I am in the house of a powerful man. He is masculine with strong features, he is funny, clever and capable, strong and accomplished. His house has seven levels. I feel a deep affection for him. There is an open central column in the house that passes through each level. I notice all the walls are covered with sacred visionary art. The second floor is like water, the moment of arrival infused with tantric deities making love in the air. On the sixth floor, for me, I enter and immediately portal to my childhood neighborhood where I am running down the street and tromping through the mud. I can feel the history of the soil as it soaks into my skin, I feel it's transition backward in time from suburban yard to an unkempt open field, back even further to the time of the free native americans.
A blind pivot occurs and I am now on a journey with a girlfriend. I notice I am wearing only a small white bikini and have white chalky markings on my body. I like how I feel in my body, I like how I look. I feel strong. We arrive in the desert, a festival (Lightning in a Bottle it feels). The dirt is whirling in the wind. I walk on the ground. I feel a primal prowess. Then I'm riding a bicycle. Quietly, I scan the landscape for the man with the seven level house.
[ > ] Continue on to Part II.....
Mystics have always traditionally considered the feminine aspect of
the universe as a chest, a house or a wall, as well as an enclosed garden. Another
symbolic association is that which equates the house (and the above, related
forms) with the repository of all wisdom, that is, tradition itself (4). In architectural symbolism, on the other hand, the house carries not only an overall symbolism but also particular associations attached to each of its component parts.
Nevertheless, the house as a home arouses strong, spontaneous associations with
the human body and human thought (or life, in other words), as has been confirmed empirically by psychoanalysts. Ania Teillard explains this by pointing
out that, in dreams, we employ the image of the house as a representation of the
different layers of the psyche. The outside of the house signifies the outward
appearance of Man: his personality or his mask. The various floors are related to
the vertical and spatial symbols. The roof and upper floor correspond to the head
and the mind, as well as to the conscious exercise of self-control. Similarly, the
basement corresponds to the unconscious and the instincts (just as sewers do, in
symbols pertaining to the city). The kitchen, since this is where foodstuff is
transformed, sometimes signifies the place or the moment of psychic transmutation in the alchemical sense. The intercommunicating rooms speak for themselves. The stairs are the link between the various planes of the psyche, but their
particular significance depends upon whether they are seen as ascending or descending. Finally, there is, as we have said, the association of the house with the
human body, especially regarding its openings, as was well understood by
Artemidorus Daldianus (56).
To see a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity. If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. To dream that a house has no walls, represents a lack of privacy. You feel that everyone is looking over your shoulder or up in your business.
To dream that you are cleaning your house, signifies your need to clear out your thoughts and get rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement.
If you live with others in your waking life, but dream that you are living alone, suggests that you need to take new steps toward independence. You need to accept responsibilities and be more self-reliant.
To see an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. To dream that your house is damaged, indicates your waking concerns about the condition of your house.
To see a new house in your dream, indicates that you are entering into a new phase or new area in your life. You are becoming more emotionally mature. If you are locked out of the house, then it represents rejection and insecurity. You feel you are being left behind.
To dream that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied.
To dream of a haunted house, signifies unfinished emotional business, related to your childhood family, dead relatives, or repressed memories and feelings.
To dream that a house has disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.
To dream that water is rising up in your house, suggests that you are becoming overwhelmed by your emotions.
To dream of building a house, you will make wise changes in your present affairs.
To dream that you own an elegant house, denotes that you will soon leave your home for a better, and fortune will be kind to you.
Old and dilapidated houses, denote failure in business or any effort, and declining health.
Seeing a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity. If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. Dreaming that you are cleaning your house means your need to clear out your thoughts and getting rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement. Seeing an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. Dreaming that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied. Dreaming of a haunted house means unfinished emotional business, related to your childhood family, dead relatives, or repressed memories and feelings. Dreaming that a house disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.
It is common to dream about houses. They usually symbolise our emotional and psychological selves. All of your experiences, stages of development, and parts of your conscious and unconscious life may be represented by that house. The house may be representing issues concerning a particular dilemma in your life, or it may be more general and comprehensive. Either way, if you pay attention to the details in this dream, you may learn a thing or two about yourself.
