Free Dream Interpretation
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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 
This is a response to Anna’s feral wildcat dream,
Hi Anna,
The positive side of any type of cat in a dream is the quality of independence which means having your own thoughts and creating your own plans. Cat dreams are really positive because independence in the modern world is such an important process to have. In your dream, however, the cat has gone a little bit too feral and aggressive. It is the negative side of being a cat. This is because you haven’t figured out how to be a cat (independently-minded) in social situations. It is a difficult task for all of us who are like cats with a lot of our thoughts.
The key is to be confident with your own mind and thoughts and let go of the people who so go along with everyone else. You can be compassionate with them rather than feral. It is a big challenge so if occasionally you strike out at them, don’t be hard on yourself. It takes confidence to realize that your thoughts are of a higher nature and will eventually win out.
Just one other things. Cats need time alone because they need to think.
This is for Rachel’s Dream,
The problematic part of the dream is you becoming big and flabby and then pushing other people around to claim your space. You are repeating to others what happened to you in the past. The real model is for how the man was kneeling over and helping the child. The big, flabby part is protection so that what happened to you won’t happen again. Being aggressive with the space is how you use your ego state to protect yourself. It is really important that the way you treat this dream is to become honest with the big, flabby part that is like a bully.
You want to get to the state of being like the man helping the child, but you have a lot of protection that keeps you from doing it. Your ego (the flabby one) needs to be replaced by the man. Try changing the voices that each one has so that as you do it, his voice will become yours over time.
It is a humbling experience in this dream, but you can realize that the flabby person is exactly the type of person that abused you. You don’t want to have her acting unconsciously on you all the time.
Richard
Hello,
In my dream I had gone feral. I was running in a marsh on all fours, with the gait of a wild cat. I was growling and watching people, almost as if I was hunting them. Then someone spotted me and I ran away into a dense forest and scratched up a couple of trees while the people chased after me.
I have though about this dream for the past week and I could not think of the meaning of this dream.
Thanks
Hi Richard,
Last night I dreamed I saw a man in a hallway, a man kneeling down to a child, helping him truly to overcome his emotional/physical outbursts.
Then I saw a boy playing with a machine that he was told was a toy, and was colourfully designed as though it was a toy but it was really a machine which delivered electric shocks to control his behaviour. He got so used to people doing this to him so that even when they weren’t being administered to him he wanted to administer it to himself
Then I am outside in an open field (again!) and I have become really big and flabby because of some sort of pill I had taken and it made me much bigger than I am, taller even. I was kind of concerned about this and wondering how to get back to my regular size but then I saw someone negative from my past and he also had flabby arms and I realized he had gotten smaller. So since I didn’t want him in the field I went over to him and started just pushing him with my belly and flabby arms and I found I could easily knock him over and he kept falling backwards and getting further out of the area. “This is my space,” I tell him, “And I am the one who belongs here” I say, “And the only reason you ever got away with what you did was because you were physically bigger than me but that is not the case anymore so get out!” I was firm in my voice and I meant what I said and it was true because now I was big and flabby too and he could see it so he just kept backing off. Then he was outside the line and I said, “Huh!” like “so there!” and just stood there…as soon as that happened I started thinking how do I get rid of these flabby arms again?
Then I was in a pool with others also who had taken the flabby arm pill and we were swimming around. They thought it was funny but I really wanted to get rid of the flabby feeling. I kept holding my arm where the flab was and saying “look at this! it doesn’t belong here” it made me laugh.I had no idea at all what to do and was just floating on a water floaty toy. There was also a circle of us and I couldn’t pay attention to the presenter because I just kept looking at my arm saying, “this is not right. this is not what the pill was supposed to do!”
So then in the dream I actually sent you the dream interpretation and in the dream I was afraid that you wouldn’t sent a reply because of the guy in the hallway and the child’s strange toy.
At the end of the dream you wrote to me, “I’ll continue to interpret your dreams, despite the electricity”
And that made me so happy and I woke up.
Hi Richard
Thankyou very much!!
Your interpretation is very accurate of what is happening with me. These are issues I’ve had all my life and am currently seeing a psychotherapist to work through it.
When I was younger many years ago I would often dream of flying. The type of flying like Peter Pan. Where I would soar through the air and travel high above the tree tops and it gave me a feeling of freedom and joy. I haven’t had a flying dream in 20 years.
