Animals Dream Interpretation and Meanings

Understanding Animals in Dreams: Symbolism, Instincts, and Psychological Insights

Animals in dreams often represent aspects of the personality that are best understood on an instinctive level. Each animal carries unique symbolism that reflects our psychological urges, relationships, and inner struggles.

1- Animals Representing Instincts and Personality

Animal with a cub: Represents motherly qualities and the mother figure.
Baby animals: Reflects the child-like side of the dreamer's personality or possibly children known to the dreamer.
The hurt young animal: The dreamer may perceive difficulties in maturing or facing life challenges.
Eating the animal: Overcoming personal 'demons' by assimilating them in a constructive way. In pagan belief, eating an animal was thought to impart superior qualities.
Godlike or talking animals: These represent innocent and simple wisdom, untouched by conscious thought.
Helpful animals: The subconscious produces helpful images that the dreamer can easily accept.
Killing the animal: Destroying the energy derived from instincts, while taming or harnessing the animal shows the dreamer's efforts to control and use their instincts productively.
Refuge from animals: Indicates the dreamer's struggle with animal instincts and whether the actions taken are adequate.

2- Symbolic Representation of Specific Animals

Bear: Symbolizes the mother, either as a nurturing or devouring figure. If masculine, it may represent an overbearing person or the father.
Bull: Represents destructiveness, fear, or anger, but also sexual passion or creative power. Slaying the bull suggests initiation into maturity and mastery over instincts.
Cat: Links with the sensuous, feminine side, often symbolizing capriciousness, elegance, or power in women.
Chameleon: Indicates the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
Cold-blooded animals: Represent the unfeeling, inhuman aspects of instincts, often destructive and alien.
Composite animals: Suggests confusion in sorting out needed qualities, with two potentials of development in one figure.
Cow: Depicts the eternal feminine, especially the mother, providing nourishment and care.
Deer/Reindeer: Symbolizes pride, nobility, and understanding one's place in the world.
Dog: Represents a faithful companion, protector, or someone who may cause trouble. Also connects to memories of past periods in life.
Elephant: Signifies patience, strength, and glowing wisdom, with a long memory and fidelity.
Fox: Reflects cunning, slyness, and hypocrisy.
Frog: Symbolizes transformation and growth from something repugnant into something valuable.
Goat: Represents creative energy and masculine vitality, but also the dark side of human nature and sexuality. Often linked to the Devil or Capricorn.
Horse: Represents the energy available to the dreamer. The color of the horse can indicate different aspects of the dreamer's nature—white for spiritual awareness, brown for pragmatism, and black for passion.
Hyena: Represents impurity, instability, and deviousness.
Jackal: Associated with death and transformation, guiding souls from the earth plane into the light.
Lion: Symbolizes majesty, strength, and courage, as well as ego and passions. Struggling with the lion represents a successful development if not overpowered.
Otter: Represents adaptability and subsistence from one's environment, qualities the dreamer may need to develop.
Serpent: Universal symbol representing both destruction and life. In a man's dream, it reflects doubts about masculinity, while in a woman's dream, it may manifest as fear of sex or the ability to seduce.
Wolf: Represents a threat from others or cruel, sadistic fantasies the dreamer may be harboring.
Wild animals: Often symbolize danger, destructive passions, or dangerous people.

3- Understanding Animal Symbolism for Personal Growth

By understanding the symbolism of animals in dreams, we gain insight into our instincts and approach life in a more simplistic and natural way. Animals represent forces within us that need to be acknowledged, harnessed, or controlled in order to maintain balance and personal growth.

See Also: Bear, Bull, Cat, Serpent, Horse, Dog, Lion, Wolf.

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Understanding Animals in Dreams: Instincts, Drives, and Hidden Desires

Animals in dreams often represent our primitive drives and desires, such as fear, lust, and anger, which can only be understood on an instinctual level. Dreaming of a particular animal may suggest aspects of your personality that are instinctual, hidden, or striving for recognition. It could also represent a part of yourself that you find difficult to control. Since we often attribute personality traits to animals, they may symbolize gut feelings we have about others. For instance, an attacking lion might depict someone being aggressive toward us.

