INTERPRETATION
What do you see as the attitude of a crocodile? Different people will answer that question in different ways, but it’s how you, the dreamer, answer that matters. My guess is that you’ll say something like, ‘snappy, don’t-mess-with-me’. I guess this from your dream, as you will see.
Animals in dreams tend to represent your instincts, your gut responses to life. When your way of life feels threatened, your survival instincts kick in.
At the beginning of your dream, you’re on a small boat on a river, but this is no pleasure sail. You’re in dangerous waters, you’re feeling vulnerable, and you’re getting really angry. Which situation in your life feels like this? Which situation, perhaps normally pleasant, suddenly feels dangerous, leaving you feeling vulnerable and increasingly angry, perhaps even a little ‘don’t-mess-with-me’?
You may not be showing your anger, and you may not be showing your vulnerability. In fact, quite the opposite – you may be trying to remain calm and considerate, trying not to ‘rock the boat’, trying not to let any feelings of anger consume you. You may be trying to be strong, not letting feelings of vulnerability be what you see as your downfall.
Most likely, in the two days leading up to this dream, you were in a state of conflict, feeling a bit of all of the above, struggling between feelings of strength and vulnerability, between calm and anger, between being considerate and ‘rocking the boat’, between staying on top and falling in deep.
Water in dreams tends to represent your emotions. Are you working through some emotional matters at the moment, experiencing the kinds of conflicts outlined above?
At the time of this dream your crocodile instincts were kicking in. The attitudes you chose to describe a crocodile also describe the instincts kicking in for you right now. I’m going to assume you see a crocodile’s attitude as something like ‘snappy, don’t-mess-with-me’, because you were “getting really angry” (snappy) and didn’t want Gracie to touch and pat the crocodiles (don’t-mess-with-me) in the dream.
This dream suggests that when you feel vulnerable and threatened, anger comes up, and your instinct is to be snappy and a bit don’t-mess-with-me-or-I’ll-bite. Can you recognise this basic instinct within yourself?
The rational part of your being will be working hard to deny this, to deny the anger and stay calm, to deny the don’t-mess-with-me and stay considerate. But calm and considerate only work if you first understand why you feel vulnerable, if you first understand why you feel threatened, if you first acknowledge feelings of anger, of a survival instinct to snap. Once you recognise these things, you can understand them, make peace with them, overcome them, and move on. All the while you do not recognise these things you’re sailing in dangerous territory, liable to fall prey to your own anger (fall into crocodile water), liable to be consumed by your own anger (eaten by crocodile).
Gracie in your dream isn’t Gracie your girlfriend, though this may feel like the interpretation to you. Gracie is your female side, your emotional side, the part of yourself that wants to be in ‘touch’ with your anger, to reach out and feel (pat) your emotions rather than glide over the surface of them. It’s likely that Gracie, your girlfriend, is also encouraging you to get more in touch with your emotions, and you may feel your dream is more about Gracie rocking your relationship boat, or your fear of losing her if you show your vulnerability. Indeed you may be fearful of Gracie rocking your relationship boat and you may fear losing her if you show your vulnerability, but it’s far more meaningful and helpful in the long run to see that this dream is about YOU and your fears about getting in touch with your anger and feelings of vulnerability.
In your dream you were “getting really angry” at Gracie “for wanting to” touch the crocodiles. Translated, this suggests you are getting really angry with yourself for wanting to get in touch with your anger, fears and instincts. No wonder you’re in emotional conflict. You want to get in touch with your emotions but you’re also really angry with yourself for wanting this.
The thing to notice, above all, is that you fear that if you get in touch with your snappiness, your instincts, you’ll ‘fall’ and be ‘eaten up’ – be swallowed up by your instincts and emotions, never to surface again. But this is far from the truth – salvation comes from facing your fears, exploring your instincts and emotions, and then, in self-awareness, rising above them.
Don’t let your fears and anger eat you up inside. Don’t let your fears become a self-fulfilling prophecy (in the dream you said, “I kept telling her …”). The best inner strength is a balance point midway between total vulnerability and don’t-mess-with-me inflexibility. Access it through self-awareness.
DREAM ALCHEMY PRACTICE
Visualisation:
Visualise leaning over the side of the small boat back in the dream. Look a crocodile in the eye – eye to eye (I to I). It’s safe to do this, because this is a visualisation and you are in control of what happens next. As you look the crocodile in the eye, see his soft side and feel his anger evaporate because he now knows that you know that he feels snappy when he’s feeling vulnerable. It’s like you’re seeing right through him. In fact, in this visualisation you see so far through him that he simply disappears along with all the other crocodiles. And they will never return. They are gone, evaporated along with the anger. Visualise yourself now on the boat on a calm river, relaxed and enjoying the sail.
How often to do this:
Do this visualisation 20 times a day for a week, ten times a day for the second week and twice a day for the next month.
How does this work?
This practice ensures that change occurs for you in the best possible way – a positive healing transformation. Your dream expressed your waking life situation using dream language – the language of your unconscious mind. By reliving the dream with changes, or by transforming one of the dream symbols (or by reliving and intensifying the dream in the case of a dream with a positive ending) you are using vision and feeling to reprogram your unconscious beliefs.
Jane Teresa Anderson
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