A few nights ago I dreamed I was floating through the air about 2 metres off the ground. I was moving at a slow pace and trying to move through the air by using my arms to propel me but it was very slow going. I was in an outdoor carpark trying to find my car but I discovered I couldn’t find where I had parked it.
Is flying in both instances different? This is the first time in many years where I was able to lift myself off the ground
Thanks
Suzana
Hi Richard
Further to DREAM 5 I should mention that after leaving the alligators I did return to the same place with one other person wanting to show them what I had seen earlier. I came across a crowd of people surrounding the lake and it was like they were watching other animals in the water but I couldn’t see past the crowd to see what they were looking at. And I knew the alligators were awake but I don’t remember seeing them. It was like the place had turned into Australia Zoo and there were keepers doing presentations. As I was walking away from the crowd a big lizard jumped on me and its claws embedded into my arm. I was startled but quickly shook the lizard from my arm and it fell off.
Hi Richard
Over the last 3 weeks I’ve had a series of dreams. These dreams all happened on separate nights but in a span of 3 weeks. I would love for you to be able to tell me what they mean
DREAM 1
I was in a house. It was in a neighborhood I am familiar with but the house wasn’t familiar. In it was a Chinese man and I was working for him. I was mopping the floor but it was very hard to mop as the end of the mop was made out of a ball of rubber as heavy as a medicine ball. The Chinese man told me I was free to go. Upon leaving the house I put on my long coat and noticed its warmth. As I was walking along the footpath I noticed a group of people. There was a puddle of water with piranhas swimming in it. A little boy was holding a stick and putting it into the water. One jumped out onto the sidewalk and I put my arms around the little boy to protect him. The piranha lay there on the sidewalk. I left and as I was approaching the train station I noticed the train was already on the platform and there was no chance for me to catch it. I was too late.
DREAM 2
I was in a very cold place. It was dark and during the night. I was all rugged up in winter clothing. I was then on a train which took me to a hot climate. The day was sunny with blue skies. I took off my clothes and was in my bikini. I knew I was at the beach but couldn’t see the water but what was in front of me was a wall of sand separating me from the beach. There were steps built into the wall and I started to climb but the further I climbed the steeper it got and the harder it seemed to climb. I never reached the top but was almost there.
DREAM 3
I was in a room with a very large tree in it. It was touching the ceiling and seemed quite cramped. I decided to move the tree from its position to another area of the room where the ceiling was much higher. The ceiling here was made out of clear glass and acting like a large skylight. I moved the tree under the clear glass and it was then way too small for the space. I don’t recall there being any leaves on the tree either.
DREAM 4
I was holding a stuffed doll which had a head but no face. It came to life. The head started to stretch outwards and away from me like chewing gum as if it was wanting to escape from me and cause mischief like a Gremlin.
DREAM 5
I was walking through a large grassy area which felt like it was in the wild. I was alone and it was during the day early in the morning. I came across a small lake surrounded by trees where I found 2 HUGE alligators. They were half out of the water facing me. I noticed their massive size would have been enough to have me in them with room to spare.They were asleep and snoring. They did not wake.
It would be fantastic if you can tell me what they mean
Thanks
Suzana
This is a response to Suzana’s dreams,
Hi Suzana,
What I try to do when I read a series of dreams like yours is to find the patterns that seem to be affecting your life and then come up with a solution to negative patterns. You seem to have experienced a certain amount of coldness in your life. The piranhas and alligators are cold blooded animals that would have no qualms about attacking. You also enjoy the warmth of the coat and you are pleased about being in a warm place where a beach is. The fact that you are not attacked by the piranha nor alligator, that you make it to a warm place and put on a warm coat, are all positive aspects for you. The negative aspect is that you have a hard time reaching the beach, making your train, and having a positive experience at the lake. I would say that because of the coldness you have experienced in your life, you imagine that it is going to happen again so that keeps you from getting to the really warm places like warm relationships with others. You are almost there at the beach but can’t get over the wall of sand. The key is to replace the thoughts of coldness with thoughts of warmth. The more you can think about the warmth in relating to others, more it will happen. Then the cold thoughts will fall away. It seems to me that the tree needs to be outside rather than in because the growth is in your relation to others in a warm way. You have to get out in the world to do this instead of in yourself. The growth is stimulated by interacting positively with others. You are really close to big change with a lot of warmth, but you need to have more warm thoughts so that the colder ones are dissipated. Let me know if you have further questions.
