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Is your dream monster really as scary as it seems?
In our dreams strange and unusual creatures exist. Some fascinate us, some terrify us. Monsters seem to come from somewhere deep in our imagination, and can create a particularly strong impact. We tell children that monsters aren’t real and smile indulgently as we explain them away. But somehow it seems different when we dream of monsters ourselves as adult. So why is it that we dream of monsters?
Things in our dreams are usually symbolic, and very few more so than monsters. Monsters are our very own personal symbols, often cobbled together from different creatures in stories, films and even mythology. Monsters can come from deep within our subconscious, so they may have a very important message to tell us. The very nature of monsters, that they are creatures of imagination, usually indicates we are dealing with something we don’t want to face, or something we don’t understand.
We can go back to the basics of dream work to understand what our own monsters mean to us. We can describe how the monster make us feel, and then look for situations in life where we are feeling the same way. Are we feeling threatened? Harassed? Under pressure? Is this something we are feeling at work, in a relationship or with a choice we have to make?
We can also try the action of describing the monster in basic words as we would to a child. We can look at the colour of the monster and what it it is doing. (see “colours” post.) Is the monster big and overwhelming, or sneaky and sly? This may indicate how we feel about a certain problem or dilemma in our lives. Remembering also, that symbols in our dreams are usually a reflection of parts of our own selves, monsters can be a part or our own personality we don’t want to admit to. Is the monster angry? Maybe there is something in our life that we are mad at ourselves for, and now need to forgive ourselves. Is the monster faceless, maybe even invisible, but hounding us none the less? This can be a problem in life, a behaviour or issue that we are running from. Now it might be time to face the creature that pursues us. Very often a bad monster dream can be about the parts of our own personality we like the least. These kind of dreams ask us to face what we don’t like, change what we can, and be kind to ourselves for those things beyond our control. Is the monster hungry, and maybe wants to eat us? This can indicate we have a habit, maybe even a compulsion or addiction that is “consuming us.” It might be time for a more balanced approach to life. Are we attacking the monster, trying to kill it? This might be an angry reaction to a part or our-self we can’t accept. Maybe we should stop judging ourselves by other people’s standards, and accept and love ourselves for who we really are. Or it may be a symbol of illness, and our body trying to attack an invading infection or disease that our subconscious mind is aware of.
Is there something you would rather not face?
Monsters in dreams can be our fears made manifest, but not all dreams of monsters are bad ones. Sometimes a monster can be harmless, helpful or even amusing. Such dreams may come after we face a scary monster in our dreams, or as we start to confront the problems or concerns we have in waking life. These kind of dreams may help us to understand the transitions from fear to freedom, with the changing monster helping us understand our own transitions. Some monster dreams may be of mysterious, but not particularly worrying monsters. These kind of dreams may indicate a powerful period of transformation occurring, with new skills and outlooks on life developing inside us that we cannot fully understand or recognise yet. We may even be lucky to have a visit from a part of ourselves deep within our subconscious mind, that arise like a creature from the deep to help or guide us at an important juncture in our lives.
The thing to remember with monster dreams, is that they come from within our own minds. If we can be brave and true enough to really face and understand them, most monsters aren’t really so scary after-all. In fact, they may even turn out to be our friends.
It is quite distressing that often when we have a nightmare, it doesn’t occur in isolation, but recurrs with a frightening persistence. As if having one nightmare wasn’t bad enough, but to have them frequently! It just doesn’t seem fair! But it makes more sense when you realise why you are having these bad dreams. When something is not quite right in our life, or in our mind, there is some level of us that wants to put things right. This is our subconscious. While consciously we may not want to admit that something is not right, because that would mean facing up to it, and that might mean getting hurt, humiliated, risking shame or a sense of failure, our subconscious refuses to let us forget, and will keep trying to send a message to our conscious mind to do something about it. It will keep shouting and shouting until it is heard. One of the strongest ways for our subconscious to make us pay attention to it is by giving us nightmares. These images are so intense and so startling that we can’t ignore them.
