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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 
I dreamed last night my mother was whipping many kids with wooden sticks, and I started to help her out until all the kids ran away.
This is a response to Taliana’s dream,
Hi Taliana, This is a really super negative dream that you are going to have to work really hard in yourself to overcome. The dream teaches you that you have learned that by using negative aggressive behavior you can drive people away. Driving kids away means you are driving off playful and curious energy in you. You have learned how to do this from your mother. It is important that you recognize how you drive your own playfulness away and then start finding ways to get to that energy in you. There is nothing quite as great in life as playful energy. You are fortunate to have the dream, but you are going to have work like crazy inside to become child-like again and really playful. Don’t be like your mother.
I had a dream about a group of men grabbed me and were going to beat me up, as they started my wife who was there just walked away.
This is a response to Matt’s dream,
Hi Matt, This dream is about being bullied by a gang. You probably have experienced this is real life or at least have watched it a lot. When you are bullied in life, that is when you become fearful. Your wife walks away because she cannot handle being with a person who is fearful of bullies. She is not strong enough. The way you change a fear of gang behavior is to realize that gangs are controlled by one negative person who has managed to control everyone in the gang through fear and intimidation. So to destroy a gang you just have to start finding really positive things outside of the group of one person in the gang. It is as if you are coaxing him out of the gang. As soon as one person leaves it gives everyone else courage to leave. Then the gang leader is left all alone. When you do this, your wife will be so close to you, you will not believe it.
I dreamed that my purse got hung on a conveyer belt and was dropped into the ocean. I was crying and begging and pleading for someone to help me get it. I had everything important in it. Pictures, my wallet, my phone, etc…
This is a response to Kim’s dream,
Hi Kim, The purpose of this dream may be difficult to get to, but if you work really hard, you will find that it brings you a big change in your life. The goal of the dream is to be able to let go of the purse and first realize that the really important thing is your true self, your spirit. It is connected to the great spiritual ocean. Your spirit in comparison is like nothing. So first you have to let go of the things you think are so important like your phone and then you can connect fully to who you truly are. After you connect to that person, your true self, then the add-ons like your phone will come back to you, but if you are not detached from them, they will connect to the wrong people and wrong energy. It is such an important principle for you. Your true self is calling to you first.
Last night, I dream of something I didn’t think of maybe from reading too much manga but this one dream felt real. hyenas head and a human body ran in group into one building, I don’t remember which part of the building but it felt like home. Allot of people got killed by the animal head guys but there was one that is invisible. I ran into my room which it’s furthest from them. I locked my door but it was too loose any my room was a company darkness. I drilled as L bar to the floor and the door to keep it secure quickly but the door is still loose. It opened just barely as it the cold air enters the room feeling killer aura. I held the door while I picked the sharpest object as a self defense tool stabbing the invisible man. But it just ended there then I woke up wondering what the heck it was as it’s scarier then my dream I had since 6 years
This is a response to Aaron’s dream,
Hi Aaron, Your dream is about the fear of negative aggressive groups of people attacking you. It is a good metaphor for what gang behavior is like. The thing that is helpful in this kind of metaphoric experience is to realize that the gang behavior is usually led by one really negative person that controls everyone else as if it is a head hyena. The problem with gangs is that they make you hide away in fear. That is the metaphor and behavior. What you can do to solve the dream is the exact opposite. Start finding the positive in one of the gang members and repeatedly say positive things. This puts a kind of hole in the gang and destroys it power. Then you keep finding positives in others and soon you have a really positive gang of people doing really great things.
I Had a dream I had a pregnancy test in front of me that also included some thing I had to drink I drank it only to look at the pouch to find I had drank parts of a dead fetus.I ran threw up parts of a baby boy plz help me understand my dream
This is a response to Nifa’s dream,
Hi Nifa, Actually it is easiest to understand this dream if you start at the end of the dream and then go backwards through it flipping the negatives to positive opposites. So instead of throwing up a dead baby boy fetus, you want to keep inside of yourself boy-like masculine energy in you. This is like playfulness leading to strength and assertiveness. This is what you are moving to. Right now you are rejecting that aspect of it, but really this is what your spirit wants for you. It wants you to develop your masculine energy. This is what you are pregnant with but something is causing you to reject it. You need to let go of the rejection and gradually start incorporating those positive masculine qualities in you. This will give your life a lot of balance and positive energy. Because of the rejection metaphor you probably have a certain amount of fear in developing them like as if it is not the cultural thing to do.
