This dream comes at a time of great family crisis.

Everything is white. Out of the whiteness comes a huge white horse galloping towards me. As it comes closer, I see it has six legs. I say, "Gosh, six legs!" The horse comes close by me, it's head is above mine. I touch and stroke the fur on the horse's cheek, it seems so real. I look up into the horse's eye, it is incredibly blue and looking at me piercingly and with concern. I say, "Gosh, you're beautiful!". The horse says, "Thank you". I look into the white beyond and far away out of the whiteness is coming an older woman with heavy brown robes, she is bent over and walking with a staff. I wake up.

I feel the horse by me and comforting me when I think about him (gender not altogether clear but I think male). About the legs, my idea is 4 physical legs and 2 psychic legs. I'm reminded of Odin's horse Sleipnir, which had eight legs?

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 51, UK

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

Elizabeth,
Interesting that you mention mythology {Oden's horse Sleipner}. Eric Ackroyd has this to say about talking horses in a dream:

The horse may symbolize your unconscious or your whole psyche. In myths and folktales, horses sometimes speak. If the horse in your dream speaks, it is either the voice of your unconscious, or some part of it, or the voice of your true self, your inner being.

Ackroyd also says this:

A galloping horse may symbolize ecstasy; or a need not to get bogged down in sensuality/ material ambitions

The background to your dream is white. I take this as something positive about your life. The white horse may be those positive aspects, the self confidence, albeit unconscious, that out of great strife comes the strongest self. Legs may represent ability and the number 6 may symbolize 'out of conflict comes wholeness {the number six can represent both completeness/wholeness as well as conflict}. During these times of a great family crisis your inner strength will provide assets to overcome and even prosper from the experience.

The older woman with heavy brown robes may represent the wise self. But I sense something else to this feminine aspect. Is there such a person in your life who could fit this description? 'she is bent over and walking with a staff' may provide other clues. It could also be saying something about the need to not let doubts about yourself get in the way of the positive qualities.

gerard/Jerry

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 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

Thank you so much for your thoughts Gerard which are most appreciated. (Sorry for the delay in replying, my firefox brower at home didn't let me in after typing the password, this is now another browser.)

I had a good time looking up symbolic interpretations of "six". Apparently, I am one step away from wholeness!! well, it doesn't feel like it to be honest. The crisis I face leaves me with waves of nausea and something akin to terror at what the future may hold for my loved ones. I feel like I'm standing in a wind tunnel and someone is trying to blow my life away. Even if the whole thing resolves as I hope against hope it will, I'm left with a crisis of meaning; is there really no difference between good and evil (two faces of the same coin) as the mystics say? Is the world really perfect as it is?

So my latest dreams:
1) am on a cruise ship. A horrid woman forbids me to do one thing after another. The ship eventually sinks and I'm left clinging to flotsam. But I know I won't drown.
2) i am in my bed. My husband is in an iron contraption that makes it hard to kiss. We hear someone in the house. We fall out of bed, and I look up to see an amazonesque woman in a protection suit spraying insecticide.
3) I am in the passenger seat of my car. A big woman is in the driver's seat. I have no idea who she is or where we are going. Another big woman gets into the driver's seat! They struggle, then one sits on the other's lap and drives, with the other one fuming!!

So obviously there is the shadow there. Over and over, the image is even doubled. So here is the question I think have to ask myself: if I were to eject the shadow from the driver's seat, where would I drive to? Any thoughts on if you think this is the correct interpretation would be really helpful. Also, any thoughts on how I might arrive at the answer?

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 51, UK

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes

Elizabeth,
If there is not a 'horrid woman' in your waking life who is forbidding then look at yourself and determine what aspects would fit the 'horrid woman'. She would be a part of your own psyche.

The dream about your husband probably is speaking to some aspect of that relationship. Is he hard to get to, communicate with? Being in bed may suggest sexual problems. The 'amazonesque woman' is probably another description of 'the horrid woman' in the first dream. She is most likely a part of you, or could be someone related to you {look to personal aspects first}.