Instinctual Drives and Personality Representation

Dream animals evoke special interest as they present familiar yet mysterious images. Traditionally, the characteristics of the dream animal are applied to humans, often predicting fortune or misfortune. For example, a wolf might signify thieves or bad luck. According to Freud, animals in dreams are not predictive of future events but express repressed or unexpressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. Jung, however, viewed animals in dreams differently, suggesting that they should be analyzed based on the character they portray and the dreamer’s association with them.

Jung believed that animals represent the 'divine' side of the human psyche, living in close contact with an absolute knowledge of the unconscious. Animals, in Jung's view, follow their inner laws beyond good and evil and serve as a source of inspiration and guidance.

Personal Connection to Dream Animals

Although animals are common symbols in dreams, their meanings can be complex. The simplest way to interpret them is to consider how you feel about the specific animal in your waking life. For example, if you adore cats because you have a beloved pet, dreaming of a cat may reflect that affection. Conversely, if you are allergic to cats, the dream may suggest discomfort or a negative association. The feelings an animal evokes within the context of your dream can reveal whether that emotion is surfacing or already expressing itself in daily life.

If you have no particular feelings about the animal in your dream, consider the traits typically associated with it. For example, a fox might symbolize cunning and stealth, while an elephant could represent strength and mystery, and a dog might embody unconditional loyalty and love. Since animals represent raw, unfiltered emotions and drives, your unconscious may use an animal like a fox to alert you to your own or someone else's cunning.

Archetypal and Symbolic Associations

For those still puzzled by their animal dreams, the hidden meaning may lie in archetypal, traditional, legendary, mythical, or magical associations. Additionally, dream animals may embody a pun. For instance, dreaming of a badger might suggest you are feeling 'badgered' or aggravated. Dreaming of a zebra could refer to a black-and-white perspective on life.

Opportunities for Self-Discovery

Animal dreams, no matter how challenging, provide an opportunity to explore parts of ourselves we have hidden away or have yet to discover. Researchers believe that animal dreams signify the subconscious coming to life. Our dreams are selective and personal in choosing animals to portray our life situations, but animal symbols in dreams generally represent a fundamental push toward living with passion.

See Also: Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Amphibians, Pets.

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Animal dreams can have several different meanings, depending on the specifics of your dream: Wild animals, especially if threatening, mean you feel out of control in a situation.

If you tame a wild animal in a dream, you achieve success through expressing yourself honestly.

If you are attacked by a vicious animal and you manage to kill it, you will triumph over your rivals.

Dreaming of domestic animals (such as pets), if unfamiliar, can mean you feel pressured to be something you’re not.

The same meaning applies to dreaming of wild animal babies (of any type of wild animal).

Dreaming of farm animals suggests that you are ready for growth. It’s time to start exploring your potential. Also see “Cow” and “Chickens” for more specific meanings.

If you dream that you kill a gentle animal (example: you’re driving and you run over a deer), something you are doing in real life goes against your values and you are “killing” a sweet part of yourself. You must change your behavior and stop acting against your instincts or a part of yourself will be lost or damaged. Talking animals in dreams serve as messengers of the unconscious. Pay attention to what they say, for they are trying to help you to trust your instincts and intuiton, and possibly warning you of dangerous or negative emotions that you have absorbed from others. Animals attacking other animals in your dream means you are feeling a deep conflict with someone you are close to. This dream may also suggest that you are scared of showing your true emotions and desires, because you think they are too powerful for others to deal with.

If you dream of being an animal, it could be an expression of your primitive desires, physical characteristics or even your romantic longings. Animals in dreams symbolizes the untamed and uncivilized aspects of yourself. Think about how you felt in the dream, and how you acted, for clues to your dream’s meaning. Also look up the specific type of animal you were, for further analysis.