Hi Richard,
Last night I dreamed that I was in the same open field, forest, ravine area as I dreamed a few nights ago. This time in the dream I was working with the others. It’s actually not clear to me now what role I was in or what I was doing but just that I had a sense when I woke up that I had been working, as though I was a supervisor of the camp, something like that. The only image that came to mind was of being in the field and seeing myself from a far distance away and I could also see the others on the other side of the forest/ravine and they were playing a sport of some sort, soccer I think.
Rachel
Rachel,
It seems to me that the dream wants you to get from seeing yourself far away to actually being in the play.
Hi Joseph,
I just wanted to thank you for sharing your dreams and asking your questions about sleep paralysis. I found that reading Richard’s reply to your question was very interesting and helpful.
Rachel
Thanks for the answer I guess I could tell you about a few of them.
The dream about the girl that gave me the bite was like I really got punctured by something sharp but with no marks when I woke up the pain was there still. It did not last long only 1 to 3 days .I felt so weird then and now as I say it.i apologies for not saying this before.
The dream paralysis one happened when I was in my bed i never fully retain an image of my room and that day it was a little messy from all the things I did that week.
The thing is I was in my bed i can only see but i cant move i notice that it was sleep paralysis but I could not break it then I look up and an image starts to make itself visible of a women or girl oddly enough this time she was wearing a white dress, next thing i knew she took something from my abdomen area it felt like I lost energy or something like that. Then she disappears and I can move again I felt fear and a burning sensation on my abdomen so I try and ignore it and turn on my TV.
I started sharing dream since my first post here .I don’t normally talk about them.The first one happened 2 years ago but I remembered almost everything since it had lots of things that caught my attention .
The sleep paralysis one happened around when I started college again January or February.
These are the only dreams that I actually felt something after they end that’s way i looked for someone to help me understand.
Hi Richard,
Thank you for posting the list of 3 lessons I can learn in order to be ready to go on the next journey in my life.
For the past 8 days I’ve been working through your 19-Day Transformation Program (located in the Transformation section of the blog) with the intention to practice the virtue of Excellence, especially as it applies to finances as I have a lot to learn in this area and a lot of anger to let go of about choices I made early in life that lead to some financial messes which I am now cleaning up, little by little, step by step.
Anyway, I am finding that the solution to not continuing the anger pattern is to speak out about things sooner. I used to let a a lot of small things go and then wait until it was a big deal to talk about it but by then I was too angry to express myself clearly.
Early on in life I chose that I’d rather be embarrassed and messy even though it lead to anger because it somehow felt safer in the environment I was in. Now I am learning to be okay with who I am, where I come from and where I’m going because I am not so angry anymore; i can see the good in past and current situations, and I do believe the future is peaceful and bright.
On Day Two of the Transformation Program, you invite the participant to think of 9 people who show qualities which are admirable, qualities the participant would like to have too. And you invite the participant to express to that person that you see that quality in them. When I did Day Two I was actually feeling so much anger that I couldn’t do the exercise, but today, even thought it is Day Nine I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank you to you for this Free Interpretation and Dreamwork that you do. I see such Wisdom, Generosity, Love, Unity, and Peace in the work that you do and I want to thank you for your encouragement, commitment, and vision for serving humanity in such a way that shows such loving-kindness.
Richard, I just want to acknowledge the Excellence I see in you, and I Thank You for modeling that for others. I am just at the very beginning stages of learning about this virtue, but I hope it is okay for me to share on this open-forum my gratitude. I thank you.
Last night I kept waking up from a dream that kept repeating itself.
There was this very scary demented looking lady after me and my son and no matter what or where I was she was always there and she knew everything. And if I was hiding, I would look around and she would be standing there starring me down. And in this dream
Is was other raining or always very dark and cloudy. I would wake up my heart racing and sweating and everytime I fell back asleep the dream kept repeating itself.. I don’t know why I’m having this dream or why it keep reoccurring.
