A Dream about a Cave, and a Beautiful Woman

"I was swimming through a lake, big one. It was deep in the middle of a crater, as I was swimming I saw a cave opening, I went inside and started looking around. A lot of people who lived or worked there, I'm not sure which, but they had the means to leave and come back as they chose.

This cave was like a house, broken down into different rooms, apparently it was part of the occult as well. So I guess I fit in there as well, made friends, there were women that were trying to get with me ( wink wink...not going to go into explicit detail :P ) but I woke up in the middle of something going on and that was that.

So there is a very noticeable theme in all of these dreams, occult, people chasing me, trying to recruit me, blah blah. But I always come out safe and more powerful then them to the point that they want me because of something I can do that they can't. When I realize that I'm dreaming and I get full control, these dreams become more then dreams after that point, they become an adventure that I enjoy and I don't want to wake up!

I believe in astral projection and all that cool "hocus pocus" that most people don't believe in, and I have read the dreaming is a part of astral projection and travel to other dimensions..."

Thanks for sending me part three of your series, I think that you're bringing up some points here that we have touched on in previous blog entries, but also some others that are entirely new to this blog. As per usual, if any of my readers would like to have their dreams analyzed by me, please feel free to email me at dream.reader@hotmail.com, and I'll get them out as quickly as possible.

I've developed a bit of a backlog, with all kinds of crazy things happening in all of our minds, and in my daily life, it can't be avoided, but do not fear, I have not forgotten any of you !!

On to this dream. I think it's safe to say that Freud would call this first bit, about the cave, some sort of vaginal reference- but generally speaking, Freud seemed to think that basically any hole was vaginal and basically any rod, a phallus. I don't say this with the purpose of devaluing the theories of Freud, or to imply that my skills are somehow superior to his, merely to remind of his point of view.

I have a theory that you, nice young man who has send me three fascinating dreams all with themes of the unknown, the beautiful ladies and a little occult action, you are a young man with a wild imagination. Which is a good thing, because your dreams would be boring without it! I also am going to say, in a rather rare instance, that on some level I'm going to point to Freud for the solution to the meaning of this dream... but I feel I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.

OK, so you start out in a big lake. Lakes and large bodies of water can be seen as baptismal vessels of a sort, a place where we are washed clean of the lives we've lead so that we can emerge brand new. In a way, the action you're describing is almost like a birth- from the waters of the large lake, down through a cave, into a new world.

In this new world, you make friends quickly. This is another situation where you find yourself faced with something that you don't quite understand but quickly pick up. You find it easy enough to wow your new friends with you abilities, due in no small part to your ability to lucid dream, thereby influencing some of the action of the dream.

This dream seems to present a sort of promise to you: change who you are on the inside and experience a rebirth, a strength that others will envy. I believe that the parallels between this dream and your others is the call to become more emotionally aware of yourself- your feelings, what you really want and most importantly, WHY you want the things that you want! These are lessons that you're learning, work that you're doing.

Let's talk about astral projection. The concept of astral projection was something I stumbled upon when I was about eleven. At that age, with an imagination like yours, there was no stopping my little spirit from leaving my little body and visiting all kinds of places, day or night, waking or dreaming. Seventeen years later, I'm a little more skeptical- was I imagining another plane of existence, or was I making friends there.... these are the big, unanswerable questions in life. I'll never know if astral projection is real, and I doubt you'll find any solid proof either, but what we both know is that sometimes, it feels damn real!

Like every woman my age, I have an ex-boyfriend. We dated when I was just graduating high school, more years ago than I'd like to admit, and NO, I'm not planning on going to the reunion. Anyways, this boyfriend was several years older than me and certainly not a high school student, nor did we have many mutual friends. In my first year of college we parted ways amicably, but did not see each other for a few years, then only once, and I moved away for awhile. When I came back, I had no idea what had become of this person. One night, after not seeing nor hearing from him for about seven years, I found him at every corner of about every third dream I had for nearly a year.

Seriously, nearly the entire year. I'm dreaming about running from a mob and BOOM, there he is, helping me escape. I'm dreaming about eating a giant pizza covered in bugs and oh look, he's cutting me the next slice. It got to the point in which I'd have a dream, I'd run into him, and I'd start telling him about all the other dreams in which I'd run into him. "Oh my gosh, that's so funny to see you here in this meadow full of puppy dogs and daisies, I just had a dream about you the other night that we were at the mall, naked."

To say I became obsessed with running into him in my actual life wouldn't be quite accurate, but I was increasingly aware of his absence. On a daily basis, I found myself scanning faces in crowds looking for him. Peering into car windows. Talking about him to friends who'd never met him. Googling his name, putting it into social networking sites.

