BIRD

When a pet bird appears in your dream, there are plenty of ways to interpret its visit.

If the bird is chirping or flying, then it may symbolize feelings of happiness, love, joy or harmony. Sometimes it means that a weight will soon be lifted off your shoulders or that you will experience spiritual freedom in the near future. On the other hand, if the bird is starving, injured or dying, this may symbolize feelings of restriction and loneliness in waking life.

If, in your dream, the pet bird is caged or you are trying to put the bird in the cage, this represents feelings of being restricted in some way, being trapped in a relationship or holding back love or affection; if there are good feelings about the caged bird, this may suggest a need to withhold or withdraw love or freedom.

If you set a bird free or a bird escapes in your dreams, this indicates feelings of spiritual, emotional or physical freedom.

Pay attention to the species of pet bird in your dream too, as this may hold a clue to the interpretation. For example, cockatiels, lovebirds, Senegals, red bellies, African grays and pionus parrots generally have a reputation for being quiet birds and their appearance in dreams may suggest a period or introspection and reflection. Cockatoos, on the other hand, have one of the worst reputations for screaming, largely because they require quite a bit of attention and amusement or they clamor for it loudly. Is there an aspect of your personality that is screaming out for more attention? Parrots are born copycats, so is your dreaming mind urging you to be more original or to follow someone else’s example? In dreams, such birds suggest that you are repeating without judgment what others have told you. Are you accepting or copying someone or something in your life without a proper process of evaluation? Alternatively, dream parrots may also symbolize verbosity or the need to express yourself in some way.

Parakeets or budgies can represent a lack of analytical thought or spiritual thinking, whilst finches are a sign of emotional maturity or the need for it. Dreaming of canaries suggests singing and may therefore refer to a joyful emotion. On the other hand, it may reflect your anxieties about being the focus of gossip.

To dream of doves reflects a peaceful nature or condition. The dove is not a pet that often features in dreams, in fact it rarely appears in the dreaming panorama at all, being quite different from pets like cats, dogs and horses that rouse strong emotions. Therefore, if a dove does appear in your dreams, your dreaming mind has conjured up a rare symbol to send you a rare message. In mythology, the dove is the bird with the sweet song that accompanies Venus; it is the symbol of a sweet creature, of a delicate strength. In dreams, pet doves that stay with you not because they have to but because they want to are symbols of a sentiment of deep tenderness, of the sharing of a magic moment that involves the lovers, their soul and their bodies. The dove holds in itself the sweetness of love and the elevation of the spirit, the above and the below, earth and sky. Similar in some ways to the dove is the lovebird; this bird is a symbol of companionship or an appreciation of other people in your life.

Bear in mind too that pet birds are messy creatures; the amount of cleaning they require is the biggest complaint heard from bird owners who are having second thoughts about their pets.

If you are cleaning up the cage of a pet bird in your dream, this may suggest that you have perhaps taken on more responsibility than you can manage in the care of someone else or in some aspect of your life.

(1) A bird may represent the sweet directness and simplicity’ of Nature, unpretentious and contented £is-ness\ In this case, your dream may be telling you w’hat you need to make room for in your life and in your fundamental attitudes. For example, the bird may be seen (or, indeed, heard) as calling you to an uncomplicated but holistic state of being, in which consciousness and body - spirit and matter - are completely attuned. This call will undoubtedly come if consciousness (brain) has become detached from the more primitive or primal layers of being (body, instinct. Nature).

(2) It may be that the bird signifies an entry into, or an invitation to enter, realms of spiritual power (symbolized by the sky). (In religious traditions that focus on a supreme sky-god — as in pre-modem Siberia - there is invariably a shaman, a person who is regarded as maintaining order and well-being in the human community’ and in the individual by maintaining a proper communication between the human wrorld and the spirit world (see also Spirit(s).) The shaman is said to fly - to make contact w ith spirits or the skv-god himself - and his emblem is often a bird, sometimes w orn in the form of a bird-mask.) See also Flying. Shaman.

(3) Because of its association with the shaman figure, a bird may symbolize some energy or function w’ithin your psyche that can bring vou healing or w holeness or balance.

(4) If the bird in the dream is taking wing, ask yourself if you, or some part of you, needs to take wing. Perhaps you are beginning to feel

shackled by circumstances. Perhaps it is a particular component of your unconscious psyche that needs to be given its freedom - that is, accepted into consciousness and incorporated into your (external) life. (Sky is often a symbol of consciousness, contrasted with earth or sea, which may be symbols of the unconscious.)