This is a response to Cee’s dream,
Cee, The reason the dream keeps repeating itself is actually for your benefit. When you end up transforming your life because of the dream, then you will be repeating positive patterns all the time and easily. The best way to deal with the dream is to realizing that what you need to have going for you in your life is exactly the opposite of her. She is old, demented and knows everything about you. What you need is to be someone who is youthful, enthusiastic, bright and has a lot of trust and faith that things are going to work out great. When the old woman comes into your life, it is like the world is a rainy, dark day.
What helps in dealing with this type of dream and reality is to take responsibility that you are the one creating the woman inside of you and also the gloominess. The advantage of taking responsibility for her creation is that you can just as easily do the opposite person which is much more upbeat. You probably developed her as a protective mechanism for a bad situation you were in.
Hi Richard,
I’ve had 2 very similar dreams. The first one was me standing there & a little boy who I feel is suppose to be my son, ran to me & hugged me & I felt unbelievable, overwhelming love for him. There was no one around me I was alone just me & him. The second dream I was holding a baby boy which again I felt was my son, & I was walking forward, once again, alone. I felt that same unbelievable love again. I don’t have any kids in real life
This is a response to Sara’s dream,
Hi Sara, These are fantastic dreams for you. What it means is that you are developing the masculine qualities in you that tend to be more assertive, strong in nature. They are already born, but still young which means that you have to nurture them gently and progressively. You have a good relationship with developing them as is shown by the love. When you have these qualities developed fully, you will feel really balanced.
Thanks a lot that dream bothered me for quite some time because i don’t usually have dreams that are similar to old time periods I did not say much about that but either way thanks a lot ,maybe some other time I’ll tell you other dreams. Ill book mark the site X)
I don’t know if anyone has posted about this but what are your thoughts on sleep paralysis.
Ill add another one could a person suffer from pain or after effects that has been experience in a dream that are not shown physically
I know is not fully on topic so is not a priority for me to see your thoughts on this I could search any time on this but second thoughs are all ways welcome.
Joseph,
Sleep paralysis means that you are incapable of moving even though your mind has ever intention of doing so and is trying hard to do it. It means that there is an unconscious part of yourself that you are not aware of that is restraining you. The key is to find out what kind of protective energy is paralyzing you in your life. It is relatively easy to find out so if you share the dream, I can give you some clues.
Usually the dream world shows you the pain you already have in this world. It is not the purpose of the dream world to cause pain, but only to help you deal with the pain that is already there. Some pain is covered up like the way people cover up pain with drugs or alcohol so the dream world is going to try to uncover it so that you can actually heal it.
Hi Richard
Please help interpret my dream,
I have been having a few dreams about my ex which fathers my baby, we were supposed to get married at some point but then he left me and never kept his promise,
So In this dream I was sitting on his brother’s lap with him sitting behind us,
Then in another dream he was staying in the backroom of my parents house, I knocked at the door which he opened and when I walked in the room I noticed there was a woman on the bed she quickly jumped out and ran out, the woman was bald …the next thing I was tearing her underwear and then my ex was there telling me that we wont get back together if I keep fighting and yelling.
This is a response to Ramz’s, dream,
Hi Ramz, This dream is an indicator that your ex was seeking a woman who was bald, which in the dream world means a woman that didn’t have a lot of power. He was probably charming, but when you show strength, he cannot take it. The best thing to do is getting completely dis-engaged from him by staying away. He is trouble. Your issue is to not be taken in in the first place by someone like him. You have to get good at reading character at the earliest moments in a relationship and especially before jumping into bed.
I had a dream that I was in a school and my dad was there to pick me up. I must have been working in the school. My four year old son was running ahead of us when I suddenly heard gunfire. Everyone started frantically running and yelling that there was a gunman in the building. I kept yelling for my son to come to me but he kept running ahead. People kept running between us. He would turn around when I called him but then he would turn back and start walking again. I woke up just as he reached the for the doorknob.
This is a response to Krisin’s dream,
Hi Kristin, The reason that you are having this dream is that your son is in the vulnerable age before school. Gun shots indicate that in the schooling experience for a young person there is a lot of put downs and criticism that shoot children down both from the children themselves and the teachers. Your job as a mother is uplift your child’s spirit by being mostly encouraging to him. He is going to go forward in school because that is what children do, but they are often shot down from who they truly are. You have to lift his spirit continually.
In the dream, there were several seemingly unconnected scenes.
