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Dreams For Peace
Dream Interpretation, Therapy, Transformation
Richard Hastings
Richard Hastings is an expert in change work and dream work and author of Dreams for Peace. He is a Baha'i and currently lives in Vancouver, BC. Read more...
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Dreams For Peace 
Hi,
When I was 10 years old I had a dream about a very peaceful and exotic island where I was relaxing in a spring / jacuzzi type area of water in the middle of a forest talking to pigs and swimming with them. When I woke up I had happy tears streaming from my eyes and felt extremely calm, and completely at peace (I have never experienced this calm feeling again in my whole life – it was as if I had no worries and felt at ease and totally relaxed and happy in that moment)
I am now 24 years old and recently on TV there has been an advertisement which mentions an island in the Bahamas that is inhabited solely by swimming pigs! Upon seeing this advert on TV I immediately gasped in amazement and rushed onto Google to research this so called island. I was shocked to find out that the island really does exist and it is called Big Major Cay, or Pig Island.
Could this island be the same one that I dreamed about, and does it have some sort of meaning for me? Do I need to actually travel there and really swim with the pigs like in my dream!? I find it really weird and I have a feeling that it has some sort of meaning and if I went there I would discover some sort of message or revelation about my life or the world as we know it.
This is a reply to Leighton’s dream.
The purpose of the dream when you were 10 is to teach you about the virtues of calm and peacefulness which you felt on that island in your dream. Now that you are 24, your life still wants you to be able to get into that state all the time. Going to that island would really help because it would put you into an amazing place, but you don’t have to go there to learn how to be in the place of calm. You just have to go back inside your dream, feel what it is like, and then act that way everyday.
I am looking forward to reading about the results.
This is for Efty’s dream,
Efty,
A serial killer in a dream is a serial killer of relationships, not a serial killer in real life who murders people. People with a high status often are serial killers of relationships because they try to be better than others rather than equal. When you get into their domain, house, you are always in danger, because they have no desire for relationships based upon equality. They just want superiority. At first they entice people will gold and then they use it to choke you off.
The solution to the dream is to seek relationships that are based upon equality, not upon status. You probably have the dream because you are around people who are going for status rather than equality.
In the dream I was with my daughter in a river. Someone who we have known a long time had poisoned the water with what they said was just some chemical but they were part of a cult and plotted to destroy the water. My daughter was on some motorized thing going faster than I could keep up with. But I was still trying to guide her. There was a scene playing out on the shore where the guy who poisoned the water had someone dress up in a dragon suit or like a big sasquatch and he was scaring people.
I got scared and really wanted my daughter out of the water but couldn’t catch her. We drive over a bridge and then the waves were too big so we finally came back.
On the shore someone planted flowers and they grew really fast, instantly were about 2 feet high, beautiful purple and white like tulips but actually a different flower than I’ve ever seen before and I put my hand out to touch the tops. One woman was a little perturbed at how fake they must be if they can grow that fast. I said well it makes for a nice metaphor though to be able to believe a lot of growth can happen really quickly.
There was something going on with the owner of the house, she was upset but I don’t recall details.
Something about some sort of charm that was given to my daughter and the second part was near the toilet. I didn’t want her to have it. I didn’t trust it’s source.
For Rachel,
The metaphor basically teaches that when you leave the relationships that are like poison because of the way words are used, then you can change and grow really rapidly in beautiful ways just like you say in the dream. You have to understand how you keep being pulled into the poisonous waters so that you can leave them easily and quickly. I bet you are looking forward to the rapid growth. Wouldn’t that be fantastic!! I am going to try to formula on myself and see if it works. I will let you know.
Hi Richard
ok my dream was about this girl I want to fight cause she gets on my last nerves. So I I hunged an underwear for it to dry in the dream and the girl take it and throws it on dirt. I get so mad I try to hit her but she runs away. I run after her to a bathroom stall and she begs me to not hit her but I punch her. I did not even punch her that hard but she got hurt so bad.
This is for Emma’s dream,
Emma,
After you have this dream, you should say to yourself, “so what?” You have someone who gets on your nerves and then you punch them and they get hurt. Punching the person does nothing for you internally as a person. It only temporarily gets that person out of your life. It won’t be long until another person like it shows up and gets on your nerves some more. Then you will have to punch that one and keep doing it forever. It is better to find out what bothers you by their behavior and then realize that that is what you do to yourself on the inside. What is often hard to realize is that that person is like a mirror to you. It is really you. Then you can start being kind to yourself and your whole life will change instantly for the better. Believe me. This really works.
Me and my closest friends were in a serial killers house..we had no idea until the end when his mum n sis appeared. Apparently he was killing in order to maintain their family high class status. With us he was friendly but I woke up when he was trying to put a neckless on me. Gold one but was too small; guess he was trying to make me choke..
This is the first time I remember a dream like this..I’m petrified 😦
Hi Richard I had a very baffling dream last night and was hoping you could help me understand it
i dream I was eating beautiful red apples, from the supermarket, choosing from the prettiest, then the dream changes and I was with my father and some family and friends in a garden, we where sitting in some sort of garden bench with a big tree behind us, I was talking to my friends and I realized I was hungry, there was a cornucopia with fruit everyone had been eating from but it was now empty, I saw then that the tree behind me was an apple tree, but when I reached to take an apple from the tree I realized all the apples in his branches where over ripe and bruised, there where apples in the floor of the garden too, pretty apples discarded because they where bruised and had purple spots, someone from next to me said “if you can’t find a good apple then try a pear, they are not very different” so I looked to the tree next to the apple tree and saw it had pears, so I tried eating a pear but it didn’t taste right, then I heard the sound of some “cacaws” and saw there where crows flying in the sky and pecking at the rotten fruit growing from the trees, I saw a wall then that I hadn’t noticed was in front of me , a big stone wall that separated our garden from the garden next door and another tree stretched out from behind the wall, so tall that it’s branches reached over the wall and intertwined with the tree in our garden, it also had rotten fruit growing from it but it has a few good apples, my father tried using an apple from the ground to knock down an apple from the other tree but one of my aunts scolded him and said “No that’s not how you do it, use your hands brother” so dad reached out with his hand over the big wall and plucked the only apple that didn’t look bruised or rotten and gave it to me, it was a small apple, not as perfect as the ones I’d been eating at the start of the dream but I was hungry so I bit the small apple even if it wasn’t perfect, and it still didn’t taste right, I kept comparing it to the apples I’d been eating in the beginning and wondering where was the tree that grew those perfect red apples I tasted before, the crows in the dream where weird too, they kept circling the fruit in the trees but never swooped in or tried to harm the people in my dream, they just cacawed over and over
Seriously what’s up with all the apple symbolism? Pretty apples, rotten apples, bruised apples, apple trees, bad apples on the ground, I like apples as much as the next girl and I haven’t had a pear in years I want to know what it means
This is a reply to Escaily’s dream. The apple’s represent the fruits of your own efforts based upon what your own vision of your self in the world. When the apple tastes really great, it is because you are acting from the core of your inner self so that you see the fruits of your labors. The fruit doesn’t take quite right as soon as your father comes into the dream. This is because you probably start acting out of the way he/others want you to act. Then the fruits are not quite right. You have a different vision and destiny for your life than what others might wish or imagine for you and you have to act out of that destiny. Then your life will be like a rich cornucopia of fruit for yourself and others.
Hi Dietrich,
My name is Rachel and I read the dream you posted for Richard yesterday.
Your dream has some metaphors that have turned up in my dreams as well. I hope you don’t mind if I share some thoughts about how I have used Richard’s approach to Dreamwork to flip nightmares into positives.
The first idea with a nightmare is to consider that the dream has come with an intense emotion (of fear) in order to help us to become aware of something happening within ourselves or within our life with the people around us. So it is like something is going on that our subconscious is aware of and the dream can help us become conscious of it. Fear is a great teacher which we can use courage to flip and then we can bring a lot of Love and Joy into our lives.
In the dream you are in your house, which is a metaphor for self, so this tells us the message of the dream is about inner work that you can do yourself – and since it is about invasion it means you can do inner work yourself to bring into yourself more of what you want and less of what you don’t want. (The positive opposite of being invaded with people you don’t want in would be to be “invaded with people you do want in”…and also it can be that you can “invade” the lives of others by bringing Light)
With a nightmare, it means the action you can do is the positive opposite of what is threatening in the dream. So in this case, it is happening at night and with lights out and you are standing at the window looking out. Having the ability to look out of the window is about visualizing so it means you have the ability to see an opportunity to turn the lights on and when that happens it will feel like night has passed and day has arrived at last.
