Dream Symbol Guilt

Dreaming that you commit suicide indicates that conditions in your life is so frustrating that you are no longer willing to cope with a situation or relationship in the same way as you did in the past. Alternatively, you may be unable to overcome feelings of guilt and thus turning the aggression on yourself. On a more positive note, it may suggest that you are saying good-bye to one aspect of yourself or character that your have been carrying around. Seeing someone commit suicide in you dream, highlights your concerns for that person. Also consider what characteristics and qualities in that person you may be trying to "kill" and annihilate in your own self. Perhaps you hope that you are not like that person in some way and are making attempts to get rid of those traits within your own self.

Basic Meaning: A car may symbolize yourself and, in particular, your effectiveness in controlling your life.

(1) A car in a dream usually represents yourself, the direction you are going in life, and your effectiveness in controlling your life, attaining your goals, etc. If you are driving the car, this may symbolize taking charge of your own life. (Remember that a dream may be either depicting patterns of behaviour that already exist or recommending to you a new pattern). If some else is driving, the dream may be expressing your over dependence on others.

(2) A car may be a sexual symbol, representing the penis (rare) - especially if forceful motion is emphasized in the dream, or if the car is travelling through a tunnel.

(3) A car that crashes in a dream may symbolize a state of anxiety over some undertaking or situation. If you are driving, the crash may symbolize an unconscious desire to punish yourself. What guilt-feelings are you harbouring? Guilt and sado-masochism often go hand in hand. Dissolve the guilt feelings (which are almost certainly irrational and which, anyway, can contribute nothing of value to life - your own or anyone else's), and the violence will dissolve, too.

The crash may express a (hidden) fear of mental breakdown, in which case you ought to seek help.

Eric Ackroyd

Example in a Dream

Driving an old beat up car down a muddy road on a stormy night.

Possible meaning: The old beat up car may symbolize you and the condition your life is in. The muddy road may represent the path you have chosen is weighing you down or you are stuck. Storms often symbolize struggles and/or turmoil in your life. Night may symbolize your unconscious, either repressed feelings or unconscious motivations.

This dream would represent a negative condition of your life, perhaps emotions or aspects you have repressed or ignored.

A gun may be a sexual symbol, representing the penis.

It may be a symbol of aggressiveness. If there is uncontrolled aggression in your behaviour, what is the cause? Are you harbouring guilt-feelings that cause you to be angry with yourself; and does the anger spill over on to other people?

Do you kill someone or some animal with the gun? If it is a parent or partner or sibling, the killing may be a symbol of (unconscious) hostility or resentment. Otherwise, it might be some part of yourself that is symbolized by the victim; in which case you need to remember that every part and function of your psyche - including those that have been repressed - is valuable and has a contribution to make to your attainment of personal wholeness.

Source: Eric Ackroyd

A dream of committing suicide doesn't necessarily mean that you are suicidal. It could be pointing out a major change that you are about to undertake, or that you feel as if things have gotten out of hand.

If you commit suicide in a dream, it probably means you feel unable to cope any longer with a problem that has obessed and flustrated you for a long time. Perhaps you need professional help to sort this out.

Do you witness someone else's suicide" Perhaps some part of you that has been repressed and neglected is now getting desperate in which case you need to give it urgent attention with a view to meeting its legitimate demands.

If the person committing suicide is close to you inreal life, it may be that you harbor {unconscious} negative feelings toward that person.

Life's energy source. Love, passion, life itself. Losing blood may suggest you are losing energy because of inner conflicts or waking conflicts. Feelings of being emotionally drained. Dreaming that you are drinking blood may indicate that you have a thurst for vitality and power. Women often dream of blood or of someone bleeding shortly before or during their periods and when they are pregnant.

Also: Blood may be a symbol of life or physical, emotional, and/or spiritual energy. It may also symbolize passion, love or even anger. Dreaming that you are bleeding or losing blood may mean that you are feeling emotionally drained. Shedding blood may also represent guilt. Dreaming that something is written in blood may represent the energy you have put into a project. Drinking blood means receiving new life or new strength. "Displaced" blood may be menstrual blood which for a woman may represent a sexually related anxiety, and for a man may represent a fear of sex and/or of women.

(1)Hands may symbolize ability, particularly - but not exclusively - practical and social.

(2) hands may symbolize the emotions. Washing your hands? What do you think you are guilty of?

(3) What is the hand doing: striking, stroking, blessing, healing? Is it a male or female hand? Left or right?

