Dreaming About Crocodiles
Last night, I dreamed that I lived in a lakehouse. It floated in the water and undulated constantly, but wasn't a boat. If you sat on the living room couch and looked out the window, the water came up around the windowsill, causing me to wonder about the integrity of the seals around the window. I couldn't find any caulk to reseal them. I was afraid the water would seep into the house, and I was terrified that I'd see a crocodile. Of course, as soon as I thought that, a crocodile swam right up to my window, opened its mouth, and glared at me. Then I saw more and more until there were eight of them. They were banging up against my window and causing the house to undulate harder. That's all I remember.
The reason I bring it up is that crocodiles have been a recurring symbol in my dreams for about ten years now. I've had dreams that I was frantically clawing my way up a muddy riverbank, trying to get out of the water, while crocodiles chased me. I've also had dreams that I was a scientist breeding crocodile-human hybrids. A woman was giving birth to them, and I was in the delivery room. I have no idea how a dream symbol comes to have a standard, textbook interpretation, but this one is very much in keeping with all the entries for "crocodiles" in the dream books I've seen:
Crocodiles in dreams in a positive way represent your potential and powers capable to seize luck when it comes. In a negative sense, crocodiles represent hazards lying beneath the surface of a seemingly harmless situation. Seeing a crocodile in the dream is a warning: you are surrounded by evil-minded people. If you got bitten by a crocodile, be careful: a dangerous situation has developed. Killing a crocodile in the dream is a sign that you will be able to defeat a powerful enemy. Also, see Alligator.
Perhaps it's an anxiety dream? Every now and then, I dream that my teeth fall out, which is supposed to represent anxiety. Sometimes they fall out intact, like a set of dentures, and sometimes they break into smithereens in my mouth, and I have to spit them out.
What do you think? Do dreams mean anything at all? Are they worth trying to interpret?
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no...
I'd say, it's not worth it, esp. if you are scientifically minded. It may be that this is a field that we haven't been able to conquer yet (Freud's interpretations are nothing but interesting hermeneutic fiction--if you care to label it as a genre). Truth is, I'm as interested as you are in dreams. I used to have dreams of giving birth to a child, or having a small child--and the dream dictionaries give the kind of ambivalent advice that you got for crocodiles. It's funny, I had recurrent dreams of teeth falling apart (though in my case, that's, sadly, true in real life). I read a couple of chapters in a big book on sleep medicine describing research to date on dreams. The result: inconclusive. It's not that they don't mean anything, but that there's NO way of ascribing meaning to them (there's no way to reliably establish an onirosemiotics, if you will). So, dream dictionaries are about as reliable as horoscopes--believe what you will,in other words. In your case, I think the only conclusion you can draw is that you're quite anxious about all the burdens in your life at the moment; anything else would be pure speculation and would depend on what you want to believe.
Dreams
For the most part, I agree with Cristina. B has a couple of books on dreams and I don't place much faith in them. What good does it do to know the official interpretation of a crocodile dream when it could have so much more or different meaning for you personally?
I dreamed for years about a bear chasing me at my grandmother's house (incidentally, also beside a lake). I had the dream as a child and later as an adult after a long period of time. I happened to mention it to my mom once and she asked if I remembered this huge gorilla costume that my uncle had when I was a kid. Apparently, I had a fever once and a nightmare about it. My mother's theory was that I got it all jumbled in my brain as a child and dreamed about a bear instead because there was this polar bear at the zoo who waved and everyone was fascinated with.
Now that I typed all this junk, I'm not sure it makes any sense. My point was that you never know what sort of irrelevant event in your past is burrowed in your subconscious and twisting things all around with various symbols manifesting your feelings. What you have to think of is how you felt in the dream. It sounds like you felt insecure in the house (unable to caulk, etc.) and worried about the crocs damaging the house further.
Sorry to blather on. I find dreams fascinating but some of mine are so real that it's disturbing.
