Animals in Dreams

Putting cats, dogs, horses, neighbourhood birds, and other everyday animals to one side, which of the wilder or more exotic animals have appeared in your dreams?

Over many years my dream menagerie has included jaguars, tigers, lion, snakes, various mysterious birds, whales, dolphins, colourful tropical fish, oh, and a tortoise. I’m sure that many of these – and their innumerable cousins – have prowled, slithered, flown, swam, and made their presences known in many of your dreams too.

‘Made their presences known’; now that’s an interesting turn of phrase.

We tend to dream of animals when we’re becoming more aware of our own animal instincts or when dormant powerful energies begin to stir deep in our unconscious and make themselves felt around the edges of our consciousness. We might have repressed magnificent energies we’re not ready to own – a powerful voice, a colourful nature, intuitive communication skills (perhaps appearing in a dream as a lion’s roar, a resplendent tropical fish, a synchronised pod of dolphins). Or we might have repressed energies we judge as undesirable – anger, revenge (perhaps, in dream form, the angry swish of a tiger’s tail, the poisonous fangs of a snake).

When life prompts these dormant energies to stir, our dreams offer the opportunity to recognise what we have repressed and decide which energies to nourish and express (perhaps the powerful voice, a more colourful, vibrant nature, the intuitive communication skills), and which to understand and work with (perhaps the anger and thoughts of revenge).

Animal dreams tend to occur at times of change, or when life challenges us to change. Change stirs us up, calls us forth, or sends us scurrying into retreat. Change can heighten our animal nature, prompt us to act instinctively, summon raw emotion, and bypass critical thinking. (Rushing to the supermarket to buy up big on toilet rolls during the first year of the pandemic springs to mind.) Change can also shake us from complacency and awaken powerful energies that allow us to live more vibrantly, more effectively, more magnificently, in the world.

During times of change it can be hard to put words on emerging feelings and shifting perspectives. Animal dreams capture that sense of emerging energies that you can feel but not fully name. Further along the track, when you have embraced change, you might dream of specific people to represent issues or energies you have become more conscious of – your dreaming mind might choose Uncle Jack to symbolise speaking out (because he is powerfully vocal) or the bully from your school years to symbolise revenge (because that was her modus operandi). Uncle Jack replaces the more emergent sense of dream tiger, while the school bully replaces the more visceral fanged snake.

I don’t want to pigeonhole (I see animals are the theme of the day as far as my typing fingers go) the dream meaning of a tiger, a snake, a dolphin, or any other creature. Our dreaming minds choose symbols based on our individual perspectives and experiences, both conscious and unconscious.

There are several ways to get to the bottom of what a particular animal in your unique dream means. You can close your eyes and imagine you are the animal in your dream. Inhabit its body, move around in the same way that it did in your dream. How does this feel? What is being expressed? Or you can take a piece of paper and a pen and dialogue with the animal or use a number of other key tools that you can learn in my online course, How to interpret your dreams step-by-step.

So next time an animal makes its presence felt in a dream, use one or more of these tools to encourage it to speak up and provide you with what you need to know to handle change in the best possible way.

 

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