Does this make sense?
My dream begins I am standing on a cliff about the size of a big living room/normal living space but a lil bigger. Behind me there is like a wall and everywhere else it is ocean. I’m looking at the ocean very peacefully and then I look directly down into the ocean which is almost reaches the top of the cliff and I see a giraffe looking up at me from under the water, that made me a little uneasy. Giraffes shouldn’t be underwater not standing there just like it was normal. Well I stepped back when I saw him I remember it was male in my mind and as I did he stepped directly out of the ocean onto the cliff. I made myself walk up as that was happening it really freaked me out. I mean I was thinking how could he go from water that deep n step right into a cliff?! I had this dream last year but the curiosity of it’s meaning has lingered. Please help me out here. Thank u.
This is a response to Holly’s dream. So the giraffe in the ocean means that the giraffe inside of you is in the deep recesses of possibilities within yourself waiting to come out. When you sit on the cliff and meditate about it, it starts to come out of the world of possibilities and into the world of actuality or into the real world to be a part of yourself in how you act in daily life. You woke yourself up at the point where the giraffe wants to become real in your life. So the first question to ask is what does a giraffe mean. A giraffe is a large land animal so this means that you have a potential for doing big things. What is unique is that it is so tall. This means that it has a tall reach. It is different than a bird who flies high. A giraffe has a tall reach but keeps its feet solid on the ground. This means that you can reach high for your goals or vision, but you also have to keep your plans really solid in the real world. Then you will achieve big things. Right now you have a bit of fear of reaching high, but it should be the thing that makes your life really work.
Hey Richard,
When I was little I would always have these nightmares about what seemed like a home invasion. I would usually be by myself, occasionally with others, and there would be people out side my house. It was always at night, and all of the lights in my house were off. I would always be upstairs looking out the window at the people outside.
This is a response to Dietrich’s dream. Hi. Rachel said a lot of great things in her analysis so it is good to read what she said. When you are young and not fully supported or encouraged, your mind tends to imagine the worst. This is because you are so small and vulnerable. So when you look out the window ( a window is a symbol of visioning the future) you see invaders. Now that you are older you remember the dream because your mind often goes back to the same vulnerable state when you were not so supported as a child. The goal would be to have a positive invasion to the outer world. It first happens by realizing just how amazing you are inside and then going for it totally out there. The first work is to realize that you have a lot to give to the outer world that could make a huge difference in people’s lives.
Hi richard, i am from the philippines and i had this dream last night :
i was supposed to buy E-load last night, but it didn’t happened. And in my dream last night, finally i buy E-load on our neighbors house, and they are giving me a brochure about Pope Francis, while the truth is, Pope Francis will visit our country january next year, does this mean something?
thanks in advance Richard.
This is a response to Ronel’s dream,
The main thing that you need to know about Pope Francis is that he is all about serving others. So when you think about him, you should think about how you can help your neighbors. The purpose of getting connected with E-load is so that you can help your neighbor. Don’t just use the electronic devices to serve yourself.
I had a dream the other night that I was watching a boy being fed ice cream. The boy was sitting in a chair, maybe tied down, I cant remember. There was an old man behind him repeating a phrase about communism. I was not in the dream, but it was like I was watching in the 3rd person. I remember waking up from the dream shaking.
This is for Ronny’s dream,
The dream is about being fed ideas as if they are sweet like ice cream but don’t really amount to anything like communism, which is an ideology that just didn’t work even though it had a few good ideas. The reason communism didn’t work is that it left out the spiritual world. Equity cannot happen in the world unless one believes that there is more than this life here. It doesn’t make sense. The dream helps you to understand that having things like equality and equity are important ideals because it connects all of us like a giant web and keeps us connected throughout all of the worlds of God. Don’t be afraid to believe in the spiritual reality.
My dreams were in segments and somewhat disjointed, but I’ll explain as best I can. First part of dream that stuck with me was being in a large apartment or one story house, There were a number of people gathered, in several rooms, and it felt like almost everyone knew each other well, and was mostly coupled up. I saw a man there who I used to date and although in the real world this man has passed on, he was very much alive in the dream. I kept looking for my shoes, and there were dozens of pairs of shoes of all kinds piled up everywhere- under beds, couches, chairs, etc. Couldn’t find mine so finally just took a pair that pretty much got me and left.