If you dream of lab animals, you need to experiment with your fears, choices and beliefs. Try not to limit yourself by what others think you are capable of.

If you dream of a dead animal, an aspect of yourself is being repressed. You feel that you are not able to fully express your desires and emotions.

If you dream of experiments being done on animals, you will encounter difficulties in carrying out your goals and plans. However, if you rescued the animals from the experiments, you are successfully facing emotions and characteristics represented by the animal.

If you dream of hybrid animals (half one creature, half another), this symbolizes that you are beginning to incorporate different sides of yourself as you grow and mature into a fully-formed personality. Look up the animals that the hybrid was made of, for additional meaning about these sides of yourself.

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Like any other animal, human beings have developed certain physical and behavioural traits. Some of these traits, such as a newborn baby attempting to suckle the breast, are rooted in millions of years of past experience and can be thought of as instinctive. We can observe such traits in a dog in such behaviour as cocking of the leg in male dogs. We can see some of our own traits in such things as the human desire to elect leaders. Many of these habits are physiological or social. In our dreams we represent these drives or habits in the form of various animals. Our restrained sex drive or aggression may be shown in our dream as a dog on a lead.

The power of drives such as the urge to parenthood via sex might be shown as a horse which we are trying to control. More than anything else, though, our dream animal represents our powerful reactions to situations, reactions developed through centuries of human experience in frequently terrible situations. This aspect of ourself is rooted in the older portions of the brain.

The animal in our dreams has commonly been seen only as the sex drive.

A careful examination of animal dreams, though, shows this to be untrue.

The animal represents all our biological needs and responses, which include survival and hunger, reproduction; parental urges; need for exercise and rest; social drives, fear reactions, anger, urge to provide (for young and mate); home/nest building; territory protection, social hierarchy, etc.

If these aspects in an individual are damaged or traumatised, we see parents who have lost their natural bonding and caring for their child; individuals who have no sense of social status or responsibility, enabling them to be criminally violent; disturbed and misplaced sexuality. Dominating or attempting to kill out the animal in us can cause tension, depression and illness.

The common escape into dry intellectualism is a cause of internal conflict. Complete permissiveness is no answer either, our higher brain functions need expression too. So one of the challenges of maturing is how to meet and relate to our ‘animals’, and perhaps bring them into expression in a satisfying way. Such drives are fundamentally a push towards life.

It must be remembered that where sex or sexuality is mentioned, I am not simply referring to the sex act. I mean sexuality in its overall aspect, which includes the urge towards parenthood, and the love and caring connected with it.

(Brain damage or certain drugs or chemicals can diminish the ‘human’ levels of function and only the animal and lizard levels are expressed.) Below are listed some common ways animals are used in our dreams.

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Universal Landscape: Human instincts.

Dreaming Lens: What animal was appearing in your dream? Were you the animal? Was there more than one type of animal? What were the animals doing? Were you in danger?

Personal Focus: In the spirit of everything in a dream being a reflection of the consciousness of the dreamer, any animal that appears in a dream represents some element of the human experience and the personality of the dreamer. What sets us apart from other animals is our capacity to think. However, animals connect to the opposite of thoughtful navigation through life. They represent the instinctive drives and the deep intuitive knowing that allow a person to feel guided toward right action without intellectually knowing what to do.

Most aboriginal cultures are very connected to the animals that inhabit their worlds. In fact, animals are thought to possess spiritual powers, and these powers are directly related to how each animal behaves in the world. The qualities of the animal that appears in your dream offer clues to the interpretation you make.

For example, bears connect to fierce power. Large cats represent stealth and strategic hunting ability. High-flying birds, such as an eagle or hawk, are expressions of the ability to see from the great vantage point of the sky. When in doubt, think about the facts you know about the animal. The Internet makes this kind of research very easy. Read a little about the animal and you will easily understand what your unconscious mind is trying to communicate.

