Animal Dreams

A shark bit me once. And despite the fact that it was in a dream, when I woke I could actualy feel the place where he bit into my skin. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would leap from my chest.

Dreaming of animals can be frightening, mystical, ordinary, extraoridinary. If you’ve ever dreamed of animals you might not have given them much thought unless they were doing something unusual. For instance, last night a dream cat talked to me. That’s unusual.

So what do dream animals mean? The answer isn’t simple because there is more than one approach to contemplating their relavence to our lives.

For instance, some people view a dream snake as a literal snake. Others see it as symbolic of the goddess or satan. These are three dramatically different perspectives. Essentially, how you view your dream snake is largely dependent on how you view snakes, your cultural’s undestanding of snakes, your religions understanding of snakes, etc.

When working with dream animals start by researching the “real-life” characteristics of the animals instead of, or in addition to, contemplating their symbolism.

For instance, instead of looking at a snake as a symbol of the goddess, a symbol that predates Christianity, you might consider the kind of snake you dreamed about and how it behaves in its natural environment.

You can ask yourself what the snake looks like in the dream. Is it healthy, disheveled, friendly, menacing? How might the snakes appearance be a message to yoiu? How are you like the healthy or disheveled snake?

If you look at the dream animal as a teacher instead of a symbol you are likely to learn about your instinctive nature. If the animal is a rabbit you are being told something quite different than if the animal is a cougar. Rabbits are gentle, passive creatures. Cougars are carnivores and silently stalk their prey.

The key to the dream message lies in the natural behavior of the living animal in comparison to what it is doing in the dream. For example, remember my dream of being bitten by the shark. He scared me, but did not hurt me. He touched his sharp teeth to my leg and when I woke I could still feel the teeth on my skin. He made quite an impression on me (ha ha).

In waking life, a shark could eat me for dinner, so why did this predator only give me a small nibble?

When working the dream with a colleague he suggested that if it were his dream the shark was coming to tell me that my words (as represented by the bite/teeth) can be used to convey difficult messages, to leave an impression on someone, but that I need to be careful and not “bite too hard” or be too “biting” or I can do some serious emotional damage. The trick is to learn how to use the authentic voice and channel it into “small bites” instead of huge, tearing, and permanently damaging “shark attacks”.

As a spiritual guide this is invaluable feedback. I now keep shark teeth on my desk to remind me of this message.

Have you had any dreams of animals? What are they doing in the dream? What do they look like? Honor your animal dreams by putting a picture of them on your desk or wall. Buy a little animal figurine. Eat the food they eat (if you can!). Walk in their environment. Imagine what it’s like to be that animal.