Milk, any tips on how to interpret dreams properly?
Dreams should never be interpreted by using general symbolism, such as “snakes mean you will be betrayed”. Dreams speak in the language of your personal universe, so every symbol has a personal meaning. To understand what it is, you must ask yourself what that symbol made you feel in the dream. Then ask yourself how the dream emotions, and reactions might mirror in your awakened state and reality.
If we use Will as an example, and make up a dream that offers more than the ones on the show, we could have him dreaming of a stag, drowning in a river. He is desperately trying to save it, then he sees the black antlers hovering over the water, and suddenly the river becomes blood red.
The stag (animal) is Will’s companion. He feels a sense of guidance whenever that stag shows up. It also dies in Mizumono. So the stag is most likely Will’s guardian in his psyche, in his personal dictionary. It drowning might indicate Will’s sense of loss of control and safety. That safety being threatened by the Stagman, who is Will’s daimon, always showing up as a being he wants to dominate, but is also afraid of and intrigued by. That’s usually our daemon.
The river of course is Will’s safe place, it almost indicates that his sense of control and safety is fading away and being tainted by “blood”, which Will equates to violence but also to erotic impulse.
In his awakened life this mirrors his feelings towards his impulses and externalized in Hannibal and other killers/people he thinks are bad.
By desperately trying to save the stag he reveals that the loss of control is terrifying to him, and that he isn’t ready for it.