The second facet of your interpretation will come from what the animal is doing in your dream. The activity they are engaged in will correlate with some type of movement (or obstacle to movement) in your waking life. The dream may be asking you to stop trying to think your way through a situation and turn instead toward your instinctive nature for an answer.

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Symbol: Animals represent, as Archetypes, the depths of our unconscious or our instincts. Animals in dreams are always repressed symbols of our urges—a dream language of the forbidden.

Bear: a symbol of vitality, power, and endurance (particularly in women’s dreams).

See Also: Dragon, Serpent.

Small animals often symbolize a small sibling; large animals usually stand for the dreamer’s own character traits and repressed cravings. Animals with human voices: a warning not to let other people hurt or take advantage of you. Dead animals are a sign of changes in your personal situation.

Depth Psychology: Animals are a symbol of primitive character traits, like greed, passion, or anger.

The other symbols in the dream are very important.

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Animals often represent, in general, the qualities or defects with which they are traditionally associated. So, the dog may represent loyalty; dove, peace; turtle, longevity; tiger, power; etc. However, like in the other entries of this dictionary, you must always take into account the personal circumstances of the dreamer. If, for example, the dreamer has been bitten by a dog, her unconscious would hardly associate the figure of the dog with fidelity. On the other hand, animals refer to our most primal instincts and our basic desires. The dream may be calling attention to some aspect of your nature that you repress or underestimate. In any case, it is advising you to try to be more spontaneous and less rational.

If you dream of eating an animal, it means that you are assimilating natural wisdom.

If you fight against it, it means you are having trouble with your hidden self, rejected by the conscious.

If the animal is guarding a treasure then the material passions are preventing you from spiritual fulfillment.

Its meaning depends on whether it is about domestic or wild animals. While the wild animal is indicative of secret enemies and professional problems, the domestic one announces the return of absent friends and reconciliation. To own, feed, and care for them, especially if they are ruminants, indicates wealth and good businesses. Those endowed with horns predict happiness.

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To see animals in your dream is indicative of certain aspects of your personality. Depending on what animal you see, it may reflect your outer appearance, your primal needs and wants, or fantasies relating to sex. Animals can represent your wild and uninhibited side. Thus, to dream that you are fighting with an animal implies that there is some aspect of your personality that you dislike or are trying to avoid. Also read about the type of animal that is appearing in your dream.

To dream that animals can talk indicates insight and intellect. Pay attention to the words it utters; the meaning being conveyed may represent your ability to achieve all that you desire.

To dream that you are saving the life of an animal indicates that you are aware of some personality traits that you have in common with the animal. In addition, you may feel as if you are lacking a particular attribute or you are insignificant in the scheme of things.

To see lab animals in your dream represents a personal attribute that you are hiding from yourself and others. You need to gain confidence and face these emotions, even if you feel as if you will be overcome by them. Be more open-minded and willing to try different things.

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(See Also: by specific creature or habitat, Carcass, Fur, Zoo)

The primitive wildness within and a yearning to return to nature.

A threatening animal reveals hidden aggression or unexpressed anger toward something or someone. Alternatively, this may mean that you personally feel threatened by someone perceived as predatory.

Taming an animal: Bringing (or wishing to bring) yourself under greater control, especially characteristics like a hot temper or overly intense passion (See Also: Whip).

Native Americans believe that the spirits of animals appear in our dreams as teachers and guides. In this case, read that animal’s entry for more insight into its lessons.

Killing an animal: Consider what the creature itself symbolizes.

For example, killing a bird signals a fear that you are somehow stifling personal freedom or vision (See Also: Carcass).

Jung felt that the central self was often represented in dreams as an animal, specifically the elephant, horse, bear, bull, fish, or snake.

Consider the creature’s positive and negative characteristics or integral qualities as they reflect upon the way you behave.

For example, are you being bull-headed or figuratively bearish?