Then I had a dream that felt so incredibly real, it was like we were really hanging out. There were very few elements of the bizarre. I could smell him, feel his presence in a very real way, hear his voice perfectly, the whole nine. I woke up the next day completely at peace with the situation and fairly convinced that somehow, where ever he is, his spirit heard mine writhing around and searching for him, and he responded. Did we actually astrally project, and meet up while sleeping to have what was essentially a rather mundane conversation (seriously boring stuff, like"how's your mom? does she still have her horses?")? Or did my brain generate the emotions that I needed to feel resolved about the situation of simply not finding that person in my waking life?

There's only one way I'll ever know. If he reads this and tells me he was there too!

I don't know how to define the spirit, or how to ascertain the truth about the hocu pocus that creative, imaginative types often gravitate towards. Here's what I do know, the galaxy is a big, infinitely vast place. I know that I can tell what my dog is doing in the next room without being to see him, hear him etc- cause I can feel his energy. That energy, that life force that's in all living things, from plants on up, it's powerful stuff, and I don't really see any reason why it can't travel a little. Just because we don't understand astral projection as a part of THIS reality doesn't mean it absolutely doesn't exist.

The power of the human mind is as vast as the universe. We create a perception of the world around us through our senses, and our interpretation of the data that they draw in. If you believe you're projecting, then you might as well be. That's the ultimate message on that topic, in my humble opinion.

I hope you've found this long tirade of mine to be interesting, and of course feel free to email me directly with comments or post them here! For any reader of mine who'd like their dreams read fast and free, please email them directly to me at dream.reader@hotmail.com, and please include as many details as possible, even the weird stuff that makes no sense often means something :)

A Dream About Being Chased, the Occult and a Pool

"I had a dream that me and my brother were trying to get a hold of a friend. We had an idea of where he lived so we drove to the neighborhood. We couldn't find his house so we gave him a call and apparently he'd moved. (He actually moved in real life as well) He told us where he lived but he wasn't home, he told us he was at a gym. We decided to go and meet him, check out the gym as well.

When we got there, he was glad to see us, we met some of his friends and had fun. Then the dream goes into an outdoor area, we are still with our friend, having fun, chilling, swimming in a swimming pool, but it didn't look like one, instead it looked like a water reservoir but had clean water in it. Very clear clean water and everyone was swimming in it. Then a group of people show up, all dressed up in goth gear, and there leader was a chubby type of girl, her bf was chubby as well with a bold head, and kind of whipped by her.

She came up to my bro and gave him a hug, but didn't give me one. We introduced ourselves, hung out with them a little bit, and then something happened. They all got together in a circle, she pointed at a boy and he came up to her, she told him that he is to be punished for something that he has done against them. Me and my brother were confused and were wondering what was going to happen. Without asking us if we would like to stay or not the chubby girl walked in the middle, the boy following her (and the interesting thing was, the boy wasn't even scared, he knew well what he did and he knew that he was going to be punished for it, so there was no retaliation in him against her at all) So. the boy laid down, and the chubby leader starting writing something on the ground, it looked as though she was drawing symbols or words of some sort, I couldn't get a clear view, even though I was standing right there.

As she was writing these words, letters on the ground I looked up at the sky and prayed for protection and help. To me this was an occult act, whether satanic or not I don't know. But I wasn't scared. Actually i wanted to stick around and see what happens.

As we were standing and watching all of this the boy started leaking weird goo from his stomach, he started screaming and yelling. Apparently it was painful. They all started chanting and praying and at that moment my brother was shocked. He told me lets run for it because this is not something he would like to stick around and watch. We counted down and ran. Also there were other people who ran with us.

As we were running ( we were running down a street at this moment ) I felt as though I was slowing down for some reason, and that all the other people who ran were way ahead of me. The Chubby chick sent some henchmen to catch us. My brother and the others who ran all disappeared and I was left alone running from the henchman, at this moment I forgot how to get back to our car or even how to get out of the neighborhood. Also at that moment I realized I was dreaming, ( usually this is what happens) when I realize that I'm dreaming I instantly get a "alright, now its my turn to show you what your up against feeling" and I disappeared to the henchmen ( apparently I went into stealth mode ) :P

I walked away from them, they were confused and didn't know where I went but I was right there by them. I walked to a parking lot, stole a car ( it was a nice dodge charger ) and I drove to the freeway so I can get back home. As I was driving down the free way, I saw hand like shadows following me, and they were huge, at least 3 times bigger than the car, they were swimming through the highway like dolphins, but they were trying to grab me. I escaped, got out of the car and stealth back.