In one, I am with my 10 year old daughter in a large auditorium with hundreds of Martial Arts students all wearing white Karate uniforms, sitting at tables, eating lunch. We are at a table and someone starts showing off a bit, a young 12 year old boy, with a white belt. Then a guy with a black belt comes over to him and challenges him to spar. I watch out of the corner of my eye with a bit of amusement as the boy takes his stand and shows he does not even know how to place his feet for the beginning, nevermind properly spar. The blackbelt does a few things to put the young boy in his place and he gets the message and comes back to the table humbled.
After lunch, there is a lot of motion, movement, dismantling tables, people getting ready to move, etc. Another instructor is outside a screen door, laying on the ground, doing movements. He’s talking and talking and talking. He says to the group that he wants them to write an essay on playing soccer and he describes what he wants included. He’s clearly making it up as he goes and I like that. It makes me curious and I listen more. He describes all that he wants included in the short essay then says to make it 200 words. I hesitate and then say, “200 words is a short paragraph. Usually one paragraph is 250 words and two paragraphs fit on a page for about 500.” He listens and then tells the group to make the essay two paragraphs, 500 words.
Then I am climbing a large and long staircase, bigger than what would fit in a house. At the top is a storage closet. I want to empty the contents before going on a trip. But I either hear a negative person’s voice or remember his voice and seeing him downstairs or see him standing at the top and I hesitate to go right for the cupboard. Instead I go into the bathroom on the left at the top of the stairs and when I am in there I find a wonderful clean bathroom with an old claw-foot style bathtub and a wrap-around shower curtain by a window with bright sun shining in. I undress and turn the water on. As it is warming up my sister comes in, being humble like the boy in the Karate conference and she also undresses and waits for the water to warm up. I invite her to take a shower with me so we can both be clean and refreshed. I am not embarrassed to be naked in front of her like I used to be and also I just turn my eyes from her body also to not make her feel embarrassed. She doesn’t speak but she stares at the water and I figure she will take a shower.
Hi Rachel,
There are 3 lessons in this dream.
1. The importance of having humility in everything that you are learning.
2. The importance of speaking up when you have a valid opinion.
3. The importance of not being embarrassed about being pure and clean-minded.
Once you have those 3 lessons, then you are ready to go on the trip which is like the next journey in your life.
Crystal,
The snake was doing it for your protection because the knowledge you learn will be a threat to the status quo. When you solve the dream, it will be ok to have the knowledge, but you have use a lot of wisdom in how and with whom you share it with.
Hello
Thank you Richard for interpreting my dream. I just have one question: what do you think the books meant? Because books usually mean knowledge, I just would like to know if the books meant anything significant.
Thank you again,
Crystal
my dream:
Im in a forest with a girl it seems as she is wearing old black clothes at the time i only saw her from far away. When i get closer to her i notice odd features pupils with a light blue that i have not seen in a person and cat slit eyes to go with them other than that she seem normal she had blonde hair and she was white as snow. I felt a time skip like in any dream then i open my eyes and i’m in the same forest setting near a tree with a fence close by.The girl is in front of me i see her and what i feel is a heavy feeling and her twisted smile as i stare at her made me feel a killing intent as she comes closer and bites my neck.
I did not notice much in that process maybe because of the feeling i got from her but when she’s done I see really thin fangs is funny because i said before her eyes were like does of a cat the fangs reminded me of one too.
After this i feel another time skip but this time i am standing near the forest and there is no fence oddly enough i did not feel any danger from her when i saw her again this time but what i saw was a lot of sadness on her face the kind i would never like to see in a girl ever again it might be weird but through the hole process of the dream i felt a nostalgic feeling as if i knew the girl with strange features this nostalgic feeling was present in the dream since the start.
The dream ends with me seeing her sad expression after that i wake up.
This is a response to Joseph’s dream,
Hi Joseph,
This dream has a lot to do with women’s culture in general. The cat-like features of the girl indicate that young women would like to have the quality of independence like having their own minds and own lives, but they often attach themselves in a vampire-like way to men instead of developing independence. This puts them into a huge sadness because they often don’t live the life they are meant to live. They live a life of dependence on men.
You get the dream because it is important as a man to encourage young men to be strong and independent, to speak their own minds, and have their own goals.