Box

(2) A box may also represent yourself, your own psyche. Opening the box would signify a resolve to get to know yourself.

If the box contains something precious, it probably represents your true or essential or deep self, a rich store of energies and powers and wisdom and love.

(3) If the box in the dream fills you with fear - like Pandora’s box, from which all kinds of pestilential things came - there are at least three possibilities:

(a) It may symbolize your unconscious. The powers, instinctual drives and buried emotions that are kept out of sight in the unconscious layers of the psyche are things that have at some time in the past - possibly in

childhood - frightened you or been associated with frightening experiences. The wav forw ard is to cultivate their acquaintance and give them their proper place in your conscious life.

(b) If you are a man, the box may represent the negative aspect of woman (or the feminine) as the feared femme fatale luring you to destruction, or the possessive and devouring mother depriving you of your independence. In that case, you need to become acquainted w ith the feminine side of your own nature (anima) and / or come to terms with and deal with your (buried) feelings towards your mother (for anima).

See also Woman. (For man, woman is an ambivalent reality, desired and feared. In mythology Pandora exemplifies this ambivalence - as do most goddesses. ‘Pandora’ means ‘all-giving’ or ‘all gifts’ and w’as probably originally a name given to the Earth Goddess, giver of all life. It w’as only later - at a stage of development w here male deities were the supreme gods and female deities had been demoted to subservient roles - that Pandora was seen as a symbol of woman as the source of evil.)

(c) It may represent any source of disaster. Is there anvthing w ithin you or in vour home or working environment that is threatening you or making you anxious?

If what you find in the box displeases you it may refer to your fears or aspects of yourself that you want to hide. In case of a safe, what you keep in there will be your most precious intimacy, possibly, your best qualities. In the Greek myth of Pandora’s box, the malignant part of the woman who wants to have everything is represented. The oneiric- psychological analysis of this story establishes it represents man’s fear for the dark and feminine side of his nature. It can also refer to the way the unconscious projects the complex and negative attitudes in real life.

If you force a safe in order to open it, the omens say you will not marry the person you currently love.

If it is empty, you will get married soon; and if it is full, late.

The famous Pandora’s Box held all the forces of good and evil in it. Pandora opened the box and unleashed its wrath into the world. She was able to close the box and in it hope. Thus, it is said that hope remains.

(Pandora’s Box was not really a box at all, but a jar!) The interpretation of the box in your dream depends on the details of the dream and on the content of the box. Just remember that the box is symbolic of mystery, secrecy and of something precious.

The box in your dream might represent potential that needs to be realized and that will slowly come to your conscious awareness.

Dreaming of a box suggests that risk taking may be necessary and that you may discover power and wealth that currently may be in the unconscious.