Hello. I’m having some reservations about posting the details of my dream, as it may be offensive or just “tmi” but unless I talk about it, it’ll be on my mind for days. So, here it is: I’m at a strange outdoor place, surrounded by half naked (if not completely) Asian teens, all standing in front of me, as if awaiting my judgement (when chosen, I would have sexual relations with them individually, over and over again). The strange twist to this is that I am a woman (18 yrs) and in my dream, I was an adult male. Why could this have been in my subconscious? Thank you, and I apologize for the nature of this post.. Lol.
This is a response to Shay’s dream,
Hi Shay. This is a really interesting dream and you may find it challenging to solve and then use it for your transformation. It is good that you have it to show you what might be going on in your mind and courageous to openly share it with me. Being an adult male means that you are trying to seek a more powerful position in life where the closeness and intimacy and getting the things you desire come more easily. It is as if you are a powerful figure who can have the pick of his lot. This is what your mind does when you can’t get the closeness and achievement that you want in life. It is as if it goes into fantasy land to imagine a perpetual state where everything comes more easily. To solve the dream you first need to be able to drop the fantasy which may not be an easy thing for you. Then you need to start getting your empowerment through the closeness you develop by others one by one. This is the key. One by one closeness. After that you can start going for achievement, but first you have to develop closeness with others. In development unity and closeness always comes first, then achievement. In the culture especially Asian culture, they have it backwards.
Dear Richard,
I recently had this weird dream, and the main focus of this dream was to get this rare caterpillar safely to it’s mate so she can get pregnant. She could talk and on our way to her mate she showed me pictures of her other pregnancy and she told me after this one she can never get pregnant again. It was weird because I was holding her and she was soft and had long fur that resembled my one cat that passed away years ago. I know this is a bizzar dream. Its so far out there, I was wondering if you had any idea what it could mean.
Thank you for your time.
This is a response to Kat’s dream,
Hi Kat, Caterpillars are symbols of pre-transformation states. Caterpillars transform to butterflies. It means that your work is to help people transform their lives into a higher state. It is like going from an insect to a cat. The best way to do this is to learn how to transform yourself first by studying how it is done, and then apply your knowledge.
I had a dream I was working at a hospital and some people were outside fighting so I went out and the person got mad at me and pulled out a gun and they were in a car pretty close to me and they shot at me but I didn’t get hit at all and I just stood there while they shot at me they fired a lot of bullets they didn’t hit me but they hit multiple people I knew and loved it was weird but then I went in and started helping find the people who had been shot and at the end I look down and see that my shirt is all bloody and I lift it up to see if I’m bleeding and I am but there’s no hole and that’s where it ended please help me explain this it has to mean something.
This is a response to Kaleigh’s dream,
Hi Kaleigh, The purpose of this dream is to teach you a very important lesson about fighting that is not very well understood in the culture. Working at the hospital means that you are in the context of helping others heal from their illnesses. The problem is with the fighting. When you fight others, you automatically lose even if you are right. The key is to avoid the conflict mostly by ignoring a lot of the negative behavior around you. Then you can focus on the positive and look for ways to keep serving. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t give your opinion about things or seek for ways for the organization to change. When you fight, it creates division and then division makes it difficult to help people heal.
Dear Richard,
The night before New Year’s Eve, I had the worst dream of my life. I had a dream that I was shot in the head 4 times by a man with a big gun. I remember him threatening to shoot me as I was standing in the driver side of my car I currently drive in real life. I told him that I wasn’t scared and to shoot me if he was going to do it. He did. Four times in the head. I got in my car and drove off, blood everywhere on my face. Ambulance stopped my car, got me out, put me on strectcher, and drove me to the hospital. As I was being rushed to surgery, I all I was saying was that I wanted to talk to my parents before I died. I told them to dial my mom’s number as I was on the stretcher being rushed through the hospital halls, fighting to stay alive just long enough to speak to them. My dad answered the phone. I told him I was dying and that I couldn’t hold on any longer. At first he told me not to go but once he realized I couldn’t fight anymore, he told me not to be scared. I told him to tell everyone I loved them and briefly told him how I wanted my funeral to be. As I was going in and out, he kept reassuring me that everything would be okay and not to be scared. I couldn’t hold myself any longer and felt my last breath as I woke up from my dream. The worst dream ever. I woke up and wondered what it could mean. I could feel pressure in all the areas of my head where I had been shot when I woke up. I don’t know what to think of this dream. Thank you for reading and hoping to hear from you soon.