The pattern is becoming clear. There is a part of that is controlling. And it is driving you to who knows where. It may be an unconscious thing {I have no idea who she is}. This controlling aspect is causing behavior that consumes you. You need to determine what this unknown aspect is.

Either there is some conscious aspect of your life that is horribly out of balance and is causing severe conflict in your life, or there unconscious forces that are the controlling agent that you may not be aware of. It could be a bit of both, knowing you are in conflict but not knowing the deeper source.

I'll use my experiences as an example of the unconscious forces. As a young adult I had this 'void' in my life. Although I was married to 3 wonderful women I was always looking for something that was missing. Often that caused me to look in the wrong places {infidelity}. I wasn't looking to replace my wife, I was looking to fill a void, a void I could not explain.

It wasn't until I began my spiritual journey in 1992 that I began to realize what that void was. My father was a 'no show', never there, never giving the attention and love I so desperately sought as a child. That was the void I was trying to fill. Some say that is nonsense but from my many years of interpreting dreams and working with those whose childhood were similar, I now different. Because I have recognized what was lacking in my life I no longer have that void.

Could there be childhood or early life issues that prompt you to act out of character or makes you a 'horrid person' to yourself? Or others around you? I suggest you look to your childhood and examine that aspect of your life. If there are 'horrid' experiences, or even significant experiences of a lack of love and acceptance by your parent{s] that could be the root to who you are, how you feel, how you act. The symbols in the above dreams do point to something 'unrealized', or uncontrolled. Often that goes back to childhood where experiences are imprinted on the psyche and are the stimulus for personality characteristics, traits, habits, etc.
Is the '{horrid amazonesque woman' you and why is she so able to control your life? It isn't just by happenstance, there are always underlying reasons. Although there could be periods of chemical imbalance {resolved by chemicals/medications} that will cause depressive states of being, more often it is deeper than that. As it was in my life, and childhood.

The horse with six legs dream is out of character with the 3dreams you posted in your response. Perhaps there are changes taking place that provides insights to the 'font color="#c99663">horrid woman' aspect.
What type personality do you have? Is it one of positive thinking even in times of distress {This dream comes at a time of great family crisis}? Or is that person who normally would be positive 'hidden' deep within? As a child growing up I was very much an introverted type {until the age of 16 when a black school teacher turned my life around} while my general personality is extroverted. That introverted state was due to the 'father' issues I spoke of earlier. Getting to roots of the 'horrid woman', whether it be a real person in waking life and/or an aspect of your own psyche seems to be the key to understanding your dreams, and the conflicts in your life.

gerard/Jerry meditate]

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 58 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

gosh Gerard, maybe you are a genius, I'm so impressed.

There are currently *2* horrid women causing all the trouble. But I'm guessing they would not upset me so much if there was no reflection of them inside me.
You said it could be both inner and outer women, and I think that's right.
So at your suggestion, I'm thinking through my childhood.

My mother and I came to terms with the highly stressful time we both had of my childhood and adolescence some time ago, although I can never trust her totally (to give an idea. I can remember having to have the house perfectly clean when she returned from business trips because otherwise she would threaten never to come home again. I understand now she didn't mean it like that, but a child can't tell, particularly when there has been a riding crop used without my understanding why in earlier times). Her mother was also highly stressed by motherhood. But in fact there is a long line of seemingly horrid women - capriciously unpleasant and even vindictive schoolteachers, OTT sibling rivalry with sisters, misplaced sibling rivalry with female sports team members, arrogant and ignorant female line managers, a mother-in-law with borderline personality disorder (well, it explains everything, repugnant woman), next mother-in-law suddenly shouting and carrying on at me, not once but twice (not quite as nice as she thinks she is, but who is?).....

To be honest I'm really struggling to think of a single positive older female role model in my life to whom I can relate. The last time I prayed to the mother of christ was just before I was assaulted; it didn't help...well, let's not go there.

So -- small wonder the current pair of harpies are triggering a major inner earthquake.

Finally the horse dream must be compensatory; a positive dream in the face of all the troubles, showing me wholeness in the face of a shattering experience.

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 51, UK

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

How Did You Find the Dream Forum? yes