Rabbi: The spiritual leader of a Jewish community, a rabbi in a dream is connecting you to the notion of religion, belief, and faith. All people in your dreams are part of you; the rabbi in your dream is the part of your own personality most connected with matters of spirituality. If you are personally Jewish, this character aspect in a dream is more literally connected to your personal belief system. If you are not, you may be having an experience of looking beyond your typical ideas about faith and God.
Rabbit: A great symbol of luck and abundance, the rabbit in your dream points to great good fortune. Rabbits are traditionally associated with prolific reproductive ability, so they naturally connect us with the concept of never-ending prosperity. Their foot is considered a lucky totem to carry around, so they also bring this to the symbolic table. The Chinese zodiac features the rabbit as a highly peaceful and likeable archetype. If the rabbit appears in your dreams, any of these qualities may be being expressed.
Raccoon: The symbolic meaning associated with the raccoon is based on its markings that look like a mask. In this way, the raccoon as a totem connects to the idea of disguise and secrecy. Its nocturnal mischief further increases the sensibility of this. When the raccoon appears in your dreams, you are being invited to consider what masks you are wearing in your life and where you might be able to deepen your experience of authenticity.
Race Car: A car is a symbol for the quality of the experience you are having of moving through your life, especially as it relates to your social and community experience. A race car has great power and offers a tremendous amount of speed and an escalation of masterful handling. Your dream may suggest a desire to move faster, or if your life is indeed moving at a fast pace, the race car in your dream may be offering you the support you need to handle all that is happening at this time.
Race Track: If a race car implies that your life is speeding up, a race track may indicate that though you are moving very fast, you are actually getting nowhere.
Radiator: An implement for heating an indoor space, a radiator as a symbol in a dream indicates a desire to warm things up in your life. Such warmth can be related to emotional issues, an increase in passion, or anything where an increase in desire is indicated. A car radiator has the opposite implication—that things need to be cooled down in order to run effectively and efficiently.
Radio: A radio pulls invisible waves out of the ethers and turns them into music and news wherever it is located. It is a symbolic representation of the collective consciousness in action, as all people listening to a particular station on a radio hear the same programming. In a dream, a radio relates to collective thought and social agreement. Since there are many stations available on a radio dial, such a dream might be asking you if it is time to change the station.
Railing: A railing is there for protection and safety when an area is open and there is a risk of falling. Fear of falling is always about control and the need to maintain it. A railing as a symbol in a dream is about the built-in protections around staying safe when taking risks. If the railing is broken in your dreams, then you are feeling more unsafe than is comfortable. Grabbing on to a railing may indicate more fear than is necessary.
Railroad: The railroad was once the great leveler that joined the world in ways that dramatically expanded civilization, commerce, and culture. Almost antiquated now, it still has a symbolic meaning connected to ways in which different parts of your consciousness are connected. Any travel in a dream represents the idea of making changes or transformations in your life. When the travel is as slow as railroad travel, the sensation that is present could indicate the notion of considering other possibilities. Railroads in a dream could also symbolize old ways of thinking.
Rain: Rain in a dream connects to emotional expression, as it is the weather system that replicates the falling of tears and water is always a symbolic expression of emotion. As such, rain symbolizes the process of allowing our feelings to flow freely. Rain is cleansing, for it washes away dirt particles and leaves the air clearer, so rain can be a symbol of purification. Rain indicates that an emotional experience is taking place that is ultimately healing. Your reactions to the rain as well as the quality of the rain itself will provide even more information for your exploration. A light, gentle rain could indicate a small disruption in your life that is causing some emotional reactivity. Torrential downpours, such as hurricanes, point to more intense undercurrents of feeling being expressed. The relative intensity of the rain in your dream will mirror the intensity of what your unconscious is trying to express. How you respond to the rain in your dream will illuminate for you the level of resistance you are in. The mightier your attempts to escape the onslaught of the downpour, the more likely you are avoiding the free flow of emotional expression.
