The Dream Book of Self-Knowledge
- the rising of instinctual and emotional components from within; we can tell the damage in the dreamer's mind inflicted by this process according to the intensity and destructiveness of the eruptions.
- an object falling into a volcano's hole: sexual intercourse.
- a volcano with the center part protruding (e.g. a volcano crater accompanied by a lava fountain): allegory of sexual intercourse.
- volcanoes with spewing lava: surging sexuality, ejaculation.
- may represent the entrance to prenatal and birth experiences (see Basic Perinatal Matrix archetype).
- its eruption does not necessarily have to be destructive if the dreamer is able to smoothly process the instinctual and emotional process; ideally, the dreamer is able to find in the lava or volcano fire objects symbolizing the future transformation of his consciousness.
- if the dreamer is driven out by the volcano from a certain familiar area or the volcano’s crater serves as a transformation from one world to another, then the dream belongs to the Apocalypse archetype.
- a passage through a volcano's crater: may lead the dreamer to experiences of other states of consciousness, but in passing through the crater the dreamer might also fall from higher states to lower (e.g. from the emotional to the instinctual level).
- fire and lava rising from within the volcano: the result of inwardly directed energy (concentration, meditation etc.) or (in a worse case) the result of an excess of suppressed passion and instincts.
- stones flying out from the eruption of a volcano: represent acts and their fateful path to consequences; these stones are thus a symbol of karma*26.
- with smoke: that which is in the sky or atmosphere represents the mind's content, that which burns (dream fire is the result of concentration) represents a transformation and smoke symbolizes an imperfectly undertaken transformation.
- volcanic eruptions: sometimes accompany the dreamer's transition from one level to another, usually from the instinctual to the emotional level; the much rarer crossing from emotional to the spiritual level is accompanied by images related to the achieved spiritual state (e.g. experiences of the Active Imagination, wonderful atmospheric phenomena, blissful states, beautiful light effects, encounters with the spiritual anima and spiritual animus etc.).
- on another planet: a still unknown state of being (always spiritual).
