Caring for My Instincts

 Last week I had a dream which I want to share with you.  Here is what I recorded in my dream journal:

I discover a scheme to give animal drugs to people.  I am at an unknown house or building and I explore an area which I have not been in before.  There are seven unknown men sitting on a couch, I realize they are being given prescriptions for drugs intended to be used on animals that they will use on themselves.  The person issuing the prescriptions is an unknown man who is a veterinarian.  He is doing this illegally,

 I find this dream to be interesting initially as I have not dreamed a similar dream that I was aware of.  I found it to be particularly interesting when I heard a few days ago that animal drugs are being touted by some people as a cure for COVID-19.  A drug, ivermectin, intended for use to treat parasites in animals, was being recommended on social media including a cable network I won’t name (it has the name of an animal coincidentally) are being modern snake oil salesmen and saleswomen and are promoting it as a cure for COVID.  The overworked and overtaxed medical systems in some States are now having to deal with cases of poisoning in patients who have taken the drug.

I could treat this dream, at least on one level, as premonitory i.e., it foretold this future event of people being persuaded to take drugs intended for animals in this time of COVID. This could be on the level of the collective conscious. The dream does seem to be dealing with this particular scenario.  This, of course, could happen, and probably has at other times.  However, it is interesting that it happened in proximity to the reported event.  So, I won’t dismiss the possibility that the source of the dreams was sending me this message.  However, dreams do operate on more than one level, so I want to explore another message it might be carrying to me, the dreamer.

First, let’s look at the association we can have with animals in dreams.  There is general agreement among people working with dreams from the perspective of Carl Jung, that animals in dreams have an association with instincts.  So, on that basis, my dream can possibly be saying that the men in the dream – who are aspects of me - are being given drugs or aids that will help my instincts.  It is notable that all the people in the dream are masculine, therefore it can be understood that the masculine aspect of my psyche needs assistance or help to assist me in putting my relationship to my instincts on a healthier basis.  The number seven is also notable i.e., the seven men waiting in the office to be given the prescriptions.  Numbers in dreams can have meaning or significance as can all dream contents.  Consulting the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, which is a good reference source, the number seven can relate to completeness or wholeness.  It can also relate to beginning a new cycle after one has been completed.  I can take from this that the dream might have the message that I will need to work consciously on relating to my instincts to have a more complete relationship within my psyche. 

I hope that this rather brief exploration of one of my dreams will give you a taste of how dreams can inform the dreamer of aspects of their inner life that are not conscious to them.  One of the principles of dreams is that they come in aid of the health and wholeness of the dreamer.

May you be blessed with many dreams on your journey.