't mean I don't also have an underlying knowledge that they represent the grandmother, and the weaver fates. So, in my dream, a spider could play the role of something comforting, or even predictive.

You might like this page, if you haven't seen it already, Darkmatters:

Dreams interpretation: Intro to an Indigenous perspective - Traditional Native Healing

I tend to avoid the spiritual aspect when I'm interpreting someone else's dream, since, as occurred in this thread, the spiritual "meaning" of a snake might be very different to a person who has a connection to the Abrahamic religions, than it would to someone who has a connection to paganism. That's where it becomes important to consider the perspective of the dreamer, and not the interpreter, or every book in the library. :)

But as you can see, even though I try to focus on the mundane, my interpretation rested on a symbolic meaning for darkness and snake that are very Abrahamic, and that's because of the culture I'm surrounded by.

The dreamer could be a practitioner of voodoo, for all I know. In that case, a snake might represent intuitive wisdom.

All of this does apply if a symbol is personal, but if it is archetypal - from the collective unconscious, it has to be interpreted in its most primal and ancient form. And while the religious or spiritual symbolism can also apply, it's also true that at the most primal, both spiders and snakes inspire dread and terror. But at the same time a snake can also point to transcendence and rebirth, because that can only happen after the symbolic death (the terror/dread part). Just as in Genesis it led to the rebirth of Adam and Eve as complete, fully conscious beings rather than as mere unthinking slaves of the Almighty.

But I shouldn't be arguing as if I know what's up - like I said, I'm a lot more Luke Skywalker in the swamp here than Yoda, you know? My Return of the Jedi doesn't happen for a few more years (decades maybe?) (.. if at all?) :whyme:

Brainstorm - and our interpretations really aren't at odds at all.

Did the snake really lie in Genesis? I'd need to review the story, but I think what it really did was challenge them to break an arbitrary rule of Jehovah's, which actually was the act of transgression that allowed them to reach their full potential as consciously aware human beings (after all, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). If you look at the story as an allegory of growing up, which I believe is at least one aspect of what it was meant to be, then it means you can't grow up fully until you think for yourself (or maybe are tempted by someone more knowing) and break the arbitrary rules laid on you that are meant for children. Those rules don't apply to adults, and adults who still mindlessly follow them (shutting down their potential being) are disturbed and can't live up to their full potential.

I think maybe the rule was created by Jehovah in the first place as a test to see if or when they would decide to break it, or else Jehovah was being presented in that story as the typical overprotective parent who doesn't want to let go of his children, or to see them as fully developed adults.

Bam! I think I nailed it! :awesomed: Feels that way anyway...

Ha ha. It's not an argument, it's a discussion! :)

I don't really focus on either Freud or Jung in my interpretations, but it doesn't bother me if other people do. I think it's actually better to consider lots of possibilities . . . as an interpreter.

However, as a dreamer, if an interpreter insisted that my dream symbol represented a specific arch type, and it meant nothing to me because it was not taken in context of the dream or my thoughts and feelings, I might just shrug. It would be like if I was looking at "Starry Night", and someone told me that the color blue is a protective color as an eternal, universal arch type. It's interesting that the other person informed me of that, but it may not change how I feel about the painting, or the color blue as a whole. I might identify with that interpretation, or I might think that the blue in that painting feels threatening, or exciting, to me.

That doesn't mean that blue doesn't represent protection as an arch-type, to the majority of people on earth!

In other words, I sometimes relate to what "everyone" thinks and feels, but more often than not I think and feel differently, so universal symbolism may frequently, but not always, miss the mark with me. Arch types are good as a generalization, though! I'm aware that my perspective on the cosmos and what happens within it is often not in line with what's expected, or agreed upon by most people. So I don't judge an arch-type as being wrong. I judge it as usually being accurate for most of the population, but it isn't always universal. Few things in life are.

My apologies to Jung.

It is an argument, in that argument really means a rational discussion based on well-presented reasoning, but the term, like so many, has been co-opted to mean something different in the common parlance. Most people think an argument is a completely irrational shoutfest based entirely on feelings and anger. That's what I would call a fight. Or mutual attempts at emotional terrorism (often not so mutual really - it only takes one to turn things to the dark side :evil: - and that's usually the one who is losing the real argument).

... and it's archetype - one word, with an E in the middle. You did put part of an e - the horizontal dash - in one of your versions; that was almost there! :cheeky:

Just messin' with ya. Really in a sense we're saying the same thing - that a symbol can be archetypal or more personal. And Jung was well aware of that - there are ways to tell which it is. Archetypal symbols have a very impersonal feeling to them. You seem ot want to insist that you can just decide arbitrarily which it is, but Jung was much more of an empiricist - there is no arbitrary deciding in his work. You have to find the clues that tell you which it is.

