Image Fifty-Nine: 1st August 2003. Photo by Michael Collins
Pigs
Feeling The Picture
Your feeling reactions to a dream are keys to its interpretation. These are my feelings. If this were a scene in your dream or life, how would you feel about being there?
The blue jumpers render a feeling of calm and stability, bright sky-blue punctuating a busy, tied-up image. It is the blue that jumps out at me first. The crowd gives me a feeling of busyness and a certain amount of potential disorder. Strangely the pigs, even though they are in the foreground and the most unexpected component of this image, register last for me. The feeling I get from the pigs is one of being trained (through the ropes), like dogs on leashes. Not really tied-up, after all, but learning. Finally I get a feeling that this learning is being inspired by the sky-blue calm while the sky-blue is stable because it is anchored by the discipline of learning. The overall feeling is balance en route to somewhere.
The Symbols
Symbols in your dreams often relate to your personal memories and associations, so always consider those first. Then let your mind play with other, more general possibilities. They will not all apply! Just open your mind and notice where the symbol seems to fit and make sense of the rest of your dream.
Animals generally represent your own (animal) instincts, according to how you view the animal. What, do you feel, are the instincts of a pig? The instinct to find treasure in dirt? A confusion of natural instincts tamed by domestication?
Always consider dream puns and word plays. Selfish pig, greedy pig, male chauvinist pig, pig in the middle, happy as a pig in shit, pig in a poke and so on.
Pigs feature in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, both of which provide rich symbolism for dreams because we meet them at such a young age. They become embedded in our psyche. Your dream pig may be one of the Three Little Pigs (who learned about building wolf-proof homes) or he may be 'this little piggy' who 'wandered all the way home'.
Pigs, in many cultures, form dowries, so may symbolise wealth, self-value or emotional prices paid or demanded.
Ropes may symbolise what is tied or restrained or may represent guidance, what is being trained. Or maybe you feel you have been 'roped in' to something. The ropes in this picture look interconnected, or web-like. In a dream they may symbolise connections, or working together as a whole, perhaps.
If the people in your dream are people you know, they represent your own beliefs, feelings and issues. The people in this image are obviously all South American. If this were your dream, what would South America evoke for you? Perhaps you lived there once and the dream image takes you back to relate today with those times so that you can understand how your past is affecting your present.
Or perhaps you see this group of people dressed in traditional clothing as representing a cohesive unit, the values of tradition or society values. Are you working within a social group? Is this a nurturing environment for you or are you feeling, perhaps like the pigs, restrained?
The Questions
Here are some questions the dreamer of such a dream picture might ask to work towards a complete understanding of the dream.
Try these yourself: just give your 'gut reaction' answers to the questions - your answers will surprise you in the insights they deliver. The key thing to remember is, "Don't THINK about your answers - give quick gut reaction replies". Your unconscious will deliver.
If this process can work powerfully for this image, consider how infinitely more powerful the insights are when the image comes from one of your own dreams - direct from your unconscious!
- Why are these people gathered here?
- Why are you here?
- Who is in charge?
- Why is everyone standing?
- What is the event?
- Has the main purpose of the event taken place yet?
- Is anyone waiting?
- If so, what are they waiting for?
- Is the white pig waiting?
- If so, what for?
- What would the people do if the white pig broke free of the ropes?
- What would happen if the black pig also broke free of the ropes?
- What problem situation would arise if the pigs were not tied up?
- Why would this be a problem?
- Would the problem exist for the people, the pigs or both?
- What would be the positives of untying the pigs?
- Look at your answer to Q2. What situation in your current waking life does this remind you of?
- Look at your answer to Q10. What situation in your current waking life does this remind you of?
- Look at your answer to Q11. Does this outcome remind you of a situation in your waking life or of a possible future situation?
- Look at your answer to Q14. Who stands to benefit most: the pigs or the people?
- Why?
- Look at your answer to Q21. What waking life situation does this remind you of?
- Look at your answer to Q16. How does this help you to see your waking life situation in a different light?
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Quotes from Jane Teresa's book, Dream Alchemy, combined with Michael's photographic images, for you to frame.
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Photographic images set to Jane Teresa's dream insights.
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