Seven Common Dreams and What They Mean

By: Molly Mann (View Profile)

Dreams come to us in our most private moments: wrapped up in sheets, our public faces stored away for the night. The visions we see in sleep are supposed to be expressions of our individual psyches and imaginations, but most people’s dreams are based on themes that are very common. I thought my recurring dream of losing my teeth was scary and freakish until I went online to find thousands of others having the same dream, all trying to find out what the heck it could mean. Just because our dreams are shared, though, doesn’t mean they aren’t unique; the way we experience these common elements in dreaming life is what’s significant.

1. Being chased.
Candice Janco, author of the Bedside Dream Dictionary: 500 Dream Symbols and Their Meanings, describes this dream (the most common) as an indication of a felt threat in your waking life. This threat can take the form of a menacing person or a strong emotion with which you are having difficulty coping. Try to determine who or what is chasing you, where the dream takes place, and what your feelings are during the chase to understand what this dreams means to you.

2. Missing an important event because you are late.
This can indicate regret over a missed opportunity, inability to make a connection, or desire to pull oneself together. In Dream Power: How to Use Your Night Dreams to Change Your Life, Cynthia Richmond suggests asking questions of dreams in order to understand what this common symbol means to you. For example: What are you missing? Who is disappointed by the missed event? Is it only you or are there others involved?

3. Finding yourself at work or school naked.
Not surprisingly, Freud interpreted dreams about being naked as repressed sexual wishes. But the most important part of this dream is the feelings that are involved. You suddenly find yourself exposed, vulnerable, and awkward. What area of your life corresponds to that feeling? Figure this out by noting where you are, who notices you, what part of you is exposed, how people react to you, and how you yourself react to the situation.

4. Falling.
Falling indicates feelings of insecurity and lack of support. What situation have you “fallen into?” Who has “let you down?” Perhaps not surprisingly, this particular dream is most common among professional men and women. The Illustrated Dream Dictionary authors Russell Grant and Vicky Emptage note the close relationship between “falling” and “failing.” They also note that the dream’s meaning is probably not so clear-cut. Grant and Emptage ascribe dreams of falling to feelings of isolation, the sense of being without the support and affection that success cannot provide.

5. Flying.
Interestingly, Grant and Emptage interpret flying dreams as boasting about sexual powers. The important part of the dream is how you are flying; since the flying itself represents your ambitions, are you flying successfully, or trying and failing to fly as high as possible? From there, they make the leap to feelings of sexual inadequacy, but such feelings of low self-esteem could cover inadequacy of any kind, not just sexual.

6. Losing your teeth.
This theme has a number of potential meanings because of the very different significances teeth have to different people. Our teeth are representative of our appearance because our smiles are one of the first things people notice about us. Therefore, dreaming about losing your teeth can indicate insecurity about your appearance, or even fears of sexual impotence, as teeth are often used to flirt with a desired partner. We also use our teeth to bite, chew, and tear, so losing them can mean a loss of power or fear of getting old. Interestingly, this dream is most common among menopausal women, perhaps for all of the above reasons

7. Snakes.
Snakes have been a fear in dreams for quite some time. The ancient Egyptians used to make snakes out of clay and place them at the doors of their homes to frighten away nightmares, believing that snakes were bringers of bad dreams and that the clay snake would keep real ones away. Dreammoods, an online encyclopedia of dream meanings, reports that snakes signify some hidden threat. This makes sense, as most of us fear the “snake in the grass.” Like most other symbols, though, this one has many meanings that depend on context. Snakes shed their skin, so they may signify renewal and transformation. This may be a frightening experience, as most people are uncomfortable with change, or it may be very positive.

In all of our dreams, the true meanings emerge when we decide what they really mean to us. Though these dream symbols are shared among many, and we can determine general explanations for them, it is the context in which we place them that is significant. Read all you can about dream meanings to find information that may be relevant to you, but also ask questions about your dreams and how these symbols make you feel. Once you dig a little deeper, you may find answers and clarity.

Original here

California weighs sweeping farm animal law that opponents say would mean end to egg industry

By EVELYN NIEVES |Associated Press Writer

VACAVILLE, Calif. (AP) _ Kim Sturla began bringing goats, pigs, chickens and cows once slated for slaughter to her sanctuary 20 years ago, before supermarkets offered eggs from cage-free hens and beef was advertised on menus as being hormone free.

