Those are amazingly powerful stories, thank you! Spiders were frequent sign posts in my own dreams for about a year or so… I don’t know that they were ever specific disease markers though wasps and other bugs certainly were. Now it seems the spiders have stopped appearing altogether. Even within my own dream record they weren’t all created equal, which always did puzzle me though this post is helping me make more sense. I wonder now if part of their role was just that, to develop discernment and learn to separate benign webs from toxic ones.
I haven’t ever been fond of arachnids in waking life though my initial introduction to dream spiders was from a dreamer who happens to love them, and identifies strongly with the gifts of Spider Woman. The first time a spider showed up tangled up in the sheets of a dream bed I was rather tempted to crush it but when the friend also appeared it gave me pause and I stopped myself – if only not to offend her… It was an innocent garden spider, the kind I would find for months hanging around poets and violins seemingly to remind me to keep weaving and I felt rather protective towards them. Very unlike the black widow I found on a bathroom shelf. associated with a sticky energy that set off immediate alarm bells. I’m curious now to go back into my journals and track this more closely… maybe the spiders retreated when I got that I didn’t have to befriend them all equally…

Savannah – Yes, dreams of this kind set us lessons in discernment. Our feelings are always the best and first guide. We also want to study very closely what follows the appearance of a specific dream visitor. I’ll be most interested to see what you discover as you revisit your journal reports with this agenda in mind.
We also want to remember that we can work with ANY image in the direction of healing. In this respect, our Active Dreaming approach – including the core techniques of Dream Reentry and conscious shared dreaming – reaches parts that other approaches rarely touch.

While initially frightening in my dreams, Spiders have become a primary ally. They show up to remind me to keep pushing forward with my writing practice. They’ve taken me on adventures of time travel within the dreamscape, and showed me how the image of a Web can be used as a Dreamgate. The spiders in my dreams (and synchronicities) definitely seem to be connected with Spider Woman, & Anansi. My colleague Oryelle Defenestrate-Bascule in his book on Spider Magick, “emit fo yrotsreh a feirb a” speculates that Sleipnir, Odin’s eight legged steed, may have originally been a spider.
My poem “The Spider” can be found here:
http://sothismedias.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/the_spider.pdf
and of course I agree with you that everyone has their own dream vocabulary. That is why it is so important to catch your dreams and study them over time, to watch and see how that vocab develops.

Justin – Interesting to think that Sleipnir may originally have been a spider. Thanks for mentioning Anansi, the spider-guy from West Africa who spins shimmering webs of synchronicity. I presume you are familiar with Neil Gaiman’s “Anansi Boys” and Robert Pelton’s anthropology of “The Trickster in West Africa”.

I’ve not read them, but will add them to my shelf for further adventures in multiplex reading.

Through many years of facilitating dream groups with cancer patients, spider has appeared many times both as a marker of recurrence and as ally in healing. I carry an old Halloween spider ring in the tote bag that I take weekly to the dream group. It was given to me years ago by a group member, a retired physicist, who not only received from Spider guidance in his dreams about his cancer, but also collected spiders each morning for the purpose of using their webs as a filter for cigarette smoke on which he was conducting research.

Tallulah – What a marvelous dream talisman! Your friend’s use of spider webs as a filter for cigarette smoke reminds me that the original dream catchers were literal, not synthetic, spider webs, used to catch and keep out bugs of more than one kind.

Spiders are such wonderfully amazing creatures. I love them with all of my heart. I’m so glad to read the posts above. (Justin I like your spider poem). In dreams and waking spiders are always a good omen for me- any kind of spider, any where, any time! Their figure 8 shaped body reminds me of infinite possibilities, plus they have 8 legs -the infinity sign again, and 8 eyes… to see into multiple dimensions. I work regularly with their web as my matrix into the other dimensions. When leading groups on journeys I connect us all with the web… there’s so many possibilities with spider and it’s web. Spiders are COOL!!

Steffani – Grand to hear your voice here, spider dreamer, reminding us that while spiders are scary for some, and can be disease markers, they also suggest infinite possibilities for re-weaving the webs in which we live.

Several years ago I had a troubling dream with a large spider appearing on my abdomen. This spider covered most of my lower body and it was quite intimidating. The spider had a large needle like protrusion which came out of its mouth, which it inserted into my abdomen. At the time, I could not tell in the dream if this was helping or hurting me.
Months later I learned I had developed fibroids on my uterus. In my attempts to find the right treatment, I determined that acupuncture was the approach I wanted to try. 3 months later after weekly treatments of acupuncture, the painful condition was almost completely gone with no signs of recurrence. My dream spider was apparently an acupuncturist as well!
In my private practice as an energy healer while working with a client about 5 years ago, I was gifted the presence of an energetic web by a woman in dreaming who I call the Blue Lady. She presented me with a blue energy web which she showed me was a kind of portal for time travel into other dimensions, which I have explored with delight. She has often appeared to me while I do energy work with clients and assists me in repairing their energy web.

