16

Symbols

Keys to the Unconscious

umans interact with the world through symbols. We use them to communicate, to define and study life, and to interact with our own minds. Symbols are not only the intentional cultural representations of concepts, such as language; they are also the meaning we imbue objects with. An owl can represent wisdom, winter may represent dormancy and death, red might mean danger or stop, green could mean go, and so on. Even characters—in fiction and in dreams—function on a symbolic level as they can personify qualities in the dream world and in ourselves, allowing us to describe something that is unconscious. We are able to navigate our communication and thoughts at lightning speed thanks to symbols.

You could make the argument that the dream world is all symbolic. When we are dreaming, the unconscious expresses its desires to us through symbols. Though we may not immediately understand what our dream imagery means to us, noticing it and thinking about why it holds personal meaning can open us up to lessons and wisdom from the unconscious, both collective and personal. Building a personal vocabulary of dream symbols can make our dreaming practice more fluent and rewarding.

Most of us have awakened from a dream and wondered, What did it mean? as if there were an external repository of dream symbol interpretations that were objectively true for everyone. And there is merit to the idea that many symbols operate on a macro level as widely accepted cultural tropes or memes, or as part of a collective unconscious. Falling, being chased, and teeth falling out are some of the more common dream images. Such images may or may not reflect parts of the collective psyche in the form of archetypal expressions. But in fact, there is no need for anyone to interpret what your dream means other than you. It is your own perspective on your dream images that helps you understand their meaning.

Jungian dream analysis is an excellent starting point for anyone who is trying to understand this process. Carl Jung himself interacted with his own dreams. He knew that every aspect of a dream, even something seemingly unimportant, is an expression of the psyche. His method of active imagination allows us to bridge our conscious and subconscious states and more actively (as the term suggests) engage in meaningful dialogue with our dreams.

Jung proposed that dream symbols are expressions of complexes and archetypes, universally defined human characteristics. Characters who present themselves in dreams often serve as archetypal expressions; their hair, eyes, clothing, personality, size, stature, language, and more may have symbolic meaning. By interacting with these symbols, we can affect how we experience the dream, alter the dream environment altogether, and, most importantly, acquire knowledge and understanding well past what we think is possible.

One key concept at the center of Jung’s ideas and methods—a point that new oneirologists can easily lose sight of—is that we communicate with the unconscious through symbols. Without them, dream interpretation is a dead end. When we receive information from the unconscious through symbols, we can bring those symbols from the dreamscape into the 3D world. We can also communicate to the unconscious through understanding those symbols. This deep conversation is where the magic of lucid dreaming happens.

BRINGING DREAM SYMBOLS TO LIFE

One powerful way to work with dream symbols is to introduce them into your waking environment. An item from a dream that keeps you company during the day goes from being a fleeting image to being a presence in your life, giving you the physical time and space to contemplate it and for the symbol to work in your unconscious. I’ll give you an example of how this works from my own practice.

I once dreamed there was a panda in my room. Since I don’t typically encounter pandas in my room, it felt significant, as if that panda—whatever it symbolized—had some reason to be there. So I made a clay panda and set it on my bedside table. A few days later, I had a lucid dream in which a man showed up. He had a dark patch around his eye, as if he’d been in a fight, and dark and light patches of hair. I asked, “Are you a panda?” He said he was, and I proceeded to ask him some questions about dreams and reality.

To do this for yourself, simply notice which symbols in your dreams feel significant. You don’t need to be able to explain them right away—in fact, things that feel puzzling or intriguing, that inspire curiosity or just seem odd, may be ripe for the kind of slow unfolding that can happen with this practice.

The next step is to give the symbol a physical form. The options here are nearly endless, but here are some ideas:

• Write a word from your dream, using lettering and colors that feel relevant. Make it big and put it on a wall or the fridge, or make it small and carry it in your pocket.
• Draw or paint a picture, or take a photograph. Keep it by your bedside, or hang it on a wall.
• Make a representation of your dream image with clay, paper, or other material.
• Find a toy or model—a boat, a car, a spaceship, a doll—that resembles your dream symbol.
• Make use of ordinary objects that have been elevated to a place of significance by imitating their dream context. For example, if a pencil or coffee cup was floating in air in a dream, you might hang its real-world counterpart from a string or a hook.
• Collect objects you find in nature, such as rocks, leaves, or sand. Place them in a display case or place of honor in your bedroom.

