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Spirit and Dream Animals, by Richard Webster

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Many years ago, while doing some research in Hong Kong, I accidentally overheard two women talking about dream animals. I went into a café and sat down at a table next to an attractive Asian lady and her American friend. I wasn't paying any attention to their conversation, until I suddenly heard the Asian lady explaining the concept of animal dreaming to her friend. According to her, if a woman dreamt of an animal about the time she became pregnant, her baby would possess the qualities of the animal she had dreamt about. I was fascinated, and after apologizing for overhearing the conversation, asked if I could join in.

The two ladies were very kind and gracious, and allowed me to join them. I learned that, in Asia, dreams are believed to be created by a lack of energy. However, dreaming of an animal does the opposite. These dreams create energy, in addition to providing valuable clues about the personality of the unborn child. I also learned that not all pregnant women dream of animals. These dreams occur only if the unborn child has significant potential.

The Asian woman leaned towards me. "Did you know that Buddha's mother dreamed of a gorgeous white elephant with six tusks that ran around her bed three times?" she asked. "That's a classic example of a prophetic animal dream."

I chatted with the two ladies for about an hour. Just before leaving them, I learned that it was important that the mother-to-be told no one about her animal dreams. "My mother had several dreams involving me before I was born," the Asian lady told me. "She told me they were good, but that's all she's told me about them."

When I returned to my hotel, I wrote down everything I could remember about the conversation. As I'm interested in both dreams and animal symbolism, I tried to learn more about the dreams pregnant women have about animals. Unfortunately, the people I spoke to weren't able to tell me anything that the two women hadn't already covered.

About ten years later, while in Singapore, I was fortunate enough to meet a lady who made her living interpreting t'aimeng, which are predictive dreams about unborn children. Once I got to know her, she was happy to answer my questions, and encouraged me to write Spirit & Dream Animals.

A month or two after that, I had a predictive dream. In the dream I was driving into the city on the freeway. The car in front of me had a personalized plate that read "animal." One week later, I was driving along the same stretch of road that had been in my dream, and saw a car with the personalized plate "anamal." The spelling was slightly different, but it was obviously an omen. Over the years, I've learned to act on these, and a week or two later I began working on the book.

Although I first heard about predictive dreams involving animals while traveling in the Far East, they can be found all around the world. Here's an example. Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, dreamt that she was sleeping with Ammon, the horned god. In the dream, Ammon told her that she had conceived a male child who would be her avenger.

Men can also experience predictive dreams about their unborn children. In the Bible, Joseph experienced a predictive dream after discovering that Mary, his wife, was pregnant. An angel appeared to him in the dream and told him the unborn child, Jesus, was the Son of God (Matthew 1:20-21).

Animals are often overlooked in our dreams. However, they fulfill an important purpose. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, noticed that people frequently dream of helpful animals, or animal-headed people, when they are ill. In some way, these animals symbolize the healing process. One of the central beliefs of shamanism is the intrinsic connection between animals and humans. Shamans perform their tasks by using their power animals, or guardian spirits, to connect with the animal world. This connection frequently occurs in dreams.

Animals sometimes appear in dreams as human beings. The Jívaro people of South America find that a guardian spirit usually appears first as an animal, before appearing as a human being in a dream. The Jívaro believe that if an animal speaks to you, it is undoubtedly your power animal. It's not surprising that animals can appear in human form in our dreams, as we are both living on this planet together, and are related in many different ways.

Australian Aborigines frequently refer to "Dreamtime," when the world was fresh and new, and ancestor spirits created form and shape to the land. Some of these mythic beings were people, while others were totem animals. The ancestor spirits had the ability to change from person to animal to help them decide what they wanted to be. According to Aborigine belief, animals still remember making their choice. The great fertility mothers and male genitors created the first people; these mythic figures are eternal, and even though some are killed, disappear, or change shape in the Aboriginal mythic stories, their integral qualities remain. They are spiritually just as alive today as they ever were, and the places where they metamorphosed became, and remain, sacred grounds. In the Dreamtime, man is just one part of nature, and is not considered especially different to the mythic people and animals that live there. The land still retains its memories of the Dreamtime, as do the Aboriginal people. Everyone is given an animal spirit at birth, and this provides the person with guidance, wisdom, and protection.

Dreaming of animals can be highly beneficial. They provide comfort, advice, and protection; they even provide advance warning of upcoming danger, when necessary. Their task is to help you progress through life. Because of this, you should pay attention to your animal dreams.

You should also be aware of your guardian animals while you are awake. If you are not aware of your guardian animals, ask them to make themselves known to you in your dreams. Once you have discovered who they are, communicate with them regularly, and call on them whenever you need advice, help, or comfort.

