Dreams and Animals Spirits

[c0sm0nautt]

Just curious if anyone buys into the idea of spirit or totem animals. I had a lucid dream where I asked to see my spirit guide, and a bunch of white butterflies flew around me and landed on my finger. It was a exhilarating dream - I woke up feeling charged with energy.

In a bunch of my non-lucid dreams I have dogs and bears appear. Dogs seem to act as guides or companions, and a lot of the dog-dreams deal with puppies interacting with my two waking reality dogs.

The bear dreams are very interesting. The bear is usually being mischievous in some way and I am trying to stop it or get away from it. Sometimes the bear jumps on top of me and just when I think I'm dead I notice that it has no desire to kill me. I can feel it's claws and breathing - it's very vivid.
The first dream involving the bear I feel had some significance. I was a Polar bear being chased by about 20 black bears. I climbed on a rock where all the other bears circled below me. They were all growling and circling me. I tried to growl to warn them off but only my human voice came out - a human growl! When I woke up to go downstairs my parents were watching a documentary on Polar bears! 

What do you all think about animals in dreams? I think maybe dogs are attached to us as developing consciousness as we experience many lives (and develop our own consciousness) . The Fool Tarot trump comes to mind. Bears may be the collective consciousness of all bears - like a collective soul. Just some theories, I really have no idea 

I'd like to hear other people's animal spirit stories. I'd also like to know if anyone has any idea of how to connect with this bear symbol. I want to make it my ally.

[Xanth]

Did you specifically ask to see your "spirit guide"?  Or did you phrase it differently?
I ask, because the "white butterflies" could have very well been your interpretation/metaphor for how your guide appeared to you.
Remember, nothing is objective in the non-physical... you have to be open to everything, especially when it comes to communication.  They could have been communicating with you as well.

[c0sm0nautt]

I specifically asked to see "my spirit guide." I thought it was strange too because I never would have expected a butterfly in a million years. I thought I had a bear animal spirit at this time, and butterfly was never in my mind. The symbolism relating to the butterfly is metamorphosis and transformation.

Here is the full dream. On another forum someone said that airports act as symbols to certain areas in the nonphysical which are, like the beach, gateways to higher realms.

1/18/10
"Butterfly Appears"
The dream started in a Court room. Nick is the lawyer, and I am sitting at his side, like an assistant. Mel and Ashley are sitting in the row behind us and I am chatting with them. I can't recall what the case and trial was about. I get up to go to the bathroom. The bathroom is located in what seems to be an airport. There are urinals right outside of the terminals. I notice Kyle is jogging by and I say Hi to him, but he just ignored me. I yell him name again as he runs away, but he doesn't seem to hear me. I wonder if I am invisible.

I run into Nick and he seems disturbed with something I do when I talk on the phone to Kenny and Bobby. I tell him I am just trying to please them, but can't recall exact what it was about. I remind him that he has a job to do in the courtroom and he agrees.

At this point I become lucid and begin to fly about the airport. People start to look at me like I am doing something unreal. I remember seeing Eric H. and I said "What's up Hirsh". I also see Cynthia M. and she tries to seduce me, but I am not interested. She then said "You can't even think when I'm controlling your mind."

Next I decide to try and break out of the airport. I attempt to smash one of the huge glass windows but can't seem to break through. As soon as I smash the window it simultaneously restructures itself. I see an airport worker opening a door about 60 yards away and I quickly fly over.

As I get outside, I'm astounded by the beauty and warmth of the sun – It feels so vividly real. I attempt to fly high and quickly into the sky, but I am still being weighed down like in other lucid dreams. I notice an old pickup truck and I attempt to launch myself off of the hood, like a spring board, but I once again drift to the ground. I decide to walk and I notice a nice area that has all these trees and flowers – It's a real nice nature seen. I decide I will wait by the trees until my "spirit guide" appears. I say aloud, "I want to see my spirit guide." All of a sudden, an array of white butterflies comes out of the trees. I notice a big white spotted one land on the tree, and a smaller once lands on my finger. Within a few moments I awaken.

[Astral316]

This topic interests me because I love animals and nature... I've asked for my spirit guide in the past and while I've been answered by different entities I didn't feel any bond or guiding aura about these characters. This is also true with various animals I've encountered in dreams or projections. I think it's safe to say the label is defined by the relationship, not so much the encounter. So if you don't feel that "certainty" that the butterflies were your spirit guides, they were probably just entities with a high positive energy.

With the desire to experience more Earth-based experiences (and not the generic suburban or indoor-experiences I always seem to get) I found this post on a different forum. It pretty much details a method to meet your spirit guide by phasing via mental rundown...

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12937

I'll be trying it over the next few days. If I meet my spirit guide/s that's great but the main intent is to generate some interesting wildlife projections.

[Xanth]

This topic interests me because I love animals and nature... I've asked for my spirit guide in the past and while I've been answered by different entities I didn't feel any bond or guiding aura about these characters. This is also true with various animals I've encountered in dreams or projections. I think it's safe to say the label is defined by the relationship, not so much the encounter. So if you don't feel that "certainty" that the butterflies were your spirit guides, they were probably just entities with a high positive energy.

With the desire to experience more Earth-based experiences (and not the generic suburban or indoor-experiences I always seem to get) I found this post on a different forum. It pretty much details a method to meet your spirit guide by phasing via mental rundown...

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12937

I'll be trying it over the next few days. If I meet my spirit guide/s that's great but the main intent is to generate some interesting wildlife projections.

