Question: What does it mean when you see animals in your dream?

Sri Chinmoy: No matter which plane of consciousness your dream comes from, if you see a deer and the deer is running, this indicates that you are running very fast in your spiritual life. If you see an elephant in a dream, no matter in which plane the dream takes place, you have to feel you are being energised with enormous strength in your spiritual life. If you see a dog biting you, this means that you have lost faith in your spiritual life, in your Master and in yourself. But if the dog is following you, this indicates that you have absolute faith in your Master and that you are your Master's obedient disciple. These animal dreams generally take place in the vital world.

I would like to tell you a funny story. I had a disciple in New York who was a well-known psychiatrist. She analysed and interpreted dreams, and got paid thirty-five dollars for an half hour. She told everybody the significance of their dreams, but she could not interpret her own dreams.

Once she came to me and for two and a half hours she asked me about the significance of her dreams. Many of the dreams that she had were wonderful experiences in a very high spiritual world. When I told her their meaning, she started crying and creating a scene. In her dreams, she was able to recollect some of the experiences which she had had in a previous incarnation. In this incarnation she had hundreds of dreams which she was not able to analyse; but she was able to recollect experiences from her past incarnations in her dreams. Her husband was also very much interested in these dream worlds. They were both very well-known in their past incarnation, and in this incarnation she is most successful in her profession.