Rainbow: Hope, abundance, and the promise of good to come are all wrapped up in the symbol of the rainbow, one of the most magical phenomena that can be found on Earth. Part of the meaning of this symbol can be taken from the emotional reaction a person can have when looking at one. Rainbows are breathtaking and can inspire deep feelings of elation. In this way, a rainbow is almost always going to be thought of as a positive image. There are several major cultural associations to a rainbow. In the Old Testament, God sent the rainbow as a promise to never destroy humanity again, which is the origin of the theme of the promise for the future. The Celtic tradition tells us that at the end of a rainbow is a pot of gold, associating this symbol with the search for abundance. However, both of these time-honored interpretations bring with them darker meanings that bear consideration. The former implies past destruction and the latter is a paradox in that it is impossible to ever actually find the end of a rainbow, as it constantly shifts as you move toward it. However, each of these counterparts is what infuses the rainbow with its most powerful symbolic element: hope. The physical construct of a rainbow is filled with beautiful symbolism. Rainbows contain all the colors of the spectrum and therefore represent a sense of wholeness in a majestic and highly spiritual expression. They appear when the sun and rain are present at the same time. To be able to experience sadness (rain) and joy (sunlight) at the same time is a true sign of consciousness and wisdom.
Rainforest: The lungs and heart of the earth, the rainforest is the birthplace of the oxygen that makes our atmosphere home to life itself. The earth as a whole is a symbol for the self as a combination of the conscious mind as represented by land and the unconscious mind as represented by the ocean. The rainforests of the earth are the symbolic lungs of the planet. A dream about this area is almost archetypal in nature, connecting you to aspirational thoughts about how the breath of life is moving through you. If in your waking life you have a particular affinity for what is happening in the rainforest, this dream may be more literal for your sense of activism.
Ramp: A ramp creates access to something when traversing a certain structure is difficult. As such, the symbolic meaning behind a ramp is the creation of ease and helpfulness in order to get to a particular destination or goal. The way is being made easy for you when a ramp is in your dreams.
Rape: Rape in a dream is a positive symbol even though the association with it is very negative because of its abhorrent nature from waking life. Sex is ultimately about integration and the bringing together of aspects of personality. This is true in the world of symbolism even when the act is forceful and violent. Because rape is an act of violence, this, combined with the absence of consent, puts a very different spin on how to interpret it if it should appear in a dream. When a dream includes something as heinous as rape, it is important to remind yourself that dreams are symbolic, not literal. Rape in a dream is not like rape in life. It simply means that the integration that is occurring within your psyche is being experienced as so abrupt and potentially frightening that the symbolic expression of it appears dramatically. The unconscious will often use nightmares and frightening dreams to get our attention. If you were raped in the dream, consider the rapist. If the person was known to you, then use that individual as a character aspect to see what part of your own personality is demanding to be dealt with. If the person was not known to you, then consider the dream a precursor to a powerful shift that is going on under the surface and is not yet clear. If you cannot glean more helpful insight from this dream, trust that future dreams will inform you of whatever shift is taking place. If you witnessed a rape, you must look inward to see what aspects of your personality are at odds with one another, for they ultimately need to be integrated and made whole. The rapist would be the part of you that is demanding to be recognized, and the victim is the part of you that needs to accept the merging, but may be in resistance to the process. If you were the rapist in your dream, consider the victim as a character aspect that represents the part of you that you wish to subdue. Rape fantasies are common for many people and can be quite erotic and satisfying when handled in an appropriate manner. If the dream of rape was erotic in nature, the meaning is the same, but the integration that is taking place has much lower stakes and may in fact be a source of pleasurable anticipation.
Rapids: Rapids are created when a river is constricted in some way, forcing more flow into less space, thus increasing the intensity of the energy created by the rushing water. Water in dreams represents your feelings, and a river is symbolic of your flowing emotions. In this way, rapids indicate an increased intensity of some emotional experience in your life that not only is causing a rise in how much emotion you are feeling, but also adds an element of overwhelm and sense of potential danger.
Rash: A rash is actually the evidence that something under the surface is not quite right. In this way, it is symbolic of being able to see something that an unseen conflict is causing. Some sort of irritation is troubling you, and it is more visible to the outside world than you may realize. Has something been rubbing you the wrong way?
Rats: Rats are considered pests, as they can overpopulate and bring with them destruction and disease. They are inexorably bound up in our history as the carriers of the Plague. The consequences for not attending to them properly are recorded in our mythology as a loss of innocence, as in the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who, when not paid for his services of ridding the town of its rats, took away the children of the town and led them to their deaths. Rats can be found in sewers, basements, and dark corners. This expands their association with shadow material, which is all the things about ourselves we wish were not true or that we would rather not look at. If rats appear in your dreams in any fashion, there is something to investigate under the surface.
Razor Blades: A razor blade is a very small but very sharp-edged metal tool. The combination of its size and ability to cut very deeply is symbolic of the way in which innocuous moments can hurt without warning, like a sharp tone of voice or sudden action that hurts someone’s feelings deeply. If a razor blade appears in a dream, either you may be experiencing such wounds from someone in your life or you may be the one at risk of hurting others without meaning to.
