Animals in Dreams

As far as anyone can tell, we humans have been dreaming for as long as we have been walking on two legs -- a million years at least, maybe two, maybe three. Even when our knuckles were still dragging on the ground, we were probably dreaming.

The entire course of human development has been thoroughly interspersed with dreams. For all of us, waking life emerges -- every day -- out of the prior background of dreams, just as the sun rises from nocturnal depths to create the world anew. This is the primordial experience, the basic fact of life on our spinning planet: out of our darkest animal origins comes a divine stirring, a creative movement toward the light.

As if to underscore the point, the Indo-European, Greek and Latin words for “day” are etymologically related to the word for “God” -- theos, deus, dios, día. The root idea is sun, sky, brilliance, shining. When baboons on the plains of Africa stop their chattering and gamboling to gather at daybreak and watch the sunrise, we know that something of primal importance is happening.

The human psyche differentiated itself slowly, and only partially, from its animal antecedents. We never really left the animals behind. At every level we bear physical and behavioral traces of our animal ancestors. Even our brains are built around a reptilian core.

For countless millenia we have lived in the presence of animals, to the extent that life on earth is inconceivable without them: We eat them, live with them, sleep with them, work with them, seek them as companions. We study them, breed them, train them, run from them, hunt them, wage war against them. We sacrifice them in religious and cultural rituals. We mourn and weep for them when they die. We mount their heads and hides on our walls as trophies, wear their skins and furs for warmth and elegance, fashion their teeth into jewelry, imitate their mating dances and calls, borrow their power. We name football teams after them (the Cougars, Lions, and Tigers) and invoke them to sell cars (the Impala, Jaguar and Mustang).

No wonder we all dream of animals.

The Garden of Eden

One way to think about their function and value in our dreams is to look at the Garden of Eden myth. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden for having developed conscious knowledge of the difference between good and evil, which shattered their state of oneness with God. In other words, consciousness -- the original human sin -- gave us God-like potentials, but it also broke our primordial state of fusion with the divine impulse. In that sense we resemble “fallen angels.”

The animals, however, never were cast out of Eden. Even today, they live on in their original state, in the unbroken circle of oneness with God. Human consciousness made us aware of our separateness from the animals and from God, but the presence and ubiquity of the animals reminds us not to stray too far from the divine roots of our being, not to get too strung out on our hubris. The animals are living reminders -- if only we pay attention -- that the cosmos does not belong to us, we belong to the cosmos.

Animals come to us in our dreams, then, carrying something of our lost, divine origins. At the evolutionary, biological level, we designate those animal origins as instinctual and physical. But on another level, those same animals, out of whom we originate, are spiritual beings who connect us to the creative mystery of all life, what we call “the Divine.”

Animals as Angels

In order to enlarge the language with which we discuss our dreams, and extend the range of our imagining in the process, I propose an unconventional way of regarding animals in dreams.

Try thinking of them as angels.

This is not so far-fetched as it might first seem. After all, the traditional way of representing an angel is to take a human figure and attach animal wings to it. Wings give an extra dimension to the human, suggesting an ability to transcend normal human limits -- to fly to heaven, as it were. In short, wings symbolize the power of the spirit.

The fusion of human and animal attributes in angel imagery suggests that, in some mysterious way, the two realms of being are actually one. For thousands of years this kind of symbolism has gone unquestioned: If you want to represent something spiritual, put wings on it. Or, to put it differently, if you want to show the transcendent potentials of the human spirit, then re-connect the human with its animal foundation, since they spring from one and the same mysterious source.

The animal belongs to that part of us that never was separated from the Divine. As such, it can be taken -- at least occasionally -- as a symbol of the state of Wholeness, or the potential for it. In that respect the dream-animal can serve as an index of your relationship to God or, in Jungian terms, your relationship to the Self.

From this perspective, it would be a matter of no small importance how the animal is disposed toward you, and especially you toward it. In any event, if an animal approaches you in your dream, you can assume it is trying get your attention. And if you stumble upon the animal in its own dream precincts, there is a good chance you are out of your normal depth, and a habitual ego response to the animal will probably prove inadequate.

We should not forget that, even if a dream-animal seems to oppose or threaten us in some way, it may still be bringing a “message” from the greater Self. This is what angels do -- they communicate between the greater and the lesser, between the divine and the human, as necessary links between the parts of a whole. In a way, the animal itself is the message. By its very presence it says, “Beware. You are close to something greater than yourself. If you follow me, you will be close to the Source.” Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said “He who is near unto me is near unto the fire.”

When Freud spoke of the “navel of the dream,” he was referring to a point in dreams where the trail of interpretable associations disappears, giving way to the unknown depths. Animals could often be said to produce a similar “navel” effect. If you dream that a bear stands on the path you are traveling, and you stop in your tracks because your fear of it blocks your progress, the bear is still your connection, the navel, that leads to whatever lies deeper in the dream, beyond the bear, on the other side of your fear: the end of the path, the goal.

It is not surprising that so many dreamers report animals that are chasing after them, since the dream-ego habitually flees, trying to stay ahead of the animal, leaving it no recourse but to follow behind, to pursue. The tendency to put oneself first, always ahead of the Other, is one of the ways the ego obstructs itself on the path to its own integration, its own taste of Wholeness. Jung said it well: “There is a greater person in yourself to whom you bar the way.”

