VICTIM

If violence or negative actions are directed against you in your dream, you may be punishing yourself in some way or feel guilty about something.

Alternatively, you may be feeling vulnerable.

If you knew your attacker, you may be unconsciously aware of a real threat that they pose to you in waking life. Another interpretation suggests that if others are behaving violently towards you in your dream, you need to take care not to upset others in waking life.

If your dream portrayed you in front of a firing squad, this is a symbol of your feelings of victimization in waking life.

If your attacker was female, this may represent the archetypal terrible mother or huntress archetype, whilst a terrible male attacker may have represented the archetypal villain or ogre. In either case, try to identify who or what it is in your waking life that makes you feel so consciously or unconsciously afraid.

If your dream attacker was an animal, the most likely interpretation is that the animal represents a problem within yourself rather than an external threat. The type of animal attacking you and your personal associations with it will be significant. Your unconscious often employs animals to symbolize aspects of your ‘animal’ or instinctual nature, so it is possible that you have neglected a basic human urge or instinct that the attack is an attempt to have recognized.

If a dream attack leaves you feeling battered and bruised from the array of blow and kicks that rained down upon you, it is possible that your unconscious is trying to kick-start you into action. Is there something you need to do or have you been lazy recently? If your injuries are serious, however, this suggests deep emotional hurt. Try to identify who attacked you or stabbed you in the back, as this could help you with your interpretation. Try to recall also if any weapons were used, as weapons often have phallic or sexual associations.

If blood is pouring out of your wounds, perhaps you are feeling drained of energy and vitality, or someone is sapping your strength.

1- In dreams we are often aware of something happening to us over which we have no control. We are the victim in the sense that we are passive or powerless within the situation. Sometimes we are aware that we are treating others incorrectly. We arc making them victims of our own internal aggression, and not handling ourselves properly in waking life.

2- When we are continually creating ‘no-win’ situations this tendency is highlighted in dreams, but may be done so somewhat dramatically.

We may find we arc victims of burglary, rape or murder, for instance. These will not be prccog- nitive dreams unless we do not properly identify our own ability to victimise ourselves.

The nature of the difficulty may reveal itself through the dream content.

3- If the dreamer is repressing his own ability to develop spiritual potential, he will appear in a dream as a victim - a victim of his own making.

Being the victim: feeling victimised; often depicts the chip on our shoulder. We may have been hurt at some time and go on bemoaning our fate.

The ‘chip’ may be useful in avoiding real responsibility or in hiding from trying out one’s positive creativity or sexuality. Thus we avoid possible failure or further hurt. Other person as victim: may still be as above; the hurts and damage received from relationship with others;

passive anger—by being the victim we get someone else to be a bastard and can thus sneer at them because we have manipulated them; hidden desires to avoid success, perhaps as a way of huning parent.

See victim.