At that moment I heard a voice, " why are you running away?" It was the chubby chick. I then stood and thought for a bit, and I decided to go back because deep inside I knew they couldn't harm me. So I got back to there house and they were very deep in the occult practice, to me it looked like satanism. She asked me " why did you run away" I told her that my brother got scared of what you were doing and I wasn't just going to stand here and watch this as well. She said that the boy is OK but it was necessary to teach him a lesson.

All in all I made friends with them, we started talking about the occult (as i would normally do to fit in and not cause any trouble, even if I don't care what they had to say to me) Me and her husband sat down, he started showing me some books, telling me stories and apparently they wanted me to join their group, As always I am either solo or I belong to some group already.
I wasn't sure about what this dream meant. But you never know..."

Thanks for sending this interesting dream to me for a dream reading! As always, please feel free to email me your dreams for a confidential, and anonymous dream interpretation- just email dream.reader@hotmail.com and be sure to give as many details as possible- those details, as you'll see in this case, are often the key to a better understanding of your dreams, no matter how odd or nonsensical they seem.

This dream starts by mirroring reality, the day to day stuff that life is made of- looking for a friend, and experiencing a little trouble in finding him. When you do finally find your friend, he's at the gym, and you and your brother go to see him there. Let me start by mentioning that seeing your brother in your dream can be one of about three things- it might be a literal representation of your brother, if this is a person you see and hang out with all the time, or he might represent aspects of your personality that you don't always acknowledge (as I think may be the case here) or the person whom your brother seems to be in the dream represents conflict within your relationship with your brother. It may even be a little of all three of these factors, but I suspect it's mostly the second aspect.

The setting of the gym can be seen as significant, as gyms are places where we build muscle and learn focus, the time a person spends in the gym assists them in their daily lives. Dreaming that you're working out can be a call to work the things you've learned about yourself into your daily practices. Interestingly, a swimming pool can be a call to achieve greater emotional intelligence, and the two things combined suggest that a greater understanding of your interior emotional life will enrich your daily life. I think it's interesting that the more placid portion of your dream occurs here, among friends and of course, your more sensitive, fearful, brother!

So here's where things shift and become more surreal. The coven of occultist goths! I have to mention a few things quickly about the occult. I can't help myself. First of all, the trend in media in recent years towards fantasy films and books about occult topics like demon slayers, vampires and the like have brought some very unreal things to the forefronts of the minds of the collective unconscious, particularly in the case of the youth of the era. That being said, real occult practices do exist- but they're quite different than the perceptions you'd get of them by reading popular fiction or watching the Twilight series.

Most of what can be considered occult practice is misunderstood ritual that dates back thousands of years to early Earth worship Pagan religions. The link between Paganism and what is considered Satanic comes from the acquisition of Pagan symbols (like the horned God, Pan) into devices needed by Christianity to convert people (like the similarly portrayed image of Satan). Satanism can only be practiced by people who essentially believe in the Christian message of reality, because Satan only exists in the Christian tradition, so it is not possible to worship Satan unless you also believe in Christianity. Most dissenters of the dominant religious concept of Christianity dissent completely and therefore do not practice the worship of Satan. Satanism is, in a sense, another scare tactic employed by those whose interests lie in the protection of Christianity- Satanists are a sort of "boogie man" whose violent practices are, in reality, pretty tame.

That's not to say that Satanism doesn't exist- just to say that Satanism is likely more benign than the common perception may acknowledge. And, you can dress Goth, practice occultist ritual and even like to flog folks without believing in Satan or worshipping the devil!!

Back to your dream! The occult is a group of largely misunderstood or misrepresented practices, so again, dreaming about occult practice is often a call to understand the aspects of yourself that you've been ignoring. The leader of their group is a figure opposite you, a woman, whom you don't understand- and I think that's significant. Women are a sort of mystery to most men, and further, this woman is chubby, which is a subconscious indication of her success, both within this group and elsewhere. It seems clear that you don't understand her, how she's become the leader of this group, or their practices, and I believe that all of this is symbolic of a side of your own personality.

The sequence of torture is also interesting. The boy being tortured is totally complacent, but once the pain begins he does make a little noise. However, while there are several of you who run away screaming, he does not attempt to escape. This suggests that he's a stand in for the part of you that isn't afraid of the 'lessons' you have still to learn. Your brother, on the other hand, is the first to flee.

