Dreams and your Health

The Heart & Circulatory System Part II

In Part I I summarized why we in western cultures have such a high rate of heart related illness. This week I want to show how dreams reflect this and explain ways to follow the healing advice they give. Let's take a look at some dreams now.

In the following dreams the symbols that indicate the heart are underlined. A plane landing or arriving at an airport indicates the dreamer's arrival onto the planet at birth. In the following dream fragment we immediately get a sense of the dreamer's difficult birth.

DREAM 1 - Fighter Plane

I am watching a news event on the TV. A fighter plane is engulfed in flames and is crashing to the ground. It hits the ground in a forest and the flames go out. The pilot is bruised and hurt but otherwise OK! The news commentator says something like, "And notice that even though it was the engines that caused the problem the pilot is taking the time to switch them off." From the angle of the camera you can see a propeller that is already stopped.

Remembering Rule 1 of interpretation (You are everything in the dream) the pilot represents the dreamer as a child at birth. The crash landing shows that the child's birth was traumatic and that the child feared for his own survival at the time. The plane being engulfed in flames highlights the emotional trauma experienced by the child. We are told that the engines caused the problem. This is the best clue we could get as to the reaction of the child to their traumatic birth. The engine is the heart of the plane and symbolizes the child's heart. The child's view is that they were bruised, hurt and engulfed in flames and that this is the fault of the heart (the engines). The solution, from the child's perspective, is to switch them off. We are then told that you can already see a propeller that is already stopped. A propeller is another strong symbol for the heart. From all this we can see that the dreamer has shut off or closed his heart so that he doesn't experience this emotional trauma again.

In this dream we are not explicitly told what the dreamer must do to 'open' his heart again. This means that he is totally unaware that he has closed his heart off. This is what I was talking about last week. The first and most important part of any solution to a problem is to accept that you have the problem to begin with. This dreamer must first accept that he has closed himself off from his heart. We can also see that the dreamer is a 'fighter' (fighter plane) or angry person. Again this follows the pattern. Feeling hurt and bruised causes the child to close off the heart and become angry as a defense against being hurt again. To help this person I would suggest talking to older family members and parents to learn about the circumstances of their birth. Parent's are unlikely to give the full horrors of the day but siblings can relate it in terms of the anguish they picked up from the parents. If the dreamer had no siblings I would suggest regression back to birth. While this can be traumatic, the purpose is to put the person back in touch with their feelings at the time of their birth. After the regression they will again feel the sadness and anger that they felt at the time. They are then at the first stage in dealing with the trauma - Acceptance. From there I would suggest the process of Cutting the Ties to clear the trauma and open the heart again (switch the engines back on). Regression without the purpose of healing the trauma afterwards is of no benefit and can in fact damage the person more.

Let's look at another dream. Here again the symbols for the heart are underlined. The dream, like the previous one, is truncated to keep this column concise.

DREAM 2 - The Bonnet

I am in the front room of my mother's house looking out the bay window. It is raining and my lime green FIAT 127 car is in the driveway. I have the bonnet open because I was having battery trouble. I intended fixing it. My brother Jimmy is behind me telling me to close the bonnet but I am not concerned about the rain. My brother John comes home from abroad and gives Jimmy a birthday present. The funny thing is that it is not Jimmy's birthday yet.

Green is the color of the heart chakra and by itself is sufficient to symbolize the heart. The bonnet, where we find the engine of the car, has a more obvious connection to the heart as the engine is the heart of the car. The battery is an easy enough one too as batteries are electric pumps. Any symbol indicating a pump represents the heart. Fiat is a little more tricky. Fiat are Italian car manufacturers and Italy as a location indicates the heart (unless you were born in Italy). Countries and their meanings will be covered in a future article. It would not matter if you missed out on that symbol as we have enough to go on already.

The dreamer says he intended fixing the battery problem. This is very positive to see in a dream and means that the dreamer is consciously aware of their heart problem. The cause of the problem is given to us by the location - mother's bay window. This symbolizes the womb. Mother's house is mother's body and the dreamer is in the front room bay window, a living space that sticks out on the front of the house / mother's body. So here, while the focus is on fixing the problem, we again see birth being linked to the problem. In case you couldn't get the womb from the symbol of the bay window we see birth being celebrated when John brings home a birthday present for Jimmy. Since the dreamer is everything in the dream (rule 1) it is his birth and not Jimmy's that is the focus. You can't argue with that one really.

What we can determine from this is that the dreamer experienced emotional trauma at the time of his birth. We cannot say why exactly but because the bonnet of the car (body) is open in the dream we know that the dreamer has already closed off his heart and is now in the process of working on himself to 'fix' this. The brother with the present represents a guide (a calling card of guides in dreams is that they often appear bearing gifts) and he is encouraging the dreamer to go forward with the process. A treat, if you will, for work being done. Water, including rain, represents life so the rain getting into the bonnet represents life coming into the heart. The dreamer is correct to ignore the negativity of the brother telling him to close the bonnet (close up the heart again). An older brother in a dream is often a good substitute for a parent when they display the same traits as the parent. So we now know that the dreamer also has problems with dad's negativity that affect his heart. 

