Dream symbols · Weather · The Transcendent Function

Lightning

Sudden illumination, and the tradition is unusually consistent that it is not gentle. Lightning is understanding that arrives entire, unasked for and possibly destructive, and it lights the whole landscape for exactly as long as it lasts. The image is knowledge and danger in one, which is why it belongs to sky gods rather than to teachers.

Where the reading comes from

The thunderbolt is the attribute of the highest god in a remarkable number of unrelated traditions, and the alchemical texts use it for the moment the work changes state. The Tower card carries the same reading in tarot: a structure emptied by a stroke from outside it.

Versions of the dream

Striking something

A strike on a building or a tree points the reading at whatever was struck.

Distant

Lightning without thunder is the version that arrives before a change rather than during one.

Struck yourself

Rare, and read in the tradition as initiation rather than as injury. Notice what you could do afterwards.