The Dream Journal
Dream symbols
Images read as dream images: every figure first as a part of the person dreaming it.
Animal
- BearThe Great Mother in her strong form, and the hibernating animal that is read as a withdrawal doing work…
- ButterflyTransformation carried through to completion, and in Greek the same word as the soul. The image insists on…
- CatIndependence and intuition, and a frequent carrier of the Anima: a presence that is affectionate on its own…
- CrocodileThe oldest part of the nervous system with nothing on top of it: appetite without deliberation, and danger…
- DogLoyalty and instinctual guidance, and in the older material the psychopomp: the animal that goes with a…
- DragonRead as primordial chaos and as the unconscious at full size, the mother complex in the form that has to be…
- EagleSpiritual aspiration and the view from height: the perspective that can see the whole shape of a thing…
- ElephantMemory that outlasts the occasion, and a strength that is foundational rather than aggressive: the thing a…
- FishContents surfacing from depth. Something with its own life that was down there the whole time and has now…
- FoxCunning and adaptability, and the Trickster: the intelligence that solves the problem by refusing its terms…
- HorseThe libido in its forward moving form: the body's own energy, which carries the rider and does not belong to…
- LionSolar energy, sovereignty and courage, and in alchemical material the passion that has to be tamed before it…
- OwlSight in the dark: knowing that works where ordinary attention fails. Wisdom in the Greek reading, and an…
- SnakeThe most consistently double animal in the record: transformation through the shedding of a skin, healing…
- SpiderThe weaver, and therefore fate: a pattern spun out of the weaver's own body. Held as creative construction…
- WhaleThe collective unconscious at scale, and being swallowed by it: the night sea journey in which a person is…
- WolfUntamed instinct that has not agreed to be a dog, and the politics of a group: rank, exclusion, the one on…
What happened
- Being ChasedThe most reliable Shadow dream there is. Something the dreamer will not turn towards keeps arriving anyway…
- Being LateA schedule set by something other than the dreamer that they are failing to meet. Read as pressure with an…
- BirthSomething beginning that is not yet able to look after itself. In the Jungian material the divine child is…
- ClimbingEffortful ascent, distinguished from flying by the cost. The ladder and the staircase are the two commonest…
- DrowningBeing overtaken by what the water stands for, which is feeling. Distinguished from swimming by consent: the…
- FallingLoss of control, and in the compensatory reading a correction applied to an ego that had climbed higher than…
- FightingA conflict in the open, which in the subjective reading is a conflict between two parts of one person. The…
- FlyingFreedom, ambition and spiritual ascent, and the oldest attached warning in the material: flight that cannot…
- HidingSomething must not be found, and in a dream the hider and the sought are usually both the dreamer, which is…
- Losing TeethVulnerability and a loss of power, and specifically a decay in the face presented to other people, since…
- Public NudityExposure and the fear of judgement, and on the other side of the same image the stripping away of a social…
- SearchingThe looking itself, more than the object. In the depth reading a search dream is the ego's side of a process…
- The ExaminationSelf doubt and unpreparedness, usually attached to a transition rather than to anything academic. The…
- The Unfamiliar RoomFinding rooms in a house the dreamer thought they knew: territory of their own that had not been entered…
Where
- AtticWhat has been put away rather than repressed: kept, known about, and not currently in use. Distinguished…
- BasementThe unconscious, in the most literal spatial form the psyche makes: the part of the structure that holds it…
- BridgeA crossing between two states with the gap still visible underneath, which is what separates it from simply…
- CaveEnclosure that is both shelter and interment, entered rather than fallen into. The chamber the descent…
- CemeteryEndings, and the place where they are kept in order. Read as transition rather than as forecast, which is a…
- ChurchA space built to hold something larger than the people in it, which is the definition rather than a claim…
- CrossroadsA decision with the alternatives visible at once, which is rarer in waking life than in dreams and is part…
- ForestThe unknown entered on foot. Dark, alive, and not hostile in itself, though every folk tale agrees it is…
- HouseThe standard image for the whole person, with rooms as areas of a life. The building the dreamer lives in is…
- MountainThe obstacle and the vantage in one object, and in the older material the meeting place: the height a person…
- RoadThe route, and how much of it the dreamer chose. A road runs where it was laid, which is the part of the…
- Rough WaterEmotional turmoil with a direction to it. The water is doing something to the dreamer rather than simply…
- SchoolThe institution that measures, revisited long after leaving it. The setting brings its own authority whether…
- Still WaterEmotional equilibrium, and a surface that can be seen into or reflected off. The two possibilities are the…
- The SeaThe unconscious at a size that is plainly not personal: an expanse that was there before the dreamer and is…
Object
- BookMeaning in a form that predates the dreamer and can be consulted. Whether it can be read is usually the point.
