Analysis for: Of cats and demons

A part of you relating to biological knowledge of the cells, or instincts, that are older than your personal self. Or it may suggest aspects or memories from your childhood, or a period of your life when you were very different to your present self. If there is a sense of goodness, then it can mean wisdom of life through long experience.

ANIMAL

Animals represent your urges and responses that arise from levels of yourself deeper and less conscious than your waking personality. They depict your instincts, such as the flight or fight response, the urge to reproduce and care for your young. They are also the less inhibited, the less socialised feelings you have about other people and the world you live in.

BIG

If something is very large in a dream, it usually denotes the emotional and mental impact of the thing, as when one says, 'It was a big thing in my life. It was bigger than both of us.' The speech idioms connected with this word illustrate this: Big of somebody; big brother; big fish/noise/wheel/shot; big guns; big head; go down big; big time; too big for their shoes; big time.

CAT

Luck, good or bad. A cat is essentially feminine, or is associated with femininity, also it can see in the dark. Thus it depicts intuition and knowledge of the unconscious or psychic things. A cat can be a warning of a coming event, or a message from your intuition.

But cats are often something we have given or received a great deal of affection from. They can therefore be an image of your own need to give and receive loving attention. In this role they often represent your need to give love or care for someone.

CHILD

Most frequently refers to youthful memories, or attitudes or fears that still live in you from childhood. If you become a child in a dream, there may be parts of you that didn’t have the right environment in which to grow at the time they should have. See Baby, Boy, Girl.

CRYING

The release of sorrow, grief, misery, that has been held back, knowingly or unknowingly. It may be an intuitive knowledge of someone important to you leaving, or dying; or it could be sorrow over something you have done. Or are you a person who cries crocodile tears in an attempt to convince yourself that you feel badly over an attitude, desire or action?

CURRENT

The influence of other people and events to push you into certain decisions or feelings. It can also be the inner pressure of your desires, the direction of the your life, or influence of inner tendencies.

DAY

Consciousness. A period of life that can begin and end. But a day can also express a particular mood or interest, in which case it refers to that mood or interest, or perhaps the time when you were involved in it.

DEMON

The devil in your dreams usually represents the parts of your own urges and emotions you have repressed because you do not feel in control of, or have difficult feelings about for some reason. They express things in you that you fear might ‘possess’ or influence you in a way you believe to be, though it might in fact not be, sinful, or bad. Thus, a person who has terrible feelings of guilt about sexual feelings may represent sexual urges as a demon threatening to possess them or destroy them.

But there is nothing in your dream except images you unconsciously create to express how you feel, what you think, fear or hope. So in the end the demon is an expression of your own thinking and feeling, and is best transformed into something you can enjoy. See Devil, Satan.

FEAR

To feel fear in a dream means that you have not yet developed abilities to cope with what is shown as causing the fear. One of the wonderful things about dreams is that they gradually show you how to deal with such anxieties, or enable you to safely experiment. See Carrying the Dream Forward.

FOUR

The symbol of four is the square or cube, representing stability, materialisation, earthiness, strength of a physical nature, permanency. It is the symbol of the four points of the compass; four elements, earth, air, fire and water; four functions, sensation, feeling, thinking, intuition; the four aspects of self, physical body, astral body, soul, spirit; four aspects of body, gaseous, mineral, vegetable, animal; the four aspects of activity.

Whereas one may represent intuition, two thinking, three feeling, four represents sensation. Astrologically it is Cancer, the prophet or teacher, realisation at a physical level, home and background, and the breasts. See Number.

HAMMER

Aggression; desire to hammer home ones point; energy to break through resistances or break old patterns of behaviour. An energy to mend or connect things.

HEAD

You can lose your head, have a head for heights, for figures, or use your head. Usually relates to your mental cleverness or intellect. Or you can get ahead. Apart from this it represents consciousness, awareness of yourself or the controlling factor of your thinking or reasoning. In everyday speech we say - above one’s head; enter one’s head; get something into one’s head; go off one’s head; over one’s head; swollen or big head; head above water; head in sand; egg head; square head; off the top of my head; hold your head up high; come to a head; head over heels; over your head; get it through your head; turn one’s head; ‘heads up'.

MALE

If the man is someone you know look at what you feel about that person, how you see them and what sort of qualities or weaknesses they have, because they depict your feelings about that person. For instance if I see a male friend as very loving or sexual, then they depict those feelings or qualities in myself.

In a woman’s dream – your dream male depicts the feelings or pains you have about relating to men in general, and about that person in particular. If it is a man you are in relationship with, or want to be, then he illustrates all the difficulties or ease of your feelings and your response to him. In general a man represents your positive outgoing and capable qualities.

In a man’s dream, he will depict some aspect of your own character. What aspect he depicts depends upon how you see him. So define how you would describe his qualities or weaknesses to someone else.

PEOPLE

Several people in a dream usually represent social contact with others or that various parts of you are involved in the dream issue.

Try to define what your relationship with the people is, and this will clarify what the dream is portraying.

SHOP

Often represents the possibilities in you and in life, the decisions you can make, or the variety of attitudes or activities you can choose from. Sometimes the good things in you and your life.

STAIRCASE

Similar to ladder in the symbolism of rising in power, in awareness. But is also used as a symbol of sexual intercourse, or the mounting excitement in sexual relations. Because stairs may have been one of your earliest challenges, and a real threat of danger when you were a child, they can represent achievement or danger of failing.