(5) If the bird is descending from the sky to you, you may need to consider another piece of bird symbolism. In mythology a bird, or a winged god (like the Roman Mercury), may serve as a messenger from the supreme deity. In psychological terms this may mean your dream is letting you know that your unconscious is offering you some great truth, some recipe for your healing, a solution of your problem(s), or the key to a new and fuller life.

Sometimes such a messenger bird is associated with the sun. The sun is a natural symbol of the source of truth (Might’) and of new life.

(6) Possibly, a bird may be a sexual symbol. Freud saw it as a symbol of the male penis; and for men who are accustomed to speaking of attractive women as ‘birds’, a bird in a dream may presumably have sexual meaning.

(7) A black bird, in addition to representing in a general way something in your unconscious, may symbolize the feminine in a negative aspect.

See also Woman.

(8) Carrion birds — vultures, crows, ravens and the like — are associated with death. Dreams do sometimes predict an event in the outside world, but such dreams are rare.

If death is referred to in a dream it is more likely to express your anxiety about death - your own or someone else’s.

Alternatively, the unconscious mav be telling you that some phase of your life, some habitual attachment or negative attitude, has gone on long enough, and the time is ripe for a change. In other words, the dream is calling for the death of something within you, to make way for a new development in your life and / or in your personality.

See also Vulture.

If one sees a bird diving toward him in a dream, it means a journey.

If one sees him standing over his head, or over his shoulders, or sitting in his lap in a dream, it denotes one’s work or profession. Ifthe bird is white in the dream, it means that one’s work is clean, Ifhis color is tanned in the dream, it means that one’s work is tainted.

If a male bird sits in the lap ofa pregnant woman in a dream, it means that she will beget a boy.

If a female bird sits in her lap in a dream, it means that she will beget a girl. Large or predatory birds in a dream represent kings, presidents, leaders, tyrants, men of knowledge or merchants. Water birds, sea gulls, etcetera, represent honorable people who rose in rank in two spheres, the sphere of water and that of the air. They also could mean ajourney.

If they quack in the dream, they represent lamentingor crying. Singingbirds in a dream represent musicians and singers.

To see a flock of birds in a dream means money and power and particularly for someone who tends them or cares for them. Seeing birds flying over one’s head means gaining authority and power.

If one sees birds flying inside his house or shop in a dream, it means angels.

If a bird flies into one’s hand in a dream, it means glad tidings.

A bird in a dream also means work.

An unknown bird in a dream means a warning, an advice or an admonition.

If one’s bird looks beautiful in a dream, it denotes the quality of his work.

If one sees himself in a dream carrying an ugly looking bird, it also denotes the quality of his actions or that a messenger may bring him good news.

An unknown bird means profits.

To see black colored birds in a dream denote bad deeds, while white colored birds represent good deeds. Colored birds in a dream represent mixed actions. Seeing a bird in a dream also could mean honor, power, authority ornament or profits.

A bird in a dream also represents a fun and a most entertaining companion.

A bird in a dream also represents a boy.

If one slaughters a bird in his dream, it means that he will beget a child who will live in sickness during his childhood and that his father will fear for his death.

It is said that a bird in a dream also represents a rich and a tricky leader who constantly fights for his earnings and to insure his success or superiority. Abird in a dream also represents a beautiful woman.

The singing of birds in a dream means hearing good words or receiving a valuable knowledge.

A flock of birds in a dream represents easy earned wealth.

A bird in a dream also represents a boy. Capturing a bird in a dream means having control over a powerful person. Killing a bird in a dream means fulfilling one’s goal. Plucking the feathers, cleaning and eating a bird in a dream means earnings, prosperity, or a woman. Slaughtering a bird in a dream means raping one’s servant. Holding a bird in one’s hand or having it inside a cage in a dream means a sickness that will befall one’s son. Ifthe bird flies away from one’s hand or from its cage in a dream, then it means one’s death.

A flock of birds in a dream also represents gatherings of love, unity, family reunions and celebrations. However, the gathering of birds in a dream also could mean banding to commit wrong or the dispersal of one’s family or friends, or it could mean business losses.

(Also see Blackbird, Bustard, Nest, Osprey, Roller)