Written by Barbara Platek
Friday, 29 April 2011
Jungian analyst Barbara Platek explores the ways the appearance of animals in the dreams of women evokes the power and potency of the deep feminine and its connection to body and instinct. This article was originally published inPsychological Perspectivesin 2008.
Instinct As Guide: Animals in Women's Dreams
by Barbara Platek
And so it is Goldilocks who goes to the home of the three bears, Little Red Riding Hood who converses with the wolf, Dorothy who befriends a lion, Snow White who talks to the birds, Cinderella with mice as her allies, the Mermaid who is half fish. (And when we hear in the Navaho chant of the mountain that a grown man sits and smokes with bears and follows directions given to him by squirrels, we are surprised. We had thought only little girls spoke with animals.)
--Susan Griffin,Woman and Nature
Not long ago I found myself growing increasingly alert to the presence of animals in women's dreams (my own included). I began to notice, for example, that my clients (predominantly female) would often bring an animal dream to session within a short while after beginning therapy. Perhaps there was something in our initial interactions that gave rise to these dreams, I am not sure. I do know, however, that there was often a palpable hush that fell over my therapy office as we strained to catch site of whatever creature--bear, cat, horse--was slipping silently through psyche's terrain.
I decided to follow my attraction to dream animals by collecting dreams of women that featured animals in some way. I placed no restriction upon the dreams--though I did ask for those that especially moved, awed, touched, or inspired. In each case, I found the dreams, and ensuing conversations, profoundly stirring on a number of levels. I was reminded again and again that the appearance of animals in dreams carries power and numinosity. Perhaps most striking to me was the fact that each of us often reacted to the dream conversation as though we had encountered a real presence--a living animal--with its own guiding intelligence and energy.
I believe that there is something about encountering our own nature in dreams--as imaged through animal form--that can stop us in our tracks, causing our senses to become alive and alert, much like real-life encounters in the outdoors. I agree with James Hillman that "animals wake up the imagination. You see a deer on the side of the road, or geese flying in formation, and you become hyper alert. I've found that animal dreams can do that, too. They really wake people up. Animal dreams provoke their feelings, get them thinking, interested and curious."
Several years ago, while sitting at the water's edge in Mendocino, California, my daughter and I were startled by the sudden appearance of an otter popping its sleek, furry head up from the waves not 10 feet from where we sat. The feeling was much like that described by Hillman: a sense of encounter, of visitation, which for a moment brings awareness of continuity and connection with that mysterious realm we call nature. In that split second encounter, a corresponding note was sounded within my soul: I felt myself to be immediately and unquestionably alive. I believe that much the same experience occurs when we meet animals in our dreams.
Animal dreams can refund our sense of participation in embodied life. They can show us where we have gone astray--as when we seem to fall into disharmony with a particular animal. They can also remind us of instincts and powers we already possess or could bring into being if only we would trust our animal-like nature. Animal dreams seem to communicate something from the ancient vestiges of our functioning on earth--all the head knowledge in the world can't match the sheer vibrancy and power of our own animal. Or, as Jung once said: "The instincts are a far better protection than all the intellectual wisdom in the world."
In speaking with women about their animal dreams, I found, almost without exception, that they took these dreams extremely seriously. It was as if some part of them knew, without necessarily having ever read Jung or a dream book, that contact with their own animal life mattered--that paying attention to the animal, in whatever manner they could (in imagination, art work, body movement, journal exploration) was vital to their health and well-being. Like the shaman or those on a native vision quest, these women for whom turtle or horse or duck came to visit seemed to sense the importance and honor of the encounter.
Animal Healing
One of the great fortunes in my life has been the ability to live in the woods. My house, tucked in a pine forest and overlooking a pond, has large glass windows through which I often catch site of deer, chipmunk, squirrel, and woodchuck. Their activity mirrors my own: As I cook dinner, I can see deer sipping water at the pond's edge; as I clean my living room, I notice squirrels collecting nuts for the coming winter; and perhaps most magical of all, as I feel shifts of consciousness in myself, I sometimes catch a glimpse of blue heron alighting on the pond or small red fox skipping across the front yard.
That I am able to live so close to nature is especially poignant to me, as I have lived so much of my life feeling disconnected from my own rhythms and instincts. I am keenly aware that my desire to explore women's animal dreams is intimately linked to a desire to find some deeper connection to my own nature. It is as if, in experiencing animals in dreams, I am also glimpsing the possibility that the power of nature--that which our ancestors experienced under the open night sky--still exists both within and without my own life.
I am reminded that Jung built himself a tower, in part to be alone with nature--to gather wood for a fire on which to cook, to take long walks in the woods, to carve images in stone and play at the water's edge. These moments of dipping into the stream of natural life seem to help heal the effects of a fragmented, overly technology-driven life. They remind us that we are part of a far bigger reality than that shown on television or transmitted across the Internet.