Change Dream - I Had A Dream Where A Shrimp Transformed into an Ostrich. What Does It Mean?

by Richard Wilkerson, Dream Educator

Question: Often I have a dream where I am at a Japanese steakhouse where they cook the food right in front of our eyes. I only see the cook cooking shrimp behind a flood of steam. All of a sudden, one of the shrimp jumps up and has very long legs. He is really an ostrich! He hops out of view and I wake up. Am I a freak?

Magical transformations (or transmogrification) can seem really freaky, but are quite common. Some people might refer to such a dream as a transformation or change dream.

The early ideas on these transformations come from Freud who felt that was just one of the ways the imagination worked to fool us about what the dream was really about. But later analysts and contemporary dreamworkers also see that these transformations are opportunities to *join* the imagination in its quest to make our lives more wonderful and profound.

For example:

If this were my dream I might ask myself what shrimpy ideas people are trying to serve me when I really want to feast on some projects in life that can really take off running like a ostrich.

The meaning of your dream can only be known by you, but if this were my dream, I would see the ostrich not only as a bird who can run fast and stick its head in the ground, but can really lay some big nourishing ideas and has a *view* of the underground that others tend to miss. Others may see this as freaky, but I will be more satisfied than if I kept quiet and just dined on shrimp.

About the Author:

Richard Wilkerson is general editor for The Internet Dream E-zine, Electric Dreams, and director of DreamGate, the Internet Communications and Dream Education Center. He writes the Cyberphile column for the Association for the Study of Dreams Newsletter.

Originally published 2/20/98
Revised 04/27/2009 by Marlene M. Maheu, Ph.D.

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I often have dreams where

I often have dreams where one thing will turn into another....

-A character in my dream will turn into someone else.

-I will be in a mall and then all of the sudden it turns into my place of work.

-A spaceship will turn into a plane.

-A person has turned into a cat I used to have.

I've always wondered why this happens.
Maybe I find the things that turn into eachother are alike or maybe i deep down prefer one to the other? I really dont know what my crazy dreams are trying to let me know.

It would be cool to have some idea as to what any of it means.

Anna | Thu, 09/24/2009 - 14:20

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