While running away, you feel abandoned by the others. This seems to be an acknowledgement of the fact that what you're running from is an issue all your own. What you're describing, about being capable of slipping into stealth mode once you realize you're dreaming, is called lucid dreaming. In a sequence of lucid dreaming, the dreamer realizes that they are dreaming and then is able to control and influence the dream to their desire.

An easy way to learn to lucid dream, and the way that I learned to do so as a child, was to get in the habit of asking myself if I am wake several times everyday. Basically you want to work that silent, internal question into your waking life, and link it with other patterns of thought. If you practice that while waking, eventually you'll ask yourself while you're sleeping! Then the fun begins.

Since you begin to lucid dream, you're able to evade the feelings that are quite literally chasing you down. But the dream is sending you a clear message, a call to get to know yourself better, and so this chubby chick, being an opposite aspect of you, speaks to you directly, asking you essentially why you're so afraid.

And when you go back, you realize that there's nothing to be afraid of at all. You don't particularly care about this group of people, and you're entirely safe there. I think it's as simple as learning to get to the heart of your feelings. But as usual, you'll have to be the final judge!

Thank you so much for sending me this great dream. Please feel free to post comments here, or to email me at dream.reader@hotmail.com and to any other readers who have a weird, funny, strange or distressing dream, I'd love to decode it for you here!

A Dream about Joining a Werewolf Army

"The dream goes like this. Its a little foggy but ill try my best.

I woke up in a middle of a forest. I realized that I was in a middle of a shoot out between a group of soldiers and werewolves. My first instinct kicked in to pick up a gun. As I did that, I went to load it, put all accessories on it and I began my fight. It all went down the hill as the werewolves took us over. Most of the soldiers were killed except for a handful of us. Apparently we were given a chance to decide to either live or not. But our lives would change as we would become part of their"Wolf" Pack. I decided to do exactly that.
Then I woke up and I realized that I had a smile on my face and so I went back to sleep.

I got back into the dream. This time I was part of the pack. I joined there ranks, I was taught all that I needed to know. Along with all the other people that were there. But I did not feel like a prisoner, I felt like this is where I belong. In fact this group of werewolves weren’t the "bad" guys apparently they were disliked for the fact that they were a rebel group of werewolves, or some weird outcasts. They were a separated branch because they saw things differently.

I decided that I will rise up in there ranks and that no one would stand in my way. I sucked up as much of there knowledge as I could. I did missions with them, and no one could stand in my way. I had all the power I ever wanted. The thing is that not only could I change into a werewolf, though it was the form that I preferred, I could change into anything I wanted, if the situation arose to do so.

So then I woke up again, though I didn’t want to so I went back to sleep to return to my dream.

I come back to my dream. our haven, it was hidden in a forest far far from the city. We lived in a victorian/italian style building. It was so awesome because we had a bar there ( all the drinks I ever wanted ). No one messed with me except for my teacher or trainer who ever he was. He was then much stronger then I. He taught me that my anger, my frustration all needed control, and that without that control I would be my own worst enemy. We went through many training session, some were tough, some were just ridiculously funny. I spotted a girl, this girl had long wavy brown hair, a definite book nerd, she had a very beautiful body. Something about her caught my eye, but I never saw her turn into a werewolf, and I never bothered to ask why she doesn’t.. We became friends, she had a little brother, and little by little I started falling for her, Though I was never able to tell her that in words. Not sure why. I tried to show it to her with my actions. Being a gentleman, standing up for her, in general just being there for her.

Then my dream jumps into a different situation. We were sitting and talking on some bleachers and a group of guys show up. It looked like they were part of some very high sector of occultists or something, but they were also werewolves. Now at this point I was very head strong, I did not let anyone stand in my way, and when the situation arose that I was threatened or picked on I didn’t give anyone a chance to even explain themselves.

So one of the guys gets out of the car He had a black suit on, his hair was short, black and spiked and he comes up to the bleachers, he then tries to recruit us, Telling us that we would have much more power if we joined them, asking why are we wasting our time with these losers, we are being held against our own will, that we would have much more freedom if we joined them. As he is talking I'm looking into his eyes, not saying anything and then he tries to recruit the girl that I liked. I stood up and I told him to leave. I always gave people a chance before I either ruthlessly rip with apart or show them agonizing pain they have never thought existed. During our time talking, my teacher walks up and tells me that I don’t want to mess with this guy, That they are very powerful and dangerous. But my head strong instincts told me different. I turn into a werewolf and I warned him a second time. But he didn’t leave still, and he turns into his form. taunting me, telling me what am I going to do, without giving him a third chance ( at this point apparently I had unimaginable power, my teacher didn’t even expect it ) I appeared behind the dude, I grab his neck and throw him towards the bleachers, he doesn’t even have enough time to get up when I appear by him again and grab him by his legs and just start bashing his face and neck area on the bleachers, to the point that he didn’t even have a chance to strike me. Then I stop and I tell him to leave, he gets up and tells me that I will pay for this and that this isn’t the last time I will see him, I smirk at him and tell him “we'll see“.