This dreamer was two weeks into the process of cutting the ties with his mother so my advice would be to continue the process as we can see from the dream that it is reversing the negative effects of his traumatic birth on his heart. I described the process of Cutting The Ties in a previous article so I won't go into the details again here. Suffice it to say that the process works by directing the subconscious mind to eliminate the negative influence of an event or person.

Colors that indicate the heart in dreams are Green and Red together. Green is the color of the heart chakra and red is the color for passion. This combination can be achieved in any number of ways. Common symbols are driving a red car on green grass, or a red car mounting the grass verge on the road.

When physical damage is shown in a dream that is about the heart we can often determine how the dreamer would most likely develop a physical problem as a result of their condition. A boxing match where the contestants are wearing green and red shorts and hitting each other in the head would indicate stroke (a blow to the head which is linked to the circulatory system). In these dreams anger also often features. The color combination that always indicates anger is red and black. So the boxing dream would indicate this if the contestant wearing the red shorts was black. This is true regardless of the skin color of the dreamer.

DREAM 3 - The Man On The Horse

I'm in my apartment which is at the back of a set of apartments. Next I'm walking along a pier at a harbor and 40 men on horses jump off the end of the pier. I'm surprised that the water was shallow just there. Next a man on a horse is coming towards me. I'm afraid he's going to hit me because he's not looking where he is going. At the last minute he pulls to the side, banging his head off a wall. He gets up and is angry at me for being in his way.

In the dream above I have cut much of it out to scale it down. However, the location of apartment (being apart from emotions) and the wall (indicating the dreamer has built a wall around her heart) are both classic symbols that indicate the heart. Again, remembering that everything in the dream represents an aspect of the dreamer we know that it is not the man on the horse not looking where he is going but the dreamer herself. She does not see the damage she is causing herself by closing off her heart. The dream again links the problem to birth by introducing a harbor. This is a place where ships birth so indicates the dreamer's own birth. We see the trigger when we see the man on the horse as dad. Through her dream she is reliving the experience at birth that "dad is angry at me for being in his way." Because of this the dreamer has developed the pattern of putting herself in second place (at the back of the set of apartments) so as not to be in the way. This is done at the expense of her own feelings and her health! The health problem is given by the man banging his head of a wall and indicates stroke (physical damage to the head that is connected with the circulatory system - the wall). Dreams often show men banging their heads because in an energy sense logic (the head) is male while the heart is female.

To resolve her problem the dreamer must deal with her conflict with dad. This is indicated by the man coming towards her. Dreams often indicate the future by showing something happening further along the path. In her case the man is further along her path and facing her - indicating something she must face in the future. As an incentive the dream shows that her conflict with dad is limiting (the number 4)  the flow of male energy within herself. One of her gifts is that of spiritual healing (40 men on horses) and she came to this life to deepen her spiritual understanding through using this gift (indicated by jumping into the shallow water).

In reality this dreamer is already a spiritual healer (to be described in a future article) but also works in business with her father. Her father does not treat her as an equal and this constant conflict is what is damaging her. She must resolve it. This will heal the root cause of her heart condition and at the same time allow her healing gift to become stronger.

DREAM 4 - Car Trouble

I am heading home from work. I'm on the North Circular Road and having trouble with my car. It's on its last legs. I pull the choke but it is crawling along. The engine is leaking oil. I need to stop at a garage and pump the wheels because they are flat.

This dream is littered with symbols for the heart. References to circles are a pun on the circulatory system (wheels, circular). We have had engine twice already so it needs no explanation. Oil is to a car engine what blood is to the heart so represents the dreamer's blood system. The heart is the body's pump. That leaves us with three symbols; North actually indicates the head (the north of the body) but when it shows up in a dream it means that the dreamer is too much in the head (too logical) and this is always at the expense of the heart. Choke means that the dreamer is choking their heart of emotions - literally not letting any feelings through it. Lastly flat indicates being unemotional.

Wow! I have rarely seen so many symbols for the heart in one short dream fragment. Let's put it all together. Using the technique of looking for negative phrases and keywords we get that when it comes to the dreamer's heart it is; on its last legs and crawling along. This does not paint a good picture at all. The actual physical condition is given by the physical problem of the engine leaking oil. This represents the body losing red blood cells and always indicates anemia. In reality the dreamer was already diagnosed with pernicious anemia and taking medication for it. However, the dream is telling her that she still needs to check into a hospital or go to a doctor (go to a garage) to get further healing. Obviously her medication is not sufficient.

Well that's it for this week. I know this article turned out quite long but I hope it remained interesting for you and helps you in some way. You can find more symbols for the circulatory system here in my tutorial.