Animals

The symbolism of animals is highly complex, as different creatures have been used to represent a variety of different notions. A proper interpretation also depends on one's personal associations with animals. Generically, animals symbolize the physical, instinctual, "animal" self, and wild dream beasts that one cannot specifically identify usually represent this aspect of the self (or "beastlike" people in one's environment). One should be careful about this generalization, however, because certain other, more specific animals (e.g., birds) can symbolize precisely the opposite (e.g., the higher self or the soul).