By paying attention to your guardian animals, and the animals that appear in your dreams, you'll gain confidence and a sense of direction and purpose. Every aspect of your life will improve as a result.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2011. All rights reserved.

I have been unemployed for three years. I left a good paying job with decent benefits because I was treated horribly for over 13 years, and I couldn't take the mental abuse anymore. Now I can't find a new job because my reference is saying bad things about my work ethic. This has led to health problems like kidney stones in February and a car accident in May. What can I do to get all this negativity out of my life? I am beyond stressed out! I feel hopeless and helpless, and overwhelmed with medical bills, legal fees, and regular living expenses. My husband is becoming very aggravated with me. I feel like I have a spell on me. Please help! I have been having vivid dreams, and I even think I had a premonition about the car accident. Is Spirit trying to help me through the dreams?

- Donna

Dreamchaser:

I would like for you to re-read your question, please. As you tell it, you are being picked on by everyone (including the Universe) because you feel like you have a spell on you. There is not one area in your life that is going right, and now your husband is upset as well.

Is this how you look at your life? Is this how you talk to everyone around you? Are these the stories you tell over and over? Is this the tone of the emotional state you are in every day? If so, it's no wonder your life is crap!

As everyone here knows, I am a huge fan of the movie and book entitled The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, which explores the Law of Attraction and how to get what we want by focusing on it. That is a very simplified description - the important thing is that this really does work!

I tried it and it worked for me. I was an incredibly angry, negative person for a very long time. I blamed everyone else for my troubles. I saw myself as a complete and total victim of everyone and everything.

I had no money; I had no love; I felt sick a lot of the time, and I had no future. When I realized that everything in my life was a result of my own thinking, everything changed for the better.

You think negatively all the time. You not only worry about your problems, you worry about things that haven't happened yet, or that might happen some day. You also focus on the past and how you feel wronged. You focus on bad health, pain, suffering, sorrow and despair. Now you are focusing on your marriage and how it may fall apart.

Hear this, please: you are creating more and more misfortune in your life by focusing on nothing but all the bad things that happen to you. The good news is if you change your focus, you will change your life.

I know it works, for I personally have experimented with this process and my life is drastically different now. I also have friends and clients who have said the same thing.

The only way your life is going to change is if you take control of your thoughts, feelings and habits.

Spirit can't help you unless you ask for help. Spirit is not giving you omens and warnings; Spirit is throwing you a lifeline and begging you to PLEASE change on an inner level, which will empower you to change your outer experiences.

You have the power: it's is as simple as changing the way you think, and The Secret will show you how to do that.

You CAN have a good and happy life, Donna. I wish you healing on all levels.

*****

Astrea:

It can be really difficult to get back to a normal feeling life after such an awful accident. To have the people at your old job insult you by telling other businesses not to hire you would naturally create even more stress.

Sometimes husbands aren't great at understanding our need to talk things out, which of course means even MORE frustration for you.

You ARE under a spell, Donna, and you put it there yourself by adopting the belief or attitude that everyone is against you. I know it may seem like that right now, but the truth is that other people don't have time to make you the center of their universe.

I don't mean to sound harsh: I'm only trying to point out that the others you speak of are too selfish to go to great lengths to try to make you miserable, for they have more important things to do.

Negative people get negative outcomes. What you need to focus on is how, for every job those people caused you NOT to get, the Universe will open another pathway for you and close one for them. For every unkind word they say about you, three will be said about them.

Choose to stop being part of the negative karma others have around them. Release all of that and be free. If you can stop being angry and feeling like everything and everyone is against you, that won't be your experience anymore.

Instead of trying to hurt you, every person, animal and entity in your Harmony is trying to help you, and not just through your dreams. You have people working for you in every part of your life to counteract all the negativity you've been experiencing. Your Angels are always with you; they are keeping you going and keeping you alive.

The only person who is stuck in a negative rut is YOU, and you're keeping yourself there with this why me? attitude.

You wrote that you had a premonition about your accident, yet it still happened. When you have strong intuitions or premonitions, you have to listen to them and DO something about them instead of passively accepting that this must be your fate.

The next time you have a premonition about a life-changing event, say it out loud to someone - ANYONE. Then say out loud that you refuse to become a victim. Speaking out loud about the bad stuff we intuitively sense often prevents it from happening. It's a mystery to me how that particular tactic wards off disaster, but it works.

While you truly have my sympathy for all you've been through, I know you could be doing more to change your life by thinking less about what's being done to you and becoming more proactive about creating what you want.

If you choose to think positive thoughts, your life will become abundant with positive experiences. If you allow yourself to think negative thoughts, then negativity will come your way time and time again.

Banish the negativity and begin to live in happiness again. You can do it, but only if you really want to.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.