This is a response to Victoria’s Dream,
Hi Victoria, Believe it or not there is a REALLY positive way to look at this dream. It will make all of the difference to you. Being shot and then dying in the dream, when taken in a positive way, signifies that you need to die to your old life that is no longer working for you so that you can be re-born or reinvigorated into a new life. Imagine that you have two selves, your true self and your negative self or ego. Right now your ego is controlling your life or is subject to the ego of others. When you let it go (as if you are dying to it), then you get a new life that is the life you are supposed to live. This is your real destiny. It doesn’t have anything to do with actually being shot or dying physically. It is a metaphorical death. We should try to do this continually, that is, die to old selves that are no longer serving us.
Hope this helps you. Just think you have a great future ahead of you.
One night I have a dream I see my boyfriend and he have a bag in hand I am watching him get in car leave another night I see him with another women he tells me he going on road to drive truck but I see him with girl this all iny dream
This is a response to Dawn’s dream,
Hi Dawn, The other girl in the dream is not necessarily another real life girl. It represents his other interests besides you that are not positive. You should be vigilant about this and watch what he is doing that doesn’t serve the relationship.
Hello again Richard,
My name is Lauren. I was curious if you could help me out with the interpretation of my recent dream. It started out with my father coming to me and asking me if I wanted to join him in swimming with the killer whales, he handed me a pamphlet with the information on it. I saw it was $40/hr and thought that was a tremendous deal. I agreed. When we got there is saw the whale in the bowl and saw just how insanely big this beautiful creature was and decided it would be best if I only watched. So it’s my dad’s turn and there is an audience around the bowl that the killer whale and my father will be in. The trainers asked that we paint our faces white and black before getting in the bowl and my dad and I did even though I wasn’t swimming with the whale. So finally my father gets in the tank and the whale begins doing tricks with my father as a trained dolphin in captivity would. All of a sudden the whale flung my dad to the other side of the tank (not trying to hurt him) but accidentally hurt my father. I screamed as loud as I possibly could “NO!!!” after my scream the whale left the bowl into the vast ocean behind us. The whale started spinning a boat named Isabell around in circles over and over as if the whale were play with it. I was scared someone was going to get hurt and was frantically calling for a trainer. Finally the male trainer came and said that this whale will only listen to females, so when I screamed “NO!!” the whale felt sad and ran. The trainer blew this insanely loud whistle and the beautiful huge whale slowly swam back towards its cage, when it was passing me our eyes connected and I started crying. I was crying so heavily I was gasping for air. I felt so sad for the whale and started yelling at these trainers to let this whale go home to the ocean. They laughed at me and told me she would die and told me I needed to leave. I felt responsible for them obtaining the whale yet again. I couldn’t control my cries for it. Then I woke up. Thank you in advance for your time! It’s greatly appreciated.
This is a response to Lauren’s dream,
Hi Lauren, This is a really interesting dream. First I am going to tell you that you are the killer whale in the dream so if you think about the dream as if you are the killer whale and go for through it as if you are you and you are the killer whale at the same time. Then it will start to make sense to you. Whales means that you have have a big positive spirit that has a big destiny, but if you are used for someone else’s entertainment and kept in a limited space, then you will end up sad and your father will be hurt. It is a perfect metaphor for you and probably what has happened to you in your life up to now. That is why you have the sadness.
Hello Richard!
I was having a dream last night where I was sitting next to a riverbank on a sunny day and I recieved a fang shaped silver medallion with a leather “chain” from a woman that told me that she is my spirit quide. I have seen her in my dreams before and when she is in one the mood of the dream is very calm and i feel safe. She is quite tall and has long curly blonde hair and she is always in a good mood although few times she has judged me on my bad decisions but she is very forgiving. After recieving the necklace she hugged me and then I woke up. What could the medallion mean?
This is a response to Tom’s dream,
Hi Tom, The medallion is a reminder that she is there for you. You should use her when you are making decisions and need guidance. She will help you. She represents the spirit that is guiding your life. You need her.
If you have time, i would very much appreciate your help with interpreting this dream.