The sad thing for us Westerners is that we live in a society that does not in general place a great deal of value on dreaming, so we are not encouraged to value them, to discuss them, or to learn how to work with them. When this means we miss out on the opportunities for growth and delight dreams can give us, this is a shame, but when it means we can’t manage our own nightmares, it is a far more serious affair. As we grow into adults our dreams should mature with us. As we become more skillful, balanced and wise with years, so too should we dream in a more balanced and rewarding manner. But studies show that in Western society the dreams of anxious adults do not differ much from those of children. We still feel anxious and afraid, we are still pursued – maybe not by a big hairy monster as child would be, but perhaps by a vicious knife wielding bandit, and we all still dream of being attacked by wild animals. As adults we differ hardly at all from children in our response to these threats as well – we flee, we run, we get stuck, we are eaten, hurt, trapped. In short, we remain victims.
To stop having adult nightmares or bad dreams, we need to face up to what we are afraid of, we need to honestly admit to ourselves what is not working in our lives, we need to really grow up. It is hard. Our society does not encourage talking about our fears, it judges perceptions of failure, and we don’t teach our children the skills they need to work on their own inner selves so they can mature into self-aware adults. So the only thing we can do is start learning now.
We can learn how to overcome our fears, even in our dreams
Facing a scary threat in a dream can be a very difficult thing to initiate. This is especially so if we aren’t practised and confident with working with our dreams! That is why confronting the thing in waking life is often an easier way to start. Try imagining your dream when you are awake. Sit somewhere comfortable where you won’t be disturbed, and play the dream through your mind like a movie. Remember, you are the director of your dream, so tell yourself you don’t like the ending, and imagine a new one for yourself.
Another useful method you can adopt while awake that may have a carry over effect to helping deal with nightmares, is to actually do in waking life what you can’t do, or what you need to do, in your bad dreams. This often means learning a new skill, which can be confronting, difficult, frustrating or embarrassing at first, but the commensurate feelings of ease, satisfaction, confidence and pride that you should feel upon mastery will make it well worth the effort. Nightmares of sharks? Try swimming with them in a safe tank. Have a nightmare you are lost and can’t read a map? Try learning orienteering, how to read a map and use a compass. Have a nightmare someone is hurt and bleeding, and you can’t help? Go on a First Aid course and learn how to treat wounds. It may sound simple, and even silly, but actions such as these send a clear message back to our subconscious – it lets our deeper self know we have heard the message, we are listening and we care enough to do something about it. That is a very strong message indeed. It can even be enough to stop our subconscious from shouting so insistently at us, and go back to a normal tone, breaking the repetitive cycle of bad dreams. At the very least, actions such as these give our mind an alternative to work with. Instead of thinking of sharks as something that always eat us, when you have been with them safely your mind now has a clear, conscious (and no doubt very emotion charged!) image of you being with sharks and them not eating you. In fact the more emotion charged these images are, the deeper they are likely to penetrate our mind, and the stronger and more effective they can be in helping us imagine a new and happier outcome. The greater the fear, the greater our exultation can be on overcoming it.
Tomorrow, looking at a special kind of nightmare…
The first step in making nightmares go away is to face up to our fears
Firstly, let me apologise to my regular readers for my absence! I have been travelling and have not had regular access to the Internet, but I am back now so stay tuned for many more interesting installments on dreams and how we can work with them! If there is a particular kind of dream, dream symbol, or process for working with dreams you would like to know more about, please leave a comment and I will do my best to address them.
So now I think it is about time we started looking at some of the more disturbing aspects of dreaming. Until we are able to understand and work with nightmares, there will always be a major obstacle for us to access the real value and opportunities that dreaming can provide. Fear of dreaming can paralyse us in our internal explorations, but it is these very nightmares we must learn to deal with to move onto the next stage in our dreaming life, and indeed our personal development.
The main thing to remember about nightmares is the same as most other dreams. All the things you are afraid of in your dreams are really only parts of your self. If you are being chased by a monster or wild animal, it is only are part of yourself you are running from. If something or someone is attacking you, it is only a part of you attacking yourself.
Knowing this does not necesarilly make the nightmares go away, but it does give us clues as to how we can make that happen. The simple answer is, we must learn to face our what we are afraid of. We must confront our demons. As you get ready to go to sleep, prepare yourself mentally to face your attacker. Remember it can’t really hurt you, the fear comes from not wanting to recognise what is really going on. In the first nights it may be hard to do, but persist. With time you should be able to stand up to what it is that scares you. In the early days you may also find that even though you face up to whatever it is that scares you, when you do it still catches you, or eats you, or whatever. That is okay. This is still progress. The important thing is not to stop now – you have just proved that you can change something in your dream by facing up to the scary thing instead of running. This is a major achievement.