Two decades later, the treatment of farm animals is a national issue being debated in state Legislatures and put before voters. Footage circulated on the Internet of sick farm animals being kicked and beaten has intensified calls for reform.

"People want conditions to change," said Sturla, who co-founded the Animal Place sanctuary for abused and discarded farm animals in 1989. "On this issue, you don't have to give propaganda. In fact, you have to downplay the conditions or people will shut down. They'll think you're embellishing."

This fall, California voters will consider the most comprehensive farm animal rights law in the country, a measure that would ban cramped metal cages for egg-laying hens, metal gestation crates for pregnant sows and veal crates for calves — standard industry practices in which the animals are kept so confined that they can barely move.

The initiative follows more limited measures recently passed in several other states.

Earlier this year, the Colorado Legislature became the first in the nation to prohibit the use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs and veal crates for calves. In the last three years, Florida and Oregon voters have banned gestation crates and Arizona voters banned both gestation crates and veal crates.

A showdown between proponents and opponents of the California measure, initiated by the Humane Society of the United States, looms. While California's pork and veal farming is small, the egg industry, the fifth largest in the country, is preparing an all-out campaign to defeat the measure.

The United Egg Producers and the Pacific Egg & Poultry Association say the measure would threaten the health of hens and eggs, since hens allowed to roam free might contract avian diseases from exposure to the outside or their own droppings. Moreover, the cost would be so prohibitive it would force an end to the egg industry in California as of 2015, when the initiative would go into effect, the group says.

"The measure jeopardizes our food safety and public health, putting us at greater risk for salmonella and avian flu outbreaks; cuts off consumer choice for safe, local, fresh and affordable California eggs; and drives up the cost of basic groceries at a time when Californians are already struggling with high gas, housing and other everyday living expenses," said Julie Buckner, a spokeswoman for Californians for SAFE Food, a group created by the egg industry to oppose the initiative.

But proponents of cage-free hens are banking on momentum. The initiative boasts a long list of endorsements, from the California Democratic Party to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Proponents also are bolstered by an independent report by The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. For humane reasons, the report recommended several changes in the way animals are raised for food in the United States, including the phasing out of so-called battery cages that keep the hens cramped.

The food industry, from markets to restaurants to food producers, is also moving towards cage-free eggs. Chains such as Whole Foods Market and Bon Appetit and food companies such as Wolfgang Puck are ending the use of eggs from caged hens. Other chains such as Safeway have issued purchasing preferences for cage-free eggs and urged their suppliers to move away from battery cages.

Not least, the public is more aware of the conditions surrounding so-called factory farming, advocates for the initiative say.

"Our society is more attentive to animals than ever before," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States.

In recent months, the farm animal rights cause received a boost from two widely circulated undercover videos.

In February, an undercover video shot by investigators at a slaughterhouse in Chino showed cows too sick to walk or even stand being kicked, beaten, dragged and prodded with forklifts in order to force them to slaughter. The video led to the closure of the plant and, because of concerns of sick cows spreading disease, the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

In May, a Chicago-based animal protection group released undercover video it said was taken at an egg producer in California's San Joaquin Valley that showed close-ups of chickens with open, infected sores crowded into metal cages holding rotting bird corpses. It also showed a worker stomping on a sick hen as it flapped its wings to avoid being kicked in to a manure pit.

That video was damning, but unfair, said Ryan Armstrong, a third-generation egg farmer in San Diego. "I don't know what happened," Armstrong said, "but those aren't common farming practices. We don't promote what happened and we definitely don't condone it."

Various videos of hens packed into tiny cages are widely circulated on the Internet, including YouTube, fueling the cage-free movement.

"The Internet has been a very useful tool because people have been generally unaware of what happens to animals on farms," said Gene Baur, co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, the first haven for rescued farm animals in the country.

Original here

Subway Says Get Off Your Phone Or Go To The Back Of The Line

Sean says he approves of the this sign that he saw at an Idaho Subway location today, but his wife wasn't a fan...

My wife thought it was ridiculous, but I kind of like the idea of sending those annoying line-talkers to the back.

Well, you know us, we're always biased toward the consumer.... but those line-talkers are on their own this time.

Original here