The mood of the dream was calm and accepting, yet i woke up troubled by this dream.
Last night i dreamed i was standing in a dimly lit room, looking at rows of many, many neatly sorted and piled mid blue to royal blue towels on a shelf. My partner said they needed to be cleaned to which i responded i had washed them. I left the room, returned to find all the towels in a pile on the floor as high as my chest. I thought to myself, that i wished he hadn’t done that and i decided to go out for a walk instead of being upset.
As i walked, through a crowded, congested area of walkways, staircases, and dwellings i noticed two middle eastern men who might be following me. I left the congested area and came upon a large grassy area with lots of brightly colored event type tents beyond a fence.
I went up to the turnstyle gate and was met by a lovely elderly black woman and a small white boy aged around eight. She advised me a needed a key to enter and the boy would make me one.
When she passed me the key, i noticed on a counter, a square tub of ‘toys’ which reminded me of tree ornaments but larger and i was told that they were keys for children only. I liked them, then turned to her and said that the black key made for me was perfect.
The boy passed me a cut piece of black plexiglass and said it was my key. It was a shape i could hold in my hand but did not have any teeth on the key. It was a shiny, flat, trapezoid shape.
Then, with the key in hand, i sat on the ground beside a freshly tilled garden plot, outside the gate to the tents, and was joined by the black woman. I felt calm, curious, it was comfortably warm outside sitting in the sun.
I asked her what she used to do before being a gate keeper.
She responded that she used to be a teacher.
I said, “How did you go from being a teacher to being a gate keeper gardener?”
Before i heard her answer, i noticed the two men in the distance and i got up and went through the turnstyle to the tents. As i put my hand between two tent flaps, i knew i would ‘disappear’ and have no silouettte if i went into the tent.
and woke up.
This is a response to Jono’s dream,
Hi Jono,
The purpose of the dream is to get you into a childlike playful state because that is the energy you need right now in your life. You have two obstacles in getting to that energy. One is with your husband, no matter how clean you get the towels they will never be clean enough. He will always find dirt because he is perfectionist. So with him you just have to let go of responding to his perfectionism. It is his issue, not yours. You have to learn how to not react internally when he is being that way. When you can get completely detached, the issue will be on him which is where it needs to be. The other thing is the two middle eastern men. This is the fear of people who are different than you who have been portrayed as evil by a few in their culture. You are fearful that you will lose yourself if you interact with them. This means that you need to embrace all kinds of diversity especially those cultures who have been portrayed as negative because of the recent actions in the world. It is only a small percentage who are like that. I can explain more of the dream if you are interested, but that is the gist of it.
My grandson will be 3 in some days I dreamed he was with me I was carrying him but he kept taking he shoes off I was so tired of struggling to hold him with the bags in my hand a him taking off his shoes until finally I said to him fine I took his shoes off for him but when I did he looked at me smiling and ran ahead of me I was running after him because he was running in traffic I screamed out for children and adults I saw to get him he ran so fast in my dream I did not catch him in my mind I was concerned about his safety because he ran off I don’t know if he would stop or keep going he was smiling and running I was worried about him and wanted to catch him for his own safety what does this dream mean?
This is a response to Sonya’s dream,
Hi Sonya, Your dream brings up the fear you have that if you let your grandson run free in his life, he is going to be in real danger. This is because when you were that age, you were told repeatedly that if you ran free, that something bad would happen. In a way you both have the same quality that needs to develop which is to be free spirited in your growth. In real life there are certain boundaries that children need to have, but the fear is unwarranted. When you let go of the fear, have appropriate boundaries, then you can set his spirit to move more freely.
Ive been having a nightmare since I wash little about being in a place I go to everyday that’s meant to be safe ie. My school or my train station and being kidnapped. When I am being taken I can see my mum and I call for help but she doesn’t look up or hear me. When it was at the train station she was driving away and when in was at school she was having tea and cakes with a friend. What does this mean?
This is a response to Rosie’s dream,
Hi Rosie, Being kidnapped when you went to a place you thought was going to be safe is a dream experience based upon what metaphorically happened to you probably when you went to school. You were not necessarily physically kidnapped, but your spirit or your true self was kidnapped and your mom couldn’t help. This is a common experience for children in school because they are not allowed to be who they truly are. The job now is to find a way to be who you are in whatever environment you find yourself.
Hi Richard.