As you keep exerting your conscious control to make your dreams change for the better, eventually you will find yourself winning in these situations. You may kill the creature, you may transform it into something harmless or laughable, you may put it to sleep or feed it so much food it can’t move. All these things are sure signs the nightmare is turning. Ultimately, you should be able transform your enemy into your friend. The creature may change shape or age, it will go from something threatening to a kind and helpful guide. This is a sure sign you are integrating the different aspects of yourself into a more unified, less conflicted person.
The outcome of this will not be simply less nightmares and a better night’s sleep, but a new sense of confidence and creativity and wholeness in your waking life. Address the deeper conflict that causes your nightmares, and chances are your whole life will feel brighter. I will write more about how to prepare for nightmare conforntations tomorrow.
After being chased in dreams we might wake up feeling exhausted!
Like being attacked, the dream of being chased, of running away from something or trying to hide is one of the most common as well as distressing dream themes. It is not uncommon after waking from a chase dream feeling stressed, anxious, or even exhausted as though we actually have been running all night! These dreams may involve long and complicated plots moving from location to location, or they may have just an intense feeling of needing to get away. You may be running, using transport, or seeking places to hide. All of these other elements give us different clues as to our emotional state and what the thing is we are running from. Look at the other symbols to help piece together the meaning.
Also similar to attack dreams, chase dreams can be confronting to deal with. They often ask us the questions:
- What are you running away from?
- What do you not want to face up to in your life?
- Where are you feeling under threat or under siege in your waking life?
If these questions were easy to deal with, they would not have reached the stage in our dreams where we feel panicked, so don’t worry if these questions are difficult to answer at first. Learning to confront our fears, to face up to people or ideas that we find threatening or demeaning, or to admit our own bad habits and self destructive behaviour is one of the most difficult aspects of self development. How can we learn to be brave and strong when we feel intimidated, threatened, guilty or afraid?
The good news is, you can start to address these elements in the same way your dreams do – symbolically. As you work with your dream, you can “train” your subconscious, eventually becoming strong and certain enough that you can act in real life as you do in your dreams, and claim back your own personal power. Try the following exercises:
- Write a conversation with the person or thing that is chasing or following you, it doesn’t matter if you never actually knew what it was in the dream. Write it like a script or dialogue, letting the words flow freely. This will help you “face up” to your assailant
- If this dream is because you feel guilty about something, write your self a letter. First, one explaining why you did what you did, and how you feel about it, then another, to forgive your self and recognise that you can’t change the past, that making a mistake does not doom you forever, and that everyone will be better off if you learn to be happy and strong. Read these letters out loud then destroy them.
- Make a sculpture or drawing of your chaser. If it still looks scary and intimidating, draw or sculpt something on it that makes it look funny or ridiculous. Tell the person or creature they have no power over you any more.
You will know when this dream work starts to take effect as the chasing dreams change – either you will face the one who chases you, you will dream of getting away, or the chaser will change into something positive. And as these changes take place in your subtle, subconscious mind, so too should you feel a renewed sense of freedom, confidence and strength. Chase dreams invite us to stop running, to face our fears and recognise what is good and healthy for our life.
(For more information, check out my post on “Dream Symbols: Attack!”)
Before we go on and look at some other big themes and common symbols in dreams, I thought it worthwhile clarifying a question that comes up a lot about the people who star in our dreams. So many people say “I dreamt of this guy/girl at work, I dreamed about an old friend/relative/lover etc. Why am I dreaming about them?” Even strangers we barely know, people we have noticed for only a fleeting moment at the shop, on the train, passing by on the street, all can make guest appearances in your nightly imaginings. What do they have to tell us?
The first thing to get clear is that dreaming of these people is not wish fulfilment (no you don’t really want to “have sex with/kill/insert other bizzare action” with these people.) Despite the sniggers you may hear when you say “I dreamed about so and so last night” and the reply “yeah? was it good?”, such replies really display a basic lack of knowledge of dreams and what they are all about.
