Our greatest adversary in dreams is our own fear. The shadow part of the self is the part that most of us contend with in dreams. The shadow is represented by the archetypes that are less desirable than the others. It is most recognizable as figures who are threatening or repulsive in other ways. In waking life, our shadow is recognized as people we dislike or fear. If these shadow forms remain unrealized as the projections that they are, we will never fully mature. Elsie Sechrist says in her book Dreams: Your Magic Mirror (1968), "Broadly speaking, you usually meet yourself in your dreams in a myriad of artful disguises. People of authority such as policemen, ministers, parents, and judges usually represent the higher self, the conscience, and its dictates. Immoral, lawless persons, and groups from the lower strata of society relate to the lower or undisciplined self." This is further supported by Jeremy Taylor's statement in his book Where People Fly And Water Runs Uphill (1992), "...Everything and everyone in the dream is a living representation of some aspect of the dreamer's total being and psyche... The life in all dreams, and in waking experience too, for that matter, is a blending of the individual's own personal vital energies with the larger life of the archetypes and the cosmos itself."

The shadow is indicative of the parts of ourselves that must grow and become integrated into our whole being. These are the parts of us that have not fully developed, or the parts that we have not made peace with. Jeremy Taylor says in his book Dream Work (1983), "The shadow is that very thing that has been lacking and is the most required for further healthy development. The 'dark' figure of the Shadow always bears the great gift. In order to receive the great gift, the fear and repugnance first awakened by the 'dark' aspect of the Shadow must be overcome... By the same token, when we flee from death in dreams...we are often fleeing from inner promptings that it is time once again to grow and change."

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold say in their book Exploring the World Of Lucid Dreaming (1990) that lucid dreaming lends itself well to dealing with the shadow figures of the self. The authors have some useful suggestions on how to handle the shadow figures, as well. "If you become fully lucid in a nightmare, you will realize that the nightmare can't really hurt you, and you don't need to 'escape' it by awakening. You will remember that you are already safe in bed...attacking unfriendly characters may not be the most productive way to handle them... hostile dream figures may represent aspects of our own personalities that we wish to disown. If we try to crush the symbolic appearances of these characteristics in dreams, we may be symbolically rejecting and attempting to destroy parts of ourselves... a conciliatory approach is most likely to result in a positive experience for the dreamer... would generally cause them to look and act in a more friendly manner." LaBerge and Rheingold go on to suggest, "Lucid dreamers can deliberately identify with, accept, and thereby symbolically integrate parts of their personalities they had previously rejected, or disowned... Don't slay your dream dragons, make friends with them... the true way to healing is to seek out the 'barking dogs of the unconscious' and reconcile with them."

Jeremy Taylor has much to say about the uses of lucid dreaming for confronting shadow characters in his book Where People Fly And Water Runs Uphill (1992). "...The lucidly 'awakened' dreamer transcends the fear and confusion in the dream...One of the best gifts is to ask the seemingly menacing and hostile figures or elements in the dream what they are up to... If a dreamer can gather his or her wits together sufficiently in the lucid state to ask a question... will always be rewarded with an answer. Most will be an answer of profound importance to the dreamer's waking life."

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