But then again - did you miss my last post? (I made 2 in a row just above yours). In it I realized that we're actually both saying the same exact things.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Brainstorm - and our interpretations really aren't at odds at all.

Did the snake really lie in Genesis? I'd need to review the story, but I think what it really did was challenge them to break an arbitrary rule of Jehovah's, which actually was the act of transgression that allowed them to reach their full potential as consciously aware human beings (after all, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). If you look at the story as an allegory of growing up, which I believe is at least one aspect of what it was meant to be, then it means you can't grow up fully until you think for yourself (or maybe are tempted by someone more knowing) and break the arbitrary rules laid on you that are meant for children. Those rules don't apply to adults, and adults who still mindlessly follow them (shutting down their potential being) are disturbed and can't live up to their full potential.

I think maybe the rule was created by Jehovah in the first place as a test to see if or when they would decide to break it, or else Jehovah was being presented in that story as the typical overprotective parent who doesn't want to let go of his children, or to see them as fully developed adults.

Bam! I think I nailed it! :awesomed: Feels that way anyway...

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Oh boy . . . there it is. The Abrahamic texts, my nemesis.

Really there are different versions, so take this with a grain of salt.

You could say the serpent lied when he told Eve that she wouldn't die, if she ate of the tree. Or you could say that G-d (and by default Adam) lied when G-d told Adam they would die if they ate of the tree, and Adam repeated that to Eve, so the serpent had been honest.

Eve told G-d that the serpent "deceived" her.

However, part of the actual punishment G-d exacted upon Adam (not Eve) was a curse that Adam would "return to the ground" and return to dust. So it wasn't the actual act of eating or disobedience that caused Adam to die, it was a curse.

You might also wonder, if there was a tree of life already in the center of the garden of Eden, before Adam was cursed with inevitable death, doesn't that imply that death was already a thing, and so the serpent either lied (because he made a general statement that Adam and Eve wouldn't die, when they would have either way) or G-d lied, because Adam and/or Eve would die whether or not they ate of the tree, and whether or not they disobeyed, and whether or not they were subsequently cursed by G-d.

Genesis as we get it today isn't one story, written by one author. The verses are cut and paste jobs from several versions written by several authors. I can't recall enough about the structure to give you much detail, I'm sorry! I'm not a scholar of ancient religious texts!

Also...

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Originally Posted by amateur

as a dreamer, if an interpreter insisted that my dream symbol represented a specific arch type, and it meant nothing to me because it was not taken in context of the dream or my thoughts and feelings, I might just shrug. It would be like if I was looking at "Starry Night", and someone told me that the color blue is a protective color as an eternal, universal arch type. It's interesting that the other person informed me of that, but it may not change how I feel about the painting, or the color blue as a whole. I might identify with that interpretation, or I might think that the blue in that painting feels threatening, or exciting, to me.

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This is largely because most people have absolutely no idea that archetypes exist and know absolutely nothing about them. In fact most people dont believe there is an unconscious - they think that's just some kind of new-age bullshit and they sneer at the idea. Because most people are afraid of what might lie un there if it is real. That in itself is an unconscious fear - if you can appreciate how ironic that is! An unconscious fear that causes them to deny the existence of the unconscious... :cackle:

I wish Jungian depth psychology would be taught in high schools. It is so profoundly important and so unknown and feared/reviled by the majority. Instead everybody seems to believe in Freud (if they believe in an unconscious at all).

Because a dreamer doesn't believe an archetype showed up in their dreams doesn't mean it didn't, and doesn't invalidate the interpretation. In fact the irony is that people go to therapists (of all kinds, including psychotherapists and dream interpreters, which is a branch of psychotherapy) specifically because they don't understand the language of dreams but the interpreter hopefully does, at least better than they do. But then they get frightened or set off by some part of the analysis (because it touches on some unconscious fear or aversion they're unaware of having usually) and they reject it out of hand.

It's obviously too late for me to lock this thread for being a necropost (just try to be more aware of the post date next time). However, I can lock it for wandering off-topic, and it definitely seems to be heading that way.

The topic is "Reoccurring dreams about being eaten", so please stick to that. Take the rest to Extended Discussion if you must.

No, I didn't miss your post, it takes me time to read, and reply! Bear with me!

My spelling is horrible, and I don't study Jung, so thank you for giving me the spelling of archetype!

Also, I'm not insisting on anything, I'm sorry if that's the impression I gave you. Jung can look at things the way he wants, and I can have my own view. That's not a problem in my opinion! If he developed a way he felt he was able to tell the difference, and that was useful for him, I'm glad for him! I'm not likely to include archetypes in my interpretations as I don't find I have much use for them the way I interpret, but I appreciate it if you notice I interpreted a dream, you have something to add about archetypes or anything else, and you contribute. That's a positive thing, to me, not a negative.

I'm not going to stick to Jung, or any other single method of dream interpretation, because, as I remember (it's been a long time since I read Jung) I don't actually relate to exactly the way he, or any other single interpreter, proposes a dream is interpreted. I liked Jung a whole lot better than Freud, but I tend to only be able to find meaning in certain dreams using the approach I do, which is much more like the way I might deconstruct a play. Maybe that's incorrect if you're a student of one of the psychiatric fields of study; however, I'm an amateur by intent, which gives me the freedom to forge my own path.

okay, spellbee2.

I thought the rule was that you couldn't revive an old thread unless you had something relevant to add, and I thought that having an interpretation for a requested interpretation was relevant.

What does relevant mean? And also, the definition of off topic, please? (I'm very new!)

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Originally Posted by amateur

Oh boy . . . there it is. The Abrahamic texts, my nemesis....

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Quoted just to show which post I'm referring to, since I already posted avout the previous one above. Can't... keep... up... :bump:

My point was - the lying isn't the most important part of the story. It's not the key part of the parable. It's sort of a side issue - the main point was that they transgressed against the unfair and arbitrary rule and became like God, as the serpent said they would. Like God in the sense that they changed form automatons only good for obeying mindlessly to fully consciously aware beings, and yes, mortal now. Because they became burdened with the knowledge of life and death - the fact that mortality exists. People don't understand that before a certain point - kids have a naive assumption that life will go on - and unchanged even - forever. This is something thay grow out of as they attain knowledge (not just of good and evil, though that's an important part of it). And what can be said about children can also be said about early primitive peoples. Like animals (except maybe elephants apparently - did they get ahold of the fruit of the tree?) primitive humans had no real understanding of mortality - r maybe that was what made them human, when they reached that level of conscious understanding? So maybe as well as an allegory for individuals growing up, it's also an allegory for the growing up of the human species. There is always a correlation between the collective and the individual in regards to early development - what applies to a species also applies to each individual. But I'm rambling again.

INEVITABLE EDIT:
(Because I always come up with my best ideas just after posting! :pissed:
Just to clarify - because I think I Muddied my actual point a bit:

Your analysis hinged on lying (of the serpent) as the key factor, but in mine the important aspect of the Genesis story wasn't the lying, it was the fact that the serpent was the transformative element - what he did was what caused Adam and Eve to emerge from unconscious servitude to become fully aware human beings. This would jibe perfectly with the rest of my analysis, since the Devouring Mother archetype always refers to unconscious fears that keep a person from maturing and becoming fully consciously aware. It doesn't mean you analysis is wrong - but mine goes deeper and I suspect is more correct or more to the point, since this is a very common problem that often shows up in dreams. I also suspect the dream of the serpent devouring the dreamer was the turning point, the beginning of the transformation, which is why he was not afraid and even felt good (if I remember right) when the dream occurred.

Hey Spellbee - I just saw your post. I did manage to veer back on topic in my last post, by getting back to the actual interpretation of the dream. I do agree with amateur though that the subject of dream interpretation itself is relevant in the Dream Interpretation subforum, especially after one or more interpretations have already been made.

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Originally Posted by amateur

Jung can look at things the way he wants, and I can have my own view. That's not a problem in my opinion! If he developed a way he felt he was able to tell the difference, and that was useful for him, I'm glad for him!

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But see, you're trying to treat your own admittedly very amateur interpretation techniques as if they're somehow just as valid as Jung's, when he was a brilliant visionary who advanced the art/science of dream interpretation considerably. I don't think you've done that yet, have you? Nor I. You don't seem to have studied very deeply into it either - though your own apparently very intuitive interpretations seem to be pretty good. But Jung didn't just use intuition - what he actually did was to discover fundamental truths deep in the psyche that nobody had known before, and that change the whole game in terms of dream interpretation. To just ignore them whenever you feel like it is not very rational - though I understand you don't really know much about them and so I can't expect you to really get what I'm saying here. This is sort of like having a discussion about science when I have somewhat studied the relevant science and you haven't, but you want to keep insisting that all ideas are equally valid. They are not. And I'm not saying that my ideas are much better than yours - I don't know enough yet - I'm an amateur slightly advanced beyond you, and probably not as intuitive, but I do refer to masters like Jung when necessary and I don't pretend that their discoveries can just be brushed off.