Reality Show: This relatively new form of media has come to dominate the television world, where unscripted life situations with real participants are being presented for your entertainment. At the center of this structure, however, is the fact that all of these experiences are being manipulated, heightened, and edited for certain perspectives to be perceived. The presence of a reality show in your dream world may be an indication that you are manipulating something or overdramatizing a situation, or you feel that you are being manipulated in some way by some occurrence in your life. If you are dreaming about someone you have watched on a reality show, you may be over-identifying with the drama in your life.
Rearview Mirror: As you drive forward, you can periodically look behind you by virtue of the rearview mirror. In this way, the symbolic meaning of this structure is your ability to consider where you are going by virtue of where you are just coming from. The rearview mirror may be featured in a dream when you are paying too much attention to your past and this is distracting your ability to move gracefully into the future. A broken rearview mirror may indicate a moment when your ability to assess where you are going is inhibited in terms of learning the lessons of your past.
Red: The first color of the spectrum, red is associated with security, grounding, aggression, and passion. This energy is connected with the base of the spine. Often thought of as a color of passion, red aligns with aggression and sexual expression in the masculine principle. We stop at red lights, creating security for ourselves by avoiding the danger of oncoming traffic. Blood is the essence of life force itself and is therefore related to being grounded in the physical body. (See Colors.)
Red Carpet: The red carpet is a symbol itself, indicating a special path for people of a certain elevated status. There are two implications when a red carpet is present. One is that there is a special event taking place. The second relates to the exclusivity of passage relegated to only a certain few. This symbol can indicate a sense of aspiration in a dream. If you are witnessing someone else on a red carpet, that person is an aspect of your own personality that has the capability of helping you aspire to greater things. This image in a dream may also point to a desire to be recognized for some special ability or particular accomplishment in your life.
Refrigerator: The primary purpose of a refrigerator is to keep a small amount of space at a cold enough temperature so that anything organic that is placed in it will stay fresher longer. Cold is symbolic of less passion and anger, so one element of this object as a symbol relates to wanting to keep something around for more time by lightening up on how much intensity you allow it to express. The preservation of things that you desire is what is being expressed by the refrigerator in your dream, so pay particular attention to both what is inside of it and the state that the machine itself is in. Both of these will add clues to your interpretation.
Rehearsal: The preparation process for an upcoming performance, a rehearsal is where you get to perfect something that will be presented in the future. To dream of a rehearsal is to be connecting with this desire to be as prepared as possible for some future moment where you want to put your best foot forward. Anything that happens in a rehearsal in a dream is connected to how you are feeling about something that is being created in your consciousness. Use the context of the dream to understand what area of your life is being worked on and how the process is going.
Reporter: A reporter’s job is to understand the facts behind some event and communicate those facts to the world at large. As a character aspect of your own personality, the reporter is a witness who is collecting data and attempting to maintain a sense of objectivity when considering something that is going on in your life.
Reptile: The reptilian brain is something that all animals on the planet share; it governs the most basic functions, such as breathing and survival instincts. If a reptile features in your dreams, you are connecting to this fundamental element of life. There may be additional meaning associated with the specific animal that is present, but certainly the universal meaning of basic instincts is at play when a reptile appears in a dream.
Reservoir: Any water in a dream is symbolic of the emotional side of your nature. In the case of a reservoir, there is the element of storage of the sustenance of life that is represented by this humanmade structure. When a reservoir features in your dream, you are remembering the importance of emotional expression as a natural part of your functioning humanity.
Resort: A resort is a location where you go for relaxation and to escape your daily routine. A dream that takes place at a resort may indicate a need to take a break from the daily grind of your life. Stress may be high, so a dream at a resort may point to a need to relieve that stress.
Restaurant: A dream that takes place in a restaurant has the theme of self-care and the celebration of abundance. Any image that concerns itself with food connects to nurturance. This especially applies to a restaurant, as the ritual of being waited on and served is also a form of self-care. The expense of eating out is always going to be higher than that associated with preparing something at home. The quality of your meal connects with both abundance and the ability to discern excellence. A fine meal could reveal that you are indeed being careful to ensure that your life provides for your needs in a way that reflects a consciousness of deserving abundance. However, a dream in which you are served unacceptable food indicates that there is something out of balance in this area. If the dream includes something as severe as food poisoning, you may want to examine your attitudes more closely.