Man comes to see himself as a symbol in so far as he is conscious of his
being. Hallstatt art, in Austria, shows fine examples of animal-heads with human
figures appearing above them. In India, in New Guinea, in the West as well, the
bull’s or ox’s head with a human form drawn between the horns is a very common
motif. Since the bull is a symbol for the father-heaven, man comes to be seen as
both his and the earth’s son (22), also, as a third possibility, the son of the sun and
the moon (49). The implications of Origen’s remark: ‘Understand that you are
another world in miniature and that in you are the sun, the moon and also the
stars’, are to be found in all symbolic traditions. In Moslem esoteric thought, man
is the symbol of universal existence (29), an idea which has found its way into
contemporary philosophy in the definition of man as ‘the messenger of being’;
however, in symbolic theory, man is not defined by function alone (that of
appropriating the consciousness of the cosmos), but rather by analogy, whereby
he is seen as an image of the universe. This analogical relationship is sometimes
expressed explicitly, as in some of the more ancient sections of the Upanishads—
the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya for instance—where the analogy between the human organism and the macrocosmos is drawn step by step by means
of correspondences with the organs of the body and the senses (7). So, for
example, the components of the nervous system are derived from fiery substance, and blood from watery substance (26). These oriental concepts first
appear in the West during the Romanesque period: Honorius of Autun, in his Elucidarium (12th century) states that the flesh (and the bones) of man are
derived from the earth, blood from water, his breath from air, and body-heat from
fire. Each part of the body relates to a corresponding part of the universe: the
head corresponds to the heavens, the breath to air, the belly to the sea, the lower
extremities to earth. The five senses were given analogies in accordance with a
system which came to Europe, perhaps, from the Hebrews and the Greeks (14).
Thus, Hildegard of Bingen, living in the same period, states that man is disposed
according to the number five: he is of five equal parts in height and five in girth; he
has five senses, and five members, echoed in the hand as five fingers. Hence the
pentagram is a sign of the microcosmos. Agrippa of Nettesheim represented this graphically, after Valeriano, who drew the analogy between the five-pointed star
and the five wounds of Christ. There is a relationship, too, between the organic
laws of Man and the Cistercian temple (14). Fabre d’Olivet, following the Cabala,
maintains that another number closely associated with the human being is nine—
the triple ternary. He divides human potentialities into three planes: those of the
body, of the soul or life and of the spirit. Each of these planes is characterized by
three modes: the active, the passive and the neutral (43). In the Far East, also,
speculation about the symbolism of man began very early. The same kind of
triple ternary organization is to be seen in the ancient teachings of the Taoists
(13). It is also interesting to note that there is a relationship between the human
being and the essential or archetypal animals (the turtle, the phoenix, the dragon
and the unicorn) who appear to bear the same relation to man—who is central—
as the tetramorphs do to the Pantokrator. Now, between man as a concrete
individual and the universe there is a medial term—a mesocosmos. And this
mesocosmos is the ‘Universal Man’, the King (Wang) in Far Eastern tradition,
and the Adam Kadmon of the Cabala. He symbolizes the whole pattern of the
world of manifestation, that is, the complete range of possibilities open to mankind. In a way, the concept corresponds to Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’. According to Guénon, Leibniz—perhaps influenced by Raymond Lull—conceded
that every ‘individual substance’ must contain within itself an integral reproduction of the universe, even if only as an image, just as the seed contains the totality
of the being into which it will develop (25). In Indian symbolism, Vaishvânara, or
the ‘Universal Man’, is divided into seven principal sections: (1) The superior,
luminous spheres as a whole, or the supreme states of being; (2) the sun and the
moon—or rather, the principles to which they pertain—as expressed in the right
and the left eye respectively; (3) the fire-principle—the mouth; (4) the directions
of space—the ears; (5) the atmosphere—the lungs; (6) the intermediary zone
between earth and heaven—the stomach; (7) the earth—the natural functions or
the lower part of the body. The heart is not mentioned, because, being the ‘centre’
or dwelling-place of Brahma, it is regarded as being beyond the ‘wheel’ of things
(26). Now, this concept of the ‘Universal Man’ implies hermaphroditism, though
never specifically. For the concrete, existential human being, in so far as he is
either a man or a woman, represents the dissected ‘human’ whole, not only in the
physical sense but also spiritually. Thus, to quote the Upanishads: ‘He was, in
truth, as big as a man and a woman embracing. He divided this atman into two
parts; from them sprang husband and wife.’ In Western iconography one sometimes finds images which would seem to be echoes of this concept (32). A human
couple, by their very nature, must always symbolize the urge to unite what is in
fact discrete. Figures which are shown embracing one another, or joining hands, or growing out of roots which bind them together, and so on, symbolize ‘conjunction’, that is, coincidentia oppositorum. There is a Hindu image representing the
‘joining of the unjoinable’ (analogous to the marriage of fire and water) by the
interlinking of Man and Woman, which may be taken to symbolize the joining of
all opposites: good and bad, high and low, cold and hot, wet and dry, and so on
(32). In alchemy, Man and Woman symbolize sulphur and mercury (the metal).
