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"Beware the Weasles": My Dream Symbology

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
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I had a very vivid dream about 8 years ago. I was in a hilly wood of just about complete darkness, an old woman with a worm growing out of her chin said "Beware the Weasles" and I could hear a furious scuttling sound. I woke up in fear, but for the first (and only time in my life) the image of the old woman was in the room with me (like a blue screen film effect)! I blinked and she was gone, but for a dream it really shook me up.

Que to today, when I found a misshelved library book called "Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery". I had been looking off and on for some meaning behind weasles, so i decided to look and see what it said. Among other meanings, the weasle never sleeps, and it was said to be a disguise for the Thessalian witches (who were apparently an evil lot, that's about all I could find online). Apparantly, weasles also give birth symbolicly with the mouth, so they are associated with the face, which is where the worm was.

Worms can be taken to mean death, and since the old woman looked vaguely like my Grandmother, I could see it symbolizing a voice beyond the grave.

Was my dream (for the sake of argument) trying to tell me of some dark force who was interested in messing with my life? And what would Thessalian witches want with an ordinary modern fellow?
 
um..... well...... I'd say no but then I'm a total cynic.

do dream symbologies take account of cultural differences... like the differences between occidental and oriental bats?

or dragons?

fascinating stuff.

Kath
 
I was just over in the dream thread trying to figure out Marion's dream..........


I have never heard of worms representing death, but I suppose that is possible.........maybe the decay of bodies and such.

I feel like this might be a warning about people (yourself included) and the word "manipulation" comes to mind. Either how you allow others to manipulate your actions or how you might try to control situations.

I feel like the worm may be symbolic of the earth, as in going deep into the earth to find what you need/your answers. In other words, look deeper within yourself to find out what is right for you.

The grandmother figure is authority/power. How do you view authority? Do you rebel or do you conform to every little thing you are told due to fear of the reprocussions?

These are just some things to ponder. One dream can have many, many meanings to the dreamer.
 
Well, personally I'd have to think that if you didn't know about the symbolic associations of the Weasel before you had your dream, then it couldn't have meant those things to you in the dream. I'm pretty much a beleiver that one has to interpret dreams within the meaning of one's own symbolic associations. Dream dictionaries can be useful for interpreting other's dreams, but for your own, you're the best source.

What did Weasels mean to you at the time you had that dream?
 
I was thinking more of "universal subconciousness" as far as possible meanings. Weasles weren't anything to me before or after the dream.

I had hoped there might be a mythological monster called "Worm Face" or some such. The figure seemed helpful. The worm was poking out of the chin, so it was out of place to where a worm should be. And I tend not to choose sides of the rebel/conformist debate, I do both depending on where it is in the world, so that might not be my reading.
 
as in jungian archetype?

I think they are more general aren't they? and one of the "things" about them is that the shape they take is culturally/temporally/individual dependent... which is why training in jungian analysis takes so long!

For example... the mother is an archetype... a basic universal concept. BVM, pelicans, Kali, Lady Di (as she has been creataed by her fans) and the bisto mum are all occurrences of it.

So imho, weasle is more of the level of the bvm and bistomum, rather than an archetype.



Kath
 
I would see worms in a dream as meaning life or fertility,not death (but each to their own!)
And the weasel thing was a spoken word,not actual animal weasels, try to think what the word means to you rather than the animal. (say, a person can be described as a weasel, like they can a shark or a rat)
 
Cultural differences in dream interpretation

This post is intended for those who generally believe that dreams can convey certain information, through means still unknown, although not in all cases and with a varying degree of accuracy. Sceptics are requested to ignore the following. :)

Just a few thoughts on cultural differences in dream interpretation. What I have found is that Western and Eastern meanings often mean totally different things and generally cannot be applied cross-culturally. Some fancy, 10,000-word U.S.-published dream dictionaries that I looked at may be good for Americans but generally being Freid-based, they are useless for people of other cultures. As a nation where spiritual and religious values have been a priority whereas monetary activities and proprietary desires were traditionally belittled and vilified over the centuries, a different dream interpreation system has naturally evolved. With hundreds of symbols / objects used in the Russian dream interpretation tradition, some dream interpretation websites are getting great traffic - you'd be amazed how many modern, educated people will not deny the practical meaning of dreams. - Again, sceptics are kindly asked to abstain from any comments as they themselves don't hold the key to the final truth.

From my longtime observations, all traditional dream symbols could be divided into 'direct', 'reverse', 'unexplainable/original connection lost', and 'language-driven' depending on their form of prediction.
Some common examples of direct symbols: blood = family relation, relative to call/visit; white shirt = a letter is due to arrive shortly; digging = death; climbing staircase = success, etc.
Reverse symbols: feces = money, kiss = dooming illness, etc.
Unexplainable/original connection lost: raw meat = serious illness; being naked = serious illness; getting wet (certain parts of body) - illness/disease of this particular part of body.
Language-driven (resemblance in pronunciation): eggs = visit; snow = laughs/fun.
And so on.

And the final note: moving to a different country / cultural environment does not change dream symbolism - old interpretation is still in effect. I have collected evidence of this. In other words, we seem to carry dream symbolism through our lives, and it is highly individual.

Just a few brief notes, as this topic is too big and interesting.
 
I wish it was as easy as discovering a mythological monster known as worm face!

Just a note on the "authority" thing.....I asked questions as to opposite ends of the spectrum just to bring attention to where you are with it. Not good or bad. Sounds like you are very balanced in your approach. A helpful, wise (because of age) woman as a grandmother figure can demonstrate a very loving power in one's life. You may be a helpful, wise, authority to others in your life as well.

I don't consult dream interpretation books, I just go with my gut feelings. Which of course could come out way wrong as I try to communicate them through the keyboard. :madeyes:

Alrighty, I'll get my coat. Going out to look for wormface now.
 
I'm a little surprised that no respondents so far are familiar with the traditional equation of worms with death in Western tradition. When you die and rot you "feed the worms" - imagery ubiquitous in, at least, Protestant religious writings, Romantic poetry, Gothic novels, and Victorian literature, and I think (but cannot at this instant prove) going back to the Greeks. The hands-down worst poem Poe ever perpetrated (and IMHO he perpetrated some stinkers!) is called "The Conqueror Worm" and is on the topic of however cool you think you are, in the end, death claims you and you're worm food. I have read books about forensic anthropology in which scientists go out of their way to explain that worms don't actually eat us - they eat the dirt we rot down to - though maggots and other insect larvae do.

All of which only goes to show that one person's ubiquitous usage is another person's obscurity. If y'all say you're not familiar with it, then you're not - though it's possible that the dream was informed by imagery that had been presented to the dreamer at various times, but didn't lodge in the consciousness. I am particularly struck by the resemblance of the worm-face to the encounter with Demeter in Gene Wolfe's *Soldier of the Mist/Soldier of Arete,* during which she tested the soldier protagonist by turning away her beautiful face and showing him a face of mold and worms. He passes the test with flying colors, saying that this is the face the farmer sees as he follows his plow, and it does not frighten him. So - if this had been my dream - I would have had no hesitation in identifying the grandmother/worm-face image as a mother goddess - birth and life in the same body as death and decay.

Now, the weasels - are you, or were you 8 years ago, aware of the American usage of weasel to mean unreliable, sneaky, mealy-mouthed, insincere, evading responsibility? During our initial rush for the good oil fields - um, attack on terrorists - in Iraq, I was plagued with spam advertising a "deck of weasels," a trading card set with pictures and scurrilous text targeting opponents of the war. Writing teachers and advice books will sometimes refer to modifiers as "weasel words," terms which weaken the meanings of nouns and verbs while pretending to make them stronger and more precise. Some such source might, once again, have lodged in your subconscious instead of your conscious mind.

Or - perhaps she said "woozles," those elusive beasts that keep going round and round the tree, accumulating more and more friends, till you and your friends Piglet and Christopher Robin become reluctant to meet up with them?
 
Mr R.I.N.G, have you read Stephen King’s The Stand?

In the book there’s an old lady messiah figure (Mother Abigail) that gets attacked by a band of weasels, which are possessed by the devil. It’s been a long time since I read it, but I vaguely remember her appearing in the main characters dream to warn him of the encroaching weasels.
 
I just can't see worms as meaning death, do they really eat rotting flesh? Maggots will if the flesh is exposed to air. I see worms as processing plant matter, recycling and aerating, and I like them-maybe I'm too scientific :D When I dream of death I dream of dead people or animals!
The worm wasn't eating the old woman's face, it was alive growing from it, perhaps that indicates a kinsghip with nature/the World (indicating a goddess maybe?)
 
Interesting stuff, all!

1) I haven't read the Stand (though I've read other King books), but I did see the miniseries. I don't think there is a scene like that in the mini that I can recall. There is a low-budget American film called "Squirm" about electrified worms killing people, and there is a guy who falls into the worms and becomes their leader - but he has multiple worms hanging off his face. The old woman/crone/Grandma in the dream had a single worm growing up out of her chin, so it seemed like it should be signifigant in saying who was talking. It would be interesting if she was a goddess and there was some dark force that was in charge of weasles, or had weasles as familiars.

3) I was familiar with worm imagry equating the grave, as a horror fan I'd have to be! :) Weasle, as in sneaky & unreliable, yes I'm familiar with that level of meaning. But I was more scared in the dream because I just knew they were hiding in the dark of the dream, I could hear their scurrying, and that as soon as worm face left there would be nothing between me and them - in the dream it was definately a warning of bodily harm (or so I took it at the time).

4) I tend think that "dream dictionaries" seem fairly bogus, like Llwellayn magic books, too pre-packaged. The symbology book is about different symbolic uses of just about any idea or image, and as such isn't geared at all towards dreams. But if dreams are codes, or collections of symbols, then I thought it could be interesting to see what it might say about my dream, and it was the first mention of meaning for weasles-as-symbol that I've found.

5) Does anybody have much info on the Thessalian witches? In general, they seem like an interesting topic...
 
I think they are Classical... and I know they happen in at least one of the texts I'v read.

Beyind that.... no!

Karg
 
Weasles eh? Watch out for the stoats as well, its a Wildwood out there...

Poop-Poop!

edit: Sorry about that - not very helpful.
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
5) Does anybody have much info on the Thessalian witches?
Click to expand...

There are Thessalian witches in 'The Golden Ass' of L. Apuleius, who eat the faces of dead men to gain their magical powers. In general, if you want to read about Classical witches and magic, Apuleius is your man.
 
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