Went from this gathering to a large church – lots of people – I was looking for someone but not sure who – when I tried to leave I couldn’t remember anything about where I had parked my car. Finally jumped into another persons vehicle and drove off!
The is for Lisa’s dream.
The structure of your dream is that you are looking for something or someone, not finding what you are looking for, so then taking whatever else is available at the moment. You do with the shoes and the car after you seem to be looking for someone.
The best way to think about this dream that will help you in a big way is to realize that person you are looking for first is yourself. When you find her, then you will be able to walk or get to your goals (shoes,car) because they will make themselves known. The first work is with yourself.
Let me know how I can help you with this. Richard
So I had this dream last night that started with a pain in my hand. I looked down at my hand to see it was bruised and I noticed a lump. I touched the lump and it moved and came to the surface of my skin! It was a battery?! I was scared in my dream so proceeded to tell my parents. I was taken to the hospital. During the drive to the hospital the battery in my arm was moving every time I moved and I tried to keep it in place by holding it still, but I couldn’t and it disappeared out of sight, but I could still feel it moving around leaving me in pain. When I got to the hospital I was taken to a room where I was seen by a male African Doctor. He took out this futuristic piece of equipment which scanned my arm and he had a look to see where this “battery” was. It had moved to my shoulder. All I remember from this point is seeing the battery inside my arm, but it had split in half. The doctor said that it had been in my arm for 13 weeks and has poisoned my body, and it needed removing. He kept saying “this really isn’t good”… Then I woke up!
My shoulder was hurting as well (probably from the way I was sleeping) but from my dream, it really freaked me out!
The weirdest dream I have ever had!
This is for Claire’s dream.
The first thing you want to know about this dream is what the metaphoric nature of a battery. In real like a battery is made up cells that converts chemical energy into electricity. So this means that the purpose of the dream is for you to learn something about you to be “energized” like having electricity in you.
Now you have a broken battery in your arm in the dream. Arms are sources of the power that gets things done in life. Power in legs are the things that move you forward in strong ways, but arms are more metaphoric for achieving particular tasks. So what you need to do is to be able to fix the energy source in your ability to get things done. Then you can shoulder more responsibility. You can think of electricity as the charge you need to get things moving. It is like a spark plug in a car that gets the engine running.
It is like what you need before you do a task is to excite yourself or energize yourself. Unless you have excitement you will be like a broken battery. Excitement comes from seeing positive possibilities.
Hi Richard. I had a dream where I was somewhat conscious that I was dreaming and felt that I was visiting an old dream of mine. I was trying to notice some patterns or elements that weren’t there before. In the dream I saw my ex who I had a turbulent relationship with and it was like I was reexperiencing the unfolding of the relationship all over again in a different manner. This time he was the one who approached me, and we talk frequently. Just before he confessed and was about to ask me out, I noticed that I could change the outcome so I yelled, “I hate you!” and ran away. It didn’t feel appropriate to the dream so I experienced a scene rewind (this happens to me often and I wonder what it means) and this time I let him ask me out. I then went home to prepare for our date but when I got home and entered the shower, I noticed that the bathroom was rather empty, and it resembled a small living room full of sliding glass windows and I had a vague memory that there used to be screens or something to keep the people inside from being seen. But this time, the screens were barely there and I felt exposed. It surprised me at first but I didn’t really mind so I went ahead to take a shower. The shower was a few steps from the door and when I turned it on, I sat on the floor and hugged my knees. I had a feeling that my ex was still outside and that he would be peeking in one of the windows. I then repositioned my body in a sitting position where my curves would be seen perfectly, like a model about to be photographed. I saw him in the windows directly facing me. He smirked and opened the windows just enough so he could enter.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Watching you.” He said. He brought a bottle of liquor, it was brandy I think. He was about to drink it when I took it from his hands, threw it on the floor and shouted, “Get out!”
After that the dream was rewinded back to before I entered the house and this time my ex was beside me. I was looking up at the sky and written in all caps, in the spaces between the clouds was the name of the man I’m currently in love with and I noticed that it wasn’t there when I had the dream before.
