It is threatening only because it is
threatened! Talk to it, and listen to it; then it may reveal itself as a valuable aide in your quest for happiness or fuller self-realization.
(2) If you associate fertility with the boar, the symbolism may be straightforwardly sexual. On the other hand, the fertility in question may be of a more metaphorical kind: the giving of life to those repressed parts of yourself that frighten you. (Yes, ferocity symbolism may coexist with sexual or fertility symbolism, just as in real life aggression is often mixed in with our sexuality’.) These hidden repressed things may be desires or instinctive drives associated in your life with some traumatic experience.
(3) It may be the animality of the boar that strikes you. The animality’ probably refers to the primitiveness or social unacceptableness of some repressed and buried part of your psyche (see also Animal). Animality’ symbolism, ferocity symbolism and fertility symbolism may all combine in the boar image. That which frightens you by its animality’ may be precisely what you need if you are to get rid of an inner conflict and find peace or fulfilment.
(4) If you associate evil with the boar image, the evilness may be in the eye of the beholder. In other words, if the boar has sexual overtones for you, its evilness may represent your own (irrational, repressed) feelings of abhorrence, disgust, fear or guilt about sex.
If so, you might want to dig into your past to discover the roots of those feelings. Ask the unconscious to assist you in the search, and pay special attention to your dreams over the next week or two.
(5) The boar may represent an aggression that you have not come to terms with in yourself. Aggressiveness may be a good thing - if tamed and properly employed.
If it is Svild’, however, it can seriously damage vour relationships with other people. And, strangely enough, aggressiveness is frequendv directed against oneself: in fact, sadism usually has its roots in masochism. So do take notice of vour dreams, to discover the sources of any aggression you encounter in yourself. Have a dialogue with the boar and find out w hat he wants. Sometimes aggressiveness may be traced back to an Oedipal conflict. In the case of a male, the infant desire for mother and accompanying jealousy tow ards father mav give rise to guilt-feelings which in turn may generate a compulsion to punish oneself The masochistic desire to hurt oneself may then spill over into sadistic desires to hurt other people, particularly those close to us. All this may occur at an unconscious level, so that it is onlv by taking a look at our unconscious (in dreams) that wre can unravel the thread of cause and effect.