Have you ever wondered how dreams and astrology are connected?

There are many ways we can connect dreams to astrology, and many don't require that you know all about your Natal Chart. In this column we will be exploring the symbolic rather than predictive aspects of astrology. Symbolic astrology attempts to use the images of astrological to give meaning to one's life and empower choices rather than predict paths. We do this by imaginal overlay. In this process we impleach, (poetically interweave) dream, image, feeling, life and symbol in a way to evoke a felt sense of the dream's imagery and its position in our life.

This year we are focusing each month on a different House. The inner circle of the Natal or Birth Chart is divided into 12 distinct regions know as Houses. They relate to everyday activates. One will be about physical appearances and temperament, while another relates to possessions, for example. Planets and signs fall within these Houses and influence the areas of focus. We will be watching for images of planets, signs and other celestial events and hopefully begin to see the emergence of an astrological chart that dips into birth charts, dreams, and our waking life.

The Third House, connected with Gemini, is the sphere of communication, education, the intellectual, of movement. It is commonly seen as about communication, short trips, siblings, neighbors and mental activities & qualities. Many see Gemini and communication as the key to this house, which may be an over-simplification, but a useful viewpoint. Thus in dreams we may look at all kinds of communication, such as writing, talking, telephoning, emailing, building web sites, online chat rooms, lecturing, teaching, and signaling. Travel is an extension of this connecting and may be found in walking, driving a car, riding a bicycle or a bus, especially when visiting or busing. Look for mental activities and work, like reporting, writing and clerical work. Mental quality is also part of this, how we develop, communicate, and find mental subjects. The process is to perceive, analyze, differentiate and move on. The style one favors in interpreting dreams will also be seen as a 3rd house issue.

Focus on Third house dreams as well as the Third House in parts of dreams can lead to a better understanding of one's mental and communicative styles. This month we have a special treat, as Island has provided us with some examples and analysis.

Island (1997 March). Third House Dreams. Electric Dreams 4(3). Retrieved July 19, 2000 from Electric Dreams on the World Wide Web: http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams

THE THIRD HOUSE: WHO AND WHAT INHABITS MY LOCAL ARENA? HOW DO I GET (TRAVEL) AROUND? WHAT DID I LEARN EARLY ON? HOW DO I CORRESPOND, COMMUNICATE? THE ABC'S OF LEARNING. WHO ARE MY SIBLINGS TO ME?

*** Dream an extensive dream of riding in a cab.
*** Dreamed of nothing but cockroaches crawling out everywhere I turn. [7.?.79]
*** Dream of a prose list that I am intensely scrutinizing point by point. Someone close at hand scrutinizes it with me. [4.25.80]
*** Dreamed of passing a French exam and having to take it again. [12.7.80]
*** Dream of witnessing, or being involved in, an auto accident on a mountain road. A woman who is to help me has a lengthy, unpronounceable name. [81.06.15]
*** Dream my oldest brother visits me. He is disturbed and stays longer than I want him to stay. *** Dream of walking up to something similar to a ticket booth, with someone beside me at the other window, and deciding which classes I want to register for. [5.8.82]
*** I am taking a train ride to upper Manhattan and am with two astrologers. I am having difficulty getting where I want to go. I am told by one that my next job will be a medical position. I don't like this at all. [6.26.82]
*** Vaguely recall dreaming of being pressured to write newsprint or like a news reporter and glad that I do not. [9.5.83]
*** Dream Sally, Laura, Barbara, and myself are together discussing poetry in a very silly, frivolous way -- like giggling school girls. [1.22.84]
*** Dream I am in a large room, resemblying a classroom, and I'm trying to listen to one side of a tape, tying loose ends together, etc. [84.02.04]

Comments by Island:

