Ice: Water represents emotions, and ice is frozen water. Symbolically, ice represents emotional content that has been dramatically altered. The resulting substance is cold and hard—adjectives that do not conjure pleasant sensations when applied to one’s emotional nature. From the world of physics, we know that ice is not created by adding cold, but rather by the loss of heat. This tells us that when ice is present, warmth has been lost or given away. Ice can also be dangerous, especially when one must maneuver over it. An icy road has the symbolic connotation that a lack of emotional fluidity can be treacherous on your path through life.
Ice Cream: The ultimate in comfort food, ice cream is a superb treat and functions symbolically as the rewards that life has to offer and a desire for sweetness at this time. Conversely, ice cream can be a symbol for indulgence if your own relationship to food and weight loss is such that ice cream is a guilty pleasure.
Ice Skates: Ice represents emotions that are running so cold as to freeze over. Therefore, ice skates or skating on ice is symbolic of your ability to navigate well when there is an absence of warmth or passion. Ice is very slippery and hard, so ice skates may be a symbol of your ability to move gracefully in circumstances that are delicate, hence the phrase “skating on thin ice.”
Iceberg: An obstruction that sticks up from below the surface of the ocean, an iceberg is a symbol of stuck emotions or patterns that pose a danger to you navigating the surface of your unconscious mind. There is the phrase “the tip of the iceberg,” which suggests that you must look deeper to find the true source of a problem or challenge.
Icing: The sweet surface of a cake or other treat is symbolic of the added benefits of any situation, hence the phrase “the icing on the cake.” When icing features strongly in a dream, you are looking for the gift that a situation has to offer.
Identification: In modern civilization, the carrying of some form of identification is a part of everyday life. Your sense of identity is what is being expressed by a dream that features this as an image. To lose your ID in a dream is symbolic of feeling disconnected from your ability to manage your day-to-day affairs.
In-Laws: Many dreams of in-laws will connect to waking-life issues sparked by the relationship you have with them. However, you can go to a deeper interpretation by considering them as character aspects of your own personality. In-laws are similar to parents in a dream, but are more connected to who you chose as a spouse and the challenges of marriage. (See Family Members.)
Incest: This is a complex issue in waking life, and there is a very big difference between the symbolic meaning behind incest as a universal concept and what a dream of incest indicates if you are someone who is an incest survivor. If this is the case, then dreams of incest may be an important part of healing and processing a very difficult experience. However, if this is not the case, then the appearance of this discomforting behavior in a dream needs to be understood from a symbolic perspective and absolutely not in a literal fashion. Any sexual experience is a symbol of integration and the joining together of different elements of consciousness. In this way, it is a powerful and positive symbol even when the people participating are unlikely partners. In the case of incest, the people involved are family members. In this way, the character aspects that are being integrated have to do with family traits, values, and the actual characteristics of the people who appeared in the dream.
Incubus: The incubus is a mythological creature that is itself a feature of dreams. The incubus is the male version of this type of creature, and it is thought to be a phantom that removes life force from its victim and is often a feature of night terrors. If you are visited by an incubus in your dream, look to where in your life some man or other experience is draining you of passion and power. (See Succubus.)
Infidelity: This symbolizes a circuitous route to meeting needs and an avoidance of crucial matters. There is no intimacy need that cannot be met in a primary relationship. Going outside of a marriage or partnership for sex or affection is a way of meeting a primal need in a roundabout way. Simultaneously, there is an avoidance of some underlying problem. Therefore, this image represents both a circuitous route to connection and an avoidance of confrontation. If you discover an infidelity in a dream, you may want to consider areas in your life where you are avoiding taking care of yourself. If you are engaged in an affair, you might need to examine your life circumstances for signs of being manipulative or indirect in getting your needs met. As getting caught is always reflective of an unconscious desire to effect a change, being discovered as being unfaithful could indicate a desire to shift some area of your life. Always be willing to look at issues of responsibility when this dream image appears. Where in your life are you not allowing yourself to be accountable for your actions? If the dream involves details of constructing an affair, you may want to examine how genuine you are being in terms of expressing and manifesting your desires in life, both relationally and otherwise. Where in your life are you not being authentic? How might you be betraying your own needs? It is safe to assume that this image in a dream indicates a theme of intimacy issues in waking life, no matter what the marital state of the dreamer. This may have literal implications if you are actually involved in an affair or believe your partner to be.
Infinity: The principle of infinity is something that is a feature of a particular sort of dream that can take many different forms. In a general sense, a dream of infinity features a landscape that feels extremely large and infinitesimally small at the same time. Such a dream is a spiritual calling that is asking you to wake up to the mystical nature of life.
Injection: An injection puts a substance into your body in order to alter the chemistry of your system. One element of the symbolic meaning of an injection is that it takes a very small amount of something and creates a fairly big change. The phrase “to inject something into” often refers to the act of increasing an idea’s power by adding some measure of passion or purpose.