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Symbolize our own traits, good and bad. When you see an animal doing something in your dreams it usually represents a bad trait. As it is far easier for us to accept and watch an animal doing something negative then to take the credit for it ourselves. Animals within dreams often seem to symbolize emotions. Some people have repeated dreams which involve, for instance, being chased by a wild animal. At times, people have found that there is a sense of fear until they turn and face the animal, and then find out that there is something that changes within them as a result of doing so. This is where it is important to ask the dreamer about what is going on in their lives. Is there a similar feeling that they experience or that they are being asked to confront? Scripturally unclean animals may represent demonic powers

Domestic animals may represent

1. Christ; Lev. 4:3,

2. Believers; Isa. 53:6

3. Israel. Jer. 50:17; Wild animals may represent

4. Gentile nations; Jer. 50:17

5. Unbelievers; Dan. 8:3,

6. People; 2 Pet. 2:12

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More than anything else, dream animals represent powerful instinctive reactions to situations, for example, fight or flight, the urge to find a mate and protect our young, the desire to have standing and recognition within a group, and so on.

When instincts need to be understood, expressed or controlled in some way animals can often appear in our dreams to symbolize them. By understanding animals in dreams and the qualities they represent, we can approach life in a more instinctive, simple and natural way.

Bear in mind though that there is a huge difference in meaning between wild animals and domesticated animals in dreams. In general, domesticated animals or pets, such as a dog or rabbit, represent those urges we have more control over and are therefore less threatening to our conscious desire to be in charge. The wild animals we dream of are more threatening to our ego, but they are also more powerful, because if we can develop a working relationship with them they offer incredible potential for growth.

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We think of animals as having intelligence that is basically instinctive. In this way, dreams that feature animals are helping us tap into our own instinctual nature.

The first element of any interpretation of an animal that appears in your dream is to investigate the special trait that the particular animal represents. You will find many such interpretations within these pages, but a little research will yield great results if your dream animal is not listed.

The animal’s behaviors and habits will illustrate the instinct that is being highlighted.

The second facet of your interpretation will come from what the animal is doing in your dream.

The activity it is engaged in will correlate with some type of movement (or obstacle to movement) in your waking life.

The dream may be asking you to stop trying to think your way through a situation and instead turn to your instinctive nature for an answer.

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By understanding animals and their symbolism we approach life in a more simplistic and natural way. In shamanism, one of the most ancient belief systems, animals are an intrinsic part of the shaman’s (wise man or priest) journey into other realms. They are protective as well as being teachers. Godlike, talking, awe-inspiring or wise animals, or those with human characteristics: animal wisdom is simple and uncomplicated and, therefore, is innocent. In dreams and myths we personalize this quality.

It is always important to pay attention to this aspect of animal life in fairy tales and dreams, since we need to be in touch with that part of ourselves.

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The symbolism of animals is highly complex, as different creatures have been used to represent a variety of different notions.

A proper interpretation also depends on one’s personal associations with animals. Generically, animals symbolize the physical, instinctual, “animal” self, and wild dream beasts that one cannot specifically identify usually represent this aspect of the self (or “beastlike” people in one’s environment). One should be careful about this generalization, however, because certain other, more specific animals (e.g., birds) can symbolize precisely the opposite (e.g., the higher self or the soul).

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Animals most often represent that aspect of ourselves, or parts of our personality, that are present in our ordinary life.

It is generally given that the more primitive the animal then the more primitive or deeper the layer of consciousness that represents.

To dream of being bitten by an animal may be a manifestation of a fear of animals. What the animal is doing in the dream is also very important, if say, a pig is dancing, then maybe that means that the side of you that likes to over indulge is very happy with that. But if the pig were crying then that might indicate an inner urge to curb and over indulge in habit.

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Carl Jung said that all wild animals indicate latent affects (feelings and emotions that we do not readily deal with). They are also symbolic of dangers (hurtful and negative things) being “swallowed” by the unconscious.