I had a boyfriend that we ended in bad terms. He had wonderful times together but He was very controlling , jealous and there were times of physical abuse , verbal abuse and threats by him. Now I have a restraining order and a criminal case against him. It’s been 3 months i broke up with him. I have been focusing on my healing and now I am just getting closer to being back to normal. Yesterday, I had a dream that I shot my ex boyfriend with a shot gun in the heart. What does it mean? I am really intrigued by it.
I have had a recurring nightmare that I am being kidnapped. I am being chased by my attacker(s) and as I’m running I call my boyfriend and never does he pick his phone up and by the time I’m going to call 911, it’s too late.
This is a response to Haily’s dream,
Hi Haily, This kind of nightmare represents the fear of having your life be kidnapped from you. You have it because you have already lived the experience before in your life where the life you were supposed to live or wanted to live was kidnapped. You have a fear that it is going to happen again if you start going for it. Probably the conditions that existed before no longer exist in your life so it is safe to go for the life you want. Imagine yourself grabbing that life.
Worried and confused, here is what i can remember……..I dreampt and old friend and i were driving in my boyfriends old ’68 pickup truck after getting out of high school…. (i am 36 years old now) while driving she snuggled into me like my daughter would but also like a lover would… (very confusing to me) as i drive i had trouble with the headlights of the truck, and so we parked and slept in the truck in my old house’s driveway (the house i grew up in which is next door to me now). My mom was asking why we slept in the truck and i don’t remember my answer…but i think my dad was there…then my dream shifter to …. my cat was about to go into the woods and was on the base of a tree…my Mom was next to me a bit behind and she called out to my cat and said “awe, that’s it he’s dead….Kittyboy!! Get outta there!” At that time i saw this huge owl with huge gold eyes peering around the tree and going near my cat….(i mean the owl was huge like a bear) once i saw this i began to walk closer towards my cat across the grassy field and called my cat to me…he came to me but in process stood up on his back legs like a human and was scared stiff. He foamed at mouth and was in shock…i calmed him and walked him towards the house. There i said “you ok kittyboy?” He answered “ummmhummm”. I asked him if he’d stay in the house now and he nodded yes…then i woke up.
This is a response to Alison’s dream,
Hi Alison, Cat’s in dreams are symbols of independence like having your own mind and opinions. In the dream you are fearful that your independence is going to be taken away or killed by a predator of the night. That would be getting into relationships with the wrong kind of men. The idea of life is to be able to keep your independence, your own self, and have closeness and intimacy at the same time. You have some kind of fear of losing it if you become too close. Don’t fear it. You can have both.
My dream consists of my boyfriend and my bestfriend sexting. And when i confront him about it he was very cocky and all smiles like he didnt care it was going to hurt me. I told my best friend to cut her shit out before he thinks shes serious and she reasdured me that it was just games. Until i saw his phone and they were really going at it thru txt. I told him i was leaving that it was over i was going to take our kids a move. But then we ended up in a store together i still felt hurt but i was still with him.
This is a response to Stephanie’s dream,
Hi Stephanie, So in the dream you experience what maybe your biggest fear in life, because the consequence of the fear is losing both your best friend and your boyfriend. This ends up in big hurt. So when you have this kind of fear, what needs to happen is that you need to be thinking of ways in which you can be more friendly and inclusive and loving to all kinds of people including them. The fear will leave you hurt and held back, but letting go of the fear will make your life totally fulfilling with lots of people. You have probably been hurt majorly in the past. That is the reason you would have the fear, but it requires your own internal work to make your relationship better.
What does dreaming of brushing my teeth with a green toothpaste ‘accidentally’ and then realising that I wanted to brush my teeth with a red one instead mean? In the dream I try to cover the green paste with a red coat but they kind of mix and instead of turning into a yellow-ish tone they turn into a purple-sh one where the red is still dominating. Also the red toothpaste belonged to a non family member so I made sure to take it because I was worried that a family member would find it
This is a response to Farah’s dream,
Hi Farah, In the real world the color of the toothpaste really doesn’t matter nor does it matter who it belongs to. The thing you want most is to get your teeth clean, white, and healthy. In the dream you start out making a mistake and then try to cover it. That is the problem, the cover-up. The goal is to just let the mistake go and be honest about it. Mistakes are never that big of a deal. They are not important. When you can let go of mistakes, then you can get to really great results of whatever you are doing.