In psychology, level-symbolism is often brought to bear upon the members of the
body, so that the right side corresponds to the conscious level and the left to the
unconscious. The shapes of the parts of the body, depending upon whether they
are positive or negative—whether they are protuberances or cavities—should be
seen not only as sex-symbols but also in the light of the symbolism of levels. The
head is almost universally regarded as a symbol of virility (56). The attitudes
which the body may take up are of great symbolic importance, because they are
both the instrument and the expression of the human tendency towards ascendence
and evolution. A position with the arms wide open pertains to the symbolism of
the cross. And a posture in the form of the letter ‘X’ refers to the union of the two
worlds, a symbol which is related to the hour-glass, the ‘X’ and all other symbols
of intersection (50). Another important posture is that of Buddha in the traditional iconography of the Orient, a posture characteristic also of some Celtic gods
such as the so-called ‘Bouray god’ or the famous Roquepertuse figure. This
squatting position expresses the renunciation of the ‘baser part’ and of ambulatory movement and symbolizes identification with the mystic centre.
To see a man in your dream, denotes the aspect of yourself that is assertive, rational, aggressive, and/or competitive. Perhaps you need to incorporate these aspects into your own character. If the man is known to you, then the dream may reflect you feelings and concerns you have about him.
If you are a woman and dream that you are in the arms of a man, then it suggests that you are accepting and welcoming your stronger assertive personality. It may also highlight your desires to be in a relationship and your image of the ideal man.
To see an old man in your dream, represents wisdom or forgiveness. The old man may be a archetypal figure who is offering guidance to some daily problem.
To dream of a man, if handsome, well formed and supple, denotes that you will enjoy life vastly and come into rich possessions. If he is misshapen and sour-visaged, you will meet disappointments and many perplexities will involve you.
For a woman to dream of a handsome man, she is likely to have distinction offered her. If he is ugly, she will experience trouble through some one whom she considers a friend.
Seeing a man in your dream indicates the masculine aspect of yourself - the side that is assertive, rational, aggressive, and/or competitive. If the man is known to you, then the dream may reflect you feelings and concerns you have about him. If you are a woman and dream that you are in the arms of a man, suggests that you are accepting and welcoming your stronger assertive personality . It may also highlight your desires to be in a relationship and your image of the ideal man. Seeing an old man in your dream, represents wisdom or forgiveness.
All different kinds of people clutter our dream landscape. The men in your dream may include family members or total strangers. You may dream about your father, son, husband, or friend and should interpret the dream according to its details. A man, particularly the father figure, may represent collective consciousness and the traditional human spirit. He is the Yang and his energy, when mobilised, creates the earthly realities. Depending on the details of the dream, the masculine figure could be interpreted as the Creator or Destroyer. At times, women dream about men that are strangers to them. These men may represent the women's unconscious psychic energy. At times, a strange and ominous man in men's dreams could represent their "shadow" or their negativity and darker sides of personality.
To see the landing of an aircraft in your dream, signifies completion of a journey or some task. Some issues which you felt was out of control is now being grounded.
Seeing the landing of an aircraft in your dream means completion of a journey or some task. There may have been some issues in which you felt out of control in trying to handle but are now being grounded.
