dreamorpheus

The Swan Maidens by Walter Crane (courtesy of Peter Nahum at Leicester Galleries)

DREAM
I was running a bath when a little boy came and placed a rotten potato in the bathwater. I didn’t get in. Then he tried to put some worms in the bathwater. I told him to take the worms outside and kill them in the rosebushes. There were three silver worms that turned into tiny silver bullets which then morphed into tiny silver swans. I told the little boy to kill them. He put a plastic bag over their heads to suffocate them and I woke up. 

INTERPRETATION
What leaps out to me about this dream is the contrast between disgust and beauty: a rotten potato; icky worms; thriving rosebushes; graceful swans. There’s plenty of death imagery there too: you tell the boy to kill the worms and the swans; there are bullets and suffocation.

What ties all these symbols together is the ‘morphing’, the endless cycle of life/death/rebirth. From the rotten potato, a new plant may sprout. The bodies of the dead worms will nourish the rosebushes. Rosebushes have beautiful fragrant blooms symbolic of love but they also bear sharp thorns. The silver morphs from worms into bullets and then into swans.

The swan is associated with beauty and grace – and as aquatic birds, this ties in nicely with the feminine symbolism of the water, the roses and the silver.

Do you remember the story of the ugly duckling? Look deeper; love yourself.  There is an intrinsic link between life and death. Nothing is static; everything transforms and evolves. This powerful energy is within you!

DREAM
I was at some kind of big educational/industrial compound, and was being chased by a deranged man in lumberjack clothing. Evidently he’d already caught and killed several of my companions, but there was one woman left with me. She was slightly past middle age, blond and sort of heavy-set, and she was behaving hysterically, clinging to me like a drowning person. I was trying to help her, but she was hindering both of us as I led us through passages, into kitchens and closets, trying to stay away from the serial killer.

Anyway, he nearly caught up with us at one point, and I managed to escape although she didn’t; he caught her and killed her. I made it outside onto the grounds– I knew this was a good thing, since I’m an outdoors person and could navigate better in the hills and woods– and eventually came across a five-piece band playing on a little hillside. There was a fair going on! A woman I knew was playing flute, and we chatted for a bit, but I told her I had to run, as I was being pursued.

Somehow I ended back inside the building, and he finally cornered me in a prep kitchen. I finally panicked a little (up until now, I’d felt more annoyed than afraid) when he grabbed my wrist, but he just opened my hand and gave me a present. He made this sort of hooting grin, and I realized: he’s in love with me! My god, he’s been chasing us all because he has a crush on me! The present was a small dish of worms, but I could tell it was meant to be a wonderful gift, so I smiled and said thank you.

INTERPRETATION
Your hysterical companion is a shadow aspect of yourself. Compare your ‘more annoyed than afraid’ attitude to her hysterical clinging. You are your own hero, leading the way, evading the killer; whereas she is your classic victim, blonde and incapable. She weighs you down ‘like a drowning person’.

The deranged lumberjack is cutting out the dead wood, aspects of yourself that no longer serve you. You are happy to reach the woods although one would assume the lumberjack would also be comfortable in these surrounds… You are quite capable of working within ‘the system’ as shown by your leadership in the educational/industrial compound but prefer the outdoors and music.

The soft-blonde needs a leader, someone to tell her what to do… When you have a task to accomplish, you are better off without her. The deranged lumberjack did you a favour. And yes, he’s part of yourself too. You don’t actually see him outside in the world. He is confined to your psyche (the educational/industrial compound). And yet, it is his relentless pursuit that prevents you from lingering at the fair – something that your soft-blonde would have really enjoyed.

Maybe it’s time you got in touch with your love-crazed lumberjack? Does he represent a general drive to succeed? Or the relentless pursuit of a particular goal? The flip side of that focused drive is not having time to linger at the fair, to indulge in life’s pleasures. Which of his characteristics do you embrace? One would hope not the serial killing – but maybe like him, you are willing to do anything for love? Or by killing the soft-blonde have you put romance aside?

The worms I’m not sure about. You think it’s a strange gift but accept it graciously. Dreamcoach has some ideas about the symbolism of worms that may help you to discover what the worms mean to you.