Michelle P
Bunnies and Crocodiles
I'll agree, as well: the dream dictionaries seem kinda silly, and ignore so much about experience and subjectivity. In a way, they're kinda the new age version of Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy", maybe?
At the same time, I've often heard the teeth / anxiety connection, especially in connection to aging, and, well, you are turning 30 soon. ;-) I had a series of teeth dreams a few years ago, myself; the worst was where I was in the bathroom examining my gums and all my teeth sloughed out of the gums and cascaded all a-clatter into the porcelain sink, followed by blood gushing from my gums to flood the bathroom, like tides of blood rippling shin-deep around my bare legs and feet.
And, yeah, I think I was almost 30.
But I just have to share what I woke up from last night: I dreamt that I was in my friend Jason's large loft (he of Hogmalion, which should be up again soon) to referee a ping-pong tournament, and that several of my old friends from high school were there as well, and we were all drinking beer. In addition to the fact that the ping-pong table was the wrong size (like, 5 feet on one side of the net, and 2 feet on the other), the floor in Jason's loft was covered with bunnies. Little tiny live baby bunnies, maybe three or four hundred of them. Cute beyond belief, big eyes, twitchy noses and all. And I was horrified when the time came for the tournament to start and Jason said, "Well, time to put these guys back in their cage," and he backed a big yellow front end loader out of the closet. I told him that he couldn't do that, that he would hurt them, and he replied, "Oh, no; I'm always very careful. Haven't lost one yet."
Did I not sufficiently convey my skepticism?
Lest anyone think I consider dream-land.info an authoritative source...I was just putting that interpretation out there, since it seems to be a common one. :) I think Cristina's horoscope analogy is apt.
By the way: Torill dreams about lions.
Scepticism
And I don't believe in dream dictionaries either. I barely believe in dreams. I am facinated by them, and I am particularly prone to the "Oh, I dreamed just this" sensation where I can describe details that match in the dream and in the event - but dreams as a general language of the mind, working across cultures? No, that would be too simple.
Torill
Collin and the MWMF
Two interesting dreams last night:
First, I dreamed that I sneaked Collin into the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. For those who aren't familiar with the festival, they have very strict rules that only women may attend, going as far as to forbid m2f transsexuals and genderqueers to attend. They even frown upon attendees' playing music in their tents that features men's voices. I managed to get Collin into the festival, and once he was in there, no one batted an eye; there are hirsute and otherwise masculine-looking women everywhere. He couldn't speak, though, because that would betray the secret, and had to walk around the festival like Silent Bob.
Then I dreamed that I moved into a really nice house, but as soon as it rained, I found out that there were large cracks in the ceiling (didn't see them before). Water trickled all over me as I slept, and the ceiling started caving in. Then I woke up. It seems that experience will haunt me for a long time.
My study of dreams has led me
My study of dreams has led me to believe that while many symbols do have commonly shared interpretations, often symbols can take on their own personal meaning as well. You will know when you have hit on the right interpretation when you get that "ah ha!" dawning realisation.
For me personally, dreams of crocodiles tend to come when I have pms and I am particularly "snappy"...
Check out http://www.dream.net.au/forum/dream_index.cfm for more info on dreams and how to interpret. There are a few free books on this website which I have found useful.
Teeth falling out
Every now and then, I dream that my teeth fall out, which is supposed to represent anxiety. Sometimes they fall out intact, like a set of dentures, and sometimes they break into smithereens in my mouth, and I have to spit them out.
This mean someone close to you is going to die but you can still break that warning by biting either your pillow or any hard area attached to your bed.
when it rains it pours
Howdy!
I came upon this old post of yours after having my own dream full of little crocodile people last night. Comforting to know that others have experienced similar things!
They kept popping up here and there in the dream, kind of like cute little action-figures that moved. At one point I confronted one, and half-jokingly hopped around a bit as if to say 'Yeah? You want a piece of me? Yeah?'. Funny. I ran off a bit at that point and then turned to see if it was chasing me, and after a moment of nothing, there it was, coming after me over a small hill in the road. It's head flared out like a cobra (phallic reference? yikes! ; ) and I felt my confidence waning in terms of my actual control of the situation. I felt fear and ran, I believe, a great deal more sincerely than previously!