(4) Are your hands tied? What is it in your situation or in your attitudes that prevents you from functioning at your full potential, or from doing what you should be doing?

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

And Childhood Recollections

{1} If the child in your dream is you as a child, the significance of the dream may have to do with a childhood experience. But don't be too ready to understand it this way {see Childhood Recollections at bottom}.

{2} The child may be a symbol of your true self, that which is essentially you and which you are capable of unfolding. That fact that your real self is represented by a child suggests that your true self is a beautiful unspoilt product of Nature; that it is worthy of unreserved love; and that it needs the nourishment of your love if it is to grow and unfold all its loveliness.

{3} If the child has some divine aura {e.g. if it is the Christ-child}, waht is symbolized is as in {2} above. The aura represents the transcendent nature of the self: it is much more than your conscious ego or your present image of yourself; it holds together the opposites that are within you {e.g. conscious and unconscious aspects, "head" - intellect and "heart" - intuitiveness and compassionate giving, extroversion and introversion, masculine and feminine}, and it is your ultimate goal and fulfillment.

{4} The child may represent {the possibility of} a new beginning, a new development in your psyche - a new attitude to life, a new set of values, a new balance of your psychic forces, a new reconcilation of previously conflicting forces. The child in you is the growing-point in you.

{5} There is a child in all of us - our emotional self - that often needs reassurance, to be told that all is well and there is no cause for fear, or anger, or guilt, and that love makes all things good and dissolves all pain. At the same time the child sometimes needs to be chided and corrected if it is eventually to - as it should - grow up.

Also See Dream Motifs-Death

Death or dying in a dream seldom refers to an actual death. Death refers to changes in one's life, or attitudes toward certain persons, or fears of dying. Here are some possibilities of what death, dying or a dead person may represent in a dream. Death is a motif and may be the central motif of the dream.

Basic meaning: The old is dying; make way for new beginnings.

(1) The dead person may be you, even though its image within the dream takes on characteristics of other persons or other things. The message may be that your old self needs to be left behind. This may mean you must stop carrying around with you the crippling burden of your past (irrational guilt-feelings or other negative self programming); and, instead, you must open yourself to what the present moment is offering. Alternatively, the "old self" may be old attachments, habits, ambitions, values, goals; in which case the dream is telling you that the only way forward for you lies through giving these up and looking deeper within yourself for better values, etc. (where better means more in tune with your real self).

(2) What is being expressed in the dream may be your own anxiety about dying. Death is inevitable, and facing up to that fact may bring great rewards: self-acceptance; new values; a broadening of one's personality, compensating for past omissions or lopsidedness and utilizing hitherto neglected personal resources. This would be especially applicable if you are in the second half of life.

(3) If the dead person in the dream is actually a living person - and especially if that person is your partner or parent or sibling - the dream may be expressing unconscious resentment towards that person, or a desire to be independent of that person. Feelings toward someone close are often ambivalent (conflicting): love or respect mixed with fear or hatred or resentment or jealousy.

(4) Does the dream contain a dead person you actually knew? If so, the dream may mean you should take notice of what he or she said or did, or of what happened to him or her. The dead person is "coming back", not to haunt you but to advise and help you (the dead person actually represents parts of your unconscious self that is wiser than your waking ego).

There's really nothing 'spooky" about meeting dead people in dreams. Such encounters may help you fulfill a long-desired deep relationship, or to put something right. For example, you may learn to forgive the person and as a consequence get peace and healing for yourself.

(5) If the gender of the dead person is stressed, the meaning may be that your masculinity/femininity or your anima/animus needs reviving.

(6) A dead animal in a dream almost certainly refers to some part of you - an instinctive force, perhaps - and the dream will be telling you either that this part of you (e.g. guilt-feelings or inferiority complex) ought to die, because its effects are wholly negative; or that it is a valuable but repressed part of yourself that you must now bring to life, to rectify an imbalance in your personality.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

If the child in your dream is you as a child, the significance of the dream may have to do with a childhood experience.

The child may be a symbol of your true self, That which is essentially you and which you are capable of unfolding. The fact that your real self is represented by a child suggests that your true self is a a beautiful unspoilt product of Nature; that is worthy of unreserved love; and that it needs the nourishment of your love if it is to grow.

The child may represent the transcendent nature of the self; it is much more than just your conscious ego or your present image of yourself; it holds together the opposites that are within you, "head" and "heart", extroversion and introversion, masculine and feminine.

The child may represent a new beginning, a new development in your psyche - a new attitude to life, a new set of values, a new reconciliation of previously conflicting forces.

