Excrement

(1) Excrement may stand for something you need to get rid of; something from your past that has been poisoning your psyche.

It is almost certainly something you have repressed (pushed down from the conscious mind into the unconscious). We repress what we can’t cope with, but the anxiety or guilt-feelings that caused us to resort to repression do not leave us: they linger and fester in the unconscious and, if not given conscious attention, will have destructive consequences. Don’t let yourself be constipated psychologically. Get rid of that store of negative emotion - resentments or whatever.

Anxieties and guilt-feelings often have irrational beginnings in early childhood, though they may remain dormant until some later experience wakens them. An emotionally detached appraisal of the situation that first gave rise to them may dissolve them.

If not, seek help. Alternatively, adopt a Gestalt approach: don’t bother about the origins of the negative feeling; just see what it is doing to you - and others - in the present, and deal with it, expel it like faeces, here and now.

(2) Excrement may be a symbol of something you disapprove of or despise - perhaps mistakenly. Take a good look at the excrement to discover precisely what it represents in yourself.

(3) According to Freud, faeces may be substitutes for either the penis or a baby. This is more applicable to a woman’s dream than to a man’s.

(4) Excrement may symbolize money - ‘filthy lucre’ (‘He’s rolling in it’; ‘She’s stinking rich’).

You may not have progressed on a subconscious level beyond a feeling that anything to do with bodily functions is dirty and self-centred. There could be an element of rebellion in your waking life. Playing with excrement can represent your attitude to money and value, highlighting fear of responsibility, as well as anxiety about money.

If the excrement is transformed into living animals, maybe rats, you are accepting that you are responsible for managing your own impulses. Excrement in its more spiritual meaning belongs to the realm of feelings and you may simply be trying to get rid of bad feelings. Those bad feelings can be turned into something worthwhile. Evacuation of the bowel usually highlights our need to be free of worry and responsibility, or possibly the need to learn how to be uninhibited. It can also signify the sexual act.

Feelings of repulsion; emotions or parts of expe­rience which need to be let go of; infant level of self expres­sion and self giving; physical need to have a healthy bowel. Sometimes personal creativity; being able to let go of what you don’t need—so can link with money and generosity; the pri­mal level of our being; sensuality and infant sexuality. Shitting on someone or something: expressing desire to belittle them or to feel superiority; heaping unjust accusations on someone; bringing something which appeared powerful into perspec­tive. Idioms: in the shit; feeling shitty; talking a lot of shit; being shat on.

See toilet.