I stopped then, angry with myself for losing control, and the little lizard man skampered up and skittered around my ankles, and that was pretty much that!
Having read the interpretation in your post and elsewhere, I can definately relate to some antagonistic forces in my head and in my life that may be, in ways small or large, 'out to get me'. The dream seems to be an affirmation of sorts that I should face my fear and not run.
The REALLY funny thing is, after I left the house this morning to get coffee and go to work, I held the door for a woman behind me and her child, a little toddler boy dressed in a fuzzy lizard outfit for Halloween!
Later in the day I was sitting in the car after driving back from lunch, and I clicked on the oldies station before getting out. There was a great old song on, to which I found myself listening very intently, enjoying the interplay of bass, guitar, vocals and so on, until it hit me so hard that I laughed out loud, punched the dashboard and got the hell out of Dodge (or Jeep, in this case).
Elton John.
Crocodile Rock.
I kid you not!
hmm...
Between the caulking up of the windows in one dream and the woman giving birth to hybrids in the other, it seems there may be something going on along the lines of a fear of childbirth and pregnancy. Maybe the caulking is contraception, and perhaps the climbing up the mudbank is a reflection of a possible inner condradiction between your feminist principles as a thinking member of society, and your biology as a female of the human species.
I'm just shooting from the hip here, and I understand that what I say could be considered rude or confrontational. I don't mean it that way, but rather to simply give you the reflections of a fellow random netizen.
Anxieties about motherhood
You're on to something, random netizen...especially considering I had a dream which I titled "Failing the Maternity Test" a while back; I wrote about it here.
Ambiguous Crocs
I have to admit that I, too, had a crocodile dream last night. It was bizarre. Although I am twenty-three now and currently residing at the south pole in Antarctica where there are no children, I had a dream that I was babysitting and that the family I was babysitting for had a pet crocodile. In my dream, the crocodile (or alligator - I don't really know) truly frightened me. Although the crocodile had its own separate room and could be shut off from the rest of the house, the overwhelming message I got from the family was that it often escaped and was unpredictable, but "harmless" all the same. Of course, I don't know what to make of this one because my attitude toward the crocodile was constantly shifting. I didn't know if I should let down my guard because it truly was a friendly crocodile lacking any malicious intent, or if instead it was something to be wary of. The only bit I can make of this dream, using the interpretation above, is that perhaps I feel uncertain right now about the people I live with at the South Pole. Truth is, although I remain always flexible in my own self-definition, I generally consider myself to be a gay woman and I've struggled with how to present this to other people as I've moved through life. So currently I am wavering between a light-hearted attitude that assumes other people harmless and alternatively a more cynical attitude that views people as something to be weary of.
However, in this dream, there was also this underlying question of whether or not my attitude towards the crocodile would consequently determine the crocodile's attitude towards me. If I feared the crocodile, would it then resent my fear and seek to destroy me? Or if in turn, I had faith in the crocodile's benevolence, would it then prove to be a faithful friend?
This was my first crocodile dream and although I do not think dreams are easily interpreted, I do find there is something in it. This is the best I can do for now.
So I leave you with the question: how much do our attitudes towards others affect their attitudes and treatment of us?
Crocodiles and Alligators
The dream I had last night involved an alligator (at least I think it was...the snout was broad and rounded, and the animal was around 2 feet long). I was visiting a cousin's house and he had it as a pet. I felt threatened at first...wherever I would go the thing would just chase me. I then sat down and begin rubbing his nose...and the thing was very friendly! It then started lying on his back and I began rubbing his belly (like a cat). One thing I noticed was this wasn't a normal reptile! It had shiny metal parts on the underside, like a toy. Later on in the dream, there was a guy walking around in the kitchen with no pants on! Strange dream, just thought I would share it.
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