There is in all of us a child - our emotional self - that often needs reassurance, to be told that all is well and there is no cause for fear, or anger, or guilt, and that love makes all things good and dissolves all pain. At the same time the child sometimes needs to be chided and corrected if it is eventually to - as it should - grow up.

More on Dead/Death

If the dead person is someone you actually knew it may mean you should take notice of what he or she said or did, or what happened to him or her. The person is not coming back to "haunt" you but to advise you or to help you. In actuality, this person is a part of your own psyche, taking the form of the dead person. Such encounters may help you to fulfil a long desired relationship, or put something right. For example, you may learn to forgive the person {or yourself}and as a consequence get peace and healing for yourself.

 If a deceased partner or parent appears in dreams, the above may apply. Bear in mind that the dead do live - inside us; and that it is important to realize when this is a healthy and life-enhancing thing and when it is purely negative, stunting your own personal growth. If it is the latter, resolve to have it out with the dead person the next time he or she appears in a dream

 If the dead person in the dream is actually a living person - and especially if that person is your partner or sibling - the dream may be expressing unconscious resentment towards that person, or a desire to be independent. Feelings toward someone close are often ambivalent {simultaneous conflicting feelings toward that person}: love or respect mixed with fear or hatred or resentment or jealousy. The usual conscious response to such a dream will be anxiety, and you will feel anxiety in the dream itself.

The dead person may be you. If so consider the following possibilities:What is being expressed in the dream may be your own anxiety about dying. Death is inevitable {an old Islamic proverb: when the angel of death approaches it is horrific, when it reaches you it is bliss}, and facing up to the fact may bring great rewards: self-acceptance; new values; a broadening of one's personality, compensating for past omissions or lopsidedness and utilizing hitherto neglected personal resources. This would be especially applicable if you are in the second half of life.

The message may be that your old self needs to be left behind. This may mean that you must stop carrying around with you the crippling burden of your past {irrational guilt-feelings and martyrdom complex, or any other negative self-programming}; and, instead, you must open yourself to what the present moment is offering. Alternatively, the "old self" may be old attachments, habits, ambitions, values, goals; in which case the dream is telling you that the only way forward for you lies through giving these up and looking deeper within yourself for better values, etc. {where "better" means more in tune with your real self}.

{Primitive rites of passage, as described in mythological symbolism as well as in dreams, which mark transitional stages in a person's life - birth, initiation into adulthood, marriage and career, death - all contain death-and-rebirth symbolism and express a recognition that the development of new attitudes more appropriate to one's new stage in life {the death and resurrection of Jesus is a metaphor for such death and resurrection stages in the individual life}. The symbolic death of the initiate in these rites may also be seen as a descent of the conscious ego into the unconscious: it is the unconscious {and the compensating knowledge that it holds} that provides the means for new growth - rebirth.

It is just possible that, if your own death features repeatedly in dreams, it is an expression of an unconscious wish for death. Freud speculated in "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" that there might be, in everyone, just two controlling basic drives: one towards life and love and pleasure {Eros}, and the other towards death {'thanatos"}. This is highly controversial {as is much of Freud's theories}, but it is indisputable that many people display strong masochistic tendency.

Are you compelled to repeat painful experiences? Do you tend to interpret what other people say as a criticism of yourself? If so, you may be suffering from repressed guilt-feelings and an unconscious urge to punish yourself - which sometimes take the form of a fate-neurosis and/or a wish {unconscious, as in your dream} to see yourself dead. If you feel this applies to you, talk to a friend about it or consult a psychotherapist. See Suicide

A wish for death may be a retreat from life's problems and pains, or a response to a sense of failure. If this applies to you, bear in mind, first, that a very sensitive person may also be burdened with an over-severe conscience {the product perhaps, of having a stern father or a sin-and-guilt religious upbringing}. In that case, see the previous paragraph. Secondly, what makes a thing a problem is usually one's attitude towards it. For example, suppose you have been made redundant {repeat mistakes over and over}. If your reaction is to see this as a punishment, see previous paragraph. If you see it as a failure, try to change your attitude or perspective by asking what creative purpose may be being served by your redundancy; perhaps, for instance, the demolishing of an inadequate or false self-image in order to make way for the construction of one that corresponds more closely to your individual ground-plan or "destiny".

 If the gender of the dead person is stressed, the meaning may be that your masculinity/femininity or your animus/anima needs reviving.

 a dead animal in a dream almost certainly refers to some part of you - an instinctive force, perhaps - and the dream will be telling you either that this part of you {e.g. guilt-feelings or inferiority complex} ought to die, because its effects are wholly negative; or that it is a valuable but repressed part of you that you must now bring to life, to rectify an imbalance in your personality.

