Actual feelings of guilt. A way to tell us we are not on the road to happiness. A conflict between inner impulses and conventional - social or religious - morality.

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

Close-in {unconscious} feelings of guilt. Actual fear of closed in places.

Contents of your unconscious that terrify you at first glimpse, emotions or instinctive impulses that at some time in your past gave rise to guilt feelings.

Confronting feelings of guilt; cleansing. Getting rid of negative attitudes.

aniexty; repressed emotions; guilt.

Anxiety; repressed emotions; guilt. What makes you afraid in your waking life?

Seeing an intruder in your dream, represents your feelings of guilt. Consider also what unfamiliar feelings or thoughts may be breaking into your peace of mind. Alternatively, an intruder symbolizes self-indulgent behavior or unwanted sexual attention.

May symbolize those things that are "hard to swallow". If you are choking on food, then it may be an expression of self-guilt and unnurtured feelings. You may feel that you are being prevented or restricted from freely expressing yourself. Choking dreams are often a fearful experience and it is not uncommon for dreamers to awaken from them.

If, in a dream, you or someone or something else is in chains or is in some way tied up or restrained, the meaning is almost certainly that some part of you needs to be liberated, given (more) freedom of action in your life.

(1) If you are chained, the "you" of the dream is likely to be your conscious ego. Therefore, the restraints represented by the chains should be looked for in the external circumstances of your domestic, social or work life.

(2) If what is chained is some sort of animal, the likelihood is that it represents your animal nature or some aspect of it - your sexuality, for instance. Perhaps you are living in too rarefied an atmosphere and need to get your feet firmly on the ground or to put your consciousness - your awareness - not only in your brain but also in your body.

(3) If some other person is chained, that person probably represents something in your unconscious. Perhaps it is a desire that has been repressed because of guilt-feelings attached to it. If so, take a fresh - and this time an objective - look at it. See it for what it is: a power that may be used by you to enrich your life, but not one that you have to employ. You don't owe any of your emotions a living. But don't neglect them. Don't shut them away in your unconscious, where they can fester. Either use them or dissolve them.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

choking off some type of emotional energy. guilt. hang-ups.

ability. Hands tied are an indication something has you bound up. Washing hands symbolizes guilt. Feelings or emotions.

May symbolize a need to release stored up guilt or negative feelings. Freud would see a chimney is symbolic of a phallic symbol. May also represent warmth, tradition, and family values.

{1} If in a dream you behave violently towards a person or animal, some deep-seated anger or resentment is indicated, particilarly if such behaviour recurs in your dreams. The cause may be frustration of a basic desire. Guilt-feelings caused by a desire that was {perhaps wrongly} felt to be illegitimate may be accompanied by anger, either directed outwards against someone {perhaps a parent} who forbade the fulfillment of the desire, or directed inwards against yourself as a form of self-punishment. Therefore, if in a dream you are the victim of violence, this may be a symbol of your tendency to punish yourself.

{2} Even where the violence is obviously directed towards someone else, it may indicate anxiety. For example, a man who dreams of cruel sex with a woman is almost certainly afraid of women and afraid of - guilty about - his own sexuality. The cause of the guilt and anxiety needs to be uncovered, even if it means seeing a psychotherapist.

{3} A violent explosion - volcano, bomb, etc. - will usually mean that some part of you is frustrated and ready to wreak havoc in your life if you continue to deny it an outlet for expression.

{4} Our violence is caused by emotions taking us over; and such emotional take-overs are the result of frustrated healthy desires.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

A Last judgment sort of condemnation may be a symbolic expression of some imagined guilt.

It may be a wise warning from your inner centre: if you allow old habits and attitudes to continue, you will bring unhappiness and suffering on yourself (and others).

A representation of the self; that is complete, whole, balanced. a disarranged manadala may represent that the healing power of the unconscious pyche is temporarily out of action. Some destructive attitude - a guilt-and-anger or inferiority complex - is blocking the flow of the natural healing powers.

Losing control. Uncontrollable situations that need discipline to overcome. Escaping reality. Hiding a feeling of guilt. Inhibitions.

(1) This may be a sexual symbol, representing male genitals. As such it would appear in a woman's dreams and might express a fear of sex, or an ambivalent fear - fascination feeling towards it.

(2) The frog may symbolize the unconscious, or some part or function of the psyche that still lies buried in your unconscious, perhaps something that you find horrifying or disgusting because of some traumatic experiences that gave rise to anxiety and/or guilt feelings.

{3} Perhaps the frog in your dream comes from the story of the Frog-Prince. In the story a young woman is visited in her bed by a frog. At first, the girl is horrified and pushes the frog away. On the third night, however, she relents, and in the ensuing embrace the frog is transformed into a handsome prince.

Ernest Jones, a follower and biographer of Freud, says this is a story of a virgin overcoming her sexual fear.

For Joseph Campbell, an authority on mythology and a Jungian, the frog in the story symbolizes the unconscious, which at first sight is frightening but, when assimilated by the conscious ego, reveals itself for what it is - the total psyche, beautiful and true.

One might add that in both these interpretations what brings about the psyches transformation is a sexual embrace, but in the second interpretation it is an inner embrace, an intermingling and mutual penetration of the masculine and feminine sides of the psyche.

Note

Jung tells us that there are at least two interpretations to every dream. Both the interpretations, Jones and Campbell, could very well be applicable to the dream. One is a need to overcome an outward personal fear, and at the same time a need to delve into the unconscious and overcome the frightening aspects that unconsciously controls one's life.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd