I had this dream about year back but it has always puzzeled me .
I was in tree in a jungle looking at a clearing when I saw a male lion kill a old man and mutilate his body ,as I watched the lion got up and left . All of a sudden I saw movement where the old man's remains were . I watched as a young man appear from the remains of the old man and walk away.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 46 madison tn

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} male

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Terry,
Dreams always have multiple messages about you and your life and your dream fits with this pattern. Here is what I see with this 'simple' straight forward dream. If you don't have the time or need to delve into the deeper aspects my general interpretation will help you understand the dream. If you are a person who seeks personal growth and is on that 'search', I have provided a more detailed interpretation.

The Dream In General
What the dream is trying to address is the phase of life you are at {mid-life} and the physical and psychological changes that comes with this period of life. All the characters, people, tree, lion are aspects of yourself, they are you. The death is representative of something coming to an end {old aspects} and with death there is always new life, the young man. Death also represents change, changes in life as you grow older. The mutilation would be those parts of your life that have been 'mutilated', those essential things in life that you have been deprived of. Most of what happens t a person is brought on oneself, thus it becomes a self mutilation of sorts. Walking away from the place of mutilation may be a repression of those aspects that have been 'mutilated', either the self inflicted wounds or/and those that were inherited from childhood and early life experiences.

Mid-life is a time of transition and it is during this period that we go from 'growing', forming an ego, looking forward to a career, family and the future. At about the early 40s we begin to reflect on the past, the career has been established, having raised a family, and we start to look back. And 'death' does become a reality. This is a phase you are going through and with all dreams your life is been reflected upon. Dreams are your true self, absent the ego bias, objective and not solely subjective.

More Detail of the Symbols in the Dream
What we have in the dream is the 'death' of the old and the birth/rebirth of the new. Understand that your dreams are about you and at the age of 45/46 you are at that stage of mid-life where transitions are taking place, physically {getting older} and psychologically. Symbolically the tree would represent you and the 'branches' in life that come about as you age. The growth of a tree is the personal growth of the individual.
It also represents the fundamental principles you live by {the root system being the roots of your life}.
The tree is very often representative of your true self, those true aspects of who you are and not just the ego persona you wear as a mask to cover up what you don't want others to know, and those aspects you don't want to admit/know about yourself. We all have things we do not want others to know about. And there are often things in our lives, negative emotional experiences we do not want to think about or may even repress because of the trauma of the experience.

The jungle is the world in which we live, except it is an asphalt/concrete jungle, dangerous yet having the beautiful aspects also. You are but one small part {tree} of the whole jungle.
A jungle can also be representative of those things which we hide, "deep in the jungle", deep within your unconscious self. They are those deep inhibitions that are related to the true self, aspects that the ego self either wishes to hide or hide from.

The Male Lion
This is you. What is happening with the lion killing the old man {an aspect of your old self as well as the aging person you are growing into} is the the psychological death of 'killing' an aspect {old self aspects that have 'mutilated' you in some way}. This killing may represent trying to change {death represents changing from one thing to another, transition from one aspect of life to another-young person to mid-life} negative aspects about yourself that have 'mutilated' your personality/person. This would most likely be addressing childhood/early life experiences that have caused you to be less than the person you could/should have been. Again, the roots of the tree are the roots of your life and the growth of the personal tree are dependent on those early life roots that have formed who you are as an adult. In life most of the problems we face are brought about on ourselves, a self mutilation if you will. But a lot of what we do in life is an unconscious stimulus from the roots from which we came. Inherent and learned behavior from early life. This is often the major changes we all try to reconcile when we reach mid-life. This is most likely what you are trying to do, albeit unconsciously, and what the dream is addressing {the dream is a direct link to the unconscious}.

The mutilation of the body could relate in some way tyo a real mutilation but most likely it is metaphorical of the psychological mutilations I spoke of. In the dream there was a clearing and since the dream is one you had a year ago it may represent a time in your life where you were 'seeing' more clearly some of the primary aspects of your life. Was last year a time change for you?

Finally. There are two times the dream mentions 'leaving' {the lion got up and left and the young man walking away}. This may seem meaningless but all symbols, concrete as well as actions, mean something. It may be merely leaving the old self behind, something we all must do to proceed with life. Walking away from that old self and getting on with the new. Leaving those years of the 'lion hearted ego indentured self' and accepting the new life of aging. This may be the primary message of the dream. But because everything in life is psychological {physical experiences are always psychological experiences as well} it is not an easy thing to sort out. But its is something one must do, sort out all the accumulated baggage in life, to live a balanced and harmonious life as we age. Other wise those 'mutilated' aspects will remain and have control in some way over the life.

My method of confronting these psychological transformations is Jung's Individuation Process, a self examination of one's life. But this does take time and effort. The alternative is either getting help from a professional which can be expensive, or ignoring the matter entirely. Most do the latter. Myths-Dreams-Symbols is about Individuation of oneself and if you want to engage in the process the tools needed are here to do just that. Not everyone can use this method, it does require a lot of thought and discipline. But again, the alternative that most people use is doing nothing. And that leads to, well, just look around at people's lives and see the turmoil that is there. And the accumulated lives that are in turmoil equate to the universal world that is in turmoil. Changing one life at a time is the first step in changing the world. Doing something about your own life is that first step.

Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 60 Murfreesboro, Tn

Have You Posted Before? Date of Last Post {Use Search and Your Post Name to Help Find Last Post} Male

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? Yes