From dream moods

Death To dream about the death of a loved one, suggests that you are lacking a certain aspect or quality that the loved one embodies. Ask yourself what makes this person special or what do you like about him. It is that very quality that you are lacking in your own relationship or circumstances. Alternatively, it indicates that whatever that person represents has no part in your own life

From iVillage

Dreaming about death is very common and it can be interpreted in many different ways. Death is usually a symbol of some type of closure or end. It implies an end to one thing and a beginning of another. Death dreams usually have positive symbolism. If you are the dead person in your dream, it could imply that you would like to leave all of your worries and struggles behind and begin anew. Dreaming about someone that you care about may express your fear about losing them. Dreaming that one of your parents died may express fear of loss, but it also may be an unconscious valve through which you release anger and other negative feelings. In some cultures dreaming about death and dying is a very good omen that represents longevity and prosperity.

Devil

Basic Meaning - A fear of those repressed contents of the unconscious that are, when acknowledged the very forces that could bestow a harmonious and balanced life.

(1) The Satan of Jewish - Christian - Islamic tradition was originally a horned fertility god, a personification of the fertilizing power of Nature {the tradition of God is separate from Nature}. In psychological terms, a fertilizing agent is something within the psyche that can inaugurate a new phase in the individual's development.

(2) The evil connotations of the devil figure may reflect the dreamer's fear of those repressed contents of the unconscious that are, in fact, the very forces that - if mobilized and utilized - could bestow a new and fuller life. What we repress is invariably something that had great value for us but on some occasion in the past gave rise to guilt-feelings or a fear of punishment. It is our fears that invest the unconscious with the fearsome characteristics of a dark underworld inhabited by evil monsters. In reality, the unconscious contains all the energy and wisdom we need for healing and wholeness.

It might be said that our fundamental human task is the conversion of the devil within ourselves, that is, converting negatively charged {dissident, destructive} psychic forces into positively charged {life-enhancing and unifying} powers. But you won't convert the devil with brute force, only with love. The negatively charged psychic forces are the ones you neglect and despise or fear. They become positively charged when you acknowledge them and integrate them into your conscious life.

If we do not recognize the "devil" within ourselves, we shall project him onto others and thereby give more scope for hatred and destruction {the real devil!} in the world.

{3} In certain contexts - if, for example, he has horns or is sexually involved with naked women - the devil may be a sexual symbol. If sexuality is repressed in such a guise in a woman's dream, it is possibly because she has a fear of sexual relations. In a man's dreamthe indication might be that he has a guilt-ridden attitude towards his own sexuality {which Freud might trace back to anxiety arising out of the normal male infant's erotic feelings for his mother}.

Demons

Demons in dreams probably represent parts of your unconscious mind that have been repressed and neglected and are now threatening to disrupt or mutilate the psyche. They should be approached lovingly, given attention and integrated into your conscious life. This will bring about their "conversion": They will cease to threaten and will contribute their vital energies to the enhancement of the self.

Self-knowledge - knowing what we are carrying around with us in our unconscious - is the only sure defence against what in ancient times was called demonic possession, which in psychological terms means the conscious ego being taken over by unconscious forces {obsessive fear or anger, or whatever}.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

Innocence. A sacrificial lamb reflects a longing to be rid of guilt feelings.

May symbolize repressed contents of the unconscious. A need to get rid of old attitudes, fears, guilt-feelings or other complexes that have been a burden in your life.

a symbol of the unconscious. its wild inhabitants are probably neglected, disorderly, possibly mutinous "animal" or instinctual drives, and repressed guilt-feelings and fears.

Being judged (by self or others); perhaps being driven by guilt feelings.

The resolving of conflict and the achieving of balance and wholeness in the psyche. A longing for release from unconscious guilt-feelings.

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. The pesky things in life.

Covering up feelings of guilt, negative attitudes.

It may be a true inner voice telling you waht you msut do in order to get in tune with your "destiny". It may be a symbol of an over-developed super-ego, reflecting either irrational fears or guilt-feelings stemming from traumatic childhood experiences.

Dreaming of hell indicates that you may be suffering from a seemingly inescapable situation. You may have placed your decision or course of action into someone else's hand. Alternatively, you may be possessing many inner fears and repressed guilty feelings. It is time to quit punishing yourself and take it easy for awhile.