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Originally Posted by amateur

okay, spellbee2.

I thought the rule was that you couldn't revive an old thread unless you had something relevant to add, and I thought that having an interpretation for a requested interpretation was relevant.

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The rule is actually that if a thread is old and inactive (i.e. no posts for about a year or more), it's better to start a new thread than post in the old one. There are a few exceptions (threads in DreamViews Favorites, for example). And yes, you're somewhat right - reviving an old thread for a relevant response is better than reviving it just to say "cool" or "thanks". But in this case, the original poster hasn't even logged into the forum since June 2014, so interpreting their dream is a bit of a waste, as they'll probably never see it. And you may say "well it's still a good point of discussion regardless", and I agree - but not in the Dream Interpretation subforum, which is specifically for interpreting users' dreams.

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Originally Posted by amateur

What does relevant mean? And also, the definition of off topic, please? (I'm very new!)

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Relevant is the same as the dictionary definition: pertaining to the subject at hand. In this case, "relevant" is any discussion that is related to the thread title, "Reoccurring dreams about being eaten". Off-topic is any discussion that is not relevant - Jungian Archetypes or the Book of Genesis, for example.

For what it's worth, (and I'm actually worried about making this comment right now until spellbee2 replies with the definitions I need! I'm sorry, spellbee, I feel rude not speaking to people when they've spoken to me!) whether or not the serpent lied, or represented a lie in Genesis is irrelevant.

The reason that the serpent represents a lie in my interpretation is because in my culture that is an extremely frequent, and therefore most likely, association that people have. Especially for children.

And the original poster's flag is the U.K. which is an almost identical cultural atmosphere to the U.S.. The reason that I made an effort in my interpretation to clarify that the symbol could mean something else is because I'm aware that it could. Someone living in western culture surrounded by western ideas could easily immerse themselves in the ideas and symbols of another culture, so the symbol would represent something other than a lie.

There is a possibility that the dreamer associates snakes and darkness with pagan meanings, but it's not the most likely. Most likely isn't always correct, though. That's why I tried to explain the symbols could be viewed more fluidly than just flatly accepting my take on them.

Lol ok, I see where Spellbee is coming from. This is veering further into Extended Discussion territory, because we keep descending into these ever-deepening definitions of definitions and twists and turns of "when I said this what I really meant was..." sort of stuff. That's for Extended Discussion. The problem I see though is where would you cut the thread? The original dream is so deeply relevant to the entire discussion - you'd need to just copy the entire thread into ED and just prune out the meandering parts here in Dream Interpretation.

"whether or not the serpent lied, or represented a lie in Genesis is irrelevant."

Well then we agree - not sure why we need to keep doing all this digging deeper and deeper into each part of what was said? I'm running out of time for this anyway today, and need to do other things.

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Originally Posted by spellbee2

The rule is actually that if a thread is old and inactive (i.e. no posts for about a year or more), it's better to start a new thread than post in the old one. There are a few exceptions (threads in DreamViews Favorites, for example). And yes, you're somewhat right - reviving an old thread for a relevant response is better than reviving it just to say "cool" or "thanks". But in this case, the original poster hasn't even logged into the forum since June 2014, so interpreting their dream is a bit of a waste, as they'll probably never see it. And you may say "well it's still a good point of discussion regardless", and I agree - but not in the Dream Interpretation subforum, which is specifically for interpreting users' dreams.



Relevant is the same as the dictionary definition: pertaining to the subject at hand. In this case, "relevant" is any discussion that is related to the thread title, "Reoccurring dreams about being eaten". Off-topic is any discussion that is not relevant - Jungian Archetypes or the Book of Genesis, for example.

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Okay. I'm not sure I understand, but I'll make an effort.

I was able set up email notifications for this forum, so I thought that even if a user hadn't posted there was a chance they would be notified of a response, and come take a look. I would do that, even if I hadn't been back for a long time, because I would want to know what someone had said in response to my post!

From now on I'll assume that people no longer want interpretations, if they were not interested enough to post in any other subjects on this site! It confused me only because people were asking for a response, so I assumed they would still want one, especially if they hadn't gotten one yet . . . I was focusing on interpreting dreams that hadn't been tackled by anyone yet, thinking that it would be appreciated, especially if the original poster had waited for a long time.

