To dream of a lion.

Archeron

Hi All,
Dont know if this is the right forum for this, but if it is, I'd like to hear your opinions.

Had a dream last night that I was back in an area I lived in as a child. I was my current adult age in the dream. Outside of a house where there used to be a small dog that chased me as a kid(but not in the dream) I encountered what I thought was a young baby lion. I passed by and then thought that perhaps it needed help, and went back to investigate. It turned out to be a small but adult lion (lioness? It had no mane) which then proceeded to attack me. I did overcome it, and walked off. The lion also walked off in a different direction, totally unhurt. I then met my father in my dream and began to tell him of the attack. We both laughed about it and walked on. In real life,my father is alive and currently recovering succesfully from major surgery.

Normally I dont put much, or any thought into my dreams, but I have a lot of bad sh*t happening in my life right now, and I have an awful lot of doubt about the future in my mind and wonder if this dream might have some significance.
thanks

6th

HAve to say the best person to interpret your dreams is you, there is no generic meaning for any elements of a dream.

Maybe you should tell us what you think it means, maybe by writting it down you'll get a bteer understanding of it?

Dream interpretation seems to be getting very popular on here and kinda makes me think there should be a psychology forum ... if there isnt all ready?

dr zoidberg

If dreams have any meaning at all then I see no reason why it would require someone else to interpret them. If they are supposed to be symbolic to give you a message it makes no sense that the brain would use symbols that you couldn't understand. So try to interpret things yourself if you believe that dreams are messages of some kind.

dublin6th wrote:

Dream interpretation seems to be getting very popular on here and kinda makes me think there should be a psychology forum ... if there isnt all ready?

There is a psychology forum here, but believe it or not psychology is a science and has nothing to do with dream interpretation any more. Freud's theories are basically ignored because they are impossible to test and psychology is a science as stringent as any other, so it has moved on from them.

Archeron

dr zoidberg wrote:

So try to interpret things yourself if you believe that dreams are messages of some kind..

Frankly I dont. I was just interested in hearing opinions of people who may actually know a lot more on this subject than I do. I know that many people are into the whole symbolism/hidden messages in dreams thing, and its those people that I hoped would read my post. This particular forum does seem to have a lot of readers with very open minds, and it was to that level of open mindedness and alternative suggestion that I was appealing. If you ask me, it means nothing except that I watched the Lion King too many times, but thats why I asked for other peoples opinions. As i mention, I never pay attention to my dreams at all, I just thought that if I wanted to get an opinion or idea as to what this COULD mean from people who are knowledgable in this area, that this may be the correct forum to do just that. Oh well, you live and learn......

Dublin6th, thanks for your suggestions, I just thought I'd throw this thread out and see what happened. If you dont feel its relevant, please feel free to deleticus maximus.

Kernel

I don't think there's anything paranormal about dreams... maybe there should be a dreams forum , or perhaps it would be better off in psychology?

stevenmu

I'd echo what 6th said about interpreting dreams yourself, but just to get you started there are 2 obvious interpretations.

One is that fighting off the lion symbolises your father making it through the surgery ok. The other is that the lion symbolises the worry you felt before it, and now that your father's ok, you've beaten it off. Either way it seems to me that it symbolises winning some kind of struggle. This could tie in with you saying that you've a lot of worry and doubt about the future, it could be your subconcious' way of letting you know things will be ok.

There are websites like dreammoods that can help analyse your dreams, but they're just a general guide, it's much more important to take your own circumstances and intuition into account.

Zillah

My completely unparanormal interpretation:

The lion represents your father's stength and pride, the kind of way a child would see a father. When he was sick and having surgery he became a less strong and less protective figure, in essence, his formerly reassuring fatherly role became a source of worry and stress, it was something he was losing. This is why the lion attacks you in your dream. But, your father is recovering from the surgery now, so you overcome your fight with the lion and speak to your father, you both laugh and all is well. I wouldn't be suprised if you had some positive dreams about lions soon

dr zoidberg

Kernel wrote:

I don't think there's anything paranormal about dreams... maybe there should be a dreams forum , or perhaps it would be better off in psychology?

:mad: Aaargh! (unless you were being sarcastic)

Me, 2 posts before wrote:

psychology is a science and has nothing to do with dream interpretation any more.

---

Archeron wrote:

...I was just interested in hearing opinions of people who may actually know a lot more on this subject than I do.

Fair enough Archeron I'm not much use so.

6th

dr zoidberg wrote:

psychology is a science and has nothing to do with dream interpretation any more.

Really says who?

If you google it its seems to be in that field all right. It may not be an area of ground breaking research but its definately psychology. If fact if you can tell me where a reliable source can back you up I'd be very surprised.

Oh and if it doesnt go under psychology (which it does), where does it belong?

dr zoidberg

Well the bulk of research as always within a conservative science focusses on a few areas of interest and niche areas get little to no funding. Of course there is research into dreaming, but there are no definite answers, and the days of Sigmund Freud are long over. I believe that dream interpretation is more suited to the paranormal forum since it is often (possibly incorrectly) associated with the idea that dreams are messages from an external force.

The current position in psychology is

"We still do not know whether the particular topics we dream about are somehow related to the functions that dreams serve or whether the purposes of REM sleep are fulfilled by the physiological changes in the brain regardless of the plots of our dreams. Given that we do not now for sure why we dream, this uncertainty is not surprising."

p350 of
Carlson, N.R., Buskist, W. & Martin, G.N. 2004
Psychology. 2nd European Edition. Essex: Pearson

So it would hardly be a great suggestion for psychologists to interpret your dreams when we can't even decide whether they have meaning or not. Granted my reaction was a bit over-zealous but I'm studying psychology and am sick of people assuming that Freud is relevant today, when the days in which psychologists interpreted dreams and took his concepts as unequivocally correct are long gone.

WalkswithDeath

as a child your biggest worry was walking by that dog. i believe the loin is every thing that is going wrong for you right now. you fought against it and over came your fear .
i think this is what your dream is tell you don't worry about whats going wrong now it will soon pass and some day you will look back and laugh about it