Insects: Your dream is reflecting disturbing thoughts and hidden fears. Insects and bugs are generally found to be repulsive by most people. For some, they can evoke great fears that are often wildly irrational. As any animal is symbolic of some element of thought, any dream insect represents some small but frightening unconscious thought. To arrive at an accurate interpretation, you may need to do a little research about the insect in question. Once you know a bit about it, you can come to an interpretation of what it might represent. As an example, bees exhibit sophisticated forms of communication and a communal production of honey that represents enormous industriousness and the power of collective thoughts gathered for a common purpose. Cockroaches are famous for being hearty enough to survive a nuclear blast. They can therefore be said to represent the staying power of the creepy thoughts that live in the shadow. Certain beetles manufacture a substance similar to paper or cardboard, embodying the powerful transformation that is available by attending to small details. The silk made by any number of different insects connects to the amazing power of creativity and strength that actually has its origin in the shadow. Flying insects connect to the great mobility of our darker thoughts. Slimy ground dwellers point to the ever-present underbelly of our psyche. If you have an insect show up in a dream, take a moment to look up some details about it. What you discover may trigger an important message that your unconscious is trying to give you.
Instrument: Any instrument connects to music, and music is a symbol of passionate expression and heightened creativity. Musical instruments are the tools of such passion. If they appear in a dream, they are calling you to step up your creative exploits and increase your level of passion.
Intercourse: You are dreaming of the joining together of personality character aspects, of integration. The essence of sexual intercourse is the joining of two individuals in a process that allows them to be as close to each other as the human body will allow. This translates into the concept of integration as the symbolic meaning of sex. Additionally, the potential for this act to result in the creation of a third entity reinforces this definition. If you remove all sense of eroticism, embarrassment, shame, or titillation, the purity of this symbol is profound. Any characters that appear in a dream engaged in sexual intercourse are expressing an unconscious desire to merge the character aspects of personality of the individuals involved. If you are participating in sex in a dream, the focus of your investigation will be on your dream partner. The character aspects that person represents are the qualities that your unconscious is expressing a need to integrate into your present level of functioning. These qualities will be easier to identify when you know the person from your waking life; however, this can also be the very element that makes examining such a dream uncomfortable. It is common to dream of having sex with people with whom you would never ordinarily do so or even think of doing so, such as co-workers, family members, or acquaintances. When using the character-aspect technique in relation to sex dreams, you must add to your interpretation an element of transformation of the qualities that you identify. The process is not literal or concrete.
Internet: The emergence of the Internet has radically changed the way we interact with the world in which we live. Through it, people can interact with others of like mind and connect with information and ideas that are shared by multitudes. In this way, the Internet is an exact symbolic representation of the collective consciousness of human beings today. The speed with which it has evolved is alarming, and it has created a global culture faster than our ability to comprehend the rules that govern it. A dream that features the Internet as a prominent image is inviting you to investigate your personal relationship with the overwhelming changes that have taken place in our world over the past two decades. If you are Internet-savvy in life and are logged on in your dream, you may not find this a particularly powerful image; therefore, consider this symbol as representing expanded and accelerated thinking. However, if you are someone who harbors resistance to the Internet, its appearance in a dream is inviting you to look into areas of your life that are overwhelming or moving too fast for your comfort. In this way, the Internet would be a symbolic depiction of anxiety or chaotic thoughts. If the dream has you utilizing the Internet as a tool, you may want to look at areas in your life that are requiring a higher level of functioning or thought processes.
Iron: An iron removes wrinkles from articles of clothing. As a symbol, a wrinkle represents something that is out of alignment. As such, the iron then is the symbolic ability to smooth things over and create more uniformity in your life.
Island: Land represents the conscious mind, and the ocean is the unconscious. An island is an isolated idea or construct in your consciousness that is separated from the rest of your awareness by issues that are of an emotional nature. An island in a dream can represent the sense of isolation that occurs when you are going through a difficult period.
Itch: Something just below the surface of your consciousness is troubling you and asking you to notice it. The challenge with interpreting a dream with an itch in it is that the itch itself will not tell you whether it is a good idea to scratch it or not. An itch can be the persistent underlying thoughts that, if you dive more deeply into them, will result in pain and suffering, like addictive tendencies or other persistent anxieties. At the same time, an itch could be asking you to go a little bit deeper in your consideration to see why something may be bothering you, the solution to which may be just under the surface. The source or cause of the itch is important to consider. An itch emanating from a wound is usually in a healing process. This might mean that resentments or unspoken thoughts about a recent emotional battle have left potential scars. An itch that spreads a toxin, such as poison ivy, would represent the addictive quality of what happens when you open the door to harmless satisfaction only to find the challenging compulsion to repeat harmful behavior. An itch in a socially sensitive area, such as the genitals, connects to thoughts and desires that are private, secret, and sexual in nature.