Dream ends here as I had to wake up already- Its a little choppy but I will appreciate any insight that you might have from all this info."

Thanks for sending this very detailed account of a very interesting dream for analysis! In the event that you have any questions or comments, or if any of my readers out there would like a dream reading, please feel free to email me at dream.reader@hotmail.com. Before I get into the meaning of this dream, let me say a thing or two about the process of remembering dreams. For whatever reason, the details of our dreams tend to fade within a few minutes or a few hours of waking up. In my personal experience, only the weirdest and most emotionally involving dreams stay with me for hours at a time... in fact I personally had one last night. The best thing to do when you have an odd dream that you'd like to remember is to write down the details of the dream. The sooner you do this after waking, the more you'll be able to recall about your dream... I'm going to take a minute to do just that right now!

I feel better now. I think I'll start posting some of my own dreams from time to time, so you can see how crazy my dreams are too- that's pretty much the reason why I started this blog! While there are plenty of dictionaries to tell you meanings of specific symbols from your dreams, and forums where people can post replies to your dreams IF they want to, or if they can even find them, there didn't seem to be any sites devoted to reading people's dreams for free. Well, now I've completed strayed from the original topic- this fascinating dream about battle, werewolves, beautiful women and the occult.

Wolves are commonly considered to be symbols of violence or repressed anger, some of the better dictionaries will interpret them as a representation of a self-destructive tendency. Now, that may be the case here, in light of the arrogance you're expressing in the later part of the dream, but honestly, because of the feelings you're expressing in the rest of the dream, I believe that the werewolf is a symbol of your natural aggression. To some extent, human beings are still animals- though we wear dress shoes and ties Monday through Friday, we say please and thank you to our grandmothers, we're still carnivorous animals who have a drive to maim, murder and consume other animals. Don't believe me? Turn on your TV, and see how many stations you have to flip through before you find a show about murder, rape or war.

Because we live in society, we have to repress the urge to exact our physical power over other beings. For that reason, we look for 'healthy', 'normal' or socially acceptable places to channel these primal urges. I believe the werewolves in your dream are this type of channel. To that end, joining their army may seem at first to be an either do or die proposition (either be violent in our social group or perish from both your social group and ours!) but you quickly acclimate and become a warrior.

Beyond simply learning the ways of the primal werewolf, you excel at it. You begin to feel unstoppable, and the only person who questions you is a trusted teacher. Learning processes in dreams are often linked to self-discovery in real life, perhaps you are learning how to cope with a difficult situation, or picking up a new skill set in some area of your life? At any rate, your teacher is an advisor who doesn't always see things your way, and he clearly has your best interests in mind. He may represent a person that you know, or he might be a figure of a higher self that you are hoping to achieve someday. The reason I believe this is that he does not simply allow you to throw your weight around and act like a jerk- he questions you. He tries to protect you from making a stupid mistake and jumping into a fight you likely won't win. The fact that he is wrong, and that you easily win this first leg of the fight indicates perhaps a little wish fulfillment in the dream- you're dreaming about being outrageously powerful, and look! You are!

Let's discuss some of the other figures in the dream as well, the high ranking occultists and the hot girl. The occultists, like the teacher, seem to represent a higher authority. At every stage, you are rejecting the authority of these figures, first by questioning your teacher, and then by fighting the occultist who tries to convert your girl. Is there conflict in your life with an authority figure, or nameless group of figures? If you're a student, this would likely reflect a resentment of the authority of parents, teachers and administrative staff at school. In a career, this could be a board of directors, or shareholders, bosses or even the bosses of your boss. This theme ties in easily with the repressed primal urges that might manifest themselves as a dream of being a lawless beastie like a werewolf. The fact that you so enjoy the power you experience within the dream suggests that in your waking life, your personal power is compromised in some way. Either that, or you've just got a ton of testosterone!

Now the girl. There always seems to be a pretty girl in a dream like this. I'd have to say, I think this might be because of the strong links to carnality. Falling in love in your dreams can be a mirroring of feelings you're having in real life, or it can be wish fulfillment. If you're not getting what you need on an emotional level, your mind may create scenarios within your dreaming life to provide you with emotional outlets- this is the same principal that applies to the violent tendencies.

