The Cage

Today I awoke at 1 p.m. after suffering through terrible dreams of an endless cage, bottomless and topless, extending into infinity. The people in the wire cage, which was situated in the middle of a house, had been put there by a magic spell, they had just been zapped into it. When I was in it, looking up and looking down, I was also outside of it, as though I had just stepped in by choice and was able to leave when it terrified me. The "master" or evil wizard was zapping people back in who had been trapped in other places in the house in "solitary confinement." It was disturbing to see that they had been changed indefinitely by this unjust punishment, and one, I remember, was trapped in a kitchen vent. I think they were all zapped out eventually, but the "master" just wanted to show he had power.

Another segment of the dream included a man from that group of people. He and I each had a baby. He said he was going to shave his baby, so we each got razors. When I went to clean mine, I heard a voice saying that it was "just a baby," and needed every part of itself to grow, it didn't need to have anything cut away from it. I saw a red bump on the baby's leg, like an ingrown hair, and it did have hairy legs, but I knew it didn't need me to do anything about that. I got some soap and poured it on the baby's legs, but I didn't have water to wash the soap off, and something told me I was doing this wrong.

In the meantime, I had unwrapped a piece of candy, which was in the shape of a mushroom, but it was made of something that I had to bite at and chip away at, like hard white chocolate. I realized I was feeding my hunger with the same thoughts I was going to shave the baby with.

Here's what one site says about a wire cage dream, which is extremely accurate and in line with my ayurvedic prescription, an imbalance of Pitta.

http://dreamhawk.com/dream-dictionary/cage-cell/

Cage Cell

This usually points to your feelings of frustration and perhaps anger, or even a sense of defeat or emptiness. The prison in our dreams is of our own making, created out of our attitudes and fears. So it is important to define just what you feel in the cage, and what the associated feelings are with he cage/cell itself, and the other people involved. See: Prison.

If the dreamer is in the cage: Frustration arising from a sense of social pressures restraining expression – or from one’s moral, sexual or conceptual restraints imprisoning one. You might be feeling caged by lack of opportunity or lack of developed abilities. We might however, be choosing to inhibit or restrict an aspect of ourselves. One might restrain anger for instance.

The cell also often depicts how we imprison ourselves within our own anger, resentment, or depressed feelings, or we may be trapped by childhood trauma and be imprisoned by fear of pain or losing love. If a child is in a cell this almost certainly points to this type of imprisonment through emotional pain. See Avoid Being Victims

The cell is also often linked with living a life apart from the normal consumer, nine to five life, and can show a facet of you living a life of meditation or inner seeking.

Example: ““I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of  and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.” 

A cage or cell is often used to show the mind and how we live within certain ideas and beliefs and maybe do not wish to move out of them.

Occasionally it might refer to your rib cage. (Which I had been focusing on in mediation and yoga earlier)

Something or somebody else caged: Desire to restrain whatever is represented by the thing, person, caged.

In a cage with something or somebody else: Pressed into a close relationship or confrontation with the person or thing with you – and it is a situation difficult to escape from.

See: escape; fence; holding; hospital under house and building; prison.

Useful Questions and Hints:

If I am imprisoned what is it in myself or environment that is holding me?

What does this situation confront me with?

Am I unable to feel really free in the relationship I am in?

What of myself or another am I restraining?

Are the restrictions of this situation made of pain?