The Angel’s Demands

A woman in her forties, a practicing artist, had a long-standing fascination with bears. She was talented but self-effacing, with a natural humility approaching saintliness. Bear motifs haunted her work, as if the bear was insisting on something, through its own representation in her work.

One night she dreamed that she was sitting at a small table. Across from her sat a large bear, on a chair. The bear wore eye-glasses, and had a stack of papers on the table in front of him. He was reading to her from the papers, reciting a list of demands. Among them were “money, fame, and beautiful women.” (End of dream.)

I am well aware that various interpretations could be applied to this dream and to the image of the bear. But let’s follow my suggestion and provisionally regard the bear as an “angel.” What do we notice? What can we learn?

First point. Notice that the bear wants something from her. She doesn’t present a list of demands to the bear, the bear presents a list of demands to her. This establishes a gradient wherein the demand conveyed by the animal/spiritual presence within -- the “angel” -- impinges upon the human ego. The implication is that we live our lives, not for the satisfaction of the ego and its desires, but to fulfill the larger, prior need of the angel. This, of course, violates our modern conceit that everything exists for the ego’s pleasure.

French Islamic scholar Henri Corbin (1) provides a valuable clue when he says: “The angel’s individuation comes first, then ours.” If our angel cannot individuate because of the way we are living our lives, then how can we ourselves possibly expect to individuate? Jung gives voice to nearly the same insight when he says: “Become the person you have always been.” In both cases, something eternal longs for fulfillment in time.

In other words, the angel pertains to the eternal features of our soul, which hunger for embodiment and expression. If we dither our life away without taking the angel’s demands into account, can we really hope to reach anything approaching wholeness? If we remain trapped in our fragmentary egos, how can we approximate the Self? The angel seeks us out, presents us with its demands, and challenges us to become who we are, in the deepest sense. It practically begs us to breach the defensive walls of the ego and extend ourselves further into our own depths, where we are out of our league. But that is precisely where the animal will be in a position to serve us as tutor and guide.

This usually terrifies the ego, of course, because our culture has lost sight of these truths. And so we run from the bear. What can it do but pursue us?

Second point. Notice that the bear is wearing spectacles, sits in a chair, can read, and speaks English. The spectacles draw attention to the the bear’s ability to see us and to read the situation. The whole ensemble -- spectacles, chair, papers, speech -- tells us that the “angel” is capable of reaching consciousness, and therefore that it can serve as a bridge between the ego and the deeper regions of the soul.

Because we can -- potentially -- perceive the angel as an object of our waking consciousness, we can also imagine establishing a communicative rapport with it, if only we are willing. Corbin refers to this indispensible willingness in a description of the moment when the angel stands ready and available to lead the seeker to “heaven.” At that crucial, culminating point, the angel says: “If thou wilt, follow me.”

Corbin also points out that to connect with the angel requires a certain solitude, a stripping away of collective attitudes, which are personified in the form of two “companions” that accompany the seeker, dogging him wherever he goes. These constant companions are identified as the “irascible and concupiscent appetites.” In other words, to prepare oneself for a fruitful encounter with an angel, one must first give the companions the slip, by letting go of the cultural baggage that creates so much inertia in the soul. Turn away from your quarrelsomeness and anger, your insatiable desires. Empty yourself, open your soul and make yourself available to the angel. Then it may appear.

If, on the other hand, you dream that you are hurriedly trying to catch a taxi, get to an airport, or get to a final exam in time, you will probably not have the presence of mind to follow the animal within, the spirit-guide who nevertheless stands ready to lead you deeper, like Corbin’s angel, if only you will follow it.

Third point. Notice that the bear’s demands call for a development of precisely those qualities which the dreamer, in her innocence, does not identify with consciously. She herself is modest, shy, frugal and unassuming. The bear is calling for a range of qualities opposed to her ego stance. In effect, the bear is calling upon her to reach into her shadow and find some way to pull up the instinctual vitality trapped there. Only then can the bear individuate, and she, as a result, be whole.

The Door of the Shadow

Psychologically speaking, the angel approaches the ego by way of the shadow. This, of course, is the neglected area to which the animal portion of our personality is usually banished. And it means that if we wish to encounter the angel we must be willing to turn around, face our own shadow and somehow come to terms with the animal energies within us. No one who wishes to experience the objective reality of the Self, the ultimate exponent of Wholeness, can escape this narrow passage.

The study of dreams, if it is to be more than an ego-trip, will demand great moral courage on the part of the explorer. Sooner or later the dreams will bring to the surface a conflict between the conscious values of the outwardly adapted ego and the unrealized aims of the deeper personality. Any confrontation with the rejected portions of our personalities, including the angel, requires a great personal sacrifice if it is to be carried out without resorting to violence against oneself.

This task is one of the main obstacles we must surmount if we are to re-vitalize ourselves in depth, both individually and collectively, in our spiritually devastated age. Why else would the hungering angel need to make its demands? But the potential value is worth the cost.

Imagine that you went off in search of a glimpse of the Divine Fire -- the supreme value that the whole world seemingly had lost. Even the merest trace would justify all your efforts. You looked inside yourself, found your dreams and befriended an animal who led you to the central ground of your deepest being. It was there you found a divine spark, your portion of the Original Flame.

Wouldn’t that be worth it?