I'm a little confused about the restriction regarding "off topic", and "relevant", and wonder if you could clarify.

In personal conversations between people, it's not usual to stick to the original topic, and only the original topic. Conversations morph away from the original topic, and remain relevant to the conversation as a whole. If someone comments with something that's not in the title of the thread, but is still relevant to the preceding posts within the thread, is that not relevant, and related to the original topic?

I'm sorry again! Thanks for answering!

Edited: I guess I was thinking that not everyone who joins the site looking for an interpretation has anything to add in the other areas, so it would be natural for them to never post again, but still want a reply. I won't do that anymore! Because if I start a new thread, the person won't be notified, and it was their dream, so the new thread would be relevant to no one!

I don't want to answer for Spellbee, but here's my take on it.

We don't want the message board to be as random as normal human conversations - what a mess that would be!! It's necessary to have some decent organization, so people can find things when they go looking for them. If you want a lengthy and deep discussion about the finer points of Jungian Theory for instance, you don't expect to find that under a dream about being eaten in Dream interpretation (oh my bad - Nightmares & Recurring Dreams). That's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see in Extended Discussion.

Ok, DM out!

Last post before I move this DV rules-related discussion to its own thread for being off-topic as well.

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Originally Posted by amateur

I was able set up email notifications for this forum, so I thought that even if a user hadn't posted there was a chance they would be notified of a response, and come take a look. I would do that, even if I hadn't been back for a long time, because I would want to know what someone had said in response to my post!

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For one, I don't think they'd want an email from a site they haven't visited in 3 years. I used Runescape back in 2008, and if I randomly got an email from them telling me to come back, I'd probably either a) ignore it, or b) hit the unsubscribe button (yes, that's more than 3 years, but it's the best example I can think of off the top of my head). On top of that, I hardly even remember any dreams from 2014, even the ones that were amazing lucids. So it's highly unlikely that whoever posted it originally even remembers the dream. And from an interpretation perspective, they were probably a completely different person 3 years ago than they are today, and any interpretation may no longer be applicable to them.

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Originally Posted by amateur

From now on I'll assume that people no longer want interpretations, if they were not interested enough to post in any other subjects on this site! It confused me only because people were asking for a response, so I assumed they would still want one, especially if they hadn't gotten one yet . . . I was focusing on interpreting dreams that hadn't been tackled by anyone yet, thinking that it would be appreciated, especially if the original poster had waited for a long time.

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I'm not saying you shouldn't help interpret someone's dream because that's their only post. You'd be surprised at how many users create accounts simply to make one post, and probably 75% of those users make their one post in Dream Interpretation. I'm just saying that if it's their only post from years ago, it's not really worth it to respond, since it's unlikely they'll return to see your response - email or no email.

I have no problem with you wanting to help interpreting - in fact, I highly encourage it. I think dream interpretation is one of the biggest things we lack on the forum. Often, threads in the Dream Interpretation forum go unanswered, simply because we don't really have many users who are good at interpretation. It's understandable though, since our focus here is on lucid dreaming, and dream interpretation is only really related in the fact that it involves dreams.

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Originally Posted by amateur

I'm a little confused about the restriction regarding "off topic", and "relevant", and wonder if you could clarify.

In personal conversations between people, it's not usual to stick to the original topic, and only the original topic. Conversations morph away from the original topic, and remain relevant to the conversation as a whole. If someone comments with something that's not in the title of the thread, but is still relevant to the preceding posts within the thread, is that not relevant, and related to the original topic?

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Darkmatters pretty much nailed it. Our forum is a learning resource. Think of it like a classroom - there are personal conversations and discussions between students and teachers, but they are all related to a specific topic. There are subforums where deviating slightly from the original topic to continue the flow of conversation is okay (within reason, of course) - our non-dreaming-related subforums like The Lounge, Extended Discussion, etc. But in the Dreaming and Lucid Dreaming subforums, it's important to stick to the original topic. In the future, say someone is Googling for reoccurring dreams about being eaten, and stumbles across this thread. They click it and start reading, hoping to learn more, but instead find a long discussion of Abrahamic Texts, Jungian archetypes, and now the importance of staying on-topic in online forums. It's unhelpful and unprofessional, and it's why moderators work to keep threads on-topic as much as possible.

And thanks DM for pointing out that this is the Nightmares & Recurring Dreams subforum and not Dream Interpretation - I got confused since the OP asked for an interpretation.