The Dream Book of Self-Knowledge
- wire: symbolizes the dreamer's ability to shape his feelings to the image of the whole only with certain restrictions in which he considers part of his self to be appropriate and wants to separate it from the whole through the symbol of the cage.
- caged animals: enables the dreamer to free himself, if only temporarily, from instincts (see the individual animals); permanent liberation from instinctual personification only come with compassion for the inhabitants of the cage.
- a caged cat or dog: in an attempt to live an emotional and spiritual life, the dreamer has restricted the activity of the instinctual symbol in his own consciousness in order to gradually assimilate it in the near future.
- a caged person: fear of life.
- being alone in a cage, imprisonment in a cage: a morbid fear of external pressures and an attempt to close oneself from external pressures can lead to states of paranoia.
- a shining cage, from which emerges an even brighter glow and a singing bird: achievement of a beautiful state bordering on the emotional and spiritual levels; yet to achieve permanent spiritual states the tantalizing singing must be resisted and one must set out on a further journey (the similarity with the Firebird is no coincidence).