Remember, dreaming occurs only in your head. These other people haven’t magically popped into your head of their own will - you are imagining them through a dream. Just think if you dream of others in this way, even strangers and people you don’t especially care about, how often have you made a guest appearance in somebody else’s dream? Which leads us back to the original question – why this particular person, at this particular time? Like all symbols in our dreams, people represent something other than what they are. Remember our dreams speak to us in pictures, and they try to use elements from our everyday life that are familiar to us. So going back to the practice of explaining symbols in your dream as you would to a child from the previous post, do the same thing for the person. Describe their character, their personality, their relationship to you. Then look at those words, not the person and see what they mean to you.
Using the example of Bob the neighbour from the previous “Attack” post: he lives close to me, and I feel like he is always butting in to my affairs. He is always criticising with a harsh tone and makes me feel uncomfortable. This can you help you understand where in yourself you are being critical and harsh. When you dream of attacking Bob, you dream isn’t telling you that you really want to attack Bob (even though in real life you may find him annoying) it is actually revealing what you have in common with Bob, and how you want to silence your own inner critic, your own “inner Bob.”
Sex and love dreams can make us feel equally uncomfortable. But instead of thinking of this as some fantasy to be ashamed of, go through the same process of describing the person and their defining characteristics from your perspective, and then view the sex/love actions in the dream as areas of your own personality you are coming to love, new aspects of yourself you are embracing. These dreams are not about wish fullfilment but about personal healing and finding unity within your self. For example, you might dream of sex with the boss. You might describe your boss as uncompromising, influential, powerful and a strong leader. This dream would indicate that you are starting to embrace your own leadership qualities, and learning to wield your own influence and power. So don’t feel ashamed, but maybe refrain from sharing this dream with the boss or anyone else at work who is unlikely to understand the metaphor!
Another aspect of the male/female unity dream is of embracing our own opposite sides. Jung believes each man has a feminine side, and each woman a masculine. Finding the correct balance in a society that defines these roles for us can be challenging. A man dreaming of sex with a strange or beautiful woman is not likely to be thinking about cheating, but more positively, is probably becoming more in tune with his feminine side, maybe getting more in touch with his emotions. Similarly, a woman dreaming about making love to a gorgeous male stranger is not necessarily having a fantasy, but more likely embracing her own masculine qualities, such as maybe learning to stand up for herself or become more assertive. Often these dreams will seem more than simply sex, and have a profound love or even spiritual aspect to them. This is a true sign of internal healing or growth. And it is not “cheating” on your partner! Rather, your partner is likely to enjoy the new energy and confidence such dreams create as you embrace your entire true nature.
There is one aspect though, depending on your own personal beliefs about life and death, where to dream of another person may not be symbolic. That is when you dream of someone you love who has departed this mortal coil. I know controversy exists around this, but I personally believe that to dream of a deceased loved one, (especially when quite recently departed), whether you believe they actually appear in spirit form or not, can still be a profoundly moving experience, and one that cannot be adequately explained by referring to that person as a metaphor or symbol. In these instances, the person is simply them-self, and to dream of them can be a step in the healing process of mourning, grief and loss. These dreams are like gifts, psychic hugs if you will, that help us along the path to acceptance and recovery.
So, next time you dream you are attacking the neighbour or sleeping with the boss, remember to stop and think what these people represent to you. They are not themselves, simply masks your dream has used to express a concept too difficult to condense into words.
Attacking dreams show us a way to a peaceful resolution
To dream of attacking or being attacked often relates to issues of control in our life. Even if you feel you are in complete control of your life, you may still have an attacking dream, because deep down, you could be waging a war to stay in control, and fear what would happen if you lost control. Attacking dreams are not usually about wanting to hurt ourselves or others, but can be about our own unresolved internal conflict. They can disturb us with their violence, but attacking dreams show us a way to peaceful resolution.
Attacking dreams are challenging to address because they are often asking us questions such as:
- Where am I being defensive in my life?
- Where may I be hurting myself or someone else in real life?
- What old patterns of behaviour do I need to break?
If you are being attacked, where in your life are you insecure or vulnerable?
If you are doing the attacking, this does not mean you actually want to go out and hurt someone! Look at if you are self sabotaging your own efforts (bad habits, not finishing things you started, letting people down etc.)