If I had to sum this dream up in just one sentence, I would say that it's an expression of unexpressed emotions. I hope this free reading of your dream has been helpful, and if you have any others please feel free to email me at dream.reader@hotmail.com. Thanks again for sending me such a great dream :)!

A Dream About Tornadoes

"So lately I've been having dreams with tornadoes in them. I'll either be at my high school or outside in the wilderness. But the weird part is I ALWAYS have either my ex boyfriend in it or some weird kid from one of my classes in it. Can you tell me what they mean?"

Thank you so much for sending in this dream for a reading, I hope that my analysis of your dream will help you understand it. Of course, if you have any additional questions or comments, or if any of my readers would like their own dreams interpreted, please feel free to email me directly at dream.reader@hotmail.com.

Tornadoes, as one can imagine, are an unpredictable force of nature. They can strike with little to no warning, and they leave vast devastation in their wake. Because of the violent nature of this type of natural disaster, tornadoes in dreams are often symbolic of being swept away by your emotions. This can mean that you personally experiencing some out of control emotions, or the tornadoes in question can be standing in for a tumultuous relationship. Because of the specific mention of your ex-boyfriend, and the weird kid in one of your classes, I have a feeling that the emotional situation your dreaming about is in reference to your feelings about these people, rather than your specific relationships with them. Is there a parallel between the way you feel about these two people? Is it possible that the way you dislike them is similar? Do you even dislike them, or are the emotions involved more complex than that? Or, more intense than that?

I have a feeling that at the eye of that tornado is your feelings about the people who are in this dream with you. It sounds like this is a recurring dream, and if it is, it's possible that it's not always about the same emotional situation. Being a teenager is complicated and difficult; my teen years were full of a lot of wild emotional highs and lows. I believe that the tornadoes that you're dreaming about are influenced by similar ups and downs, but of course, you'll have to be the one to judge for yourself.

Again, if you have any comments, or questions that you'd rather not post here, please feel free to email me at dream.reader@hotmail.com. I would also be happy to do a more specific, longer reading if you can remember more details of this sort of dream in the future.

Dreams about Dinosaurs!

"Hey Rachel! I've been having the same nightmare over and over again, for years, it's always about dinosaurs. They're almost always raptors and T-rexes, any other ones are also carnivores! They're chasing me, I try to hide in buildings, but they always seem to find me and chase me. Well, everyone in town! It's the only nightmare that I wake up, screaming. What does it mean?"

Thanks for sending me your dream, I think this one falls pretty easily into the category of chase dreams, and its meaning is fairly clear. To all my readers, please feel free to send me any comments or any dreams that need analyzing at dream.reader@hotmail.com. 

Most dreams will fall into a few types, and as I mentioned above this is a chase dream. Generally speaking, dreams in which you are being chased are often representative about an anxiety or fear that a person has. The precise nature of the fear you're having is often represented by the thing (or things) that are chasing you, so for example, awhile back a woman sent me a dream about being chased by a man with a knife. Knives are phallic symbols, and men pose a danger to women in a multitude of ways; her dream reflected a fear of being raped.

Dreams that recur over a long period of time often have a special significance to the dreamer, in some instances you'll see the same person over and over, or you'll have the same general theme, like being chased by various things. That you dream specifically of carnivorous dinosaurs indicates that they are a powerful symbol in your mind. I suspect that the thing they represent to you is something that you've been vaguely afraid of for years.

I feel I have to mention quickly here the tendency of the human brain to find an image and then attach meaning to that image in a very subjective way. Your subconscious fear of dinosaurs may have resulted from one too many viewings of "Jurassic Park." As a child, I frequently dreamt of the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man attacking my small suburban neighborhood, as well as the Steamroller driven by Judge Doom squashing my little body a la "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" That is to say, sometimes the images we observe in the mass media can profoundly impact our psyche, inserting themselves into the deep recesses of our minds and laying in wait for us. I can't help but wonder if this is the case for these vicious creatures that stalk your nightmares.

Some of the better dream dictionaries will assert that being chased by a dinosaur reflects a fear of obsolescence. I suspect that this is not the case for you; while we all fear becoming obsolete, the fear of being devoured by an unfeeling, unknowable reptilian monster is much stronger. My instinct is that these dreams are more about a fear of the unknown, or of precarious circumstances than a fear of becoming outdated or unneeded, as the literature might profess.

You are the only one who can decide what exactly your dreams mean. Please feel free to email me any follow-up comments or any other dreams you mean have at dream.reader@hotmail.com . Thank you for submitting your dream, and I hope that this dream reading helps you!

