What should you do when you have a dream with animals? When there is a snake, a dog, a shark, an eagle, a deer, how do you regard these symbols?

Dreams with animals in them are always about developing specific spiritual qualities like courage, playfulness, strength, humility, and joy. As soon as an animal appears in a dream I think about the qualities that the animal has and then see how those qualities are what I need in my life right now. For me, animal dreams are some of the easiest and most exciting to work with because they are such straight forward messages about doing the transformation work necessary to get the virtue represented by the animal to be more present and working in my life. The nice thing about working with animal dreams is that they are so clear.

Like other dreams animals will present themselves in either a negative manner or a positive one. Dreams that are negative with animals such as being chased by a bear, bitten by a dog, or poisoned by a snake give you the issues that you are facing in trying to apply the animal’s virtue into your life. For instance, being bitten by a poisonous snake such as viper and then having the life taken out of you is a symbol that somewhere in your environment that you are being poisoned by the way people act around you. The most poisonous kind of human behavior is malicious backbiting because you get attacked and affected by a concealed enemy like a viper. A poisonous snake like a viper is a lot less dangerous when it is seen so it takes a great deal of care to blend in to the environment and hide in such a way that the victim doesn’t see it ahead of time. This is how backbiting works. People attack you behind your back by poisoning the environment with things about you that make others think badly of you. This has the effect of taking the life out of you. When you get the snake in the dream, you can recognize right away that you are being poisoned in the environment, see who the snake is, and then take steps to overcome the poison. The solution to an animal dream is take the negative qualities of the animal and then flip them over 180 degrees so that the positive opposite appears to you. A green tree viper has two or three wonderful qualities which are patience to wait for a long time in one spot before the right conditions appear to act, the quality of humility by taking on the shape of the color of the environment around itself, and the quality of using self defense only as a last resort.

Dogs are generally seen as for the qualities of loyalty and friendship so when you are bitten by a dog, it means that someone who you thought was your friend has acted in a not so friendly manner to you. If a friend turns on you or acts in an aggressively negative manner toward you, the tendency for people is to either bite back or to curl up in a corner and avoid more friendships. Having the symbol of a dog in your dreams means that the qualities of friendship and loyalty are being called for, but having been bitten by a friend lets you know that you can let go of what has happened to you so that your circle of friends can be widened. If you don’t get the message that the dog means that you need to be more friendly in your life even tough you were bitten, then you are going to end up protecting yourself instead of developing the quality. The appearance of the animal in the dream is a message from the dream world that you need more of its quality. Nothing could be more straightforward. The difficulty is being able to get help to overcome the issue.

The first step to understanding an animal dream is to take the time to meditate on the animal’s qualities so that you can see the positives that need to be actualized in your life. It is really most difficult to do this when you have a great deal of fear associated with the animal, but it is nonetheless necessary. Insects in a dream, for instance, usually mean something is bugging you, that you are being annoyed. The positive quality of insects are that they multiply rapidly so that when one insect dies or is squashed, the group continues forward. If you are being bugged(annoyed by something or someone), then you act like the insect world by just letting it go and then multiplying your positive acts. You maybe fearful of a bee sting, which represent the protectiveness that some people have when their issues are stimulated, but then you can just let it go (let the stinging comment go) and then multiply the amount of honey that you make for others.

The Steps to working with an animal dream.

1. identify the positive qualities that the animal has. (ants are industrious, dolphins are playful, etc.)

2. Identify the issue that the animal presents when it appears negative and then what your response is to the issue. (poisonous snake means your environment is being poisoned behind your back and your response could be like hiding away)

3. Change the negative metaphor to a positive one. (recognize the positive qualities in everyone around you and develop a connection with them that is life giving and energizing)

4. Set a personal goal to actualize the dream. (today I will find 4 people who can say something positive to)

Some animals and their issues.
1. Bear – strength- Fear of being overpowered by a stronger person.
2. Shark- assertiveness- fear fo being ripped into and torn to shreads
3. Lion- courage- fear of being attacked by a fierce opponent
4. Eagle- vision- fear of being swooped down on and attacked
5. Worm- Making the world more fertile – acting in a negative manner out of sight of others to get an advantage.
6. Crocodile- Patience- fear of something lurking in a relationship that is ready to attack.
7. Beaver- Hard work to reach a goal- doing a lot of work but getting nowhere