Physical items don’t necessarily have to be handmade, but there does seem to be something about the physical creative act that strengthens the symbol’s connections between conscious and unconscious. Whatever you choose, the important thing is to raise your awareness that the symbol holds a part of you that has its own consciousness, and to invite that symbol to communicate with you.

You can also introduce symbols and concepts from the waking world that you want to explore in lucid dreams. The technique for this is similar to working with physical symbols that originate in dreams, but now the symbols come from the conscious, awake you. Some possibilities for generating symbols:

• If there’s an idea you want to work with, distill it into one or two words, such as creativity or purpose. Recite it as a mantra, write it several times in a journal each day, or make it into a poster to meditate on.
• Find or create an image or object that symbolizes a significant event, idea, or feeling. Meditate on it, and invite your unconscious to help you discern its meaning for you.
• Decide that the sound of a bell in your dream will cue an important insight or feeling that you need. Select a bell (chime, bicycle ringer, or other instrument), and keep it in a designated place. Before starting your lucid dreaming practice each night, ring the bell.
• Follow your intuition. This may be the most important and most effective technique. Simply notice what objects or images call to you, and then welcome them into your space, no matter how incongruous or random they may seem. When you prepare to lucid dream, ask the symbol to come with you into your dreams, and then ask your unconscious what it has to tell you about the symbol.

When you start meditating on a symbol—and simply introducing it to your reality is a way to meditate—you tell your unconscious to join in the dialogue about it. It may soon show up in a dream, where you can identify the symbol and draw out more information.

When creating your own lucid dreaming symbols, remember that a symbol doesn’t need to be an object or image. It can be a word, a sound, a color—virtually anything can serve as a personal symbol as long as it has emotional meaning for you. Peer into your mind and memory, and find something valuable to you that you identify with and that you connect with the message you’re trying to hear. Here’s an example of a lucid experience I had after I’d been focusing on the words higher self for a while:

I become aware that I’m dreaming, and in my dream I yell, “Higher self!” I find myself on the moon. On the moon, there is a mirror, and I look at myself. The message feels clear to me. I become aware that my “higher self” is simply myself; I just have to look within.

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Lucid dreaming is, at its heart, a practice of the imagination. It puts us in direct contact with the heady idea that our dreams are as real as waking life, and that waking life is as much a product of imagination as our dreams are. So in order for the whole practice to work, you have to believe the symbols will work. If doubt is proving to be a stumbling block in your work with dream symbols, there are a few ways to get around it.

First and probably most important is to feel a real connection to whatever symbol you decide to work with. This applies no matter how personal or mundane the symbol is. There are plenty of esoteric symbols only an internet search away that look cool or have amazing stories attached to them. But will they work for you? Considering Jung’s observation of the collective unconscious character of some symbols, along with his theory of synchronicity, a glyph you find in a seemingly random search may indeed have something to teach you. But it is not something you need to give much weight to. A symbol doesn’t need to be esoteric, impress anyone else, or come at the end of an exhaustive search; it just needs to be vital for you.

One example of a universal symbol that also has profound personal meaning for me is the Ouroboros, a symbol I experienced in the middle of a dream:

. . . and as I lie on the ground, a large creature slides up to me. It opens its mouth, and I recognize that it’s a giant snake. It swallows me whole, and as I go down its throat, the same snake appears and eats me again and again . . .

This dream is laden with meaning. It speaks to the repetitive nature of life, to the possible futility of the continuous search for self-knowledge, and—salient for me personally—the danger of slipping into stagnancy and complacency if I continue to do the same things over and over again.

Symbols are the vocabulary, the grammar, and the language of dreams. When you commit to a lucid dreaming practice, you also commit to learning your mind’s own symbolic language. As you call up more and more symbols for examination, you will increase your facility in navigating your own dreams, improve your meditation practice, and likely begin to have out-of-body experiences. So starting today, make your own symbols. It will introduce you to levels of inner wisdom and strength that you weren’t aware of before.