A Dream about a Mountain, a Coyote and a Hotel

"Had this dream last night. Been thinking about it off and on all day.

Here goes:I'm climbing a tall mountain. I'm only about half way up when beside the trail, a dog -- that looks like a coyote pup overfed to the point of obesity --- jumps out of a yellow shrub, then crosses right in front of me, wearing a pink collar. Studded with either diamonds or sequins.

Immediately after -- time-shift! -- I'm on top of the mountain. In front of me is a ruin. In my dream I'm thinking it's an inn where rich families spent two weeks during the summer. I walk around, trying to figure it out: lobby here, this is a corridor... this must have been the banquet hall is what I'm thinking. A kangaroo with the head of an actress who does TV commercials (at least one for paper towels that runs all the time) hops in front of me and passes by.I'm in the corridor and BEFORE the kanga-woman, it's a ruin. AFTER she passes me,it isn't a ruin anymore, it's the inn restored to its glory days: walls up with fancy paper, even an oil painting of a landscape in a really fussy carved wood frame. Today I'm thinking it was some dream-warped memory of a meeting I had at the Biltmore downtown. That corridor was a lot like the hall that leads to the men's room there.

I recently hiked Echo Mountain (Altadena area) which has a ruin at the top, and have been to the Biltmore which the dream co-opted somehow for the part where kanga-girl hopped by. Why I psychologically recycled this into a dream, I dunno...but I do tend to recycle real-life-stuff into my dreams. Usually they're just fragments tho'; this dream was much much longer and much more linear, like a storyline." - Gary, Los Angeles, CA

Gary, you raise an excellent point; much of the time the images and actions found in our dreams mirror something we've seen or done before. Our daily lives are surely fodder for our nocturnal imaginings, but it's the selection of these feelings and images that create meaningful dreams.

The most common interpretation of a dream in which one climbs a mountain is that the dreamer/climber is overcoming an major obstacle. In your case, you're climbing without any major stress or strain, suggesting that you are comfortably overcoming some sort of issue in your life. It is the next symbol that suggests what that issue might be, as you ascend the mountain, a dog runs across your path.

Dog, as man's best friend, is a close and trusted ally. But this isn't any regular dog, this is a dog who looks like a coyote, who has become fat and is wearing a sparkly collar. Coyotes, in contrast to dogs, are commonly seen as sneaky or untrustworthy adversaries of man. (Personally, I couldn't disagree more, but this is the general reading of the animal as a symbol.) Further, the animal is fat, and like the sequined or bedazzled collar, both of these could indicate an excess of material wealth. This dog is then symbolic of someone who may appear to be a friend in your fight against adversity, but their motivations are based in an interest in financial gain.

As soon as this image of the fat coyote falls before your consciousness, it's replaced. That time shift may be important, as it suggests that once you realize that the truth of this particular person's ulterior motives, a larger goal will be attained.

Once this set of struggles is over, and you find yourself at the top of the mountain, you are confronted with the ruin of a hotel. In your mind, you identify this hotel as a place of former opulence that served as a summer getaway spot for rich people. There's that concern about wealth cropping up again! This brings us to the most interesting symbol your brain has created for the dream, the Kangawoman.

Strange creatures in dreams generally possess special significance. In the instance of a monster that is part one thing and part another, a person can quite easily assume that both the animals comprising the strange creature are important to understanding it's relevance.

Kangaroos are generally thought to either be protective symbols in dream mythology, or aggressive ones. Think of the kangaroo hopping around holding her young in her protective pouch, a la Winnie the Pooh. This image of the kangaroo as a protective mother seems to be most in line with the circumstances of your dream.

Part of what makes me think that this Kangawoman is a maternal figure in your dream is the fact that she has a woman's head. Exact head furthers this argument, as most women who appear in paper towel commericals are playing the role of "Mom" in the commerical.

Now back to the hotel. Hotels are seen as places of transition. A hotel can connote a loss of identity, or a need to escape from your daily reality. It can also be a signal to abandon your old ways of thinking and to re-gear your mind.

So, in the end, this dream can be one that leads to a string of questions only you can answer. Who is your overfed coyote pup? Have you been waiting for a Kangawoman to help you rebuild yourself, or to help you change the way you think? What happened to your hotel in the first place?

I hope this interpertation of your dream is helpful! Thank you for taking the time to send it to me! If you'd like your dream read, please email it to dream.reader@hotmail.com !

