City, Town

A city expresses human energies, diversity, and the collective, society, and the social. A city can be seen as a whole. It is interesting to note where in the city the dream takes place: On shopping streets, stations, taverns, back alleys, or courtyards. Also, observe whether there is congestion and stress or if it is bright and open, dull or exciting, etc. The city can be an expression of the dreamer’s personality.

The city as a symbol of wholeness is particularly expressed in the symmetrical planning of older cities, especially cities with a city wall around them and a square in the center. The square can be seen as an inner focal point, associated with the Self. While the buildings isolate people from each other, the square becomes the meeting place for the parts that form a whole. In such contexts, where "the city encloses the individual," the image can be an expression of the center and the encompassing – for the Self. This is especially prominent if it explicitly concerns a capital city.

In the center of the city, something secret and valuable is kept, which must not be released or touched by anything from the outside. The city and the fortress are similar symbols in this regard, which, according to alchemists, were expressions of the Virgin Mary; at the same time, Christ is called civitas, the walled city; the Gnostics spoke of the city that encloses the soul, and so on. Corresponding images are known in Asia. (Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, pp. 167-168.)

The city is the place of human, collective transformation, a vessel for civilization and its development.

To arrive at a city in a dream means entering the world of the collective. It may describe an adaptation to the general. Leaving the city to arrive at an empty place in nature indicates that one is in the domain of the individual.

A city, depending on the dreamer's associations, can express his or her ambitions or background. Often, one wants to go to another city to become someone else, to leave the small town one comes from in order to succeed in the big city. "If you make it there, you'll make it everywhere." This can relate to both artistic dreams, as well as hopes for a career, gaining attention, but also the possibility of developing as an individual among other people.

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