- CarThe means of getting through the world, and the question of who is driving it. Brakes that do not work are…
- ClockTime as a measured and external thing. Dream clocks are characteristically unreliable, and the unreliability…
- DoorA threshold with a state attached: open, shut, locked, or one the dreamer cannot get back through. The state…
- EggPotential still sealed. Contains everything it will be and none of it yet, which makes it the standard image…
- FireTransformation that consumes, and the double reading that goes with it: purification and destruction are the…
- KeyAccess held in the hand, and therefore the question of whether the dreamer has what the situation requires…
- MaskThe Persona as an object the dreamer can put down, which is exactly what makes it worth noticing: in waking…
- MirrorSelf examination with the reliability of the image in question. What the dream does to the reflection is the…
- MoneyValue in a transferable form. In the depth reading it stands for energy that can be spent somewhere rather…
- StairsMovement between levels with the intermediate steps insisted upon. Direction matters more than the object…
- TreeGrowth with the below and the above joined in one living thing, which is why Jung took it as one of the…
Who
- A ChildThe divine child: something beginning, valuable and unable to defend itself. One of the clearest Self images…
- A CrowdThe collective as an audience, which turns whatever else is happening into a performance. Nakedness…
- A Father FigureAuthority, law, and the structure a person was handed. Like the mother figure, carrying both the individual…
- A Mother FigureThe mother in a dream is rarely only the dreamer's mother. The figure carries the whole double archetype and…
- A PursuerThe Shadow with a direction. Distinguished from a stranger by the fact that it wants something and is not…
- A StrangerAn unrecognised figure of the dreamer's own sex is the classic Shadow presentation, and the same figure of…
- A Teacher or GuideMeaning that arrives from somewhere the ego did not put it. The test is simple: the figure knows something…
- Someone Who Has DiedA figure who arrives with the authority of having crossed something. In the dream record they are…
Number
- FourPsychic totality. The quaternity stabilises the triad by taking back in what the three left out, which is…
- OnePrimordial unity, the source before anything divided from it. Also the state before the ego separated out…
- ThreeMovement and process. Dynamic and, in Jung's reading, characteristically unstable: it goes somewhere, and it…
- TwoSeparation and polarity, and the conflict that comes with them. Read as necessary rather than as a fault…
Weather
- DroughtThe absence of the thing that usually flows. Where flood is too much feeling arriving at once, drought is…
- EarthquakeThe ground itself proving unreliable. Every other threatening image in a dream still leaves the dreamer…
- EclipseOne light standing in front of another. The image is specifically not darkness: it is a temporary obscuring…
- FloodThe unconscious arriving faster than it can be met. Water is the standing image for feeling and for what is…
- FogNot knowing, rendered as landscape. Fog does not hide one thing; it removes distance, so what is close is…
- HailPunishment weather, and the only common form in which water arrives hard. Hail is read as criticism or…
- HeatPressure without an event. Unlike storm or fire, heat has no moment in it: it is a condition that makes…
- IceFeeling held in place. Ice is water that has stopped moving, and the tradition reads it as emotion that is…
- LightningSudden illumination, and the tradition is unusually consistent that it is not gentle. Lightning is…
- RainRelief and grief share this image, and the tradition does not try to separate them: rain is feeling that has…
- RainbowThe sign after. A rainbow only exists with rain and sun at once and from one particular position, which is…
- SnowStillness laid over everything, and the covering is the point: snow does not remove what is underneath, it…
- StormEmotional weather that has broken. The tradition reads a storm as feeling that has built past the point…
- TornadoAn overwhelming force with a narrow path. The distinguishing feature of the image is not its violence but…
- WildfireTransformation that does not ask permission. Fire in a dream is the classic image of change by destruction…
- WindSpirit, in the most literal etymological sense the languages have: the same words carry breath, wind and…
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