Or for both attacking or being attacked, is there something in your life you need to get rid of, a behaviour or belief that you have outgrown? You may be attacking your own fears and doubts, so to “eliminate” them is a good thing. Remember, you are not dreaming of real people, but what those people represent to you. If you dream of being attacked by Bob your neighbour, who you see as highly critical, maybe you feel your own critical nature is preventing you from achieving your goals – the voice of self doubt. If you dream you are attacking your old head master at school who you saw as authoritarian and a bit scary, it may be that you need to escape the restrictive rules of authority that you place on yourself.
It can be helpful to look at where you are being attacked, or doing the attacking. Are you being stabbed in the back? You might be betraying your own principles, lying to yourself or someone, or perhaps you should be more careful about whom you trust. Are you being wounded in the heart? This might be where you are denying your true feelings, or reminding you of when your heart was broken in the past, and asking you to let your heart heal - to stop revisiting an old wound and blaming others for your hurt, and move on. Are you being cut in the throat or cutting someone else in the throat? This could be asking you to speak up for yourself, to find your own voice. Is it your legs or feet that are under attack? This could mean you “don’t have a leg to stand on” – that you are basing your beliefs or attitudes on something that has no real grounding, or that you need to learn to stand up for yourself. Is it your eyes? This might mean your dream asking you where you are turning a blind eye to something, what is you don’t want to see? Or maybe you are seeing something clearly for the first time, as if your old eyes were blind but now you can see. These are just a few ideas to get you started. See what works for you.
Also look at the weapons of attack. Think what these symbolise to you. Describe it as you would to a child. For example, a sword might be described as sharp, precise, a bit old fashioned, used in children’s fairy-tales. How does this relate to your own feelings and behaviour? It might be the critical voice in your head, with sharp words, judging you in an old fashioned manner for behaviour that you learnt as a child was bad. Whereas a tank is inpenetrable, fires from a distance, is large and strong. This may remind you of a distant father or boss, who didn’t support you but would criticise you and not realise they hurt you. You might still carry this pain with you, and every time you get hurt, you react to the person as if they were your father or boss, or head master, or whatever. Attacking dreams are to help release you from that pattern of old pain and start building a new, fresh positive way of interacting with ther people, and a more positive voice in your own head.
To help move on, try writing a letter to your attacker or victim, telling them what you feel, why you need to move on from them. Forgive them and release them – tell them you have no need for their outdated behaviour. You can then burn, bury, or flush this letter down the toilet – symbolising releasing that old pain from your life. It can also be helpful to write one from the attackers point of view – this can give you insight especially if you are attacking your “internal critic” who it can be quite a good thing to silence!
See how your dreams over following nights change to ones of you befriending the attackers or them transforming into something more pleasant, or of them becoming insignificant, powerless, or small. Look for positive changes in your life where you feel more confident, people seem to relax more around you, and you yourself feel more relaxed. This means you understood your dream clearly, and acted on it well. If the attacking dreams continue, keep working at it, try new ideas to see what they are really saying. And don’t feel bad if it is difficult at first, attacking dreams are often about our own conflict, if it was easy we wouldn’t feel conflicted!
On another note, attacking dreams can signify a possible health problem. Review your eating/exercising/sleeping/substance using behaviours. If you have any cause for concern beyond taking it more easy, getting a bit of fresh air and exercise or eating less processed foods and a few more fruits and vegetables, you should see a doctor. I am not sure who said this originally, but this quote is most appropriate here: “Listen to the whispers before they become shouts.” Your subconscious knows what’s going on with your body, often before your conscious mind does, especially in a world where we are all so busy and stressed. An attacking dream can symbolise your immune system, your body fighting some kind of infection. Or it could be your deeper self struggling with the rigid rules of work and effort our conscious mind places on it.
Dreams about attacking animals will be reviewed a bit more in a future blog about the roles of symbolic animals in dreams, but most of the rest of this post can still apply to an animal attacking dream.
An attacking dream invites us to stop, reflect, and see what needs changing. Attacking dreams gives us hints as to how we can change our lives to improve, to grow, to develop new behaviours and beliefs that serve us well, that do not cause us internal conflict. They offer us a chance to relax, and feel confident, safe and empowered. But only if we listen to, and act upon, the messages in our dreams.