This is a term which refers to that aspect of the symbolism of space
which is concerned with the simple moral pattern deriving from the notions of
height and—ultimately—of centre. Hindu doctrine describes the three fundamental states of the human spirit as sattva, which is ‘loftiness’ of spirit; rajas—
manifestation, struggle and dynamism; and tamas, or obscurity and brute instinct; and these three states are located on three vertical levels. Strictly speaking,
there are five zones or levels: the absolute low level and the absolute high level,
plus the central area divided into three zones merging into each other and at the same time bringing the outer extremes into progressive relationship. When the
baser levels concern not the intellectual but the moral—which is in essence infinitely more complex and mysterious—then the precise significance of the symbolism is not nearly so hard-and-fast. There is always the possibility of symbolic
Inversion, in which case the two opposing directions have something in common
in that both partake of the idea of depth. Hence the saying: ‘Deep calls to deep.’
The temptations endured by the chosen few find their counterpart in the abysses
of salvation which may be opened up for the reprobate. Dostoievski has spoken
eloquently about this. Finally, here is a quotation from L’Art chinois by M.
Paléologue, written in 1888: ‘Under the Chinese Chou dynasty (11th century
B.C.), the dead of the lower classes were buried in the plains; princes, on hills of
moderate height; and emperors in tombs built on a mountain-top. The head of the
corpse would be turned to face North.’ In virtually every work of art whose
composition is of an ideological rather than a naturalistic character, the verticalline locates the Three Worlds of the infernal, terrestrial (with its own, internal
orders—the marine, the animal and the human) and celestial. Thus, in the
Mesopotamian stele (or Kudurru), the illustrations are arranged on several levels,
divided off by lines to suggest their relative values: the most primitive beings are
placed at the lowest level (since they are closest to the ‘primordial monster’)
while astral bodies and symbols of the godhead are situated on the highest plane.
The same principles are true of Romanesque art.
To see the floor in your dream, represents your support system and sense of security. You have a firm foundation that you can depend on. The floor in your dream may also symbolize the division between the unconscious and conscious. Alternatively, the dream may be a pun on being "floored" or being completely surprised. Perhaps you have been caught off guard about something.
To see a polished, wooden floor in your dream, indicates that you are fully aware of your unconscious and keeping it suppressed. Consider the condition of the floor for further analysis.
To see a slanted floor in your dream, indicates that you are deviating too far from your original plans and goals.
To dream about the floors of a building, represents your level of understanding, awareness or success. The higher floors signify higher accomplishments and achievements. If you are in the lower floors, then it refers to more primal attitudes, the unconscious and/or sexuality. It also denotes failures. Consider the significance of the floor number and the type of building the floors are on.
Seeing the floor in your dream, represents your support. It may also represent the division between the unconscious and conscious. Seeing a polished, wooden floor in your dream indicates that you are fully aware of your unconscious and keeping it suppressed. Seeing a slanted floor in your dream, foretells that you are deviating too far from your original plans and goals.
To dream that you are wearing a bikini, suggests that you are feeling exposed. You may feel unprotected emotionally. It may also signal a return to innocence or youth. Alternatively, a bikini indicates superficial desires.
Dreaming that you are wearing a bikini, suggests that you are feeling exposed. You may feel unprotected emotionally. It may also signal a return to innocence or youth. Alternatively, it indicates superficial desires.
To see freshly stirred dirt in your dream, symbolizes thriftiness and frugalness. Dirt is also representative of situations where you have been less than honorable and may have acted in a devious manner. You are trying to conceal or bury your questionable behavior.
To dream that someone throws dirt at you, suggests that someone is questioning your character and harming your reputation.
To dream of seeing freshly stirred dirt around flowers or trees, denotes thrift and healthful conditions abound for the dreamer.
To see your clothes soiled with unclean dirt, you will be forced to save yourself from contagious diseases by leaving your home or submitting to the strictures of the law.
To dream that some one throws dirt upon you, denotes that enemies will try to injure your character.
Seeing freshly stirred dirt in your dream, symbolizes thriftiness and frugalness. Dirt is also representative of situations where you have been less than honorable and may have acted in a devious manner. Dreaming that someone throws dirt at you indicates that enemies will try to attack your character and harm your reputation. Dreaming that your clothes are soiled with dirt means of a contagious disease that you have been stricken with.
Dreaming about dirt, as in something dirty, could represent your state of mind or a situation from your daily life. It could symbolise a relationship, a business venture, or any other part of your life where you, or someone else has been less than honest and honourable. Dirt in your dreams could also represent your unwholesome attitudes and a devious state of mind. This dream, depending on its details, may be encouraging you to clean up "your act" inside and out.