Because I feel, first, that I am a creature of change, yet there is also a part of me that feels unchanged and unchanging, I look at dreams and fragments from years ago as much as I look at dreams I dream now. For some reason, it feels good to do it that way because dreams I'm dreaming now springboard me to the future and growing end, whereas dreams I dreamed years ago, I'm probably just now catching up with myself! From my third house fragments, I sense that I pay my dues as I travel through life but others drive me, with a further hint that I am fully aware that life is on loan (the cab), to borrow from an old Anglo-Saxon phrase, "Lief is Lein (pronouned Leef is lane -- the spelling is probably incorrect). There is a strong suggestion of difficulty, even arduous work, when it comes to learning -- certainly validating the sign of Capricorn on the cusp of my third house. Though the house is not tenanted by planets, it has fascinated me since Aquarius is intercepted there and Pisces rudely rushes in for a degree or two before the house door closes. So it's a little bit complicated, especially since Saturn, the hard taskmaster, occupying the ninth house, sits right at my tenth house door. In my third house dreams, I labor over a list, and someone watches me. Just about the worst possible thing I can imagine happening because one of my parents was obsessive about watching every little move and commenting negatively, often with harsh judgement (cockroaches I can never seem to rid myself of). I pass French -- interesting, because it is a foreign language, which is more 9th house -- yet I have to take the exam again. Much like life -- when I believe I've passed, but I perceive that others believe I fail, so I have to do it all over again, Sam! As I register for class, someone looks over my shoulder. Here is the further suggestion that learning takes place in narrow confinement (the booth) where I'm being ticketed (graded) or ticket myself instead of evaluated with heart set on evolving. Communication leans away from short, succinct, news commentary style where all the facts are presented, and feeling squashed. I like that. I feel that contemporary society is a tremendous pressure shaping writing style that will have far-ranging impact on the way we think, feel, and assimilate. I did feel emotionally and spiritually devastated mid-'81 and probably wouldn't even have been able to pronounce my name...it was a huge mountain I climbed then but probably would have been better off flying or climbing than driving...couldn't even discern then if I was involved, or just who? I'm so confused it takes two astrologers, not one, to point me in any direction, and I do end up under medical scrutiny just three years up the road. My brother does pay a surprise visit in 1990 and ends up living with me for months when he was only to come for a few days. He is deeply disturbed, which disturbs me. A profound period in my life...strange that it was signaled by such a brief fragment of a dream, years before the event. A couple of years after I finish taking all classes I would take in poetry, I am with my professor and two students, giggling like silly schoolgirls. My dreaming mind is telling me that I've shaped this ninth house experience into a third house frame. So as poetry is diminished, on the horizon looms another classroom, and in fact, that is what happened. By the late eighties until present, my professional work is to listen to tapes and tie up loose ends.

Some notes on previous Houses covered, by Island.

THE FIRST HOUSE: I AM...WHO AM I?

*** Dream of scratching my head which is filled with dandruff. [12.8.80]
*** Dream my eyelashes fall out of both eyes, leaving only three remaining. Expecting to get together with a man, I am horrified that I have no lashes. [1.17.81]
*** Dreamed I tell someone that my rising sign is primarily Sagittarius. [10.13.81]
*** Dream of a refrigerator covered with ice. [4.28.82]
*** Dream I am struggling hard to make out the impression, physical, etc., of Nietzche in a dream. [9.23.83]
*** Dream, like magic, I run a solution through my hair, and it is beautifully frosted with white tones. [2.28.84]
*** Dream of a lineup, at night, of faces of women in a group [6.18.84]
*** Dream of seeing my breasts. They are hideous, like wieners with the skin folded around them to look like buns, both shocking and embarrassing me. Someone reshapes them so they conform to the natural contour of a woman's breasts. [11.9.84]
*** Dream I am wearing a full skirt with petticoats underneath and feel very uncomfortable, for a man is watching me closely.
*** Dream I see several majorettes from above coming out of a tunnel, or enclave of sorts, with the and behind them at a distance. These majorettes are fat and ugly. [12.2.84]
*** Dream a hand paints a purple line in the middle of each eye (shadow), and I observe it in a mirror. [6.15.81]
*** Dreamed of going several places nude, feeling uncomfortable being nude, and realizing I've been doing a lot of that lately. [10.17.81]

THE SECOND HOUSE: I OWN/POSSESS/HAVE...WHAT OR WHO? WHAT IS MY HERITAGE? WHO ARE MY ANCESTORS?

*** Dream searching for specific snakes to find them and put them back in my purse where they belong. [12.6.80]
*** Dreamed Aunt Hester is debating on which new auto to buy. [11.13.81]
*** Dreamed I'm given an all white, long-haired puppy dog who has the personality of a human. [Jan/Feb '82]
*** Dream something about my aunt liking a particular dress and spending a large sum of moeny to have several copies made of it. As it turns out, it is money ill spent. [11.23.83]

Next Month- Forth House Dreams and womb to tomb!

M. Aionia