A dream about a wedding

"In my dream, I was getting ready to marry my boyfriend of two years. The day of our wedding I kept wondering if my boyfriend was as excited as I was to marry or if he just did it to please me. I specifically remember wondering if he'd even remember the first time we made love as a married couple.

I remember that on the day of my wedding I was in a place that looked like a basement, then got on an elevator in which my boyfriend's roommate was in. We took the elevator up and it took us to a shopping mall. I walked around the mall and I found my mom crying. She was really hurt because we're marrying so young (we're nineteen) and wasn't ready to let me go. I held her and cried with her.

That's all I remember. I didn't dream the actual wedding but the reason why I asked for my dream to be decoded is because my family always says that if you dream of a wedding, it means a death in the family is coming. I don't know how true that is, but still..."

Thank you so much for sending this dream in for a dream reading. Before I get to it, let me remind all my readers that they can feel free to send me their dreams at dream.reader@hotmail.com; I will read the most unique and fascinating dreams on the blog.

I think it's fascinating that you've been told that dreaming of a wedding is an omen of death. People have a lot of ideas about the meanings of their dreams, none of which I will say are absolutely untrue, but I firmly believe that dreams are not prophecy. There are very rare instances in which a person may dream of something in their future, but typically these dreams are quite literal.

The trouble with omens is that one can take nearly anything for an omen! I once knew a very intelligent young woman who would look up the symbolic meaning of every animal that she came across, intent on the idea that every squirrel she saw was an omen of a wild fun weekend, every type of bird that flew in front of her car was telling her to get away from it all... you get the idea.

Rather than seeing anything as an omen, I think it is more logical to see the symbols in your dreams as visions your mind has generated to tell you about your true thoughts and feelings. As strange as it may sound, the way that you describe your dream means as much or more than the individual symbols in it.

So, your dream is very interesting to me.

Weddings, marriage proposals and the promises of such in our dreams are not harbingers of death. Well, in a sense they are- but not in the literal sense. The implications of getting married are a sort of death, as marriage is the death of the single life. This is particularly true in today's society, where there are virtually no rite of passage ceremonies for adolescents as they come of age.

In your case, I firmly believe that your dream is about transition- the years in which you are living (18, 19, and just down the road, age 20) are times in which we learn much about ourselves. The person that you are becoming now is the person you'll be for the rest of your life. The relationships you're having now are your first adult relationships, you're likely embarking on some sort of career, or perhaps simply studying something in hopes of a brighter future.

During this pivotal time in your life, dreaming about becoming engaged to your boyfriend can have quite a lot of implications. As a 19 year old who has been in a relationship for the last two years, getting married may seem like a favorable and rather likely outcome to you, however, you'd have to extremely secure both in yourself and in your relationship to make a choice like that at such an early age. There are some aspects of your dream which express some concerns you seem to have about growing up, but I'll address those a little further down.

I think that it's important to mention once again that you do not actually dream of the wedding part of getting married in this dream, you merely dream about the promise that you will be getting married. There are definite implications there. First of all, it suggests that you are living on the promise of a big change, rather than living in the midst of the actual change. Additionally, you're dreaming about the emotional reaction of your mother to the news.

As I've written here before time and again, one of the points made by Sigmoid Freud about dream interpretation which I almost uniformly agree with is that we are everyone in our dreams. For this reason, I firmly believe that the portion of your dream in which you cry with your mother is one that reflects your mixed emotions about growing up, and about leaving the nest. Sure, being an adult is fantastic, nobody tells you what to have for dinner, or what time to go to bed. But, you're also stuck doing your own laundry, paying your own bills, and tying your own shoes. The conflict between the good parts of leaving the nest, as well as the scary parts, are likely generating the waterworks in your dreaming life.

The fact that a significant portion of the dream takes place in a shopping mall is also significant. For young Americans, the local mall is a lot more than a place to pick up a new pair of jeans. The suburban mall is a cultural mecca, a place where the material meets the societal. It's the place where you're seen, talked about, and appraised by the public, and not only by your peers, but also by people who are outside of your age group or social circles. Dreaming about coming up from a quiet, underground basement (a symbol which to me reads as an isolated frame of mind) into a noisy, crowded shopping mall is an expression of concern over the public perception of your engagement. You were safe in the basement, where the only thoughts were your own, but once you get out into the mall (or the larger world) you realize that things are not as simple as they may have seemed.

I hope this assuages your fears about dreaming of a wedding as a bad omen. Instead, I think it's safe to say that the dream is about the changes which are coming in your life, as you transition from your teen years into your adulthood. Thank you so much for sending your dream into me for a reading, and I sincerely hope that it helps!