The difference between suppressing a desire and repressing it is that suppression is done consciously and repression is done unconsciously. Neither suppression nor repression, however, is a satisfactory solution to a personal problem. Both result in an inflated super-ego {conscience} and a more troublesome shackled and frustrated id {instinctive drives}.

By looking at your dream carefully and, above all, honestly, you can get to know what repressed desires you are carrying around with you. And that puts you into a position to work out for yourself a strategy which will allow these desires satisfaction and fulfillment in ways that will enhance your well-being and happiness and restore peace and harmony to your psyche.

An unbridled satisfying of each and every desire is likely to play havoc with the psyche, pulling it in all directions and destroying harmony and peace, and reducing rather than enhancing your happiness, as well as seriously damaging your effectiveness. Such a complete lack of control usually goes hand in hand with a complete ignorance of what forces are at work in one's unconscious depths. Sooner or later what is repressed will insist on having an outlet, and if there is no knowledge and therefore no rational control of what has been repressed, the latter may take possession of the psyche, destroying what is good and beautiful in it and almost inevitably doing hurt to other people, too.

Understanding your dreams, therefore, is a duty you owe both to yourself and your fellow human beings.

In a woman's dream, rape may represent either (unconscious) fears of sex or (masochistic) fantasies of being raped.

A man's dreamof committing a rape would probably be a straightforward symbol of sexual desire, but of a sadistic kind. You probably need to become acquainted with your feminine qualities - and let them play a larger part in your life. What are you trying to take vengeance for (doesn't necessarily have to do with sex)? Did your mother seem to withdraw her love from you as a boy?

Consider these possibilities also:

You are losing energy, allowing someone else's negative influence to take your power and self-esteem.

Source: Eric Ackroyd

In any real life experience, traumatic events as a real rape in your life will have significant bearing in your dreams. Sorting such experiences out is a function of dreams.

The act of incest in a dream may symbolize a real-life incident that you witnessed or were involved in. If this is the case, talk to a good psychotherapist.

For a man, a dream of incest with his daughter will usually express fear of the erotic element in your feelings toward his daughter in real life; but also be a straightforward expression of desire.

In a man's dreaminvolving his sister, the sister may represent the anima figure representing the feminine side of his nature.

In a man's dreamwith his mother, the mother may express the desire he felt for her as a boy.

For a woman, if the dream is about her father, it may be an expression of her (repressed) childhood desire for her father. A dream with her brother may be an animus symbol, her masculine qualities. A dream with incest with her son, or incestuous desires, are probably expressing her anxiety concerning her natural sensuous pleasure in the sight and touch of him.

A man's dreamor fantasized incest with his mother may represent a death-wish, a desire to return to the womb. This means your mother has properties of the Earth Mother (archetypal) in her negative, devouring aspect; he needs to throw off an attachment to his mother that is preventing the unfolding of his own individual self.

Probably the most well-known of the modern dream philosophers was Sigmund Freud. Freud first developed the theory about the role of the unconscious on the individual. Freud believed the dream worked on two levels. A straightforward level showed events in dreams as remembered. However in the latent level objects and actions in the dreams symbolize sexual and aggressive feelings and ideas that are repressed. So in dreams it protects the sleeper from the effects of a realization of these wishes. The dream taps into the desire for wish fulfilment when the controlling ego is relaxed during sleep. Freud wrote "All dreams are in a sense dreams of convenience, they help to prolong sleep instead of waking up. Dreams are the guardians of sleep and not its disturbers. "

Carl Jung believed a dreams content uses symbolic language. He proposed that a dream expresses collective racial unconscious memories and instincts shared by all people. These are basic ideas that are themselves symbols. These include the hero, monster, mother, father, mandala, sacrifice and the mask. Dreams also indicate the way to self actualization Jungian therapy in fact deals extensively with dreams and fantasies.

Today, most psychologists agree with Jung's theory, and it is this theory that makes dream interpretation something that we can use in our everyday lives. If Freud were alive today he would disagree with every theory that says you are able to interpret your own dreams. Jung believed that, although it was difficult, dreams were meant to be understood.

Expressions of guilt are common in dreams. The cause of the guilt-feelings may be indicated in the dream or a later one.

(1) Normal guilt-feelings are the psyche's way of telling us we are not on the right road to personal happiness.

(2) Neurotic guilt-feelings are irrational. For instance, if the father of a five-year-old boy dies, the boy may feel responsible for his death; and the feelings of guilt and a desire to punish himself may linger on into adulthood, not at the conscious level but in the unconscious.

(3) Guilt-feelings may arise out of conflict between inner impulses and conventional - social or religious - morality. Here we have two kinds of duty: duty to society and duty to ourselves, which is a duty to fulfil our "destiny" - that is, the potential that is contained in the basic structure of our individual psyche.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

A desire or need for a new departure or new adventure in your personal life. A foreign country may represent your unconscious, in which the dream is telling you that you have not arrived at your desired destination. A busy airport is an indication of ambitious new beginnings.

Depending on the context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolizes destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment, or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new is entering your life. Your thoughts and views are changing. In particular, if the fire is under control or contained in one area, it is a metaphor of your own internal fire and inner transformation. It also represents your drive and motivation. Dreaming of that you are being burned by fire indicates that your temper is getting out of control. Some issue or situation is burning you up inside. Dreaming that a house is on fire means passion and loving companions. Dreaming that you put out a fire means that you will overcome your obstacles in your life through much work and effort.

May represent a neglected part of yourself, an instinctive drive, a desire or ambition. Loss of external guidance, self-esteem. Feeling of abandonment by someone close to you who has died, or simply moved away. Can represent a feeling of insecurity in a relationship.