You're making the assumption of the expectation of a 'bond' of some kind... there might not be. 

[Astral316]

You're making the assumption of the expectation of a 'bond' of some kind... there might not be. 

If there is such a thing as a "spirit guide" I would think a perpetual relationship (or at the very least an intuitive connection) would be in the job description, so to speak.

[Xanth]

You could just 'happen upon' a being as you're out and about who happens to be helpful to you.

I guess what I'm saying, and this is something I just learned myself recently, it's best to go into this without any beliefs or assumptions at all... and just wing it with what you experience.  If you happen upon someone who gives you a hand and you feel a bond with them, that's awesome... but if you're assuming that a helper should come along with some kind of relationshipy bond, then there's a possibility that you're shooing off someone/thing that can help you without ever really realizing it. 

[c0sm0nautt]

Word, that makes sense. 

[Astral316]

You could just 'happen upon' a being as you're out and about who happens to be helpful to you.

I guess what I'm saying, and this is something I just learned myself recently, it's best to go into this without any beliefs or assumptions at all... and just wing it with what you experience.  If you happen upon someone who gives you a hand and you feel a bond with them, that's awesome... but if you're assuming that a helper should come along with some kind of relationshipy bond, then there's a possibility that you're shooing off someone/thing that can help you without ever really realizing it. 

I know you're on a Tom Campbell kick and all but I don't have any blinding, spirit retarding beliefs when it comes to guides. I do have a firm grasp on the definition of spirit guide and won't attach that label to an entity if it doesn't feel right. That doesn't imply I'll disrespect it or ignore any wisdom it has to offer. It just means I'm not compromising the English language so I can say I have a "spirit guide" like others. That sort of mentality allows us to erode terms to ambiguity because everyone has their own convenient definition. Belief traps shouldn't extend to semantics.

Remember, nothing is objective in the non-physical...

Speaking of belief traps, I hope you didn't break your ankle falling into this one. 

[Xanth]

I know you're on a Tom Campbell kick and all but I don't have any blinding, spirit retarding beliefs when it comes to guides. I do have a firm grasp on the definition of spirit guide and won't attach that label to an entity if it doesn't feel right. That doesn't imply I'll disrespect it or ignore any wisdom it has to offer. It just means I'm not compromising the English language so I can say I have a "spirit guide" like others. That sort of mentality allows us to erode terms to ambiguity because everyone has their own convenient definition. Belief traps shouldn't extend to semantics.

My apologies, I didn't mean to sound like you didn't... that was really more for the benefit of others whom might not know. 

Speaking of belief traps, I hope you didn't break your ankle falling into this one. 

A belief to you, a known to me.  
T'is been a known to me for a while now... long before I ran into good ol' Tom. 

[Astral316]

Well if you *know* the non-physical is all subjective then you'd have to implicitly *know* that projection is nothing more than a side effect of an isolated, material-generated consciousness. You would have to *know* that there is no collective unconscious that you can meet others in or go to after death. These ideas necessitate a degree of objectivity because something is shared between two or more points of consciousness. Now if you meant we experience the non-physical subjectively (to various degrees), that's a little different.

[Xanth]

Sorry, my explanation of what I meant was pretty poor.

What I mean by it's all a subjective experience isn't in the experience itself... how you end up interpreting that experience is what's subjective.
Take the "hooded/robed figure" example most people toss around.  You're not ACTUALLY talking to a guy wearing a hooded robe.  You're talking to your interpretation of what this "being" subjectively looks like.

The actual MEETING between you and the 'being' is objective... but how you experience it, how you interpret it (aka describe it to yourself) is subjective.

[Astral316]

Sorry, my explanation of what I meant was pretty poor.

What I mean by it's all a subjective experience isn't in the experience itself... how you end up interpreting that experience is what's subjective.
Take the "hooded/robed figure" example most people toss around.  You're not ACTUALLY talking to a guy wearing a hooded robe.  You're talking to your interpretation of what this "being" subjectively looks like.

The actual MEETING between you and the 'being' is objective... but how you experience it, how you interpret it (aka describe it to yourself) is subjective.

Ahh, that makes more sense. Guess I got caught up in the wording.. nothing new, eh?

[Xanth]

I do it all the time as well. 
My problem is what just happened... I sometimes am more confusing than helpful.  ROFL

The funny part is when you realize that the 'being' you're talking to is perceiving YOU as something different than you actually are as well. 

Take one of Tom's (TC) explorer tapes for example... he was talking to, I believe it was a group of entities... and he was seeing them looking as "human" yet they were seeing him as whatever their natural form was.  They were perceiving him as one of them.

I just find that mind boggling really. LoL

[Athymari]

I have seen animals in dreams and mediation.

In one particular moment, it was not a dream but I was not awake either I meet a animal that arrived in a thunder and lightening storm that raged in my bedroom whilst I was hidding under the quilt as if I had just woken up. I heard the sounds of him running and when the storm suddenly stopped he was there in the room with me. I was terrified, part at the storm seemingly limited to just my bedroom and inside the bed and mostly because I knew I was not awake (obviously) but I was super lucid (not dreaming) - dare I say it felt more real then being awake and I was thinking ' oh my god.. something is actually happening.. stay calm, watch and remember' whilst my eyes darted around inside of my bed watching the lightening dance around the underside of my quilt.

I have thought of spirit guides for awhile, however, I have currently come to wonder if they are infact representation of parts of our selves. Mentaly, emotional I do not know but it seems to make more sense to me especially in regards to my above.