Valley – If it were my dream, the spider that stabbed my abdomen would be BOTH a disease marker AND a pointer towards a subsequent method of healing, and a possible ally in healing. Dream logic often presents us with such seemingly contradictory roles and meanings, and the tolerance for ambiguity that is characteristic of creative minds is required to follow its turnings.
I love your blue energy web. This also brings to mind yet another meaning for “web”. Interdimensional travels often have the experience of traveling through an energy net or web.
And here we are, exchanging in yet another “web” right now…

I am so pleased to hear positive comments about spiders and dreams of healing. I had a strong spider dream almost exactly a year ago with three bigger than life spiders, then two. When I awoke in the morning, I went to the sink and there was a dead spider in the drain. I wondered if I should be troubled or some sickness was hiding as it was a very strong dream, but now a year later, I can look back at the content and characters in the dream, and see that it likely had been telling me that an unpleasant situation in my life was getting stirred up. Now it has turned itself around and at present an emotional healing and physical changes are taking place for me and members of my family related to the place where the spiders appeared.

So interesting. I have a friendly spider that helps me not only with my health and showing me how to cleanse my body through a series of energetic networks But, in reference to my health, she builds a spider web in my chest, then attracts any virus or toxins that appear in my lungs. When she is done, she rolls into a ball and pushes it out of my body.
And with my personal life, she appears before I meet those who will change my life forever…
I call her grandmother spider, as she has appeared many times in my dreams and journies.
Thanks so much for sharing!!

Suzette – Wow, your dream spider seems like an extraordinary ally. Once again we see how important it is to go with our feelings around a dream and the follow-up to it rather than to buy into to someone else’s interpretation. In a different person’s dream, a spider building a web in the chest might mean something very different. Thank you very much for sharing this fascinating dream relationship, which also seems to be alerting you to what’s developing on the web of social connections!

Grace – Yet another variation on our theme, reminding us that every dream is unique to the dreamer, even when it touches on universal themes and arouses some degree of recognition in all of us. If this were my dream, I would probably have taken it as an advisory to be cautious about a developing situation involving three people or elements in my life – something that might need to “go down the drain”. Glad to hear that whatever was stirring then has since been resolved.

I might add to the others’ comments that spider webs are useful for stopping bleeding. I tend to bleed freely. I have found through experience that spider webs do work for that purpose. Native Americans, at least some of them, used spider webs that way, too.
Contrary to many, if not most people, I like spiders. I think an orb web is beautiful. I often photograph spiders. I do not kill them.

Don – I was just thinking of writing a further piece about our need to look very carefully at the nature and behavior of the critters we see in dreams in the natural world in order to understand what is going on in the dream. There is an immense variety of spiders in the world, and appropriate behavior – in a natural setting – when confronted with a black widow or a daddy longlegs (to give an extreme contrast) would be wildly different. Thanks for reminding us of yet another gift of the spider’s web in the physical world, and for continuing to share the fruits of your deep experience and understanding of nature.

Hi Robert,
Great dream discussion! Like others, spiders have appeared in my dreams in more than one guise. In the early stages of my understanding that I had a life threatening illness and needed to work with it I dreamed a particularly disturbing dream which included more than one image of disease. In the final segment of that dream I faced off against an enormous spider and, inside the dream, realized I needed to deal first with it. I spun my own magic and turned it into a harmless wind-up toy and watched it lumber out a door. After dealing with the spider I could then take on the rest of the discomforting imagery and find within the dream opportunities, as you noted, for using the initial negative imagery for a positive result. So many images became dual ones – marking the problem and then becoming part of the solution.
In another memorable example of spider dreaming, the spider made its appearance after a difficult several days on a trip with a woman whose motives were far from noble and generous. I had asked for a dream on how to handle the situation. A large spider walked toward me across the room. I grew up in a part of the country where poisonous spiders were more typical than not, so I was quite concerned about the size of the spider in the room – and its purpose. I looked around and realized I was in a kitchen and had a stove. So I quickly grabbed a frying pan, more quickly grabbed the spider and threw it into the pan and watched it sizzle, dissolve and become harmless. The woman’s power in waking reality seemed to diminish after the confluence of my dream with those of others, all of us dreaming with the same purpose – not to harm but to deal with a serious problem.

Wanda – I remember both these experiences as you originally reported them, and the healing and liberating effects of being able to deal with challenges in this way. Thanks so much for sharing them here. Different dreamers, different spiders, different solutions.

Better late than never, they say…
Thank you, Robert, for the invitation to join this discussion.
I cannot ever recall spiders entering my own dreams, but I honor and respect them in waking life. I consider a spider’s presence in my home or space sign of good fortune and security, and will go out of my way to protect them from harm.
Jennifer has had quite a series of problems!
I guess, coming from my physician’s perspective, if these were my dreams, I would like to learn from Spider how to interpret or properly receive its visits, so that I might be able to know what is coming, and what I can do to prevent it. I would also ask if the illnesses were necessary aspects of the Spider’s message or purpose in my life. I also find myself interested in the Spider’s web, and how it is a reminder of the multi-dimensional web that weaves through and supports all aspects of life. Awareness of this is at the core of my approach to medicine.

Bob – Thanks for your comments. I agree with you that the key thing here is to read the spider’s visitations correctly, in order to identify the possible problem that is coming – and prevent it. We need many more physicians like you, who are willing to work with dreams as well as other sources in order to promote wellness in body and soul.

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