What are your thoughts on this?
A dream where you are going to back to a previous dream means that you are replaying the previous dream relationship that you had to see if it could have worked. The problem that you have is that each time you end up in the same place where you were before. This is because the relationship was not meant to work out and you are much better for it. There were probably positive aspects of it, which you can keep within yourself, but the negative aspects make it untenable for a long term relationship that would end up in marriage or the like.
The clouds in the currently relationship mean that it has a lot of possibility. It still is going to take a lot of work on the part of both of you until the relationship comes out of the clouds and is more grounded in the real world when you have to work out real life problems together. That will be the big test.
Hi Richard
I had a dream that I was a slut and I was about to sleep with this one dude. Then this one guy come and prevented me to sleep with the guy. So I went to the guys house and told him I didn’t sleep with the guy I was about to sleep with. then we slept together.
This is a reply to Emma’s dream.
In real life a slut is someone who sleeps around a lot being pleasing to guys so that she can have a relationship with them. The thinking is that if you are pleasing to a guy by sleeping with him easily, then it will be a door to a relationship. The problem with it is that it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because sex has very little to do with whether or not a relationship is going to work. What works in a relationship is when people are in a constant state of changing themselves for the better, constantly growing. So the pleasing is always about pleasing your own true self, not what you think a guy is going to like.
Dear Richard,
Last night, I dreamt that I was searching all these rich peoples’ houses (whom I don’t even know). I was searching for my crush’s house. I went to this woman’s house & asked her if she knew my crush’s mother. She said yes, and showed me two pictures of them when my crush was a baby.
This is a reply to Rae-Marie’s dream.
When you are searching for someone’s house, it means that you are trying to find out who they are. With rich people the purpose would be to find out who they are as a rich person so you could get into a relationship with them. The same is true about your crush. You are trying to find out who he is so you can relate to him.
Sylwia,
First of all I want to make it clear that having your heart condition treated by professionals is the best thing you can do. The dream presents the fear of metaphorically being stabbed in the heart, not actually being stabbed with a knife. The heart in dream language signifies the relational part of yourself. This is the aspect of yourself that gets closer to others and really totally into what you are doing. When your inner self is wanting to have this part developed by you, it is showing you that you have a big fear that you have to overcome. That fear is your heart being stabbed by others.
To have this kind of condition in your mind you have to have had some pretty bad memories of being hurt. The key is to understand the past hurts and then let go of them so that new positive energy can open up. Otherwise you will protect yourself and the physical symptoms will get worse.
If you want to share what has happened, I can guide you through the first steps.
Hello past 4 weeks I’ve been in and out of Hospital with my heart condition, Postural Hypotension, Tachycardia…I’ve been feeling like I’m going to have a heart attack…anyways this morning I had a very vivid dream I was stabbed 3 times in the front of my chest, I’m not sure why I was stabbed but out of nowhere I was trying to get my family to call 911 even though I live in Australia, they were calling but no help, then a doctor appeared puts me on a defib machine if asked why he said do you see that lump in your chest? That’s why I was telling mum (in my dream) that I love her and to tell everyone I love them because I’m dying, but then again out of nowhere I’m laying on my couch at home alone trying to call ambulance as I can see my heart rate declining I can feel myself having a heart attack I’m grabbing the lump in my chest because it’s tensing up so much and hurting and I can feel myself going into the light, but before I do I woke up with my heart racing. What does this mean?
Hi Jane,
This is Rachel. I’ve posted a few dreams on this site as well and have been reading RIchard’s dream interpretations to you recently. I think it’s really great that your dream from September 21 shows that you are ready to produce really positive actions that will help others. I was wondering what thoughts came to mind for you when you read his interpretation? I find the metaphor of saliva/bacteria an interesting one because it seems from my understanding of Richard’s interpretations that the positive opposite of the negative dream metaphor can be applied in real life. So I found myself thinking, “what is the positive opposite of bacteria?” Bacteria is is micro-scopic but can cause a lot of harm even to things which are much bigger than itself. So that may mean that even very small positive actions which may seem so invisible as to be insignificant can be very powerful, especially when there are a lot of them. It may mean that even one small little positive thing, even so subtle as a smile in a moment when a frown feels easier, can actually be so good.