The interpretation of the animal in your dream depends on your relationship with it in daily life. Animals represent the qualities in our character or specific aspects of our personalities. They could symbolize our more intuitive and instinctive parts, or they could serve as messengers for the unconscious. Please look up each animal individually by name.

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To see wild Animals in a dream is generally a dream of contrary; but there are a few special Animals such as LION, LEOPARD, TIGER, which carry distinct meanings. Any very unusual creature, such as a crocodile, is a bad sign. Domestic Animals have separate meanings, and the CAT and DOG are not considered good dream omens. Cows and Bulls depend upon their attitude; if they are peaceful, they are a good omen; but if they attack you, then expect difficulties in your business ventures.

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To see wild animals in your dream is generally a good omen pertaining to business, but the interpretation depends on their at- tude; if they were calm, your affairs will prosper, but if they attacked you (or each other), you can expect some reverses.

See Also: Lion, Dog, Cat, Bull, Cow, Horse, etc.

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An uncontrollable animal symbolizes the lust for sex. Docile animals such as pets reveal a state of contentment and pleasant companionship, but the pet itself may be in danger. Wild animals such as the bull, leopard, lion, and so on are considered symbols of desire for sexual fulfillment.

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Animals emerge from the Lower World as powerful archetypes and energies. They may lend their wisdom, attributes, and supernatural powers to the dreamer.

The appearance of any animal in a dream may point out that man and nature are not separate but are intricately connected.

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Material aspects: When animals appear in a dream they tend to represent an aspect of the personality that cannot be properly understood except on an instinctive level. Below are some common images that occur in dreams.

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Freud and others attach sexual significance to dreams of animals; dream interpreters, however, regard the dream of a number of domestic animals as auguring happiness, while wild animals symbolize enemies.

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Talking animals can be demonic spirits posing as spirit guides. Running on all fours in a dream like an animal may represent a subconscious feeling of being powerful

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Represent people, according to color and character; research accordingly

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(See Also: Sound of animals)

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Symbolism of Animals in Dreams: Emotions, Instincts, and Life Lessons

lucky numbers: 11-13-30-39-48-50

Angry Animals

angry: Your wrath is difficult to restrain.
another’s anger: Reflects their emotions toward you.
baboons: A fleeting rise in status, try to maintain it.

Beast and Communication

talking to a beast: Hardship and misfortune are approaching.
beating an animal: Your sense of power is fragile at best.
pigs: Misinformation damages your own affairs.
beating an animal to death: Get out of the business before you destroy it.

Animal Behavior and Interaction

bleating animals: New concerns will be pleasant.
gnawing on bones: Will fall into complete ruin.
buffaloes: Perseverance in launching your large enterprise.

Chasing and Fear

chasing you: Part of your personality is stubbornly demanding expression.
being pursued by a wild animal: You will be offended by a friend.
hyena, being chased by a laughing one: Others are useless, go it alone.

Dead and Wounded Animals

dead animal: Ridding yourself of instincts no longer needed.
and wounded: You are opening yourself up to criticism.
feeding on a carcass: Gluttony of backbiting hardly fills the stomach.

Animal Parts and Symbolism

fangs of an animal: Leave before you are kicked out.
buttocks of an animal: You will soon have money.
hoof of an animal: You are in danger of being swindled by a lover.

Animal Behavior in Relation to You

attacking you: Show them your license to proceed.
feeding an animal: Someone is endeavoring to destroy you.
stroking an animal: Fortune is ahead for you; don't grab.

Other Animal Scenarios

resting in a stable: You will be unfortunate in love if you don't pay attention to it.
selling an animal: Success postponed until more propitious times.
large animal: Your repressed cravings surface with hostility.
tame animal: Keep your friends close; you are surrounded by enemies.
wild animal howling: Enemies will get the best of your bigotry.

See Also: Angry, Beast, Wild, Dead, Chasing, Stroking

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Animals Dream Interpretation

Interpretation from 28 Unique Sources About Animals

Dream Meanings About The Animals