Sunday, February 2, 2003		Dream Theme

Dreaming of worms
Vinaya Katoch Manhas

DREAMS of worms are quite repugnant. Such dreams can take several forms, such as dreams of food with worms, worms coming out of your body or scrawling all over you. Generally such a dream leaves you feeling nauseated and fearful that you might fall victim to an illness.

According to Indian thought, such dreams foretell a reversal of fortune. To see small worms scrawling all over you is an indication of worries, hurdles and ill-luck coming your way. It warns you to be careful as, unknown to you, certain enemies might be working against you. Even the smallest act of carelessness can wreck havoc. Should you dream of yourself going somewhere, and you see the path you are walking on full of worms, it is an indication of bad times ahead. Should you use the worms as fish bait then it means that you shall be able to defeat your enemies by your own ingenuity.

As per western ideology, to dream of worms is to be oppressed by the crooked ideology of people with bad reputation. Should you see the worms crawling on your face, it means that you are a materialistic person and tend to judge things on the basis of the material gains you stand to make from them. Should you shake them off or kill them and manage to free yourself of them, it means that you shall with efforts be able to shake off your materialistic viewpoint and develop a more spiritual outlook.

Psychoanalytically speaking, dreams of worms carry twin interpretations. First, it denotes an inferiority complex. It can be interpreted to mean that the person considers himself to be as lowly as a worm, or maybe so rotten an individual that he deserves to be infested with worms. It portrays the dreamer’s feeling of insignificance. The second interpretation carries sexual connotations. The worm is symbolic of the male sex organs. Depending on the person’s past experience, especially sexual experience, the dream may denote either threat or desire.

A 21-year-old man, often dreamt of worms entering his body from various parts while he tried to catch them and pull them out as they are about to enter. The act of the worms entering his body is an act of penetration and as such carries sexual connotations. His trying to remove the worms denoted his desire to avoid the act. While narrating this dream the dreamer could not recall feeling any fear or repulsion. This indicates that the dream is a sort of punishment that the dreamer is inflicting on himself for harbouring sexual thoughts for someone as he feels that these thoughts are wrong. The act of removal of the worms indicates an attempt to drive away the desire.