Dreams of Vampires, Walking Dead: Why We Need Them in Our Dreams
When a dream is frightening like a nightmare, it isn’t as bad as you may think. We need vampires and zombies and monsters. They give us valuable insight into our own process and help to head is in the right direction in our lives. You are not a bad person or really messed up because you have a nightmare even though the fear can stay with you for sometime after. A vampire has a message to give us just like any other symbol. They are not unlike snakes or sharks or other frightening phenomena. Why are they valuable? Why should we not just try to instantly forget them?
Human beings have two natures. We have a self-centered, materialistic, ego-driven animal aspect to our selves, and we have a higher nature that is full of positive qualities that we call our true self. The goal of life is to develop all of the positive qualities we can and then put them into practice for the benefit of humankind so that when we cross over to the next domain, we will have much greater capacity. The two natures always live side by side in us and actually cooperate together to wake us up so that we will transform into better people. The ego is where the fear is. It is also home to other negative aspects that have a temporary nature like jealousy, hurt, guilt, greed, and loneliness.
Fear is not bad. It is just a message from the ego that it feels threatened and wants to protect you. When you have a vampire in your dream, it is a message that the ego is under threat from something or someone that wants to suck out all of your blood. Since blood is the symbol for life, a vampire is that force that wants to suck out all of your life energy. Now if you want to change and become more effective and more beneficial to others, it is very valuable to begin exploring questions around what is sucking out all of your life force. The other day I was talking to some of my friends who happen to be doctors. In Kuala Lumpur they often have to work 36 hour hospital shifts. They are supposed to be helping people back to health, but whoever is determining their work loads is definitely a vampire and turning them into the zombies.
So if your life energy, your enthusiasm and joy, are under threat, there is a likelihood that one day you could have a vampire dream. The vampire tells you that your life energy is being drained. When you understand where and how the draining is occurring, then you can begin to find higher levels of your true self in the form of more enthusiasm. The vampire is not the enemy in the dream, nor is the real-life metaphoric vampire, the enemy. It is just the messenger. It tells you where the issue is. Then you have the freedom and responsibility to change it.
When certain shows with vampires and zombies become very popular, it means that the fear is generalized in the culture. It was very popular in 2012 for people to be fearful of an apocalypse because of certain misread Mayan prophecies. Before that people were fearful of misread prophecies by Nostradamus. Vampires and zombies are present now because we tend to idolize professions that over work people like lawyers and doctors. And for that matter it is pretty rare when you meet up with happy engineers. The “Walking Dead” is what we have become as a collective culture. That is why the show is so popular. It resonates with our collective ego experience.
It is important to understand that the true self and ego go walking together, not apart. They are not at war with each other. When you have the fear that your life energy is being sucked out, it is just a message that now you can find a way toward higher levels of enthusiasm so that your life can get into balance. Normally when you get the message, your ego will have one of three responses. It will try to run away from the vampire, freeze and hide away, or fight with it. This is what the ego, animal side does when it is threatened in order to cope with the situation. None of the coping strategies work. There is only ever one recourse when you have a fear-related situation in life, and that is changing to a higher level of a particular capacity or quality.
The “Walking Dead” is depression. The answer is to be more up, more enthusiastic.
In the modern world we become zombies because we feel powerless against the forces that control most of the economic life around us. This is because people, both men and women, define themselves primarily by their economic life. You can stop being a zombie or being fearful of vampires when who you are and what you are aiming for in life is not defined by the work that earns money.
The most important thing to realize about this post is not so much about what to do when a vampire enters your dreams, but how to deal with really fearful figures that cause nightmares. I always use a mantra like, “that was a good one.” I am actually excited about a nightmare because I know that I am going to get to the other end of it, the new positive energy. I know that the positive energy is waiting for me and calling to me and that the nightmare is just a message along the way to help me find the energy.
Vampires are not bad. They just are there in our dreams to give us a message.
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a 
Dreams For Peace 
Reblogged this on A Dreamwork Blog and commented:
The messages from nightmares can give us more information than any other kind of dream. That’s why they are my favourite to work with. The reveal the clues to unlock the doors to the greatest change and when the issue from the dream is resolved then the life of the individual can change to such a hugely positive degree as to no longer be even recognizable.