Dreaming of celestial bodies : what can this symbol evoke?

An order one did not make

Before being objects of astronomy, the stars were the first model of order offered to the human mind : they return, they succeed one another, they do not deceive. All ancient astrology rests on that evidence.

Jung took an interest in it without believing it literally : he saw there, as in alchemy, a projected psychology — men having read in the sky figures that came from themselves. That is the very definition of projection : attributing to the outside what is playing out within.

In dreams the stars keep that double nature. They figure what exceeds you and orders you, but also what you have placed outside yourself so as not to have to carry it. The question becomes : does what you obey really come from outside?

A disturbed sky

The most striking astral dreams do not show a peaceful sky : they show an anomaly. Two moons, a sun that will not set, falling stars, constellations no longer recognisable.

Celestial anomaly has always been held to be the gravest sign, because it touches what is supposed never to change. This kind of dream accompanies moments when a landmark believed unshakeable begins to waver : an authority figure revealed as fallible, an institution that betrays, a childhood certainty that gives way.

What to remember is your reaction to the anomaly : contemplating it, fleeing it, or desperately seeking an explanation. The third is the most frequent, and often the least useful.

The state of the sky changes the reading

• A clear, ordered sky in which one finds one's bearings — a sense of rightness, a life that has recovered its fixed points.
• Falling stars — the fall of what was held to be higher : an admiration, a loyalty coming undone.
• Two moons or two suns — a conflict of bearings : two authorities, two value systems that cannot coexist.
• Reading one's fate in the stars — the temptation to place outside oneself a decision that is one's own.
• An empty sky, with no stars at all — a loss of orientation deeper than anxiety : nothing remains to refer to.
• Recognising a constellation — finding a familiar figure within apparent disorder, often the first sign of a settling.

A psychological reading, not a ready-made box

Analytical psychology treats the great celestial figures as projected archetypes : the sun on the side of consciousness, the moon on the side of what changes and lets itself be crossed. It stresses above all the withdrawal of those projections, which consists in recognising as one's own what had been placed in the sky. Other readings see a figure of long time, opposed to the urgency of human days.